A Perfect World?

Students of history are familiar with Utopians from Rousseau to Marx to Kropotkin. In various ways, they all envision the perfecting of human society, humans individually, and world as we know it. From these noble ideals and desires arise the very opposite - misery, suffering, and injustice. Utopian plans inevitably crash, because their basic assumptions ignore the simply fact that the world and humans, collectively and individually, are neither perfect nor perfectible. A 1992 report from the Excellence in Broadcasting Network describes more recent forms of Utopian thinking:

There is a common bond which spiritually unites these people, which is that attitude of cultural radicalism carried over from the 1960's. Theirs is an anti-American credo, which abhors American political and governmental institutions and this nation's capitalistic economy. Their value system is at war with the Judeo-Christian tradition upon which this country was founded and is centered in secular humanism and moral relativism.

Note the connections with Marx, inasmuch as modern Utopians are "anti-capitalistic", and the connections with Rousseau, inasmuch as they desire to destroy our culture and replace it with their envisioned ideal culture. Observe also the desire to destroy humanism, as we know it in Erasmus and T.S. Elliot, as we see it in Da Vinci and Michelangelo, as we hear it in Bach and Haydn - to be replaced by their idealized "secular humanism," a world view of mechanized determinism which denies that humans can make meaningful or significant choices in life.

Theirs is the me generation, which seeks immediate gratification, presumably because there is no spiritual tomorrow. Their God is not spiritual or personal. Their God is in every fiber of nature and is impersonal. He is just as much a part of the plant and animal kingdom as He is a part of the human soul; thus, their pantheistic devotion to animals and the environment. Their God did not give them dominion over nature and the animal kingdom, positioning them at the top rung on the hierarchy of creation.

If one regards all of nature as God, one is then obliged to view a human being as nothing special. Despite their talk of "human rights," Utopians essentially believe that a human is no more special than a flower or a fish.

As their emphasis is on this world, they cling to the belief that man is morally perfectible and that Utopia on earth is achievable.

In various forms, this drive toward Utopia needs the coercive force of an authoritative government to accomplish its social engineering. These idealists believe that, if only everyone will cooperate with their plans, a perfect society is right around the corner. Yet not everyone will cooperate, and they feel themselves justified in forcing compliance from those unwilling citizens who cling to their personal freedom. Surely, the Utopians think, it is worth it to temporarily remove the rights of a few people in order to create a perfect society for everyone. From this seemingly innocent sentiment, it is but a few short steps to using the guillotine to execute thousands of French women and children, because they didn't seem enthusiastic enough about the latest instructions from the revolutionary government. Thus ever ends Utopian hopes.

Dewey and Your School

The American educational system has been deeply influenced by John Dewey and his followers. Prior to Dewey, teachers had traditionally viewed education as having two major components: "knowing that" (information) and "knowing how to" (skills). Dewey rejected both of these.

Instead, he asserted that the major purposes of education were clustered around the concept of becoming a member of the community. He wrote: "What nutrition and reproduction are to physiological life, education is to social life."

The impact, then, of Dewey's popularity was to de-emphasize a teacher's concern for curriculum ("knowing that" and "knowing how to"), and instead emphasize those aspects of education which are social in nature. The direct result is that American high schools have clubs and sports teams, counselors and student councils, and classes about health and parenting.

It is difficult for us, living in the twenty-first century, to imagine a time when the average American high school had none of these things - so deep is Dewey's influence on our educational institutions.

But how do we evaluate Dewey's contribution? Has it been good or bad? Critics note that since Dewey's time, American students have mastered fewer and fewer of the core concepts of higher mathematics, fewer of the central works of world literature, and fewer foreign languages. In the words of a 1991 report from the Excellence in Broadcast Network, schools are teaching students about condoms and recycling

instead of Aristotle. We're not teaching anything else very well. Our kids get lower scores on math and English tests every year. As a result, kids from backwater European and Asian countries are outperforming our kids left and right in school because we're hung up on teaching feel-good history and worthless social gobbledygook.

That was twenty years ago. In which direction have we gone since then? Have American schools continued to do the jobs of parents and neighborhoods, or have they returned to serious education? During the typical school day, is learning interrupted by forays into counseling, peer relationships, sexuality, relationships, environmentalism, etc.?

