Photo of the Day - June 15, 2007 - Dad

I particularly like this picture of Dad, taken in the late 70's I would guess. He would have been a little younger than I am now. He is sitting behind the counter at Gillespie Cleaners in Columbia SC. We had to suck up to all kinds of SC sports fans, as you can tell from the wall behind him. Dad himself was a graduate of UNC Chapel Hill. I have his old Chapel Hill mug on my desk right here. He would have loved too see two of his grand daughters there! I can't walk Franklin Street without thinking of him.

My dad had his stuff, but I am grateful that I grew up in a family where my father loved me and told me so, hugged me (he was a big guy and did great bear hugs), and supported some of my more hair brained adventures. I was closer in those days to my dad then my mom, maybe because I had to bear much of the burden of his problems, maybe because he was easier to talk to, and more open about himself. In the latter couple of years of his life we got closer still, talking about the bigger issues of life. He was a good man, kind hearted, affectionate, generous, and encouraging of me. Dad, I miss you. I wish we could walk over and eat lunch at the drug store, maybe check out a movie tonight, watch a game together, or play golf tomorrow. Happy Father's Day, Dad. I love you. Joe.

You can check out more pictures of Curtis Claunch Gillespie, Jr. here.

Thank Goodness for Global Warming

If you’re old like me, you may remember, you know, back in the day…when farmer Jones, in face of dried out corn stalks due to serious drought, or rotting fungal-infected plants due to too much rain, would have to prostrate Himself before the Almighty, and appeal to His goodness and His power, and ask either that rain would come, or that rain would abate, whatever the need may be. Then he would struggle deeply within trying to figure out the philosophical and theological mysteries surrounding the question of how a good and all powerful God would allow his crops to fail and his family to go broke. Well, those days are gone. “Honey,” his wife says at breakfast, “the corn seems awfully dry.” “Yep,” says the farmer looking over his morning paper, “global warming.” At the same time, one state over, another farmer’s wife expresses her worry over breakfast. “Honey” she said, “the crops are rotting.” “Yes dear,” he replies, “global warming,” as he goes back to his paper.

It used to be really hard to fire people, especially in academia. It’s easy now. “Do you solemnly swear, upon your mother’s grave, that you believe that the earth is warming up, and that the cause of it is CO2 emissions by human beings.” “Well, uh, my mother’s not dead.” "Damn it, you know what I mean, now do you?” “Uh, well, I am not really sure.” “You’re Fired!”

Life has gotten way easier to understand. Hurricanes grown more powerful? Global warming. Not enough hurricanes and their associated rain? Global warming. Late cold snap in New England? Global warming. Spreading deserts in Africa? Global warming.

There was a time when people in my line of work had a role to play helping people figure out the deep mysteries and complexities of life. No more. Global arming is putting us out of business. I guess that’s good really.

Where would we all be without global warming?

An Open Letter to John Hammer

Dear John,

Although I am, generally speaking, a fiscal and social conservative, and thus more often than not agree with you on a range of other issues, after several years of seeing you put into print the salaries of those in the higher range of pay in our school system, I must finally offer my objections.

I want first to address my own view of your reporting of the names and salaries of these emplyees. In doing so I am going to deal primarily with teachers.

The manner in which Guilford County schools pays teachers is established by strict formula. This is published on their public web site. Anybody can find it out. There is a dismally low starting salary for a starting teacher with a college degree, and then salaries increase slowly based upon years of experience, advanced educational degrees, and certain approved extra certification processes. There is no mystery here. But to publish names and salaries as you do is, to my way of thinking, just nosiness and bad form. It would be better, if you just had to make your wrongheaded point, to publish the pay scales themselves, and perhaps the number of teachers who fit into each range of pay, say $30-40,000, $40-5000, etc. There is just no point in putting names to salaries except to create ill will, usually misguided, between people of our community and our teachers. You aren’t reporting the whole truth nor the appropriate context, so you are only half informing the public anyway. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

And, in fact, what you have published, at least regarding teacher salaries, proves the exact opposite of what you intend. We have a county of almost 450,000 people with one giant unified school system. That system has thousands of teachers (maybe you could come up with that number for us). Of these thousands, the very highest paid of all of them who is not an athletic director, is a person with 35 years of experience, a Ph. D., and National Board Certification. And she gets paid only $70,000. That is pathetic! What does that mean about the rest of the bell curve? Yes, that it is low, too low, way too low. Thank you for proving my long held contention that we pay our teachers way too little.

