Saved from the memory hole

The Congresscritters in the District of Columbia are professional spinmeisters, every last one of 'em, but here's something you don't hear every day in "debates" about economic policy such as those resurfacing now that Bush-era tax cuts are set to expire. I pulled it from comments by a reader named Jim at the Ace of Spades blog. Jim's insight was flagged by Laura W., and no wonder:

"I think NOW would be a good time to remind people that the ONLY reason those tax cuts are sunsetting is because Democrats filibustered making them permanent in the first place.

Republicans had to pass the tax cuts through reconciliation as a budget measure which means that they had to sunset per the rules of reconciliation because Democrats refused to even make them IN THE FIRST PLACE.

So yeah, let's TALK about the sunsetting of those tax cuts. I, for one, WELCOME the discussion."

While we're pondering economic issues, let's not forget some lessons that pundit Chris Matthews refused to learn or the bogus job numbers that the White House insists on attributing to stimulus spending. It might also help to remember the moral distinction between simple negligence and outright sabotage.

UPDATE: Nice Deb has a roundup of news about the new Chevy Volt, which fits here because it doesn't make a lot of economic sense.

Book Review: The Loser Letters

I should have known that Mary Eberstadt was capable of the high-wire act that she performs throughout The Loser Letters. Other essayists sometimes defend traditional views enthusiastically (here, for example, is Robert Stacy McCain writing well about monogamy and survival), but Eberstadt has five-octave range. Could a woman who dialed up “scholarly simmer” for the thankless task of alerting the rest of us to “The Weight of Smut” also be convincing in the persona of a recent college graduate?

The answer is yes. Not just yes, mind you, but “Hell, yes!”

In ten slyly satirical letters, “A former Christian” (25, single, educated, perky) takes advantage of free time in what she thinks is a drug rehabilitation program to write letters to prominent atheists. The book-length result is what you might get if you crossed C.S. Lewis with P.J. O’Rourke (the old “Ghostbusters” advice about not crossing separate energy streams comes to mind, but Eberstadt wears her influences lightly, else there would have been no coherent way to describe God as a capital-L “loser”).

At 140 pages and change, The Loser Letters is a supplemental kind of book in the sense that it is not The Handbook of Christian Apologetics, or the locomotive with which Edward Feser flattened postmodern atheism in The Last Superstition. Unlike the authors of those comprehensive and serious books, Eberstadt pays special attention to atheism’s disdain for family life, and parts of three letters on that subject are particularly affecting.

Ignatius Press was smart to buy ads for this “comic tale of life, death, and atheism” on some high-profile web sites (I received a review copy of the book from The Catholic Company after having seen a blurb for it at First Things).

Mindful of the saying that “against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand,” Eberstadt serves up a wickedly funny yet thought-provoking little opus, even managing to work a simple plot into her “friendly advice” for atheists.

Importantly, Eberstadt is at home in formal English, but also understands the preferred lingo of atheism and the patois of “the young and the restless.” This being a satire, the atheists in it are “Brights” (not a term that she made up), and the believers, especially Christians, are “Dulls.” Labeling like that could have been fey or clumsy in less skillful hands, but she makes it work.

The Loser Letters is a shining example of what Sarah Palin might call “refudiation,” and like that fortuitous coinage, it has more wit than you might at first suspect. Don’t let the (mostly) cheery tone or the careful use of abbreviations like “BFF” fool you. By the time Eberstadt in an afterword thanks friends of her children for giving her a window into teenage “cadences, energy, drama, and Facebook pages,” any sentient reader will have long since realized that she is smart and observant.

The paperback edition of The Loser Letters retails for about ten dollars. On the “three-dollar cappuccino” scale of value, it would be a bargain at twice the price.

The bumper sticker vexes

If you've driven in California, you've probably seen it, but I've also seen it even here in North Carolina. Kurt Schlicter explains the problem with "Coexist" in an essay pithily titled "You first."

Sweet spot

I just like her (update: meaning actress Sandra Bullock, who eventually asked to be edited out of the original ad until questions about its funding were resolved to her satisfaction) that's why. Fortunately, things are looking up.

A grand homeschooling carnival

We don't talk much about about homeschooling here on the Paragraph Farm, but we're firm fans of the concept, and the Common Room is hosting a nifty carnival about the history of homeschooling in America.