Dewey's influence caused the schools to perform the tasks of parents and neighborhoods, which meant first that parents and neighborhoods had nothing to do (the schools having taken over their roles), and second that the schools weren't doing much educating (because they were busy raising children instead of instructing students).

The question for education in the twenty-first century, then, is this: are we moving further into Dewey's influence, or beginning to escape from it?

Sneak Attack!

In the complex web of society, religion, and culture, we are now seeing damaging attacks on the Christian faith. Assaults on organized religions are nothing new in the history of the world, but they take different forms in different epochs.

We are writing not about the obvious attacks taking place in various parts of Asia and Africa in which churches are being firebombed and individual Christians tortured or killed, nor about the verbal offensives by militant atheists who pile insult after insult upon Christians. These types of attacks, while sadly all too numerous, are obvious, and need little comment: the atheists who protest against a Christian organization like the Salvation Army, which simply distributes food and clothing to the poor, offer their own confutation to the thoughtful observer.

The less obvious, and therefore more dangerous, attacks upon Christianity come now from those who have labeled themselves Christians and present themselves as representatives of that faith, for the very purpose of discrediting it. This is reminiscent of the "mole" or "double-agent" from the spy novels of the Cold War era.

Specifically, in recent days, newspaper and TV coverage has featured two groups: Reverend Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church, and the Hutaree Militia. These two organizations share two characteristics: first, neither of them is Christian, and second, both of them claim to be Christian.

By identifying themselves as Christian, and then behaving badly, these two units succeed in doing damage to the public's understanding of what Christianity is. This type of subterfuge can do more damage than the direct physical violence of atheists and Sudanese Muslims.

Enlightened thinking demands a clear definition of what "Christianity" is, and subsequently the ability to distinguish between which groups are Christian and which groups merely claim to be. Although defining Christianity is a complex topic, there is at least a simple beginning to that complexity: the only possible starting point for any proposed definition is the text of the New Testament.

Exactly as Judaism is defined by the Tanakh (and Talmud), and exactly as Islam is defined by the Qur'an (and Hadith), so also Christianity is defined by the New Testament (and Tanakh). Admittedly, there are competing interpretations of the New Testament, and the analysis of some details becomes quite complex.

But this much is clear: anything which directly contradicts the New Testament cannot be textually authentic Christianity.

The "Reverend" Fred Phelps and his "church" (the quotation marks reminding us that he is not a Reverend, and his organization is not a church) proclaim, among other things, that "God hates" certain groups of people. Yet the text of the New Testament is tells us that God never hates any human being, and that He, in fact, loves every human being.

The Hutaree group claims that they are morally obliged by God to attack and kill policemen. Yet the New Testament is a consistently pacifistic document, in which Jesus consistently declines to engage in any form of physical violence, and proclaims that His organization is not one supported by military force, but rather by spiritual concepts.

The imperative for the current day is this: to ignore the self-classification of institutions, and ask rather, what they may really be. Merely because a group labels itself as Christian doesn't mean that it actually is, and a group which does not so identify itself may actually be.

Economics + Environment + Transportation = Railroad

In recent months and years, newspapers and politicians have discussed expanding America's railroad system. From streetcars and trolleys inside cities, to commuter rail lines linking nearby towns, to long-distance service across the nation, trains seem to offer a cornucopia of benefits: short-term job booms as lines and stations are built, long-term job growth in railroad employees and ancillary businesses (selling newspapers and coffee at the train station), lower transportation costs for all sorts of businesses shipping everything from raw materials to finished products, the most efficient use of fuel possible, less environmental impact, de-congestion of freeway and major roads, less wear-and-tear on those roads, and the ability to do business while traveling instead of having both hands and the wheel and eyes on the road.

There is no doubt that improving and expanding our rail system would be an advantage for our country.

An improperly conceived rail system, however, can turn into a economic failure - and consume endless infrastructure dollars without creating the promised conveniences to the business community.

To reap the harvest promised by railroad expansion, we must observe the following principle:

Any economically feasible or sustainable passenger rail system relies upon the physical infrastructure and economic momentum provided by moving large amounts of freight via train.