Look at the lower end of the scale. The entry salary for teachers, given that a college degree plus teacher certification is required, is abysmal. It is no wonder that it is hard to get college graduates to go into teaching. Yes, there are other things that contribute to teaching being a difficult field of work and which keep people from pursuing it. Again, these conditions argue for more and not less pay for teachers who must endure many indignities and much abuse along the way.

I was a public school teacher for five years back in the 1980’s. I taught physics, chemistry, biology, and physical science. My starting salary was $13,000. I had six years of college education when I started. I was rolling in the dough.

I can personally attest that teaching, if a teacher seeks to do it well, is exhausting work from morning to night. Standing up in a room and engaging five or six classes of students a day, even in good school conditions, is incredibly draining. I do not think most people have any idea what it requires in terms of energy and stamina. Then there are often conferences or tutoring times before school, and the inevitable dealing with parents who are upset because little Johnny made a C on a paper. Teachers live under a constant cloud of lawsuits in our litigious society. You would have no idea how often parents threaten court if they don’t get their way. There is endless paper work. Then one has to prepare for one’s classes. For any conscientious teacher this means hours of work at home every night, and the constant fear of not being totally on top of things. There is much anxiety and stress related to this issue of daily readiness, which accounts curiously for the almost universal nightmares that teachers have. Then of course there is the task of correcting and grading papers and often taking night classes to try to upgrade one's standing. There is pressure that never lets up. There are issues of safety, of threat, and intimidation. OK, so some readers say that I am describing their lives. Well, then they should have sympathy for our teachers.

And of course, in our system teachers must work now under the indignity of EOG’s being the be all and end all. This is sapping the motivation and energy and creativity of our best teachers, forcing them into being automatons rather than the caring creative intelligent people that most of them are.

But rather than creating good will in the eyes of the public, you are causing people, due to the lack of full reporting, to draw false conclusions about teachers who already are insufficiently paid, and in some cases causing people to draw false conclusions about particular individuals. This will only sap public motivation to provide the resources our schools and teachers desperately need. You are doing the general public good a great disservice. I do not believe that it is in the public good to continue to put together names to salaries before the face of the public as you do. There are other and more honoring ways of making your very poor point.

Add the idea that teachers have two months off is such a total joke that is does not become a man of your otherwise high intelligence. Because of their generally low pay, teachers constantly have to find work in those periods of time when they are not due in the classroom. I did this for five years. Having a ten month contract was a burden in my mind, not a blessing. What, do you think they are using all their extra money from their inflated salaries to sit on beaches in Aruba? Come on John. That “time off” is no holiday. In addition to needing to find work in the summer, many teachers must spend the two months of summer taking classes so that they can get to a higher grade in the pay scale, or, in some cases, so that they can continue to teach what they teach - or so as to have their contracts renewed.

Yes, many government employees are paid inadequately. Rather than this being an argument to lower teacher pay, maybe it should be an argument to raise general government employee pay.

John, I just don’t think you have enough appreciation and gratitude for the myriads of public servants who work hard day in and day out to make your life better and safer.

On one point I agree. We have too many assistant superintendents draining away too many resources. There is a bloated bureaucracy above the teachers. If we could eliminate jobs there, we could pay teachers a little more. I would be all for that.

And I admit to the fact that it is easier than it should be to be slack as a teacher. We have all known slack teachers (and slack lawyers, accountants, doctors, and pastors). It is hard to find a formula or a procedure for measuring true effectiveness and thereby increasing true accountability. That is an area that still needs work, but I am describing a small minority of our teachers.

Back to the one non athletic director you singled out, just listen to yourself. We have a person with 35 years of experience, a Ph. D., and a demanding National Board Certification, and you’re complaining that she makes $70,000. Let’s compare similar years of experience, education, and certification with people from dozens of other professional vocational areas. Why don’t you do that, John?

This teacher who is the highest paying non athletic director is also my friend. She is a great teacher, and she has paid her dues in 35 years of educational experience. She earns her salary. She loves her work and her students. She is a good and faithful public servant. So are the thousands of teachers below her in the salary scale, many of whom also are my friends. I wish you would find another way to make your misguided point, a way that is not intended to embarrass and disparage individuals. It is beneath you.

Joel Gillespie

Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI

Every so often a book comes along that deeply moves and inspires me as a person, and as a Christian. I can never know when this will happen. Many books disappoint, and many surprise.

