The United States of Booze

                        The United States of Booze

                         Published in Marietta Daily Journal Feb. 26, 2017

            The reason my father hated alcohol was that his father and only brother loved it.  One reason I hate it is that so many students I’ve taught loved it also.

            My father didn’t like what alcohol led to when his father and brother consumed it.  I never liked what it led to when high school and college students consumed it.  Memories of the deaths of students killed by alcohol on Saturday nights still plague my mind.  What a waste!  What a senseless thing for a nation to have such an intense love affair with a commodity that kills, maims, and destroys.

The ads tell us to drink in moderation.   There’s one thing for sure: there’s no such thing as moderate death.  Dead is dead.  A lost limb is a lost limb.  

            Alcohol-related statistics don’t seem to bother Americans.  We label alcohol an “adult beverage,” pretending our kids understand that they shouldn’t drink until they are of age.  Ha!

            Yes, we love our alcohol.  Gotta have it after work.  Gotta have it in our hands as we stroll around at parties.  Gotta stock it in our homes because it would offend our guests if they weren’t offered wine. 

            Georgia has had at least two governors who didn’t like alcohol.  At a political gathering over a decade ago I told Governor Joe Frank Harris that I appreciated his stand on drinking.  He replied that the only people who ever brought it up were reporters.

            The governor recounted an exchange with a reporter who asked, “When you’re traveling abroad seeking industry for Georgia, don’t you think you should respect your hosts and drink with them?”  Governor Harris said he replied, “Don’t you think any host I visit should respect me if I choose not to drink?”

            At another event, my wife quietly said to First Lady Mary Perdue, wife of Governor Sonny Perdue, “I appreciate the fact that you don’t serve alcohol.”  The First Lady’s reply was, “We don’t serve it in our permanent home, so we don’t think we should serve it in our temporary home.”

 Most public officials simply don’t hold such convictions.  A close political friend said to me once, “If anyone can’t be moderate about their drinking, that’s their problem.”  True, at least until the immoderate drinker gets on the highway.  Then it’s everybody’s problem, including those who preach moderation.

            But Jesus performed his first miracle by turning water into wine.  Yes, and my Italian sister-in-law was appalled when she came to America and observed what we call “drinking.”  In America she saw drinking and drag racing mixed on a flat stretch of road in front of our house.  She frowned to learn about drunkenness and its resulting carnage.

             In her faltering English she declared, “In Trieste, we no do this.  Wine be like water.”  Perhaps ancient Israel’s wine was more like Italy’s than America’s.  If Antonia were still living, she would be aghast that in 2013 over 290,000 “Amedicans” were severely injured by drunk driving crashes.

America is awash in booze.  We’re now even making it at college.  My wife’s alma mater, Middle Tennessee State University, is one of many colleges that now offer a degree in Fermentation Science.  Wonder how many millions the brewing industry is contributing to the university now. 

Located in Murfreesboro about halfway between Jack Daniels country and Nashville (the Baptist Vatican), MTSU has no problem teaching fermentation to undergraduate students who are too young to sample their fermented products legally in Tennessee.    

Oh, I forgot.  In 2016 the Tennessee legislature passed a law allowing college juniors and seniors under 21 to taste the fermented product they created as part of their coursework. Students can’t swallow, though. 

 Dear Lord!  What a message this sends.  Teach students to make a product that they can’t consume.  Sounds like an admission of alcohol’s danger, to me.  Just what we need.  Less emphasis on mathematics, language, history, and pure science and more on producing liquor.  Smoking is bad, bad.  Producing alcohol at college is good.

            According to a 2014 Center for Disease Control report, just over 88,000 deaths each year are traced to alcohol use.  I suppose that out of 321 million people, that’s a moderate number we can accept.  Moderate drinking, moderate number of deaths.  No problem, except the grieving families who lost a loved one.        

