Gov. Palin on "Alaska's Promise for the Nation"

Just so what I wrote in my last post isn't taken out of context, one working woman who decidedly seems able to work and simultaneously honor her marriage is Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska. The September 2008 Imprimis, by the way, has an article based on a speech she made on "Alaska's Promise for the Nation" back on August 2, 2008.

From it, there is this little bit of info that I wish more people knew about (emphasis mine):

To repeat, Prudhoe Bay has produced 15 billion barrels of crude oil, and there’s more where that came from in ANWR, which is home to more than ten billion barrels of oil and nine trillion cubic feet of natural gas. I know this is a controversial issue. But most Americans do not realize that of the 20 million acres that make up ANWR, we are asking for the right to access just 2,000 of them—a mere 1/10,000th of the total area. Opening up just that sliver of ANWR—which would create a footprint smaller than the total area of Los Angeles International Airport—could produce enough oil (an estimated one million barrels per day) to ease America’s fuel crisis and greatly reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

The article is wide ranging, so do go read the whole thing. Alaska will be celebrating 50 years of statehood next year, and she uses that as a jumping off point for a look at how the young state is doing so far.

Character and competence

In Fireproof: A Drop-Everything-and-Go-See-It Film (The Rebelution, September 29, 2008), Alex Harris not only recommends a film he and his friends found powerful and moving, he reminds rebelutionaries (and the rest of us) that there's a difference between striving for excellence and demanding perfection.

Eduardo Verastegui still saving lives

I still haven't seen Bella, or any other movie with Latin American superstar Eduardo Verastegui in it, but I'm applauding him because of this. How nice to have an actor you can look up to in real life as well as on the screen. (I know there are more of them out there, but face it, they're a bit thin on the ground these days.)

Update: Here's a video of him making his case. The video is in Spanish, with English subtitles. (hat tip: CNA)

Another supermom high-level politician

Meet Minnesota's Michele Bachmann: High-minded and high-heeled, by Zoe Sandvig, Worldmag.com, Oct. 4, 2008 issue.

Bachmann is in the ranks of those who grew up Democrat, but switched.

Cult building 101

I agree with the people who think that this video is creepy. I agree with Bookworm that it reminds me a bit too much of the methods used by totalitarian leaders (not to mention other personality cults through the ages).

It's a shame, because the kids are really talented, especially the little girl who opens and closes. But what sort of parent plunks a child into this kind of leader-worship and applauds and hugs them for doing so well at it? (And are the grown-ups a bit blissed out for you in this video? Or is it just me?)

And why, pray tell, should I vote one way or another based upon the performance of persons too young to know what they're singing about? Why should anybody?

What is it with the Dems this year, with their repeated shift to the playground for spokesmen?

P.S. I shared this with a man I consider very wise, and one of the things he said is that he thought a bunch of those kids are going to look back on this with a great deal of embarrassment. To say the least.

I have to wonder how many of them, years from now, will look back on this project with at least a touch of resentment. I have a number of things in my youth and young adulthood that I've decided were best recanted, or apologized for, or otherwise filed under 'well-meant but ill-founded' - but they were my mistakes, not something my parents got me into. Whatever shortcomings my all-too-human parents had, using me to promote some agenda wasn't one of them, nor did they make the mistake of promoting me to an equal status with adults, when I was too young and ignorant and inexperienced and impressionable to hold my own with adults.

Added: Ed Morrissey says it better than most. And succinctly, too.

I'm with him. Leave the kids out of it, please.

Links

Kim Moreland has found an institution dedicated to reviving and supporting the art of making good movies.

Speaking of movies, actor Kirk Cameron is a born again Christian and doesn't think he should kiss any woman other than his wife, even in a screen role - which means the directors of his latest starring role had to get creative during filming. Hey, when you want to do the right thing, there's usually a way to do it...

Have you seen the video from CatholicVote.com pointing out, succinctly and beautifully, that some issues matter more than others? Don't let the Catholic label frighten you off if you're not Catholic. It's for all people with a moral sense, I think.

The gentlemen over at Cafe Hayek don't seem to like the financial bailout plan. You might start at How they think vs. how I think, or Krugman gets the facts wrong, or Some bubble.

Robert at Expat Yank wishes the BBC (not to mention other news outlets) knew the difference between a bank failure and a merger. This is not to mention that he wishes reporters had a clue why laughing at someone's form of worship is not a good idea, historically speaking if nothing else.