I am right in the middle of one of those amazing books. It is “Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration” by Joseph Ratzinger, otherwise known as Pope Benedict XVI.

OK, I am an evangelical Protestant pastor. How can I speak such of a book by the Roman Catholic Pope of all people?

I remember hearing Johnny Cash commenting on the Nine Inch Nails’ song “Hurt.” His words: “Well, a good song is a good song.”

And a good book is a good book.

A few words about it...

First, this is not a book which carries in the mind of its distinguished writer, the head of the Roman church, what we might refer to as "papal authority." It is not, using Catholic language, and Benedict's own words, a “Magisterium,” which means that it does not carry the teaching authority of the Church or of the Pope as pope. It is a very personal work. In it Pope Benedict is seeking the face of Jesus. The book reflects his own personal journey over time to understand the Jesus of the Gospels. He even invites critique of all things!

Second, whatever your image may be of Joseph Ratzinger, this book will change it. In it you see deeply into his own heart, and what is there is a humble and gentle spirit, and a deep godliness. He deals gently with those who object to the traditional view of Jesus, and his interaction with the arguments in Jewish scholar Jacob Neusner’s “A Rabbi Talks with Jesus” is worth the price of the book. It should be archetypal for how Christians should interact with their Jewish neighbors, and their Jewish critics. I can’t wait to read Neusner’s book, because, from what I can glean from the sections in “Jesus of Nazareth" that relate to Neusner, Neusner understands the message and person of Jesus better than many Christians; he just does not buy it.

Third, the Pope is a superb scholar, in the very best sense of that word. He is a man who has obviously devoted much of his long life to biblical and theological and historical studies. He is well read, current, respectful, and knows what he is talking about.

Fourth, this is not “Jesus for Dummies.” Because Benedict does interact with prevailing trends, some knowledge of theological and biblical lingo would be helpful. But this is most true in the long and excellently written introduction, subtitled “An Initial Reflection on the Mystery of Jesus.” In that introduction Pope Benedict shows why even appropriate scientific historical critical approaches to the Bible cannot be the only approaches, given that the subject of the study is not only an historical figure written about in a writing subject to historical and scientific analysis, but is also the object of our faith. Even if you are not a Christian, if you know enough of the lingo to follow his argument in the opening chapter, you may well end up with a deeper respect for the manner in which Christian folks approach the Bible and its message. The rest of the book is more accessible to the average reader I would say.

Fifth, Pope Benedict is a very good writer. He is clear, and he is gentle. He also writes in a way that speaks to the heart. For me personally as a Christian, the manner in which he speaks and makes his points really speaks to me in a personal manner. He draws me into the kind of relationship with God that I desire to have.

I have always been struck by this observation – that where we as historically orthodox Catholics and Protestants agree (and that is in a very large number of the most essential matters), the Catholic writers just put it differently. I have found their way of putting things, drawn from their long history, culture, and spiritual temperament, to be refreshing. I even love the Catholic Catechism. Where I disagree with it, say about Mary, or papal authority, or justification, or the Eucharist, or veneration of the saints, or purgatory, I can read respectfully, or just skip over. Where I agree with it, I find I am blessed by the way it puts things.

Sixth, I think because of the more serious nature of much Catholic spiritual writing, as compared to so much of the mass-market driven Protestant drivel out there, I think this book provides an opportunity for people to see Jesus, the historic and living Jesus, in a new and deeper way. Benedict really is gifted at cutting to the core of the matter.

I have so far only gotten through the chapters on Jesus’ baptism, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Lord’s Prayer. I plan to read the whole book, and then read it again. I cannot know for sure if at the end of the book that I am not going to be sucker punched by a Catholic apologetic, but nothing so far suggests that I will. Yes, there are references to Catholic teachings or practices, but mainly those are areas in which much of the historic Protestant Church agrees.

Seventh, Pope Benedict does a superb job connecting the old and the new testaments, or covenants. He shows how it is that Christians see Jesus as the fulfillment of what Christians call the Old Testament, and how the Old Covenant anticipated Jesus of Nazareth. Even if, say, a Jewish reader, did not in the end accept the Christian view, I think that this book would help him to respect it.

Eighth, every chapter so far has turned up for me fresh ways of seeing and understanding Jesus, his person and his mission. I by no means think that I am even close to understanding these matters in fullness, but it has been getting hard lately to find writers who open up new vistas. Benedict does that for me. Maybe down the road I will summarize some of those new vistas.