We must make sure that we focus first on increasing tonnage, which is where the real money is. Every diesel truck rolling on our interstate highways contains freight which could be on a train. Moving some of that cargo to railroads will create the volume business which will pay for further increase in physical infrastructure. Moving that cargo to rail will also save fuel, reduce environmental impact, and keep the roads in better condition. Businesses will want to move more cargo by rail because it will cost them less.

What about jobs? For each hundred tons of freight moved from diesel truck to railroad, the number of trucking jobs lost will be slightly larger than the number of rail jobs created. Won't that create unemployment? No. And here's why:

As we move cargo from truck to train, we can also reduce the amount of money which the federal government uses to subsidize the trucking industry. (Yes, trucking is federally subsidized: the road taxes paid by trucks do not offset the disproportionate wear-and-tear they put on the roads; as less freight moves down the freeways, those interstates will need to be re-surfaced less often.)

Fewer federal subsidies to the trucking industry will lead to fewer tax increases; fewer tax increases leads to more business, creating employment for any former trucking workers who might not get rail jobs.

It is not feasible to maintain and build medium-range or long-range rail lines mainly for passenger travel. Tickets sales won't even begin to cover the costs. Even with strong freight tonnage on the rails, passenger rail is often not profitable, and needs to supported by the cargo revenues or by tax breaks for rail companies.

The bottom line: we need to encourage (via gradual reductions in federal subsidies for the trucking industry) more freight to move by rail; only then can we build the physical infrastructure and maintain the economic momentum to provide good passenger service, and only then can we reap those many benefits which a good rail system offers.

International Evaluations of Obama

A recent article in The Atlantic Times gives a European perspective on President Obama. Reporter Peter H. Koepf writes:

The party is over. Great hopes have turned into serious doubts. Those who welcomed Barack Obama as a messiah a year ago have now been forced to admit that the 44th president of the United States is only human. His lofty visions have become far distant goals. The president, who formulated grand designs in an almost fundamentalist fashion, is operating – when he operates at all – as a pragmatist.

The article is entitled "Rude Awakening" and comes in the wake of comments by France's president Sarkozy, Germany's chancellor Merkel, and England's prime minister Gordon Brown, all of whom have been less than cheerful about Obama's international impact.

If not among the leaders of Europe, Obama had some fans among the media of those countries. But now, even the news reporters aren't very enthusiastic:

Now his fans are deserting their former icon. The “post-polarization candidate” (New York Times) has become a polarizing president. “Renunciation of the Savior” was the headline in Munich’s daily Süddeutsche Zeitung – a reference to falling support for Obama in the US.

It might have been worth enduring the contempt of Europe if it meant achieving good diplomatic relations with countries in other parts of the world: but in the Mid-East, Africa, Asia, and South America, government leaders are equally cool toward Obama.

In Germany, too, those who were most enthusiastic about Obama last year are now voicing the loudest criticism. The president’s former supporters are forced to realize that even with this leader, war – and nuclear weapons – are not about to disappear from the face of the Earth. Nor will the world become a fairer place.

Obama has done a lot of traveling during his first year as president; but these trips have only served to show various nations who he really is: instead of the diplomat creating international harmony, he has revealed himself to be, in some cases, abrasive and uncultured, and in other cases, capable of being unwittingly exploited by local rulers who wish to continue ignoring human rights and directing aggression toward neighboring countries. His diplomatic trips have not had the desired effect: the more other nations understand Obama, the less they are inclined to operate diplomatically with the United States. Obama fared best when other nations knew the image of him created by the American media: that image, because it was very inaccurate, created considerable popularity for Obama. Prior to his election, thousands of Europeans expressed a favorable opinion of him. Now, however, he is not welcome:

Obama’s speech in Oslo may have been the turning point. When the president accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in December, he said: “We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes.” Since then, not even the Germans have loved the American president quite so much.

Can The United States regain its image and diplomatic stature among the European nations? Perhaps. In any case, we cannot blame the current fiasco entirely on Obama: clearly, actions by the current Congress, and words from the current Secretary of State, have also earned international censure. Although Obama's bumbling and dithering haven't helped, he alone is only part of our problem. The cure will be change on a bigger scale than merely the White House.

Tired of Statistics?

