“Our country is filled with a socialistic, I.W.W., communistic, radical, lawless, anti-American, anti-church, anti-God, anti-marriage gang, and they are laying the eggs of rebellion and unrest in labor and capital and home; and we have some of them in the universities. I can take you through the universities and pick out a lot of black-hearted, communistic fellows who are teaching that to the boys and sending them out to undermine America. If this radical element could have their way, my friends, the laws of nature would be repealed, or they would reverse them; oil and water would mix; the turtledove would marry the turkey buzzard; the sun would rise in the west and set in the east; chickens would give milk and cows would lay eggs; the pigs would crow and roosters would squeal; cats would bark and dogs would mew; the least would be the greatest; a part would be greater than the whole; yesterday would be day after tomorrow, if that crowd were in control.”

How anybody can deny the excellence of this idea is beyond me.

This is an open question; no need to agree with Deneen one-hundred percent. But I think we’ve got to wrestle with this.

…perhaps it would not be too difficult to begin looking at systematic ways in which current policy supports concentrated economic power, and to begin its dismantling. It may also be that Government needs to be more active in enforcing anti-trust measures. The Republican orthodoxy will scream that such activity is an intrusion of “Gummint,” but it’s clear that Gummint has already intruded in this area, and is doing tremendous damage to the fabric of the nation (the Republican orthodoxy’s ecstasy in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision that ensures unlimited corporate participation in our electoral process does not inspire confidence about their motives). Perhaps some log-rolling is in order: in exchange for a serious consideration about the disproportionate impact of regulation on differently scaled businesses, a sustained look at anti-trust enforcement could be considered…. We will differ even here on how much of a role the Gummint should have in tipping the scales, but it’s quite clear that the scales have already been considerably tipped, and that American towns, citizenship, and virtue have all suffered as a result – and that finally cheap prices are too high a price to pay.

If we agree on that, how should we apply it?

I haven’t read what I’m sure are hundreds of theories on the Lostpedia for this past episode, because I wanted to come up with a theory of my own first.

Last season we had time travel, and the nuclear blast that stopped the uncontrollable flashes seems to have created an alternate universe.

My theory is that while the Losties on the island fight Esau and come into their own as island dwellers, the Losties off the island will realize something is up (coffins are missing, etc) and play a pivotal role in setting things to right on the island.

Therefore, in reading profane authors, the admirable light of truth displayed in them should remind us, that the human mind, however much fallen and perverted from its original integrity, is still adorned and invested with admirable gifts from its Creator. If we reflect that the Spirit of God is the only fountain of truth, we will be careful, as we would avoid offering insult to him, not to reject or condemn truth wherever it appears. In despising the gifts, we insult the Giver (Institutes, 2.2.15).

I have yet to set foot inside of a K-Mart. By the time the boycott was over, K-Mart was so pathetic that I never had a reason to go patronize them. Anyway, the principle behind that boycott was simple: you support whatever you give money to. Christians cannot support pornography in good conscience.

My father used to tell me that the battles I would fight would be the same ones he and my mother fought. His generation fought abortion, pornography, homeschooling, and theology. These battles are not over, but we are the next generation and grew up aware of these issues. Our battlefields extend beyond these, our focus lies well beyond these. We fight our parents’ battles by living the way they taught us. Our battles must be fought on new frontiers or we are not progressing.

Economics is one of the battles of our generation. So is food.  What I mean is that if we ignore these fronts, we will reduce the size of the battlefield we hand to our kids. In other words, we will not progress. We will waste the upbringing our parents gave us and the battles they fought will need to be fought all over again.

I remember when the K-Mart boycott was in full-swing, there were discussions of how far to take the issue. Maybe we should stop buying Nikes because they support child labor. It gets messy very quickly. However the mess cannot be used as an excuse to ignore the battle.

We have many potential roadblocks to get past before we can even begin fighting. With the way money works today, how can we even know what we are supporting when we buy a t-shirt or a gallon of milk? How is it possible to support our neighbors with our money when they work at the nursing home, gas station, and Wal-Mart-either places we don’t need goods/services from or places we don’t feel right supporting? If I work for an energy company that uses coal and petrol in a fashion that I am uncomfortable with, what do I do?

In my case, how can I build houses using toxic (at best), unsustainable products manufactured by people I have never met and probably don’t speak English? This is a mess, a big mess.

We have to start sorting this stuff out. We have to start asking questions, talking about it. In short, we have to take a stand. Pick a standard and live by it. Choose your place on this field (there is room for many) and make your stand there. With the knowledge we have today from writers (Berry and many others), our own study, the fruition of our parents’ teaching, and preaching (hopefully I will not be the only one preaching on this stuff), we can no longer plead ignorance as generations before us have. What we don’t know we must search out. What we do know we have to put together and formulate a plan. What are we going to teach our kids about this?

The economic principles we own are not good enough. We buy stuff because it is cheaper and believe in all sincerity that this is a virtue. For some this is ignorance, for the rest of us it is sin. For all of us it is madness. Our basic economic principle is stockpiling money, yet we point our fingers at the corporations and government. Really? Maybe we should examine our accounts and see what economic principles our last ten purchases were made based upon.