In conclusion, if you want to see into the heart of Jesus of Nazareth, and would like to understand better who he was (and is), or shall I say, who historic orthodox (as compared to liberal) Christians understand Him to be, I strongly recommend this book. But be careful! You may not find the same stereotypical historic orthodox Christianity and Jesus that you have loved to hate, well, if you do I mean.

Check it out. You’ll see what I mean.

Joel

Software Question

I have a computer software question if anyone wants to throw some advice my way. Do any of you have experience using one of the non-Microsoft but Windows-based e-mail programs like Opera, Mozilla, or Eudora? I am considering moving away from Outlook and was wondering if anyone had experience using one of these other options and could make a receommendation. And no, I can’t buy a Mac right now.

Photo of the Day - June 12, 2007 - Looking Up into a Fisher Park Tulip Poplar

Liriodendron tulipifera
Tulip Polar
Fisher Park, Greensboro, NC

Tulip Poplar

It’s not a tulip, and it’s not a poplar, but the tulip poplar is one of our most beautiful and important trees in Guilford County. Indeed, it is quite likely that the tallest tree we have in Guilford County is a tulip poplar, as it is generally the tallest tree found in the eastern United States, and the second largest in girth after the great lowland sycamores.

Straight and tall the tulip poplar grows. The bark is light in color, furrowed more and more as the tree increases in diameter. As it grows in height it sheds quickly its lower limbs, such that in an older mature specimen, the first limbs may not appear until fifty feet up, usually stout short limbs coming off the trunk horizontally before heading upwards.

In the winter if you see a straight tall light colored tree trunk, look to the top and you will usually see at the ends of the branches the light colored petal-like stalks of the tulip poplar’s cone still hanging on from the previous fall and shining in the winter sun above the other trees.

In May, high up in the tulip tree, well after the leaves have come out for the new season, the tulip tree blooms. It’s too bad we only get to see the flowers after they fall (unless we have very good eye sight), for they are a lovely and unusual mix of green and orange, somewhat in the shape of a tulip, hence the tree’s name. These delicate flowers coat the ground under the tulip tree, and make for lots of sweeping on driveways and sidewalks.

The flower gives way to a soft cone-like structure which houses small fruits about an inch long which mature on the tree and remain until the late fall, usually being carried away by an autumn wind. Sometimes the cone will drop as a whole, but more usually it will stay on the twig over the winter, coming apart only gradually piece by piece. These light colored cone-remains, as mentioned above, are a dead giveaway for the tulip poplar in the winter. If you do see a full cone on the ground, and it reminds you of a magnolia cone, well, the tulip tree is in the same family as the magnolia.

The leaf of the tulip poplar is also very distinctive, fairly large, about five or six inches tall and wide, and also, curiously enough, shaped like a tulip flower! Think of two wide mittens, right and left, placed on top of each other with the respective thumbs sticking out, and you have the idea of the tulip poplar leaf.

The tulip poplar is one of the very first trees to begin changing colors in the fall, usually a yellow color of moderate brightness, though sometime shining forth in more brilliant array. The turning of the tulip poplar leaf is one of the first sure signs that fall is around the corner.

As a wood, tulip poplar is light in weight, almost like a pine. Useful for many building, manufacturing, storage, and packaging purposes, it was extensively logged all over the south, particularly after the railroad made getting huge pieces to the saw mills easier, and only a few stands of virgin tulip poplar remain in the state, one of them in the Joyce Kilmer Forest in Western North Carolina.

Thankfully it is a fast growing tree, so many quite large second or third growth specimens grow throughout Guilford County.

Indians as well as early pioneers made excellent canoes from the tulip poplar, given its light weight, relative strength, and ease of working. It is said that Daniel Boone and his family left Kentucky in a sixty foot long dugout canoe made from a massive tulip poplar tree. Now that’s a big canoe!

Photo of the Day - June 11, 2007 -The View from Shining Rock, in January

On a warm summer day I thought I would give you a little breath of chill from this wintry picture taken in western North Carolina, from the top of Shining Rock, in Shining Rock Wilderness Area. It happened to be approximately 20 below Fahrenheit the day and night I was there. I like this picture because you can see the snowy trail below. I believe that that is the Old Butt Trail. Shining Rock, like Joyce Kilmer, is also a very cool place, thought the two are very different from each other, Shining Rock being much more alpine. And they are both in our state. You should go there sometime!

Visit my Flickr photostream here.

