Author: bill

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Are Christian men too wimpy?

Dilbert Cartoon 2007-03-19


Link to Comic for 19 Mar 2007

Dr. Helen had a post a couple of days ago called, “Are Christian men too wimpy?” In that post she commented on how 300 Tennessee men had a meeting to discuss the difference between being “nice” (which is not good) and being “good” (which is). Later on she commented that the men had issues with pornography.

Wild at Heart book
As a Christian man I am not surprised to hear that men have gathered to discuss these issues. Although these issues are new to Dr. Helen they are not new issues for Christian men. It is a known fact that attendance at churches is much lower for males than for females and several authors have speculated on the reasons. One of my favorite authors, John Eldredge, has written several books exploring the heart of a man and how each man gets his personal identity. Too often men subconsciously submit to the cookie cutter approach to male identity. They go through life acting like “Christian men”. In hindsight it is pretty funny what men have done to conform. There is a diffused smell of wimpiness around the cookie cutter approach to living. It is no surprise that men find little satisfaction when they impress their friends at parties with all of their stuff. Yet for all of their accomplishments they still feel empty inside. For a few men this emptiness manifests in an addiction to pornography. Instead of living out their dreams or finding a true purpose for their lives, they realize that they have been working on “other” things. Their priorities have led them astray.

The grand challenge has always been to feel alive and whole. The Dilbert cartoon pokes fun at the identity we get from others. Understanding and embracing your personal identity is not a simple task but it is key to unlocking a passion for living. When you finally succeed at unlocking the desires in your heart, your life is filled with a passion for your friends, your family, and your dreams that exceeds your imagination. It is a different life. It is a complete life. It is a life worth living.

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Shave a Yak, Save a Planet:Choosing a Climate Change Policy

Anthropocentric climate change is a problem. The question is, what kind of problem is it? Many people claim that it is an environmental problem. Some claim that it is a technological, scientific, or even moral problem. Others vigorously contend that is it not a “problem” at all. I believe that, first and foremost, anthropocentric climate change is a political problem. And political problems require that we choose a solution from a range of political options. Although it may not exhaust the range of possibilities, I believe that the basic listing of positions and options on climate change can be derived from combination of three categories:

Category A
1. The earth’s climate is being significantly affected by human activities.
2. The earth’s climate is not being significantly affected by human activities.
Category B
1. The long-term effects will be catastrophic.
2. The long-term effects will not be significant.
Category C
1. There is nothing we (can/need to) do about it.
2. We can avert disaster if we act now.
3. We may be able to avert disaster if we act at a future time.

These options can be arranged in twelve possible permutations (1,1,1 | 1,1,2 | 1,1,3 | 1,2,1 | 1,2,2 | 1,2,3 | 2, 1, 1 | 2, 1, 2 | 2, 1, 3 | 2, 2, 1 | 2, 2, 2 | 2, 2, 3). Seven are based on absurd combinations (1, 2, 2| 1, 2, 3 | 2, 1, 1| 2, 1, 2| 2, 1, 3| 2, 2, 2| 2, 2, 3) and can be ignored. The remaining five options can be labeled as: 1,1,1 ”“ The Hopeless Pessimist 1,1,2 ”“ The Act-Now Optimist 1,1,3 ”“ The Act-Later Optimist 1,2,1 ”“ The Do-Nothing Optimist 2,2,1 ”“ The Skeptical Optimist Of the remaining five only one combination using A-2 remains ”“ 2,2,1, The Skeptical Optimist. There are at least two problems that the optimistic skeptic faces. The first is that if she is wrong, we will either be worse off than if we chose any other option or no better off than if we had been a Hopeless Pessimist or an Act-Later Optimist. The second problem is that this option is currently not politically viable.

For better or worse, a critical mass of scientists, politicians, and other policy makers have already rejected this option. Although it may be a valid personal position to hold””perhaps even the correct position””as a policy opinion, it is currently a loser. In time, as new evidence is presented, this may change. But if we have to make a rational policy choice, the optimum strategy is to concede the claims for global warming and choose from the remaining options.

Much the same could be said about the positions of the Hopeless Pessimist (too pessimistic) and the Do-Nothing Optimist (too panglossian). That leaves us with only two politically viable options: either we enact policies to combat anthropogenic climate change today or we wait for some future date when we will have either a technological solution or the political will to enact effective policies.

The problem with acting now is that even if we could agree on what action would be most effective, we couldn’t force the international community to commit to such action. No matter what policies we adopt in the U.S., if China and India refuse to make the same changes the effect will be minimal. Since they refuse to make sacrifices today for a potential benefit that may not accrue for another century, anything we do is moot.