So drink up, America.  Just be moderate.  But watch out for the immoderate ones, especially on Saturday nights.  And pray that your kids and grandkids will do the same.  But expect the typical results, because your moderation is not working.

Roger Hines

February 22, 2017

Religious Liberty without Religious Literacy?

   Religious Liberty without Religious Literacy?

                          Published in Marietta Daily Journal Feb. 19, 2017

            If literacy is a pre-requisite for liberty, westerners everywhere – particularly Christians – should be reminded that 2017 is the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.

            In fact, at the time this column was begun earlier this week, we were 258 days, 5 hours, 20 minutes, and 16 seconds from the anniversary of Martin Luther’s stand at the Diet of Worms on October 31, 1517.

 “I cannot do otherwise. Here I stand,” Luther declared as he stood before an angry council that was prepared to excommunicate him for posting his 95 theses on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg.  Luther’s posting called into question particular beliefs and practices of the Roman Catholic Church.

            For those who dozed during 10^th grade World History or college Western Civilization, the Reformation wasn’t just another event in church history.  Luther’s action shook the European continent and would later affect the very origins of America.  In time it diminished a powerful, religious-social-political institution and grew a vastly different one.

            Without a deep forest of historical detail, suffice it to say that a German monk arrived at a conclusion which he was compelled by conscience to reveal.  From his own reading of Scripture he was persuaded that the Bible alone, not the church, was the guide for doctrine. 

Since the Roman Catholic Church was both the religious and political authority, Luther was treading dangerous ground.  No longer the sect persecuted by emperors for 400 years, Christianity in 1517 was the Way, the Truth, the Life, and the Empire.  From Constantine (337 A.D.) on, most emperors had Christian sympathies.  Long before Luther’s day, the Roman Catholic Church was indeed catholic (pervasive) and also very Roman, that is to say, powerful and authoritative.  It was a state church.

Into this secular-religious milieu came the first protestant, or the first protestant to shake the existing system so profoundly.  Soon thereafter, European kings, who owed their allegiance to the Pope, began to break with Rome, the most notable being Henry VIII of England.  Protestantism, born of protest, was spreading.

And why should modern working people whose days are spent laboring to pay bills know about Martin Luther? Because literacy aids liberty and a better life. Because knowledge of courageous people who turned history around can inspire those who think they are trapped.  Knowing about unlikely heroes can encourage us to be heroic.

No elite, Luther was an unlikely hero or reformer.  Unlike his fellow reformer John Calvin whose view of God matched his dictatorial, iron-fisted rule over Geneva, Luther was an humble scholar.

   Because of Luther’s stand, the Christian world today is made up of Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox believers.  Catholics still have a pope, Orthodox Christians still honor their icons, and Protestants still splinter off as quickly as one can say “church conference.”  But this is freedom and Luther birthed it.

If America isn’t a Christian nation, she is, as Supreme Court Justice William O. Justice observed, “a religious people.”  But according to a 2010 Pew poll, we are religiously ignorant. Particularly is Christian literacy in decline.  Only 46 percent of Americans know that Martin Luther initiated the Reformation.  Roughly 45 percent of Catholics don’t know that their church teaches that the bread and wine in the sacrament of the Eucharist have been transformed into the actual body of Christ.  Interestingly enough, 62 percent of Americans know that Hinduism is India’s majority religion.

Like once-Christian Europe, America has a case of cultural amnesia.  I suspect the growth of “nones” in Europe and America indicates forgetfulness as much as it does intellectual or religious choice.  If “faith cometh by hearing … ,” and children and youth don’t hear, then the chain of history (of cultural, religious memory, actually) is broken.  How shall they know of Martin Luther without a parent, teacher, or preacher to tell them?  Individuals and nations forget.

Happily, the schism brought about by Luther didn’t produce total separation.  Where would the pro-life movement be without Catholics and evangelicals working together?  How much more intense would America’s sexual chaos be without Catholics and evangelicals opposing it?  If two houses agree on traditional values, they agree on what should be valued.  Luther would be pleased with that agreement.    