Joel

Photo of the Day - June 9, 2007 - Guilford County Farm House

I took this driving around SE Guilford County. It's still pretty rural and nice down there. This may have been on Highway 61. Well, I think. I may have to revisit that.

Cheers,

Joel

Photo of the Day - June 7, 2007 - Go Ahead and Jump

A while back a group of four friends including myself did a nine day bike tour all across South Carolina. It was a blast. Somewhere between Charleston and Savannah (we stopped in at Beaufort and Hilton Head) we were riding along a very long bridge across a very large river inlet. So we stopped to take it in. The water looked very nice. We debated about jumping. There was a steel pipe running up an abutment and we thought we could climb up that. One of the guys, Bo, said he would go first to show us the way. We were maybe 20 feet above the water. Anyway, Bo jumped. He hit the water and went under. To our and his surprise he popped up about 50 feet upriver, as the tide was coming in hard. It took all of his strength to swim back to the abutment. On the way up the pole on the abutment the pole broke loose and Bo fell back into the water. There was no way for him to get up and we were a mile from land in either direction. A fishing boat came up, cursed us out for being stupid fools, and threw us a rope. We pulled Bo up by the rope, threw the rope back to the fisherman, and went our merry way. Good thing we didn't all jump.

Photo of the Day - June 6, 2007 - Joyce Kilmer Wildflowers

I took this picture on a backpacking trip in Joyce Kilmer/Slick Rock Wilderness Area a few years back. The photo pros don't seem to care much for this shot - no primary focus area, bland colors, lack of contrast, etc., but I have always been partial to it. Often when I am in the woods I like to sit down against a tree to take in my surroundings. I even have a way of slightly squinting my eyes to get a feel for the light and colors around me. I love to have a sense of my whole field of view filled with color, texture, and light. It is my way of perceiving what I think GM Hopkins was talking about in his concept of "inscape." This picture faithfully captures the inscape of that moment, and the collage effect of light and color. Plus I like the flowers.

Joyce Kilmer is an awesome place. If you ever have a couple of days for a weekend backpacking trip, this is a great place for it, a wonderful magical world with some amazingly huge trees, a grassy bald, a spur hike to an outcrop with a 360 degree view, and a beautiful forest. It's a place that would make its namesake proud. And it's in our state, barely!

To browse my Flickr site, go here.

Thanks,

Joel

Photo of the Day - May 29, 2007 - Two Kids in Amsterdam

I spent four days in Amsterdam in April 1978 - was totally taken by the place - I walked everywhere it seemed - saw these two guys in an alley and they were kind to let me take their picture. I wonder where they are now - what they're doing - I guess they would be late 30's or so! I miss my Fujica 801 - left it on the plane on the way back from this trip!

You can see other pictures of my 1978 Europe trip here.

Joel

Photo of the Day - May 24, 2007 - Boots

Yesterday, featuring a picture of our cat Socks, I wrote about how we got Socks and his little sister Boots. This is Boots. She is tiny, but seems to enjoy beating up on poor Socks! How they tear around the house, usually right about midnight!

For some other pictures of Boots, not all flattering poses, look here, and here, and here.

Joel

Photo of the Day - May 23 2007 - Socks

Don't let those beady eyes fool you. Socks is a wimp. And a sweetheart. He is a great cat. We didn't intend to end up with four cats (you've seen Corduroy; Mohawk and Boots are coming). Our oldest cat Mohawk is 15 years old. She is a grump, but a nice old grump. A few years back we decided to get our youngest daughter Madeline a cat, and we ended up getting two, whom we named Corduroy and Oxford. They came from different litters, but were the same age, and grew up as brothers. They were inside/outside cats. Corduroy became a real cat of the night, a hunter, and was more aloof. Oxford remained closer to home, in body and heart. He was a first rate cat pet. During the day he followed Madeline around and sat with her wherever she went, doing school work (we home school Madeline), reading, sitting at the computer, whatever. He loved to sleep on the back of the couch right behind wherever you were sitting. At night he usually slept in the bed with Anna, my fourth daughter. One day a lady from the neighborhood came up to tell us there was a dead cat in her yard, and she thought it might be ours. I went down to see, and yes, it was Oxford. Only Madeline was home with me. It was really really sad, and terrible to see her suffer so. (We still expect foul play - at the time there were a group of teenage guys vandalizing the neighborhood, and we had turned them in for something to the police, and they had done various things to us in retaliation. Oxford seems to have taken a blow to the top of the head. Yes, it could have been a car, but one of the boys was seen in the vicinity about the time our neighbor told us about the cat.)