Undocumented citizens

I have not been able to renew my driver's license, which expires soon, because the State of Oregon wants documents from me that I haven't needed before, and I have had to send off for them. Specifically, since I changed my name when I married, I must buy a copy of my marriage record from the state, to show how I got from my birth certificate name to my married name.

"Just be glad you've only been married once," the DMV clerk told me the other day, as we shuffled through the documents I could scurry up, in (vain) hopes they'd fill the bill. "Some folks have to prove how they got from one name to the next to the next to the next."

I did not have to sign the form I sent off, which struck me as odd. Later I found I could have, if I'd wanted, spent more and made my request online. I also see online where the state is no longer issuing driver's licenses over the counter, because it has gone to face recognition technology. Oh joy. In hopes of scaring off a few terrorists and con men, we all get to be treated like criminals, and have our mugs on file with the government, incorporating the latest technological means of identifying and keeping track of people. (The Department of Homeland Security begs to reassure us, however.)

My father-in-law is not well. I might have to travel a few hundred miles to help my mother-in-law. If I don't have my marriage record when it comes my turn to help (the family's working in shifts), I can either surrender my current license and get a temporary one with no photo, or I can take my license with me and let it expire and depend on others to drive me around. Oh joy. I can be without photo ID, which has foreseeable difficulties, or I can be without a driver's license, with has an entirely different set of foreseeable difficulties. I don't even want to know about the unforeseeable difficulties. If there's a way to renew from another state, I haven't found it yet. (There are a loopholes, but none I can jump through, as far as I can see.)

I am, of course, hoping that somehow I will be properly documented in time. I am trying hard to resist popping off Comrade jokes when I make it back to the Department of Motor Vehicles office and try again. I am in my 50s. I remember when government wasn't so all-fire intrusive. Or expensive. Or big. Or bothersome.

For that matter, I like to read old books. It has not escaped my attention that old books describe a world in which governments in the United States operated, for the most part, within fences they have since busted through.

So, I was at the post office late last week, and in front of me, a woman was asking the postal clerk the best way to send a passport to her son. 'Where's he going?' the clerk asked, being a friend. 'He's not traveling anywhere. He got a job, and he's got to prove he's an American citizen. He's already got the job, but...'

Whereupon the clerk said that she'd just had to fork over $50 for a certified birth certificate for her son, who needed it to stay in college.

Whereupon I mentioned my document woes, and how the certificate issued at the wedding wasn't good enough (which is a moot point for me, because for the life of me I haven't been able to find it), and I'd had to send off $20 for the paper demanded of me.

Whereupon, with another person joining in, we jointly wondered whether the new requirements were mostly about finding a new way to rake in money from the citizenry...

I don't believe that. Not that it's the primary reason, at any rate. But I'd love to see the tallies on revenue generated at the Vital Records departments of this country, listed year by year. I'm almost willing to bet they're becoming cash cows, compared to what they used to be.

Anyway, if you live in Oregon, and are a married lady and not a feminist, you might want to plan ahead. The certificate signed after the ceremony won't help you a bit, apparently. You must buy a copy of whatever got filed with the state where you got married. In Oregon, it costs you $20 for one copy, unless you want rush delivery, which you do online and which costs you $32.50. Such a deal. I don't know how much it costs to get records from other states. I'm hoping they won't take advantage of the new rules and raise the rates. I can see some state officials doing that. "Hey, look! People have to prove how they got from one name to another now. There's no way out of it if they want to drive or have official photo ID. Heh! We got 'em now, boy! Whoo-hoo!"

Yes, I am feeling a bit cynical this afternoon. Why do you ask?

Book note: Mere Christianity, The Shack, and more

David Skeel wants to know if anyone knows a book they feel measures up to C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. Here's an op-ed he wrote on the subject (also linked above): Après Lewis (Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2008). Here's a follow-up blog post by his colleague William Stuntz: More on Lewis's Uniqueness (Less than the Least, August 16, 2008).

I'm also on the hunt for books along this line, to stock in our bookstore. The bestselling book at our store right now, hands down, is The Shack, by William P. Young. People are buying it in stacks off the shelf, and special ordering it in even larger stacks. If you aren't familiar with it, it's a novel in which a man thinks he might have encountered the triune God in highly unusual forms, as he struggles to deal with the murder of his young daughter. It's a controversial book, but having read it, and after comparing notes, the team decided that Mr. Young was extremely and properly careful in how he presented the unorthodox aspects of his book, and he almost invariably maneuvered from there to doses of orthodoxy. And, although we disagree with him on a few disputable points, it's a fantastic book for trimming away nearly all the most favorite arguments against belief in God and/or God's goodness.