We all need to know how freedom was born and how tyranny is best fought.  Come October, even Pope Francis will be commemorating the German monk who took a stand and changed the world.  In so doing, the good pope will be advancing religious literacy and religious liberty as well.

Roger Hines

2/15/17

Death by Communication

                                          Death by Communication

                           Published in Marietta Daily Journal Feb. 12, 2017

            Anyone who decries money or says it is evil has never been without it.  The same is true of technology.  Even so, as the old saying goes, “there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.”  With technology, we are just about to reach that point.

            Don’t think you’re about to read a rant against technology and a cry for the good old days when times were bad.  Having grown up without running water, with a single fireplace being the only source of heat, and with a much loved radio being the only connection to the outside world, I consider technology a wondrous thing.

            However, for all its wonders and utility, pervasive technology is producing certain effects that need to be considered.

  Today technological devices are creating pseudo-communication, and pseudo-communication is killing genuine communication.  It’s also affecting families negatively and decreasing the concentration skills of children and teens alike.  Technology has absolutely seduced the field of education.  How many schools are using technology because their little charges are drawn to it, not because of its lasting educational effect?

            Genuine communication is not always verbal, but whatever form it takes, it does require attentiveness.  Attentiveness requires – whether we like it or not, and most of us don’t – some listening, consideration of others, and Heaven forbid, some pause.

            These three requirements are not exactly what technology fosters or inspires.  Instead, technology feeds our immature demand for immediacy.  We want it and we want it yesterday.

            Surely the most reliable and fruitful communication is eyeball to eyeball, but since we can’t always be present with the one with whom we’re communicating, we should be grateful for all the technological advances that at least allow second-hand communication.

            But oh, how we abuse it.  No, strike that.  Oh, how we abuse others (usually those we love most) by misusing our technological devices.

            How often in restaurants do we see Dad and kids frantically thumbing their smart phones, either to chat or play a game while Mom sits amongst them in a separate, lonely world?  And why is it that so often Mom is the odd one?  Moms have smart phones too.  They know about and embrace technology’s wonders.  It may be that Mom desires something else for her family during dinner besides all the “connecting.”

                        Believe it or not, there are signs that our love affair with technology is cooling.  Silicon Valley still has its grip on us, what with music from the cloud, keeping our Do-List on a battery-powered device, and reading online, but according to David Sax, author of “The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter,” humans are beginning to rage against the machine.

            Sax points to these developments: sales of paper notebooks and board games have grown for a decade; Amazon is now opening the very brick-and-mortar stores it set out to displace; nostalgia is setting in among baby boomers who are backing away from technology; and (sit down for this one) millennials are being drawn to the “raw utility” of pre-technology tools such as (don’t get up yet) the notebook.

            Sax’s explanation and conclusion is that while opting for less-modern technology is surprising and might not make sense, more people of all ages are seeing that ”humans aren’t machines but are complex creatures of emotion whose human experience is still a reliable platform from which to solve problems, no matter how many technological platforms we embrace.”

            In December of 2015 the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study showing that electronic toys and excessive screen time have become hindrances to children’s verbal development.  Here and there college professors are banning laptops in their classrooms.  “Students aren’t taking notes, they’re streaming hockey games,” says Stuart Green, professor at Rutgers Law School.

            But wouldn’t you know it!  If this slight retreat from technology produces withdrawal symptoms, just strap the Muse Headband on your head, let it measure your brain-wave activity, and it will provide you with the “calm state” you need.  Is it ocean roar you need?  Chirping birds?  Falling rain?  Then escape your technology by plugging in to “meditative technology.”  (Is this crazy? Is it meditation?)

            In spite of Sax’s findings, I’m afraid human presence, the mother’s milk of all human communication, is eroding.  We are turning from depth to lateral “connection,” from communion to pseudo-communication, from human touch to the tapping of keys.