I believe in the reality and significance of relationships with animals, and thus the very real grief we experience when they leave us. I've never taken this lightly, for myself, or for others, nor as a pastor. Anyway, I wrapped Oxford in plastic bags, and when Anna came home I broke the news to her, and let her pet Oxford and say goodbye. We brought Corduroy over and let him sniff and look at Oxford's body too. He was obviously very depressed for a week or two. We then had a ceremony and buried Oxford in the back yard. Well, the grief was so bad that three to four days into it we decided we just had to get Madeline another kitten to try to get her mind off it. So, we went to the Cat Clinic, and wouldn't you know it, someone had just found an abandoned litter of kittens and given the whole litter to the Cat Clinic to give away. So, we ended up getting two new kittens - Boots the small gray female, and Socks the larger black male. We decided they would be inside cats. They are about three years old now and they still run around the house wrestling and playing, especially late at night. They are mischievous and fun, just as cats are supposed to be. When they wrestle, it's always Socks who cries uncle, even though he is twice the size of Boots. He is a wimp. But he is so affectionate; he loves to have his coat brushed; he begs for attention; he is very sweet. Boots is sweet too, and follows Madeline around kind of like Oxford did. I love this picture of Socks, taken with a cheap digital camera. It just exudes his "Socks-ness."

For more pictures of our felines along the way, look here.

Joel

PS On the way to work today I stopped for a foot long snapper crossing Regents Park Lane. I got out and moved him. It's hard to know where turtles are wanting to go, and you hate to disorient them, but I put him close to a nearby creek. Well, as a reward I got doused with turtle pee. I say turtle pee. I wonder if turtles "store" water within the spaces under their shell to keep them moist when they are on land. Does anybody know?

Photo of the Day - May 22, 2007 - The Vatican Easter 1978

It was mostly by happenstance that I ended up at the Vatican on Easter Sunday 1978. We had been in Florence, and realized "tomorrow is Easter," and we said "well let's go to Rome." So we took an overnight train, got in quite early, and were able to find ourselves right near the front of what turned out to be quite a crowd. Pope Paul VI gave greetings that Easter, Marcfh 26, 1978. This would be his last Easter. He would die that year, to be succeeded by Pope John Paul I, who lived only avery short time after election, to be succeeded by the famous and popular Pope John Paul II. The Vatican was so packed that day, you could almost lift up your legs and not fall. People were fainting. The estimate was that there were over 200,000 people, which would be largest group of people I had or have ever been in. We were right at the front ropes because we got there about 5:00am. Had a great view of the Swiss Guard, and of the Pope. It was a neat day. His message that day can be found here.

Photo of the Day - May 21, 2007 - Zermatt

I'm kind of hot sitting where I am right now, and this picture brought a wave of refreshment to me as I perused alternatives for today's photo. So I thought I'd share it with you. I had always wanted to see the Matterhorn, near Zermatt, ever since my girlfriend in high school told me that my nose reminded her of it! :) Plus I had seen incredible pictures of that great peak. I wanted to go alpine! So, in our travels around Europe in March/April 1978 my friends and I took a long detour to Zermatt. I remember an old creaky train ride almost straight up a mountain. That was cool. Anyway, it was late when we got to Zermatt, and after a night in the youth hostel we awoke to almost white out conditions the next morning. This is what it looked like after the snow had calmed down a bit. Needless to say, I never saw the Matterhorn. But it was beautiful in Zermatt that day.

You are invited to explore my Flickr photostream here.

Joel

The Immigration Bill Stinketh, I Thinketh

Well, I am trying to decide something. If both Nancy Pelosi AND the Heritage Foundation oppose a bill, does that mean it is likely good or bad? Hmmm.

Personally from what I can tell I am disappointed in the Immigration Reform Bill, and maybe finding myself agreeing with both Pelosi and the Heritage Foundation in limited areas.

So, what’s the big deal about amnesty? Good grief, if we didn’t give amnesty to one another every once in a while we’d all be dead. Sometimes, when you’ve done something so bad for so long, you just have to accept the consequences. I know a person who did a very bad thing. It is long done now. That person’s life is a wreck. Now that person needs help. I think I need some amnesty in my heart.

We’ve had terrible immigration enforcement laws for a long time. We let this state of affairs get to what it is. What, we blame Mexicans for wanting to come here. It is a compliment.