I can't recommend it entirely without reservations, because I'm not comfortable with God being used fictionally, much less how He is used in The Shack, and there are a few places it promotes ideas I'm not too sure are true or helpful. On the other hand, I can't tell you how much really good discussion it has generated in this community, and amongst a remarkable variety of people at that, and how many Christians who had become lukewarm are re-energized by it. And it's generating a hunger for more Christian books, even among people who wouldn't have been caught dead with an overtly Christian book before this. And then there's that whole undercutting atheist arguments thing that I mentioned above. I'm a convert. Mr. Young seems to understand where I came from, and what mental and cultural thickets I had to hack through to get where I am.

So I'm applying the 'good fruit' rule to it, even though some of it bothers me. But, I'm trying to make sure that right along it are copies of books like Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters, both by C.S. Lewis, and Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris (when we can get our hands on a copy of Do Hard Things, that is - it's also a bestseller around here, but our suppliers can't seem to keep up with orders, and so our orders get pared or back ordered). We also have Bibles in stock pretty much as a matter of course. What else would you suggest we stock, for us to recommend to readers of The Shack?

All on its own it's revved up demand for Pilgrim's Progress (which is mentioned in a cover blurb). I think this is wonderful, because The Shack and Pilgrim's Progress are radically different books, with Pilgrim's Progress providing the "narrow path" emphasis that The Shack lacks, and The Shack emphasizing a personal relationship with God, something that isn't altogether evident in the 'going to heaven' story in Pilgrim's Progress (as far as I remember).

What else? This book has opened the door wide for some good Christian apologetics. Name some. I prefer the mere Christianity types, that emphasize the body of Christ and the universal church, but I'm amiable to stocking denominational books from across the spectrum if they don't trash other believers or obsess over doctrinal distinctives.

P.S. Open note to whoever is in charge of the Blogger spell checker. Triune and distinctives are words. Really. I don't mind the second one being flagged, because it's not used much, so it's probably more likely that someone would mean distinctive, and therefore should be notified that a double-check was in order. But triune?

(Maybe they need to read The Shack? It's heavy on triune-ness. Which I doubt is a word, but you get the drift, I hope.)

The makers of 'Facing the Giants' tackle marriage in 'Fireproof'

The maverick moviemakers who made Facing the Giants are coming out with a new movie this fall, which has been getting enthusiastic response in early screenings, according to Michael Foust of Baptist Press. Like Facing the Giants, the movie features a volunteer cast and crew, many of them members of Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia. The movie stars Kirk Cameron and Erin Bethea. The official movie site is here. There is a companion website: FireproofMyMarriage.com. Opening date for the movie is Sept. 26.

Parents, please note that although the movie addresses adult issues - it's about a marriage that seems to be heading for divorce - the producers have reportedly taken pains to make sure the most sensitive issues go over the heads of most kids. See the Foust article linked above for more information.

Iran buying U.S. wheat

Iran and other parts of the Middle East are having a drought, which is one reason Iran is importing wheat from the United States for the first time since 1981, according to today's Northwest Farm and Ranch Report.

While looking for the USDA original report cited in the report linked above, I stumbled across this: USDA Foreign Agriculture Service, Commodity Intelligence Report (May 9, 2008): IRAN: 2008/09 Wheat Production Declines Due to Drought, which has just all sorts of maps and graphs and other details.

It amazes me what you can find on the internet these days.

Here's a Wheat Letter for July 24, 2008, in which Joe Sowers of the U.S. Wheat Associates, quoted in the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report above, expands on the Iranian wheat situation. (And, yes, I did notice that the wheat expert's last name is Sowers. Some people do have names that fit especially well with their professions...) I guess the Wheat Letter will do as well as the USDA report, at least for me, for now.

Stratospheric proposal

James Pethokoukis, writing at the Capital Commerce column at U.S. News & World Report, has a July 18, 2008, column under the headline, Dissecting Al Gore's $5 Trillion Energy Plan, which begins:

In a speech yesterday here in Washington, Al Gore challenged the United States to "produce every kilowatt of electricity through wind, sun, and other Earth-friendly energy sources within 10 years. This goal is achievable, affordable, and transformative." (Well, the goal is at least one of those things.) Gore compared the zero-carbon effort to the Apollo program. And the comparison would be economically apt if, rather than putting a man on the moon—which costs about $100 billion in today's dollars—President Kennedy's goal had been to build a massive lunar colony, complete with a casino where the Rat Pack could perform.

