Books and the Lightness of Travel

8 months since last post, a repaired laptop, and returning to CT tomorrow to work at a retreat center (after the dentist).  I’ve been trying to decide what books to take with me.

I’ve settled on small ones.

• Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy  The Christian Future and Planetary Service. I feel I need Eugen at all times and these two are focused on issues of society’s speed and the need for communion.
• Ira Stone A Responsible Life: The Spiritual Path of Mussar.  Stone’s translation and commentary for Wisdom & Mussar by R. Simcha Zissel is a surprise gift as the appendix.  Mussar means “instruction” or “correction” and refers both to a literature of self-improvement throughout rabbinic Judaism and also specific activities. Stone’s encounter with Zissel’s Kelm school of mussar through the lens of Emmanuel Levinas brings the tradition to greater contemporary relevance.
• Dalai Lama Spiritual Advice for Buddhists and Christians.  Short and quick.
• Pirke Avot “Chapters of the Fathers”.  Olitsky brings major commentaries to his pages of both English and Aramaic. This is a major effort for the next few months to be able to teach this tractate.
• Margaret Atwood Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth.  The cover has a balloon near the top above the print and a thumb tack at the bottom facing up.  I started this in June and it was a riot.  Part of my effort see the financial bubble as a poetic invention.

Perhaps Walter Brueggeman The Covenanted Self: Explorations in Law and Covenant and a Daniel Elazar edited book on covenant and constitutionalism.  There’s a project in me about the federating, communing in personal and political dynamics, drawing on Jewish and Christian sources and seen in US history.   Not sure if that deserves my time now.

I’m concerned once again with the “culture wars.” Hopefully that may subside as a I depart the DC area. It forced to drop an idea of reviewing several classic studies of legislative dynamics through the lens of health care reform 1970s-1990s.  Yet there is less legislative activity now compared to the culture war of the town hall meetings which all media outlets excitedly channel to the viewer.

Was tempted to bring an Aquinas-based reading of salvation history through he lens of Torah & Temple and a book on Lonergan’s own intellectual conversion.

There are also a number of books relevant to retreat management or other activities where I’m going. They’ll have to wait here. I’m committed to easy of travel.

That’s the update. Scattered interests, as ever.

Death: A Rabbi and a Priest Walk Out of a Bar…

Today at lunch I was told that Rabbi Alan Lew, a seemingly vigorous, recently retired pulpit rabbi, died yesterday during a post-prayer walk.  January 4th, 9 days ago, I helped Alan and his wife find transportation from this retreat center to visit friends in Martha’s Vineyard.  He then traveled to Maryland to continue teaching with Jeff Roth and Joanna Katz about mindfulness, brokenness. From his website:

Rabbi Lew’s book This Is Real And You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation was published by Little Brown and Co. in August of 2003. ” . . .Yet for Rabbi Alan Lew, the real purpose of this annual passage is for us to experience brokenheartedness and open our hearts to God. . . . Lew has marked out a journey of seven distinct stages, one that draws on these rituals to awaken the soul and wholly transform us. . .”

I like and despise the Days of Awe, an annual death preparation meant to transform our lives.  During the Yom Kippur fast, white is worn to suggest our burial outfit and bathing discouraged.  You are already rotting!  The soul must experience Tshuvah, or re-direction, turning to the ways of God and away from sin, in order to be granted life in the coming year. This is severe yet Alan know the energy can be guided toward self-revelation, the death of the old self must be embraced.

I also note Richard John Neuhaus’ passing.  His fascinating life teaches what is possible.

Taxicab Confessions — DC (microeconomics)

As I buckled up the car slowly began its journey.  The driver told me to ignore the extra dollar visible on the meter.  The fee to cover higher fuel costs ended last Thursday and he hasn’t figured out how to unset that feature. (Meters are a novel thing in DC proper, by the way.  2 months old?)

Conversation started about the benefit of lower gas prices to taxi drivers.  Then the driver announced suggestively, “What I want to know is how the price went up so fast and then down again.” I blogged last May on the poor reporting, each explanation pointing to different cavern ignorance. “I’m not happy with the reporting. There’s no clear explanation of these price changes. One reason for the drop, though, is the slowdown of the US economy. Less demand.”

“So how do they actually set prices,” he inquired.

Yeats, Achebe and US

In reading the transcript of a polisci conference session on Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland, I find a gem in Paul Krugman’s opening remarks.

[There’s a] Walker Percy novel with a near future setting, a dystopian scenario, in which he said, `As things fell apart, the center did not hold; however the GDP continued to rise.’

Some of us will say, “GDP is up.  Who cares about the center, whatever that is.”  Others in tense laughter announce our concern.

See WB Yeats “The Second Coming” (1920)

Appreciating Christian Zionists

I’ve historically been cool the idea that the Jewish community would ally with groups seeking our conversion or who eagerly view Middle East conflict as leading to the End of Days. It feels like we’re being used for someone elses salvation.  Plus, we probably don’t agree on most of our domestic agenda, I once thought.  Didn’t Jewish social progress in the US emerge through limiting the influence of evangelical and other “public” Christians. Or at least conservative ones.  As I relax my grip on my noble and enlightened sense of self, these issues have receded and I recently found space to appreciate Christian Zionists.