New laws should first strive to restore families, and only then shift toward bringing in talented and gifted people? So, we’re going to send a family member home and break up the family? Unless the person is a criminal that is just not right.

And are talented, gifted, educated people the ones we really most need? I mean, as one Mexican said, how many degrees do you need to make $9 an hour picking beets? Seems to me Mexico needs to keep their doctors and engineers and we could really use their labor.

I am for amnesty for the illegal aliens that are here now. We have screwed it up for so long we have to accept our responsibility in that. Not for the ones with criminal records or felonies. But or the ones who have been decent members of our communities. We need to send Mexico’s criminals back to Mexico. For the rest, we need to fast track them to citizenship and to full immediate family restoration without making the “illegal” go back to Mexico or wherever first. This whole splitting up families thing gives me a very bad vibe, makes me think of another very dark and terrible part of our national history. I don’t like it one little bit.

I am also for strict crimes that we will enforce against employers who willingly hire illegal aliens, or who make no effort to find out their status, or who look the other way.

Then, I do think we need to crack down on the border. I do not trust Pelosi and gang to do that no matter what the bill says. Fences, walls, barbed wire, electric wire, I don’t care. Whatever it takes and no matter how much it costs – we’ve got to get a handle on our border. Good grief, people could be walking in with suitcase nukes as far as we know.

And then we need a good guest worker program like we have now with temporary visa’s. But we have to be able to track these people. Civil libertarians won’t like it, but we may just need to get those national ID cards. We can’t let people in on guest worker visas only to let them melt into the population and never go back.

So, personally, I think the bill is too hard as regards the “A” word. Let’s just accept reality, call amnesty “amnesty,” and then extend it.

I think the bill is too soft regarding the borders. It seems to me, as far as I can tell, just to be words. I want to see the money, the backbone, the resolve in a real funded plan with teeth, and fences, for how we are going to do this. I don’t see that yet.

So, in summary, I think we need to get tough and get gentle at the same time. And we need to keep families in mind before our own need for Ph.D.’s.

Joel

Just Say "No" To Hate Crime Legislation

Looks like we’re in for another veto and House and Senate battle over recent hate crime legislation. I offer a few thoughts here, confessing that I am finding it hard to find the actual wording of the current bills. So I speak of hate crime laws more generally.

I ain’t for ‘em. That is because I am a Christian, or a conservative, and I am hateful, right? Wrong. I hate hate, as a matter of fact. I think hatred towards other human beings made in the image of God is morally wrong. I think it is reprehensible. And I think such hatred is the legal right of every person who lives under the protection of our constitution.

I find hate crime laws to be wrong headed on the face of it, unfairly applied, legally confusing, and an affront eventually to a precious right of free and open speech.

As to the wrong headedness I just flat out disagree that a crime is made worse because of how the criminal thought or felt about the victim. It is important to get into the heads of criminals to establish motive. Hate may be a motive which helps establish a case and which helps lead to conviction. But you know, as regards serious crimes like murder something like hatred is almost always involved. Whether that hatred is produced by racism, sexism, envy, jealousy, or embarrassment is really not relevant except to establish motive, and thus reach a conviction. Is a murder victim more or less dead whether the source of hatred was racism or envy? Is a criminal more or less dead when they get the needle because they killed out of hatred? Is it more wrong for a group of red necks to kill a gay guy than it is for a group of gang members to kill a member of another gang? Is it more wrong to kill a person because he is black than it is to kill a person because he got a promotion and you didn’t? Is it more wrong to kill a person because he is handicapped than it is to kill a person because he stole your girl friend? I don’t think so. Is the murderer more guilty of murder because he murdered out of hatred? No. I see hate crime laws, especially on the federal level, as a way of succumbing to the pressure of special interests to be treated as an especially protected and hence a favored sub group of the population. I think hate crime laws are about power. Grabbing it that is. Using it that is. Frankly I think they are, well, hateful. I say that due to the vehement angry speech of the proponents of hate crime legislation.

And let me ask you, do we want a world where people kill others not out of hate? I mean, what is worse, a person with no reason for killing, no conscience, no feelings, who just goes around killing, or a person who kills out of hate? “Shit,” some guy says, “I just like killing people.” What hate crime is that lunatic guilty of?

There is no way to apply hate crimes fairly unless we make a protected special minority out of everybody. Shall we make the rich into a specially protected group because they are killed for being rich? Shall we make child molesters into a specially protected group because they are killed out for being child molesters? Shall we make the promoted into a specially protected group because they are killed out of envy? Do we protect the Bloods because they tend to be killed by the Crips and vice versa? I mean, by the time we protect all the possible kinds of people who get killed due to hate, we have just about protected everybody, and thus the legislation means nothing.