Judith in Manga: A book review

The Atiqtuq publishing company sent us a review copy of Judith: Captive to Conqueror (vol. 1), with art by Sean Lam and story by Gabrielle Gniewek. I asked Thomas what he thought of this manga-style successor to what Atiqtuq had started doing with the life of Saint Paul:

"Did you like the book?"

"It was great! More violent than the Paul book."

"Is there anything in it that you didn't like or would have changed if you could?"

"Well, in some scenes, there were labels that didn't need to be there. Like whan someone is drawing a sword out of a scabbard and it said 'grab' next to the hand. Duh! What else would that be?"

"Did you learn anything from the book?"

"Yes. I guess so."

"I was impressed with the way the writer worked character development into the bible story, myself. I thought Achior, leader of the Ammonites, looked like a teenager, but at one point in the story, the other characters say he has a baby face, so Sean Lam did a good job of covering his bases."

"The drawings are cool."

Summer fun

Durham (NC) Bulls, 5; Syracuse (NY) Sky Chiefs, 1 -- and of course we had slushies and ballpark nachos!

Behind the Second Amendment, and more

Marcus Cole: "I owe a special debt to four black men, and one gun." Thanks to Kathy Shaidle for the find.

Cole's trip down memory lane makes a nice chaser for this thought-provoking essay by Senator James Webb (D-VA) about the dangers of thinking in terms of monolithic "white" culture, the peril of misreading Southern history, and the damage done by affirmative action that differs significantly from Lyndon Johnson's initial policies in that regard. I don't trust Webb, but it's a good piece.

I also like this long essay by Angelo M. Codevilla, which made waves and is chock-full of insights like "Nowadays, the members of our ruling class admit that they do not read the laws. They don't have to. Because modern laws are primarily grants of discretion, all anybody has to know about them is whom they empower." Codevilla also notes that "a doctor, a building contractor, a janitor, or a schoolteacher counts in today's America insofar as he is part of the hierarchy of a sector organization affiliated with the ruling class. Less and less do such persons count as voters."

Apart from the essays cited here, James Taranto has the week's most entertaining roundup of news and commentary.

Red Rabbit: A review in haiku

Three hundred pages to explain the rabbit
Another hundred to see rabbit run
But this is not Updike

Back to the Cold War
with bows for Walesa and Wojtyla
Tom Clancy had fun

Would he-man not know
what symphony conductors do?
That sounds Neanderthal

The Jack Ryan background
Mentioned many times
Ex-marine, they keep saying

Honey-blonde hair
Mary Pat in Moscow
a peacock among crows

Stupid Commie overreach
Strong on detail
Andropov was dangerous

Forecasting on faith

Big thanks to the Anchoress for inviting me to contribute a few thoughts to that "Future of Catholicism" symposium being hosted over at Patheos. I'm optimistic about the future, and tried to say why in 250 well-chosen words (nice technical exercise, that).

Among the marquee names in the original lineup of contributors, I particularly liked what Hugh Hewitt had to say, although he took longer to say it.

UPDATE: See also "To Infinity and Beyond," which, among other things, puts church history in perspective.

Some perspective on Hawaiian history

"The story of Hawai'i is not a story of good versus evil. Nearly everyone shares in the blame for what happened to the Hawaiian people and their culture. Westerners certainly saw Hawai'i as a potential bonanza and easily exploitable. They knew what buttons to push and pushed them well. But the Hawaiians, for their part, were in a state of flux. The mere presence of westerners seemed to bring to the surface a discontent, or at least a weakness, within their system that had been lingering just below the surface.

In fact, in 1794, a mere 16 years after first encountering westerners and under no military duress from the West, Kamehameha the Great volunteered to cede his island over to Great Britain. He was hungry for western arms so he could defeat his neighbor-island opponents. He even declared that as of that day, they were no longer people of Hawai'i but rather people of Britain. (Britain declined the offer.) And in 1819, immediately after the death of the strong-willed Kamehameha, the Hawaiians, of their own accord, overthrew their own religion, dumped the kapu system and denied their gods. This was before any western missionaries ever came to Hawai'i."

-- Andrew Doughty, Oahu Revealed (3rd edition)