By default, we are left with the Act-Later option. The hope is that we will either have found a technological solution to anthropocentric climate change or we will have acquired the political will to act decisively. The danger, of course, is that we will have waited until it’s too late. But delaying taking direct action on global warming does not mean that we cannot take action at all.

In fact, I would argue that the most pragmatic approach is to adopt a “yak shaving” strategy. Yak shaving is a term that originated in an episode of the cartoon Ren & Stimpy and was later adopted by the MIT AI Lab to describe any “seemingly pointless activity which is actually necessary to solve a problem which solves a problem which, several levels of recursion later, solves the real problem you’re working on.” In other words, by taking actions that may solve a smaller problem you may inadvertently solve or alleviate the larger problem that had originally needed a solution.

Consider, for example, the claim that global warming will lead to an increase in the frequency and severity of hurricanes. If true we are likely to face future disasters on the scale of Hurricane Katrina. But while we may not be able to solve the global warming problem, we could work on a problem that made Katrina especially deadly: poverty.

Because they were unable to evacuate the city, Katrina had a disproportionate impact on the poverty-stricken residents of New Orleans. Many people died needlessly because they lacked the financial means to escape the area. Alleviating poverty would not have prevented the hurricane from hitting Louisiana, but it could have lessened the impact and the loss of life. Similarly, reducing poverty will not prevent global warming from increasing the number or severity of future hurricanes. It would, however, make it considerably easier to live with such natural disasters.

Convincing people to take such an indirect approach to the problem will not be easy. You can’t get the idea across in an Oscar-winning documentary and it’s not likely to appeal to people who prefer to take action by holding “consciousness raising” benefit concerts. What it will do, though, is allow us to focus our attention and resources on solvable problems. Because attention and resources are always limited, we should, out of common sense and moral necessity, focus on those problems that have a chance of being solved. That means that a currently insolvable “problem” like climate change should be at the bottom of the list.

Rather than attempt to argue this point, I’ll leave you with this video by statistician and political scientist Bjorn Lomborg which explains why prioritizing problems like climate change isn’t as important prioritizing solutions:

[Note: While the video is lengthy (17 minutes) it is quite engaging and well worth the time it takes to watch it in its entirety.]
(HT: Acton Institute PowerBlog)

Link to Shave a Yak, Save a Planet:Choosing a Climate Change Policy

I found this post interesting. I disagree with the choices in Category A. My personal view is that the climate is probably being affected by human activity but its effect is probably not very significant when compared to the other major natural events. Despite my quibble with his choices I think that still puts me in the Skeptical Optimist group. I read Bjorn’s analysis a couple of years ago and still agree with it. The video did a good job of explaining his rationale.

I think the “Do Nothing” strategy of Category C ignores the impact of cost savings from being “green”. Several years ago I started replacing incandescent light bulbs with lower power, longer life fluorescent bulbs. Recently I have been toying with the idea of a major solar panel installation on our arena roof. My gut says that this project would pay for itself by significantly reducing our electric bill.

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iJoyRide: Get Off Your Horse and Drink Your Lo-Cal

I-RIDE1.jpg

Trot ON, Hortensia! This is the iJoyRide, a fitness machine that thinks it’s a horse. It’s got four speeds (Warm Up, Taking It Easy, Getting Serious and Pump It Up) and 30 minutes on it will burn the same amount of calories as a 30-min run or bike ride. Wannabe mustang riders could probably play Pimp My iJoyRide and turn it into a rodeo bulls to practice on. It’s yours for $770 and all the embarrassment in the world. ”“ Ad Dugdale

Product Page [iJoyRide via Daily Mail]

Link to iJoyRide: Get Off Your Horse and Drink Your Lo-Cal

Another fitness toy soon to fill the aisles of Goodwill. Nothing beats the the real thing.

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Walter Reed Highlights Need for Universal Healthcare

(2007-03-05) ”” Democrat presidential contender Sen. Hillary Clinton today decried the allegedly poor conditions, stifling bureaucracy and negligent care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and throughout the VA healthcare system, but added, “Just think how bad it would be if it weren’t a government run system.”

As military patients and their spouses testified before a Senate panel about vermin-infested, moldy rooms, neglect and miles of red tape, Sen. Clinton told reporters, “This crisis serves only to highlight our desperate need for a tax-funded, government-managed universal healthcare system for all Americans.”

“When I’m president,” she said, “I’ll give the average American the same excellent quality of care we now provide for our nation’s heroes…but without the rats, mold and bureaucracy. I’ll sign legislation outlawing that kind of inefficiency, mismanagement and public employee apathy.”