And what a mess we make of the actual criminal proceedings. Now we not only get into the head of people to discern motive, but to discern whether they hated uniquely a special group of specially protected people. How do we really do that? We do that by making broad generalizations based on prior speech. Or by reading diaries. Or maybe we develop a "hate detector test." Maybe we can invent a hate screening machine to use at airports. Maybe we anoint a very special group of psychoanalysts gifted in discerning hate to decide this for us? Shall they be appointed by the President? With advice and consent of the Senate?

And then, how do we really define hate? Can we really tell the difference between dislike and hate? Can we really tell the difference between hate for one person and hate for a group of persons? My goodness what a mess.

I remember one day in high school I was walking out of the auditorium. There was a guy, a black guy, that I didn't like and didn't get along with. I liked almost every other person in the school, white or black. So I was walking out of the auditorium and he shouts across the whole room, "Hey Gillespie, you don't like me because I'm black," And I shouted back, "No, David, I don't like you because you're a smart ass." That shut him up. But are we really so good at telling the difference?

Which gets me to the most chilling apart of this whole deal, the assault on free speech. I agree that there is a kind of speech that very purposefully and specifically incites to violence and I agree that such speech must be dealt with. However, hate crime legislation tends to morph into hate speech legislation. Because I oppose gay marriage I have been called hateful, my position has been vilified as a position rooted in hate. Well, I’m not and it isn’t. So, if I speak out against gay marriage, there will be a time when my speech will fall under hate crime laws, and my speech will be silenced, and I may go to jail. Look, if some moron wants to get up and call Christians Nazis, scumbags, morons, then let them. If some guy wants to stand up and call white people crackers" or "honkies" or "Klansmen" they are free to do that. If some moron wants to stand up and call gay people faggots then that is his right. He is an idiot, he is wrong, and the court of public opinion will side against him. If some skinhead brute wants to get up and call black people “niggers" then let his stupid self do that. He is only making a total bigoted moronic idiot out of himself. But if he calls people to "kill niggers," then we arrest him and lock him up for a very long time.

People everyday say the most terrible things about Christians such that if they said the same sort of things about these specially protected groups they would be vilified or put in the slammer or kicked out of school or given an “F” for hate speech. As far as I am concerned, if people want to call Christians morons, bigots, fools, blasphemers, or worse, that is their business. If they incite and encourage people to kill Christians then that becomes my business.

We already have statues against murder, rape, threats to violence, conspiracies to inflict harm, etc. Hate crime legislation adds nothing substantive to those laws. But it does create a chilling ripple effect as regards free speech. And for that reason mostly I oppose it.

Joel

Photo of the Day - May 18, 2007 - Edward Waters

Here is a picture of my friend Edward Waters at Hanging Rock, taken last summer. Just another take on a beautiful place close by. The pic kind of makes me think about Jeremiah Johnson! Edward has the best doggon' hiking stick around - made of tulip poplar. I just like this picture. Edward is a very very talented poet, song writer, and singer. You can find his work at his main Edward Waters web site, and on his two blogs, Rambles of One Windborn(e) and When the Sky Draws Close

Hey, if you get the chance take a drive up to Hanging Rock State Park and support our State Park System. Tell 'em what a great job they are doing. And while you're there take a hike and get that heart pumping!

Joel

Photo of the Day - May 17, 2007 - English Bay at Sunset

I was very fortunate to have spent three years of my life in Vancouver BC. It is a beautiful city, and highly photogenic. It is also crowded and smoggy and struggling with all the same issues with which major urban centers struggle. I learned a lot there about what makes for a successful urban environment. We in Greensboro could learn a lot from Vancouver on many issues.

One of the ever present delights of Vancouver wase the array of huge ships from all over the world that came to port there. The passageway into Burrard's inlet into the main ship docking area was rather small, and so ships would line up in English Bay much likeplanes on a runway, waiting there turn. It was fun to try to read the writing on the ships, look at their flags, and try to tell where they were from.

I hope this picture gives you a sense of peace. You can see more of my Flickr pictures here.

Joel

Photo of the Day - May 16, 2007 - Coneflowers Reaching for the Sun

Just daydreaming about the sumer ahead - how the birds and butteflies love my coneflowers!

Joel

PS - Check out my other Flickr images here.