For a century or more, writers and speakers have developed the habit of using statistics to support their views. This becomes clear if we compare, for example, a political speech given in 2010 with one given in 1510. This mathematical trend has been popular because it gives the appearance of being scientific and rational.

Reflective listeners and readers, however, have long realized that statistics are subject to manipulation and misinterpretation. One need only recall the primary lesson that correlation does not imply causation, or recall Mark Twain's quip about statistics, to understand why the numerals which adorn political texts need either to be carefully examined, or to be ignored.

We understand that quantitative analysis is important, and should be done, but we border on the absurd when a report is released by the Treasury Department, and it is immediately combed by various political parties, who harvest whatever numbers appear to support their agendas.

Is there an alternative?

Researchers hoping to escape the statistical madness have focused on a method of qualitative analysis. This type of investigation has long been used in situations where a statistical approach isn't possible: it has been used by the United States Air Force in debriefing crewmen after missions, by the FAA after crashes, by physicians in case studies, and by police detectives. When studying a single event or a unique case (N=1), statistical approaches are usually meaningless.

This type of qualitative analysis is now being transferred from situations in which statistical analysis is impossible to situations in which statistical analysis is unhelpful. In certain branches of medicine and economics, for example, quantitative analysis yields results which are ambiguous or misleading. Qualitative analysis, by contrast, can yield more understanding of the situation's dynamics.

So, in some situations, we can avoid statistics and get a better insight of the matter at hand!

Economics in 1967 and in 2010

The past is always instructive to those of us who are dealing with the problems of the present and future. In 1967, the governor of California wrote the following:

For many years now, you and I have been shushed like children and told there are no simple answers to the complex problems which are beyond our comprehension.

Well, the truth is, there are simple answers; they just are not easy ones. The time has come for us to decide whether, collectively, we can afford everything and anything we think of simply because we think of it. The time has come to run a check to see if all the services government provides were in answer to demands or were just goodies dreamed up for our supposed betterment. The time has come to match outgo to income, instead of always doing it the other way around.

In 2010, we will see the U.S. economy continue to struggle, and it will be made worse by the tax increases for every citizen in our country. The current trends in both Congress and the White House will raise the amount of tax paid by every individual in this country, even by the poorest.

What we need now is lower taxes for every American, meaning that the current leaders in Washington will need to stop thinking of new ways to spend money. Any expansion of government programs is a crushing burden to wage-earners who can least afford it.

Want to Read More about Hebrew Literature?

The poetry of the Hebrews has a structure which is both complex and subtle.

Robert Lowth published his Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews in 1787. The book remains in print today. Lowth was educated as a classicist, and explains Hebrew poetry by constant reference to Greek and Latin poetry, thoroughly comparing and contrasting the Classical and Sacred literary forms. He advanced the thesis, never serious doubted since then, that almost all Hebrew poetry is formed in parallelisms, couplets of parallel structure. Lowth was an Anglican Bishop.

George Buchanan Gray wrote The Forms of Hebrew Poetry in 1915. It also remains available in modern reprints. Gray refined Lowth's classifications, and developed ingenious readings of texts which had been previously been seen as corrupt and readable only with major emendations; Gray deduced principles of Semitic poetry which allowed these texts to be sensibly read without emendation. Gray was a Non-Conformist clergyman.

Obama Opposes Release of Terrorist

Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was released from a Scottish prison recently. The move was called "compassionate" by Scottish officials, because he has only a few weeks to live with terminal cancer.

When he landed in Libya, according to newspapers, "thousands were on hand to greet him warmly when his plane from Scotland touched down at a military airport in Tripoli. There was a festive atmosphere with some wearing t-shirts with al-Megrahi's picture. Others waved Libyan and Scottish flags while Libyan songs blared."

In 2001, the terrorist was convicted of the Lockerbie bombing in 1988 which killed 270 people. He has been considered a hero in Libya, which is 97% Islamic.

President Obama released an official statement, saying that the decision to free terminally ill Abdel Baset al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds was a mistake and warned Libya not to give him a hero's welcome. The White House declared it "deeply" regretted the Scottish decision. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Thursday the United States disagreed with the decision to free al-Megrahi.

We continue to believe that Megrahi should serve out his sentence in Scotland," Gibbs said. "On this day, we extend our deepest sympathies to the families who live every day with the loss of their loved ones."