            I for one want to yell, “Stop it! Talk to somebody!  Do not go gentle into the murkiness of pseudo-communication! Resist it!  Never let a screen or a headphone become your master!”

Roger Hines

2/8/17 

Beware the Talkers

                                                    Beware the Talkers

                    Published in Marietta Daily Journal Feb. 5, 2017

            Talkers are all around us; professional talkers, I mean. It’s wise to consider just how much influence and power they have. 

            Professional talkers have the power to woo and impress the uninformed and unthinking. Spiffy looking and seemingly educated, they can lead low information voters into whatever opinion or perspective they wish.

            And just who are they?  They are America’s television “news” media, the chattering class of “reporters” and commentators who are blending news and opinion so thoroughly that reliable, non-print news is almost non-existent.

For instance, can anyone who watches network or cable television news deny that the majority of the news anchors and commentators are all out to get President Trump’s head?  Were they equally engaged in having President Obama’s head?

            Chuck Todd of NBC, George Stephanopoulos of ABC (a former Bill Clinton operative), Chris Cuomo of CNN (son of former New York Democratic governor Mario Cuomo), and Chris Matthews of MSNBC (former staff member of Democratic Speaker Tip O’Neil) are but a scant few of the many whose bile is poured out daily on the person – not just the policies – of President Trump.

  Their loathing for the President is writ large on their faces.  They view him as an unsavory interloper who is threatening their kingdom and who needs to be told how to do his job.

            However, for the first time in my life we have a president who ain’t gonna take it.  Donald Trump got into the game of politics knowing from prior business experience that he had better beware of the talkers.  His tact (and his nature) has been to give as good as he gets.  Trump has “shuffled America’s ideological deck,” as the Wall Street Journal recently put it, thereby confusing the chattering class.  How do you figure out a guy whose vice-president is a traditional, ideological conservative and whose Secretary of State has shown he knows how to take advantage, legally, of big government for the good of his business?

            President Trump is jerking the media around and they hardly realize it.  They characterize him as moving from one crisis to another while he’s actually distracting them by moving from one action to another, actions which he promised during his race that he would take.  Claiming that Mr. Trump’s presidency is in chaos, it is they who are in chaos.

            The most ironic thing about the situation is that America’s left, for whom the media are heralds, helped create Donald Trump.  How could the left and their heralds not be aware of the populist movements around the world?  How could populism go mainstream without their seeing it?   How could the American media be so out of tune to Europe’s growing opposition to immigration and globalism?

            Populism’s motto is “a pox on both your houses,” and both houses (national parties) are fast catching on.  The media, however, is slow.  Fast talking, but slow to see and understand the rising tide of the working class so ignored by Hillary Clinton.    

The chattering class is still in shock.  They didn’t even know Joe Lunchbox was alive and kicking, much less voting.  It slipped them that “borders” and “America First” are not considered ugly words by the working class, that the upper Midwest was up for grabs, and that the West’s Judeo-Christian ethic is not a relic of the Dark Ages after all.

            Because of the chattering class’ anger, President Trump will have to be and will be on his toes.  He is the target of people who are losing their power.  They will resort to smear. They are being dominated at every turn, however, by a President who is always on offense.  The media has never before had to play defense.

            In a much neglected 1972 case (Branzburg vs. Hayes), the Supreme Court rejected the argument of special privilege for the media.  The brilliant Justice Byron White, writing for the majority, argued that newsmen do not have privileges that other citizens do not enjoy. Enter bloggers, independent (meaning unknown) news organizations, and of course tweeters of which the President is one.  Now we see why media elites are mad.  At press conferences, the President’s press secretary seats little guys and gals along with the mainstream big shots.

            The President is effectively driving a wedge between the talkers and their viewers. Portrayed as the bringer of darkness, he is actually shedding light on who and what the talkers really are: media stars bedazzled by their own self-importance.

Roger Hines

2/1/17