Read the rest.

hat tip: Russell Roberts, who notes: "...Pethokoukis gives Al Gore the benefit of the doubt and assumes that the costs are linear. I don't think they would be..."

Trying to sweep religion under the rug...

... can make you look silly in the long run, if you're a journalist covering a sincere Catholic like Ingrid Betancourt, one of the hostages recently rescued in South America after years in captivity.

"Nobody is a nobody"

Via Fr. Neuhaus on When Life Matters by James M. Kushiner at Mere Comments, here's the text of Richard John Neuhaus's closing address at the annual convention of the National Right to Life Committee held recently in Arlington, Virginia.

I'd file it under "Rousing Calls to Fight the Good Fight."

A snippet:

The contention between the culture of life and the culture of death is not a battle of our own choosing. We are not the ones who imposed upon the nation the lethal logic that human beings have no rights we are bound to respect if they are too small, too weak, too dependent, too burdensome. That lethal logic, backed by the force of law, was imposed by an arrogant elite that for almost forty years has been telling us to get over it, to get used to it.

Christians taking a stand

Meet Jeff Carr, who is leading anti-gang efforts in LA. When you're over there, I suggest you follow the link to the Steve Lopez column in the July 9, 2008, Los Angeles Times.

Meet Megan and Mandy Chapman, who were targeted by the ACLU, but didn't back down.

An 'average' wildfire year, so far, sort of

Having been a bit too close to a few, I know there is nothing "average" or otherwise all that statistically interesting about a wildfire if you're close to it. But...

Having said that, what with the rash of fires in California this year, I was surprised to see at the National Interagency Fire Center website that as of July 12 (the page updates daily), this year is actually just slightly below the five-year average in acres burned in the United States. This year: 3,024,762 acres. Five-year average for this date: 3,164,599 acres.

When you look at the ten-year average for acres to date on July 12, though, it's another story: 2,564,126 acres. (There were some really good early fire seasons in there, which skewed the average down quite a bit, like 1,031,086 acres through July 12 in 2003, and 1,254,208 acres through July 12 in 2001.)

Another website with official wildfire news and information is InciWeb.

(P.S. The National Interagency Fire Center is commonly called Nif-see, from its initials: NIFC.)

Tony Snow, dead at 53

Tony Snow, a class act in the worlds of journalism and public service, has died. My condolences to his family and friends.

There are tributes all over today, and rightfully so. To get you started: A Good and Impressive Man by Fred Barnes.

Oh, good, I'm not the only one...

(Updated: The first link was bad. It should be fixed now. Sorry about the mix-up.)

... unhappy and concerned about assaults on the liberty of association.

I'm going to have to give this statement from the post some thought:

...such associations -- and in particular, such brotherhoods -- are what build civil society to begin with; not the family, as I've argued before, and as a glance at any pre-civil culture will verify...

And this one:

We conservative Christians are apt to uphold fatherhood and the family, without considering that fatherhood is a truncated thing without brotherhood. A soldier alone is not a soldier; a father alone may make a passable father for his family, but his scope of activity is severely limited. In his capacity as a brother -- as a man who naturally wants to stand shoulder to shoulder with other men, to get things done -- he is denied the battlefield...

Full post here.

The post is by Anthony Esolen. In it, he notes that he'll be expanding on the theme in a presentation Friday at the Eagle Forum Convention in Washington, D.C, to be aired by C-Span.

Book note: Chosen Soldier, by Dick Couch

A blogger over at The Point is writing a series of posts about Chosen Soldier, by Dick Couch.

Posted so far:

I'll Never Mock that Beret Again

'Chosen Soldier': 'Our most essential warrior'

Chosen Soldier: Liberators or Occupiers?

Fighting "anti-science" charges against conservatives

At The Point: An Artful Response To The Anti-Science Rap?, J. Clinton is asking for discussion on the central points in Science Without Experiments by Jim Manzi (NRO, June 12, 2008).

Still laughing, almost four centuries later

I'm a fan of Dutch Masters in general, and Rembrandt in particular, especially the paintings that are laced with humor or good cheer.

So I'm tickled by this story: Rembrandt Laughing.

How many artists today would even try to make a self-portrait this engaging? I ask you? Thank goodness Rembrandt wasn't of the 'sullen is cool' school! How much the world would have lost had he chosen to be 'more sophisticated' (so-called).