Victory for Free Speech at UCLA

The administration of UCLA upheld a student's free speech rights, and overruled lower-level administrators, regarding a graduation ceremony.

At a ceremony for students receiving graduate degrees in molecular biology (not the mass graduation for four-year degrees), students were permitted to write a brief statement, which they would read when receiving their diplomas. All manner of diverse opinions were allowed, except one: any reference to Christianity was prohibited by the administrators. At least one student, Christina Popa, had wished to make such a reference, and that student, supported by her professors, appealed to the university's upper-level administrators, who pointed out the obvious discrimination in allowing every variant of religious and political views to be expressed, and then singling out one religion and forbidding any mention of it.

Thankfully, a courageous stand by students and professors in the molecular biology department withstood an attempt by administrators to steamroller the first amendment.

Murder at the Holocaust Museum

Within recent days, we have been shocked and horrified by the murders perpetrated at the Holocaust Museum in Washington. What is the profile of this madman, James Von Brunn, who would take human lives in this most serious place?

The killer was apparently filled with hatred toward President George W. Bush; he accused Bush of favoring Jews, and decried Bush's views about the Middle East. He asserted that Bush, not al-Qa'ida, had carried out the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Rejoicing that Bush was finally out of office, he was emboldened by the election results, and finally carried out these shootings.

In his remarks, he specifically stated that he hated "conservatives and neo-conservatives." He noted that many of the leaders of the neo-conservative movement were Jews.

The lesson - people filled with irrational, passionate hatred will eventually take actions: horrifying actions. James von Brunn was clear in his speaking and writing: he had a intense hostility toward George W. Bush and toward the neo-conservative movement in American politics. We now know where such hatred leads.

Student Sues Teacher and Wins

A federal judge ruled in favor of a student in Santa Ana, California. The student alleged that the teacher had violated the first amendment's guarantees of "free exercise" of religion, and freedom of speech.

The teacher, James Corbett, had made comments insulting and denigrating the beliefs of various students in his history class. Corbett told the students that any doubting or skepticism about Darwinism was "superstitious nonsense." Instead of admitting that increasing numbers of professors in the science departments of the world's universities are less inclined to accept the teachings of Darwinism, and asking if there is sufficient evidence for, Corbett rather simply accused the biology, physics, and chemistry department of being unable to "see the truth", and dismissed their questions about evidence as "religious nonsense."

The judge opined that the teacher had favored "anti-religion over religion," violating the right to "free exercise" of Muslims, Jews, Christians, and nearly everyone else. Instead, the teacher's duty is to create "expansive discussion even if a given topic may be offensive to a particular religion."

In short, the teacher's job is to create a free discussion, even about offensive topics; but the teacher may not conduct an anti-religious tirade.

Terrorist Killing in U.S.

Since the attack on the World Trade Center, we have been relatively safe in America; most of the terrorist plots to kill people here were stopped before they could be carried out.

Until June 2 of this year, that is.

The Associated Press reports as follows:

A Muslim convert "with political and religious motives" shot two uniformed soldiers outside an Arkansas military recruiting center Monday, killing one and wounding the other, authorities said.

Police arrested Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, 23, on a nearby interstate shortly after the bloodshed at the Army-Navy Career Center in a shopping center in west Little Rock. Three guns were found in his SUV, they said. Investigators say that he appears to have been "passionate about Islam."

He will be charged with first-degree murder, plus 15 counts of committing a terrorist act, authorities said.

The terrorist struck without warning.

"He saw them standing there and drove up and shot them," he said.

A Different Worldview

We try to understand events which seem strange to us, especially when they are part of a cultural fabric in some other part of the world, because we are trying to understand the underlying idea of life. The specific events are interesting, but more important is the cohesive worldview of which they are all a seamless part:

* Two high-profile cases within the last year in Saudi Arabia speak volumes. In the first, a brother killed his sister, named Fatima, because she had become a Christian. In the second case, a father cut out his daughter's tongue to prevent her from discussing Christianity; finding this insufficient, he then burned her death. In both cases, there was no legal action against the killers, in part, because they were male relatives of the victims, and in part, because they were motivated my anti-Christian hatred. In a final layer of shocking detail, the father in the second killing was a high-ranking official in the Saudi government, whose career in "The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice" was helped, rather than hurt, by the killing. To be sure, these were not the only two cases of Christians being murdered because of their beliefs, but they are two cases that were leaked out to the free press in western countries.

