A Monument to the Union Victory

A good friend of mine asks on Facebook:

Why aren’t there Union victory monuments or monuments to abolitionists?

This question reminded me of the monuments at Gettysburg, where I was struck by the contrast between the monuments erected by the Union and Confederate states. In general the Confederate monuments were larger and more warlike, the sort of thing you’d expect from the victors. The victors, on the other hand, generally erected more sober monuments naming the soldiers who had died and expressing sadness at the war’s terrible toll.

Then I remembered a monument at the US Capitol. It might not even be a monument, it is so understated, on a par with the Vietnam memorial. Only its placement tells you how important it is:

Placement of the Memorial

[[usgrant00.jpg]]

I remember wandering near the statue of the horseman years ago and being moved by its majesty and sense of tragedy. US Grant, perhaps our greatest general, is sitting on top of his horse, but the horse is not rearing up for battle and the man atop is not saluting his triumph.

Closeup of the Memorial

[[usgrant01.jpg]]

Now, years later, having listened to American Ulysses, Ron White’s biography of Grant, I think of him as a truly great leader and human being. His life was so rich and complex that I won’t try to explain what makes him great. It’s clear from this simple monument that our country felt the same as I do.

You say “Naomi”, I say “Naomi”…

From Bloomberg Business Week Facebook Sees WhatsApp As Its Future, Antitrust Suit or Not

Will Cathcart, the head of WhatsApp

[Will Cathcart, the head of WhatsApp] likes
to tell a slightly embarrassing story to
illustrate how deeply private digital
messaging has penetrated people’s lives.
After the birth of his first daughter,
Naomi, he discovered that he and his wife
disagreed on how to pronounce her name,
which they’d agreed on months earlier. Even
today, he calls her “NAY-omi”; his wife,
“NY-omi.” “It took us a good month to figure
out how we’d made that mistake,” he recalls.
“And the realization was, every conversation
about what to call her had been typed.”

Shawn Hartsock has a similar story

My wife and I named a cat “meme”. She still pronounces it “mee-mee” while I call her “meem”… none of those conversations were spoken it turns out.

link

Self-Ignorance

Impossible Friendships (poem)

• By Adam Zagajewski
• Translated by Clare Cavanagh
• Found in NY Times Magazine

For example, with someone who no longer is,
who exists only in yellowed letters.

Or long walks beside a stream,
whose depths hold hidden

porcelain cups — and the talks about philosophy
with a timid student or the postman.

A passer-by with proud eyes
whom you’ll never know.

Friendship with this world, ever more perfect
(if not for the salty smell of blood).

The old man sipping coffee
in St.-Lazare, who reminds you of someone.

Faces flashing by
in local trains —

the happy faces of travelers headed perhaps
for a splendid ball, or a beheading.

And friendship with yourself
— since after all you don’t know who you are.

Notes

I don’t believe we humans have any special form of self-knowledge or introspection. That’s why I like this poem, especially its last, somewhat awkward line.

Think about the reflection in a person’s eyes

I found this image on Facebook but I couldn’t find its source.

The photo is interesting for several reasons.

Notice the reflections in Helen Mirren’s eyes

At first I thought that the photographer had somehow found a scene to reflect in her eyes. Then I noticed that the reflections are themselves reflected horizontally, with the pointed ends of the oblong reflections pointing towards each other. The reflections should have the same orientation, but they do not.

The photo is also interesting because of who it is and the unusually bleak way she is shown.

At first I thought, “No makeup”, but that’s not strictly true upon reflection.

If I have time, I should try to give someone eyes like these.

Abraham Piper, Exvangelical

Today’s NY Times had an article on Abraham Piper entitled Pastor’s Son Left Faith, Becoming an Evangelical Critic for a New Flock on TikTok. It was so intriguing that I signed up on TikTok in order to see him. It was worth it. Piper is amazingly good at explaining how to think clearly about life.

Taking Christianity seriously

What I was really glad to see in this article was this comment by Blake Chastain (my emphasis):

… Mr. Piper’s pedigree is proof that ex-Christians should not be dismissed as people who were never really committed in the first place. “One of the common refrains is that these people were never Christian,” said Blake Chastain, who popularized the term “exvangelical” when he named his podcast in 2016. “But the people who leave over these issues are the people who took it seriously. They were the youth group kids who were on fire for God.”

