Insights into Israel

In penance for straying another two weeks before posting, I have another post within two short days of another by good sir Nate.

In a request for a guest literature program, I had Ben Feehan write me a blog article. He did so. The topic of this post reflects his writings:

Ruins have always intrigued people. Like the collective gravestone of an entire era, the weathered remains of ancient cities and fortresses have a certain unconquerable mystery about them. Spend any amount of time amount of time around an archeologist and his dig and you will find just how deep this intrigue goes. Not unlike your cliche'd miser or mad scientist, these dedicated souls will go to nearly insane lengths and spend years of their lives reconstructing shattered crockery, collecting the tiny scattered rings that were once armor, or meticulously combing battlefields for a stray button. The non-obsessed shake their heads and ask the inevitable question: why?

I recently had an opportunity to travel to the thoroughly ancient land of Israel. Apart from being interrogated at the airports, getting caught in the cross-fire of a violent street battle perpetrated by seven year old Arabs with be-be guns, and discovering that Israelis drive like scarcely suppressed maniacs, we visited ruins. Lots and lots and lots of ruins. Some were Roman, with your typically romantic, forsaken looking pillar, raising its carved cornice in defiance to the march of time. Others were merely dusty piles of weathered stone in tiny squares, indicating the foundation of a long since vacated house. Still others were impressive tunnel systems or the toppled remains of once towering battlements, the crowning achievements of legendary kings. Yet one thing they all had in common: they were all desolate and all but useless. By about the eleventh such site in half as many days, you seriously begin to doubt the sanity of archeologists and practical historians in general. What on earth made these places so exciting?

A clue to this mystery can be found in a look at the land of Israel itself. All across the country are some of the most important sites of three of the five major world religions. Sites so important that Christians, Jews, and Muslims have, rightfully or not, pulverized each other them for the past centuries since the inception of each their respective religions. I think it can safely be said that if the Balkans are the powder keg of Europe, then Israel, and Jerusalem in particular, is the nuclear warhead of the world. Like many secular peacemakers throughout time, we ask yet again: why? Why does some rock under a golden dome make such a difference or an ancient wall matter so much?

The answer to this question is the answer to all the others, and is apparently yet to be discovered.

-Ben Feehan

"Christianity and the Enviroment"

PBS Interview on "Christianity and the Enviroment," from Right Mind.

Well worth reading.

The Physics of Hollywood

As an (less than) avid physicist-in-training, I have to deal with a lot of formulas. Gravitational constants, friction equations, and the ever popular E=MC². Formulas can be applied to everything that moves (and some things that just revolve.) Recently, I've come to realize more and more that Hollywood has a formula.

More specifically, it uses a formula on us, the buying public. The repeats, remakes, sequels, spinoffs, and plain old copies prove it. How do I prove this to thee? Let me count the ways:

1. The Wild versus Madagascar
Madagascar features an endearing story of a zany group of zoo animals consisting of a lion, giraffe, zebra, and hippopotamus. It all starts when the zebra escapes his spoiled captivity in the New York Central Park Zoo to go to Madagascar. The rest of the group finally finds the runaway and joins him (along four zany penguins in finding freedom in Africa.

The Wild features an endearing story of a zany group of zoo animals consisting of a lion, giraffe, koala, snake, squirrel and other miscellaneous animals. It all starts when the lion goes missing from New York Central Park Zoo and the others band together to find him (along with the help of some zany penguins along the way)

I (obviously) haven't seen The Wild, but it bears a striking resemblance to Madagascar.

2. Finding Nemo versus Shark Tale
Finding Nemo is an epic underwater tale full of love, adventure and a host of wacky characters. Nemo, a young clownfish, is captured and put in a dentist's fish tank. His father (Merlin) sets off on a transatlantic ocean journey to save his son accompanied by the forgetful Dory.

Admittedly, the Shark Tale's story does not mirror Finding Nemo's as closely as my first example, but we have another comedic tale of loss and gain. Oscar, after falsely claming to be a shark slayer, gets into trouble with the shark mafia. With the help of the don's own vegetarian son, he eventually ends up working a car wash.

Although both summaries are (very) abbreviated versions, you get the idea. Two fishy stories by two different companies less than a year apart certainly denotes some amount of repetitive similarity.

3. The Evidence versus CSI, CSI Miami, and CSI New York
Aside from distorting jurors views about what real life investigators can really prove or disprove, the Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) series has turned into a successful television spot. The investigators must solve complex mysteries based on minute pieces of evidence located at the scene of the crime. The Evidence seeks to grab a piece of the pie by doing the same thing with better camera effects.

4. Reality Television
I understand that my perfect three points for speeches, essays, and the like are up, but reality television also has formulas. The Real World series should be sufficient evidence to support this point, but another American Idol spinoff should solidify my claim.


So, it seems that we are fed formulas. Either Hollywood believes Americans to be unable to denote the similarities, or Americans really do crave things almost exactly the same. Whatever the case, popular culture unfortunately seems to be racing as fast as it can towards mediocrity, repetition, and unoriginality in the visual arts.

Immigration Woes

First, and unrelated to the post, I would like to apologize. It has been two weeks past due since my last post. Suffice to say, the Rocky Mountain Classic in Colorado was worth it. I had the time of my life.

Unfortunately, the world at large did not take a hiatus along with me. One of the biggest issues I kept up on while I was away is immigration.

First, there were the rallies. Certainly, the right to peaceably assemble "shall not be infringed," but usually American protests involve Americans. These protests were apparently held by a host of Latin American countries …. at least that is what I can infer from the flags They were purportedly carried because of cultural unity, not a lack of loyalty to this country. I beg to differ.

It is not an issue of loyalty, but an issue of assimilation. My mom has told the story of her great aunt, who was brought home from kindergarten because she could only speak Norwegian. She could not return until she spoke English. Now we have some proposals for "Spanish-only classes."

The next thing to garner my attention was a proposal in New York State. They introduced legislation to allow resident immigrants the ability to vote in local elections if they have resided in the city for a period of six months.

The whole point of citizenship is to disallow people who are not citizens to benefit from the rights without the responsibility. This bill puts forth an interesting notion. Voting with a green card is already recognized as a right. A green card, or United States Permanent Resident Card, is just that, a permanent residence visa with some routes to naturalization.

Voting with a green card makes sense, because obviously the resident went through a legal channel to obtain such a card and intends to stay. The holder of said card has a means of employment and does pay taxes. However, there must be regulation of identification at the polls, else simply allowing resident voters (in the very short time period of six months) seems to bring back ideas of simply collecting buses of people to go vote for a candidate in the polls. This is a bad idea without enforcement. Otherwise, it seems to make sense on its face ... for local elections.

The bill seems to be a spring board for federal elections, something that should not be allowed with a green card. The federal government should continue to be run and elected exclusively by citizens an argument that also makes sense on its face.

Finally, there is the apparent compromise in Congress. Well, this morning it was a compromise. Tonight it has reportedly hit a dead stall. The plan would allow citizenship for about 11 million illegal immigrants. Increased border security and regulation of future immigrants is certainly a good part of the new deal, however simply allowing those presently breaking the law to become lawful is a bad idea.

To quote Josh Dasher (not for the first time), "It's like a criminal game of hide and seek. If you come here, and don't get found by the law, you win! You can stay." This new proposal does not seem to provide a solution. While it certainly claims not to grant amnesty, that is what the new compromise bill would do; it seems unlikely to really solve the problem.

There are greater issues at work than economics; something that should not be forgotten. It's pretty much a given that we need better border security. Without assimilation, regulation, prevention, identification, and repercussion for illegal activities there will only be a partial solution.