* During President Obama's recent visit to Saudi Arabia, he bowed to the king, something never before done by the leader of a free nation. Normally, when heads of state visit each other, they do so as equals, and therefore they do not bow. During the preceding eight years, when President George W. Bush visited Saudi Arabia, he did not bow to the king; President Bush and the king are personal friends, and the Bush family and the Saudi royal family are friends. Obama's action has been interpreted variously; there is no clear consensus about what he was intending by this violation of protocol.

* President Obama issued an invitation to the leaders of Iran to open diplomatic discussions; the Iranian government has indicated that it is not interested in negotiating about nuclear weapons, or its regional ambitions regarding Iraq.

* Obama also issued an invitation, asking to speak with "moderate" elements of the Taliban. A Taliban spokesman replied, in a press release, that "there are no moderate Taliban."

* The five prisoners who had been the support team for the nineteen terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks have issued a statement in court; delivered by their lawyer, and released by the judge, their statement says that they are dedicated to "kill all infidels, including Christians, Jews, and atheists;" that they consider themselves "terrorists to the bone;" and that the 9/11 attacks are "a badge of honor in our religion." Although we can dismiss these five men as merely extremists, and not representative of a larger group, we must remember that they are still celebrated in posters, T-shirts, and bumper stickers in Arab world; we must remember the spontaneous celebrations in the streets of the Middle East on 9/11. This is indicative of something larger.

Poetry Captures Reality

One of poetry's several merits is its ability to crystallize a truth in a single group of words. In response to a horrifying tragedy, Haley Patail wrote about a murderer, "When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail," encapsulating an insight into the criminal mind.

Writing about the deceased victim and a funeral, she wrote, "I would go and give words to the dust-heavy air if it would change something, I would pretend that I know how to kneel in pews if it would make me feel right about this." The poet has recognized two spiritual truths here: that our songs and prayers do not change the fact that our loved ones have gone into the next life, that we bitterly grieve because we miss them; funerals are for the living, not for the dead - to remind the living about God and the afterlife - a reminder which will neither bring the deceased back into this life, nor ease our mourning, but a reminder which centers and stabilizes us by placing the events into a global, objective, and neutral frame of reference. By stating that our spiritual meditations neither "change something" nor make us "feel right about this," the poet has communicated these two truths in an efficient economy of words.

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once made a comment to the effect that, if one wants to investigate eternal truths, poetry can often do a better job than philosophy.

Sometimes, Bigger is Better

Robert Kennedy was a major figure in the politics of the 1960's. His speeches and actions, as Attorney General of the United States, and later as a candidate in the primary elections, have been much studied and discussed.

One of nine children, Robert Kennedy was the father of eleven. He was tremendously popular in the press, in part because of this family image. Many of his eight brothers and sisters have earned their own fame in American politics, as have his children, and his numerous nieces and nephews.

The popularity of the Kennedy family stands as a paradox, given the hatred directed toward large families by much of the current media culture. Forty years after the emergence of the Kennedy political profile, the family remains influential in partisan government, but American culture has abandoned its respect for having children.

Statisticians, however, are not surprised by the success of the Kennedy clan. It has been shown that there is a strong correlation between large families and various indicators of success: the more children born to a married couple, the more likely those children are to earn good grades in school, do well on standardized tests, and to not commit crimes; further, those children will do better at the university, and are more likely to rise to positions of leadership in their communities and careers.

These are averages, of course. Exceptions do exist. But the general trend is undeniable, and not too surprising: to manage a large family, parents will need to be intelligent and organized, and the children will likely have these traits also.

Contrary to stereotypes in the electronic media, higher education levels among the parents also lead to larger families: married couples with college educations will likely have more children than those with less education.

Ever since Thomas Malthus wrote about population, it has been clear that sustainable, renewable, and environmentally responsible resources on planet earth can support world populations many times larger than the current six or seven billion. Overpopulation, which was considered a threat in the 1960's and 1970's, is not a danger.