Radio Silence

About 2 weeks ago the campaign left me cold.  I decided I really wanted to figure out a compelling explanation of the Palin phenomenon (why she inspires) to the liberals.  Overcoming such a longstanding rift is no easy task and has brought about a period of silence as I’ve experienced the chasm which separates us.

The Truth that Dare Not Speak Its Name

Patrick Deneen and others at Culture 11, that lively, new conservative-ish blog I mentioned a few weeks ago, suggest what candidates should say in the debates. Deneen would have McCain transfer his cache of military virtue to address our own complicity in the economic and ” devote a McCain presidency to restoring virtues of frugality and self-governance.”  To address Obama’s Red State weakness, he should “call for an economy that rewards the lower and middle class, not the wealthiest, and an effort to paint these commitments as the most fundamental form of traditional values.”

Deneen declares Americans must be taught about limits and let go of the corrosive growth ideology shared by both parties. He knows, too, that none of this will happen.

Do Human Rights Monitors Increase Violence?

From Richard Landes at Augean Stables:

B’tselem’s Cognitive Egocentrism Increases Palestinian Violence

The Elder of Ziyon blog has an insightful post up about B’tselem’s [A Jewish Israeli Human Rights monitor in the West Bank] decision to provide West Bank Palestinians with cameras so that they can document settler violence. B’tselem, through a shallow understanding of Arab culture, or through wanton desire to demonize Israeli soldiers and citizens, has likely caused an increase in violence through their move. Their cognitive egocentrism keeps them from understanding it, the cameras do not inhibit “Israeli aggression”. Instead, since they benefit from scenes of Israeli violence, Palestinians are actually encouraged to do whatever they can to cause Israelis to react so that they can be captured on film.

This is hard for me to fully integrate. Part of me is proud that a Jewish NGO seeks to reform abusive practices by Israeli soldiers in the territories. Aren’t such left-peaceniks simply holding Israel to its founding liberal, democratic and Jewish standards?  We should not become a monster to fight a monster.

However, there has been solid evidence of Hezbullah’s and Hamas’ manipulation of visual footage to garner  international support and create “martyrs” for the war against Israel.  Richard Landes covers this well at Second Draft and has coined the term “Pollywood” for this practice.  Still, I refuse to declare from now on all footage of Israeli army abuses are staged.

The Anti-terrorism Agenda

Hearing much about terrorism from the campaigns?  Just 6 years ago this fall DC was inundated by nuclear threats against US cities and Anthrax.  These twin crises, according to intelligence sources outside of government (such as George Friedman of STRATFOR), served as the final impetus for our leader’s foray into Iraq. (By the way, STRAFOR is a fantastic site for news analysis. I’m adding it to my blogroll).

Peter Berkowitz summarizes the five key areas of agreement emerging from the 8th annual World Summit on Counterterrorism, attended by several hundred practitioners and academics from more than 50 nations. This year’s conference was sponsored by the International Institute for Counterterrorism (ICT) at the Interdisciplinary Center at Herzliya, Israel’s leading private institution of higher education. Berkowtiz noted that Israel’s experience with assessing and fighting a range of threats while balancing liberal and democratic principles.

• CONTINUED VULNERABILITY
• TERRORISTS MASTERY OF MEDIA
• ANTI-TERRORISM NETWORKS UNDERDEVELOPED
• NO MAJOR SOFT POWER (my term) STRATEGY OR INVESTMENT
• THE CHALLENGE OF MAINTAINING POLITICAL WILL TO ADDRESS THESE FACTORS

Berkowitz adds:

These conclusions suggest that terrorism ought to be a topic of intense concern to the world’s sole superpower as it hits the home stretch of a critical presidential election. Yet neither candidate has candidly discussed the threats to the homeland. Nor has the press, preoccupied with defending the nation against a Palin vice presidency, sought to hold the candidates accountable.

Perhaps next year’s World Summit on Counterterrorism could devote a session or two to the need to educate politicians, the press, and the public about the impressive work that is already being done, and the urgent and enormous challenge that remains, in the battle against transnational terrorism.

To my readers who might be offended that I link to a conservative magazine, please agree with me that terrorism prevention is not the owned by any political program or ideology.  Below are these factors spelled out a bit more.

Resentment vs. Condescension Pt 1: Redeeming Conservative Populism?

Resentment vs. Condescension: does this summarize the Culture Wars?  Dr. Pat notices that although economic events may have pushed Palin-mania off the lead:

Sarah’s brief spot in the bright white glare and the bump in the polls that she induced did show that the path to Republican victory largely remains where it has been since the days of Nixon (read Pearlstein’s Nixonland for some insight here): stoking resentments of lower- and middle-class white voters in the heartland against the eggheads in the big cities. Frankly, the eggheads walked clumsily and willingly right into the trap that McCain had set for them by naming Palin, showing that the strategy had legs. Deriding small town losers who believe in God and shoot guns is not the best strategy when you’re trying to win a few counties in western Pennsylvania and southern Ohio. However, it’s clear that other than stoking resentment, the Republican well is empty and the Democratic well is at least half full…