I took it seriously.

After my mother was killed in a car accident and my father had remarried our evil Danish stepmother, we 4 children were somewhat adrift in spite of the fact that our father truly loved us.

Because my father wanted a church wedding with the Danish woman, he started going back to church, a Congregational church on Walnut St in Berkeley, CA. (We lived about four long blocks up the hill from the Church. Fun fact: Peet’s coffee started on the same street.) This put me in contact with the church’s youth group as I entered 7th grade.

Wesley Burwell, a seminary student at PSR, ran the youth group and became like a father to me over the next few years. I would drop by once a week to talk about “religion”. I realized years later what when we discussed “God’s” love, we were taking about my own deep needs for parental love. Wes helped me immensely, and I was privileged to reconnect with him and his wonderful wife Dot in the last decade before he died.

Because of Wes, I tried my best to believe in God. Being a liberal Protestant, Wes told me that I didn’t have to actually perceive God in order to believe in Him (yes, God’s pronouns were He/His/Him).

I tried to believe Wes and even gave two “youth sermons” in my church. I was so inspired that I planned to become a minister and even volunteered once to give a sermon all by myself (the “youth” sermons had 3 kids giving the sermon). As Wes had taught me, I spoke of Jesus’s love and of our duty as Christians to give to the poor and sick.

After the service where I gave my sermon, I walked up the aisle to stand at the door to be greeted by people leaving the church. Everyone congratulated me except for one man who basically told me that I was full of shit. We didn’t have time to discuss it although his comment felt like the most sincere one I got.

Of course, as I came to realize over time, most Xtians (as I now spell the word) don’t believe in the kind, loving, generous part of the Xtian message. They are just as capable as any other group of ignoring the poor and sick and of hating different ethnic and racial groups. It was this growing realization, along with the fact that my girlfriend was also losing her faith, that made it increasingly difficult for me to believe in God. (When I was finally able to contact and visit Wes many years later in New Hampshire, he no longer believed in an anthropomorphic deity, calling himself a “spiritualist”. He retained his same, kind personality, however. He was a wonderful man.)

Abraham Piper on the notion of Ultimate Meaning

Here he discusses the notion of ultimate meaning in an amazingly clear and deceptively deep way.

@abrahampiper

##absurdism ##existentialism ##optimisticnihilism ##whatdoesitallmean ##meaning ##meaninglessness ##purpose

♬ original sound - Abraham Piper

Abraham Piper on the notion of Matching colors

As a confused would-be photographer, I loved his rant about “matching colors”:

@abrahampiper

Love a good color clash… ##learnfromnature ##color ##clash ##style ##beauty ##fashion ##colortheory ##nature ##colorful ##animals ##youregood ##beconfident

♬ original sound - Abraham Piper

The Georgia Voter Suppression Law

When I first read about Georgia’s new voting law, it sounded as if some parts of it were okay. For example, Republicans say that Sunday voting is permitted, which sounds good for Black churches that vote together on Sundays. But looking at the details shows that while Sunday voting is permitted, it is not mandatory throughout the state.

My bottom line: the law is as bad as critics say it is.

Here are the most significant changes to voting in the state, as written into the new law:

• The complete analysis
  
• Voters will now have less time to request absentee ballots.
• There are strict new ID requirements for absentee ballots.
• It’s now illegal for election officials to mail out absentee ballot applications to all voters.
• Drop boxes still exist … but barely.
• Mobile voting centers (think an R.V. where you can vote) are essentially banned.
• Early voting is expanded in a lot of small counties, but probably not in more populous ones.
• Offering food or water to voters waiting in line now risks misdemeanor charges.
• If you go to the wrong polling place, it will be (even) harder to vote.
• If election problems arise, a common occurrence, it is now more difficult to extend voting hours.
• With a mix of changes to vote-counting, high-turnout elections will probably mean a long wait for results.
• Election officials can no longer accept third-party funding (a measure that nods to right-wing conspiracy theories).
• With an eye toward voter fraud, the state attorney general will manage an election hotline.
• The Republican-controlled legislature has more control over the State Election Board.
• The secretary of state is removed as a voting member of the State Election Board.
• The G.O.P.-led legislature is empowered to suspend county election officials.
• Runoff elections will happen faster — and could become harder to manage.