Which leads us to a mystery: why, then, is there such antipathy toward families who have more than two or three children? This is a field for research. Although sociologists have advanced a number of theories, there is no clear cause for this irrational hatred - or, perhaps there is a clear cause, but nobody has yet discovered it.

Is Obama Black, or Simply African-American?

America's obsession with racial politics is fanned daily by the press. An unending stream of articles continues to examine Obama's status from the perspective of his skin color.

A recent variation on this theme is to examine the quality of Obama's "blackness": in Detroit, a survey received responses like: "He is not black enough" or "That is what you get, when you have a mixed child raised by a white mother."

These responses point to a painful and divisive topic within American society: at the intersection of race and culture, the situation of mixed-race children is highlighted to an uncomfortable degree.

Obama, like Alicia Keyes and Halle Berry, is the result of a brief marriage between a Black man and white mother; after the marriage disolved, he was raised by his mother. Young Barack did not grow up in the "hood" of Harlem, Watts, or Detroit. He grew up in a middle-class, college-educated, white extended family. He may be African-American, but Detroiters are wondering if he's Black.

And not only Detroiters. Black Entertainment Television's Jeff Johnson notes that there's a difference between "Obama the president" and "Obama the personality," saying, "he's my president, and not my homie."

Obama's life has hardly been that of a "homie": a private prep school in Hawaii from fifth grade until his senior year in high school; before that, a paradoxical mix of private Roman-Catholic elementary schools and a Madrasah in Indonesia. His life experience places him far outside the mainstream of African-Americans. He spent no significant amount of time in the continental United States until after graduating from high school; after that, he was at Columbia University and Harvard Law School.

Obama's mother is from Kansas, and studied Anthropology and Russian at the University of Hawaii and the University of Washington. Obama's father was separated from his mother long before the couple's actual divorce, and so young Barack had no formative influence from his African father as a child.

Americans continue to try to understand their new president: is he Black? is he African-American? is he Hawaiian-Kenyan-Indonesian?

How does he view the African-American culture, if he grew up in an white extended family, away from the major Black urban centers? How does he understand American society, if he grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia?

Race Numbers

No, this isn't about NASCAR. The numbers mentioned are statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, reflecting the population of the Ann Arbor area:

74.68% White
8.83% Black or African American
0.29% Native American
11.9% Asian
0.04% Pacific Islander
1.21% from other races
3.05% from two or more races

These numbers are based on the census from the year 2000, revised according to subsequent surveys and calculations.

Various Forms of Slavery

As Americans, we read the word "slavery" through the lens of our own experience - and very harsh experience it is. Slavery as practiced in Western hemisphere until 1863 was one of the most brutal forms of this social institution.

When we read ancient texts, it is important to remember that translators are often perplexed when deciding to render a given vocabulary word into English as "slave" or "servant" - the difference to our eyes being great, but in earlier eras of history, a much more subtle distinction.

In some ancient cultures (notably Rome), these people were given authority within households and businesses; they were educated, wrote books, and made important decisions.

In certain phases of Egyptian and Babylonian history, slavery was more cruel, and slaves were treated like working animals. Moses took a great step forward when he limited slavery to seven years. Prior to that, slavery was lifelong, and, in a majority of cases, it would continue to be lifelong in all societies except the Hebrews.

So read carefully when you see words like "slave" or "servant" and realize that a variety of circumstances can hide behind these terms.

Alphabetizing!

When small children learn their ABC's, they don't realize that they are paying homage to a major turning-point in the history of civilization.

The alphabet represents progress, because earlier writing forms (hieroglyphs, cuneiform) took longer to learn, longer to write, and longer to read. Before the alphabet, very few people could read or write, because it took so long to learn how to read and write; and very little reading and writing was done, because it took so long. After the invention of the alphabet, more people could read and write, and more information was recorded in writing. The alphabet is a Semitic invention.

The term "Semitic", we remember, includes a range of groups including Arabs, Hebrews, Egyptians, Babylonians, Syrians, and Ethiopians, to name a few.

Not Semitic are Persians, Hindus, Hittites, and the European language families.

So the rise of the alphabet highlights the importance of Semitic cultures in the ancient world.