Link to Walter Reed Highlights Need for Universal Healthcare

It was a natural pick for Scrappleface to link Universal Healthcare to the VA healthcare system and lampoon them. It is a funny piece but I still maintain a modestly good approval of the military healthcare system. My father is retired military and one of his retiree benefits is military healthcare. Both of my parents are over seventy years old and use the military system frequently. They have their complaints. Appointments with specialists can be difficult to get for the retirees. Sometimes the appointments get outsourced to the private sector. There is a symbiotic relationship between military healthcare and the private sector. The military is more than willing to pay for the education of a doctor if they can get a few years of service. I am not sure how this system is supposed to work if we have a dominant Universal healthcare system and a diminished private sector. The lure of the good life has been the hope of many a person to endure the hardships of becoming a doctor. I believe Universal Healthcare will have the same doctor issues as military healthcare. Without special enticements to doctors it is likely that Universal Healthcare will reduce the supply of doctors to the military healthcare system, the Universal healthcare system, and the private sector.

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Volunteer Group Lags in Replacing Gulf Houses – New York Times

But almost 18 months after storms destroyed more than 250,000 homes, Habitat for Humanity says it has built just 10 houses for poor hurricane victims here, 36 in New Orleans, and a total of 416 along the entire coast, from Alabama to Texas. More are under construction, for a total of 702.

That slower pace reflects, in part, the more complex houses that Habitat builds in the United States, as well as the mind-numbing issues ”” involving insurance costs and government regulations ”” that seem to have bogged down efforts to rebuild after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

But Habitat International is starting to face criticism that its procedures are slow, rigid and perhaps unsuited to helping disaster victims, however rewarding its efforts are for its volunteers. The organization is working through its independent local affiliates, which function like franchises and which have tended to build a dozen houses a year each.

Source: Volunteer Group Lags in Replacing Gulf Houses – New York Times

I am not surprised that the house building process has been slow. Having lived on the Gulf coast for eighteen years I am fully aware how government priorities change after a hurricane redesigns the neighborhood and the insurance companies update their risk profile. The first casualty is always the flood plain map. This directly affects where new homes can be built and who can get insurance.

Last year I helped build the walls for a Katrina house on the mall in Washington, DC. While I was there I asked some of the simple questions that bog down all Habitat building projects.

  1. Do you have the land and is it out of the revised flood plain?
  2. Can you get insurance?
  3. How are you qualifying the families?
  4. Does this house plan meet the family needs?

The people I talked to acknowledged that these problems and others were going to take some time to solve. The governments and insurance companies have to force the home building onto higher, safer ground. The new house locations are probably far away from work and relatives. This makes transportation a big problem. Since Habitat is building just a few house designs, it is likely that there are a number of families who need bigger houses or houses for special needs. The Habitat folks were hopeful that these problems would diminish over time. They felt that they were getting a lot of cooperation from local businesses and governments but I am sure they hoped to have a lot more houses completed by now.

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Movie Reviews: Departed and Infamous


Departed DVD

This last weekend I was suffering with some flu like symptoms so we took the opportunity to catch up on some current movies, Departed and Infamous. My preconceptions about both movies kept me from being excited about seeing either movie. Departed looked like just another violent, gangster movie with a wonderful cast. Infamous looked like a sequel.

The first movie we saw was Departed and I was pleasantly surprised. It was well written with an intricate plot and fascinating characters. I always find that good movies have at least one character who steals your attention whenever they get on screen. This movie had several characters who grabbed your attention whenever they appeared. I won’t go into the details of the movie but the story had plenty of unexpected twists and it did not end up the way I thought it would. This is a film worthy of an Oscar.

Infamous DVD

Infamous is a movie I was real reluctant to watch. I thought the first Capote movie was good but it was not a movie I had a desire to watch a second time. My expectations were pretty low for this movie. Boy, did this movie surprise me!

Like the movie Departed, this movie was loaded with fascinating caricatures and a well-written script. The biggest and brightest caricature is Capote. Although Capote is more overtly homosexual in this movie than in the previous Capote movie, I think his homosexuality helps make the Capote character more interesting and engaging. One of the great scenes is when this flamboyant gay tries to interview people on the street in this stark, conservative Kansas town about a murder they do not want to talk about. It looks like Capote is doomed to failure. Yet despite the town’s aversion to Capote’s homosexuality, Capote was very adept at finding ways to make people comfortable with talking to him. The little vignettes showing how how Capote won the confidence of the people in the town are truly fascinating and helps explain how he was subsequently able to gain the confidence of the killers. Although the In Cold Blood plot was well trodden by others, the writing and caricatures in Infamous makes this movie different and maybe more entertaining. It’s a good movie.