This forces a question I have had for a while. What is the “economy?” The stimulus package Obama gave to America was designed to be a shot of epinephrine into the coutry’s failing economy. “If the economy is good, everything will be fine for us.” This is the dominant underlying assumption of every bit of news we have heard in the last two years. But, this is as absurd as trusting in money. I am angry that I have bought this line to some degree, but it is simply not true. It is a line right out of the liturgy of Materialism.

But what is even more interesting is that it as soon as we recognize this line as idolatry, we have to ask how the economy became a god. Not everything about the economy is bad, but what is this thing? I can wrap my mind around the economy of a family, a business, even a town. But I can’t figure out what “the economy” that is being referred to actually is. It is not the economy of the USA. It is not something that can be mapped or described. It does not describe anything itself.  It is a mystery.

It seems to me that it is a god. It is a colossal distraction in the very least. Why should I feel the need to support something that has no relationship to me? Why should I fear something that no one can describe to me, that I can’t be sure even exists? This is too much. That I should base most of my actions on a day-to-day basis on something that has been conjured up like this is absurd, and culpable.

Let’s say it does exist and it is the standard by which we measure our economic health as a country and as individuals. Why should I make a decision based on the good of the economy (for the sake of the individuals it contains) that clearly does not benefit my neighbors? This is a contradiction in terms. It is a contradiction of ethics. At this point, we are being asked, solicited, even paid to support our economy. Yet this does not help our neighbors, it hurts them (I think on this forum I can safely assert this?). When it comes to this point it is obvious that we can no longer give ourselves to this pursuit or any pursuit that is based on this line.

This is Ponyo.

We adopted Ponyo into our family because, unlike our landlords, my wife and I are both what you would call “animal people.” Actually, unlike A and D, we’re cat people, but when you’re renting you take what you can get. And we could get a fish. So we did.

I thought I’d be relatively disinterested in a fish – after all, fish are slimy and aren’t very talkative – but it turns out that marriage has fostered within me all sorts of ancient and mysterious impulses and among them is the impulse to raise a child. Of course, a fish is nothing at all like a real live wake-you-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-and-spit-up-on-your-flannel-pajamas child, but again: you take what you can get, and we could get a fish. And so, for better or for worse, we’ve pretty much adopted this little goldfish into our family and with it all of the stereotypical expressions of parenthood.

Take, for example, the picture above. My wife snapped that photo earlier this afternoon, all the while cooing at how cute our fish looks and wanting to capture her from an angle that correctly represented her unique shape and markings. When I went to select a good introductory photo, I was pleased to find that over a dozen pictures had already been taken, each featuring different perspectives, distinct lighting, and appropriate framing. While it was convenient for me that such pictures existed, a dark suspicion looms in my mind that they’re actually going to be compiled into some sort of baby calendar sometime during the next month.

In stark contrast to the above, consider the following picture, which I took not long before I started composing this post:

You’ll note the inferior lighting, blurry caudal fin, and peculiar orientation of our fish. That is because after some amount of reading, I have become convinced that Ponyo is suffering from constipation and as a result is having difficulty regulating her swim bladder. The behavior being exhibited in the picture above is called “nose standing,” and is indicative of internal problems due to trauma, overfeeding, or poor diet. I have subsequently prescribed a day of fasting and then a strict diet of de-shelled frozen peas, which serve as a laxative and should clear out any blockages in the intestinal tract.

Of course, this swim bladder issue has been something of a mania for me all day. I know more about goldfish – their history and status in various Chinese dynasties, the varietals found almost exclusively in Japan, common ailments and courses of treatment – than I ever really wanted to know.

But I guess I’m that dad. The dad that reads obsessively, goes grey after the first month of collecting stool samples and plotting their pH levels, and ultimately overconditions his poor child. And I hadn’t even realized it until, after hours of study and relating various findings to my wife, she looked at me and said:

“When we have our first child, you’re going to go crazy.”

This video evokes the usual platitudes for me – get off your bohunkus, stop armchair charity and start actually helping – but there are a few things that were absolutely striking to me.

The first is Jal’s version of these same platitudes, because his English is so plain and his poetry so earnest. “What would I be?” The punch line is powerful. I quote from the song:

I remember the time when I was small
When I couldn’t read or write at all
Now I’m all grown up, I got my education
The sky is the limit and the cup is running over
How I prayed for this day to come
And I pray that the world find wisdom
To give the boy in need some assistance
Instead of putting up resistance, Yeah
Sitting and waiting for the politics to fix this
It ain’t gonna happen
They’re all sitting on they asses
Popping champagne and scrunching up the masses
Coming from a refugee boy-soldier
But I still got my dignity
I gotta say it again
If Emma never rescued me
I’d be a corpse on the African plain

Second is Jal’s dance. It starts around 16:40, when Jal announces “I’m gonna get crazy now.” I can’t get over that dance. It looks like the way I should have spent every Gloria Patri I’ve ever sung, so sincere and vulnerable and beautiful and while it’s unlike any dance I’ve ever seen, I know exactly and precisely what it means. It is the dance of a man made alive by love.

It’s not that I remember this video, nor that I still enjoy it. It’s more that this song came out in 1999, for the Love of Pete, and it’s still in regular rotation on my iPod as if it came out within the last few years.

OH NOES I AM BECOMING MY PARENTS