Obama and Lincoln -- Keep Hype Alive

A recent Bloomberg article points out the obvious efforts to compare Obama and Lincoln. Politically, I understand the attempt. But until someone directly spikes my kool-aid, I have to point out why I think the comparison is laughable, while still hoping Obama succeeds in his presidency.

A brief rundown of Lincoln's leadership resume before assuming the presidency.

• 1832 - Captain of a militia during the Black Hawk War.
• 1834 - Elected to the State Legislature.
• 1837 - Admitted to the Illinois Bar. He was self-taught, no law school.
• 1837 - First protest against slavery.
• 1846 - Elected to the US House of Representatives.
• 1847 - Opposed the Mexican-American War.
• 1854 - Instrumental in forming the new Republican Party.
• 1858 - Losing Senate race against Douglas. Makes 'house divided against itself cannot stand' argument.
• 1837 thru 1860 - Legal career. Lincoln and his partners appeared before the Illinois State Supreme Court more than 400 times.

Below I repeat a portion of a blog post I made in July, which compared Obama's experience with other presidents, along with the Bloomberg article.

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Abraham Lincoln [elected 1860] - Lincoln biography:

Lincoln began his political career in 1832, at age 23, with an unsuccessful campaign for the Illinois General Assembly, as a member of the Whig Party. The centerpiece of his platform was the undertaking of navigational improvements on the Sangamon River. He believed that this would attract steamboat traffic, which would allow the sparsely populated, poorer areas along the river to flourish.

He was elected captain of an Illinois militia company drawn from New Salem during the Black Hawk War, and later wrote that he had not had "any such success in life which gave him so much satisfaction."

For several months, Lincoln ran a small store in New Salem.

In 1834, he won election to the state legislature, and, after coming across the Commentaries on the Laws of England, began to teach himself law. Admitted to the bar in 1837, he moved to Springfield, Illinois, that same year and began to practice law with John T. Stuart. With a reputation as a formidable adversary during cross-examinations and in his closing arguments, Lincoln became one of the most respected and successful lawyers in Illinois and grew steadily more prosperous.

He served four successive terms in the Illinois House of Representatives as a representative from Sangamon County, and became a leader of the Illinois Whig party. In 1837, he made his first protest against slavery in the Illinois House, stating that the institution was "founded on both injustice and bad policy."

A Whig and an admirer of party leader Henry Clay, Lincoln was elected to a term in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1846. As a freshman House member, he was not a particularly powerful or influential figure. However, he spoke out against the Mexican-American War, which he attributed to President Polk's desire for "military glory" and challenged the President's claims regarding the Texas boundary and offered Spot Resolutions, demanding to know on what "spot" on US soil that blood was first split.

By the mid-1850s, Lincoln's caseload focused largely on the competing transportation interests of river barges and railroads. In one prominent 1851 case, he represented the Alton & Sangamon Railroad in a dispute with a shareholder, James A. Barret. Barret had refused to pay the balance on his pledge to the railroad on the grounds that it had changed its originally planned route. Lincoln argued that as a matter of law a corporation is not bound by its original charter when that charter can be amended in the public interest, that the newer route proposed by Alton & Sangamon was superior and less expensive, and that accordingly, the corporation had a right to sue Barret for his delinquent payment. He won this case, and the decision by the Illinois Supreme Court was eventually cited by several other courts throughout the United States.

Lincoln was involved in more than 5,100 cases in Illinois alone during his 23-year legal career. Though many of these cases involved little more than filing a writ, others were more substantial and quite involved. Lincoln and his partners appeared before the Illinois State Supreme Court more than 400 times.

Lincoln returned to politics in response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854), which expressly repealed the limits on slavery's extent as determined by the Missouri Compromise (1820). Illinois Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, the most powerful man in the Senate, proposed popular sovereignty as the solution to the slavery impasse, and incorporated it into the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Douglas argued that in a democracy the people should have the right to decide whether or not to allow slavery in their territory, rather than have such a decision imposed on them by Congress.

Drawing on remnants of the old Whig, Free Soil, Liberty and Democratic parties, he was instrumental in forming the new Republican Party. In a stirring campaign, the Republicans carried Illinois in 1854 and elected a senator. Lincoln was the obvious choice, but to keep the new party balanced he allowed the election to go to an ex-Democrat Lyman Trumbull. At the Republican convention in 1856, Lincoln placed second in the contest to become the party's candidate for Vice-President.

In 1857-58, Douglas broke with President Buchanan, leading to a fight for control of the Democratic Party. Some eastern Republicans even favored the reelection of Douglas in 1858, since he had led the opposition to the Lecompton Constitution, which would have admitted Kansas as a slave state. Accepting the Republican nomination for Senate in 1858, Lincoln delivered his famous speech: "'A house divided against itself cannot stand.'(Mark 3:25) I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other." The speech created an evocative image of the danger of disunion caused by the slavery debate, and rallied Republicans across the north.

Don't be embarrassed that you entertained the thought that they had similar experiences prior to becoming president, just stop watching PMS-NBC. Bottom line, Lincoln really was a great lawyer, not someone who punched that ticket on the resume. Case closed. Onward, Christian [as far as I know] soldiers.
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Obama Inaugural Strains Lincoln Comparisons While Inviting Them

By Hans Nichols

Jan. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama’s inauguration is dedicated to the proposition that all presidencies are not created equal.

In ways big and small, Obama is trying to summon Abraham Lincoln’s spirit to the proceedings.

Obama will roll into Washington’s Union Station today by train, duplicating part of Lincoln’s railroad journey from Illinois for his swearing in. The president-elect is to appear at a concert tomorrow at the Lincoln Memorial, and will take the oath of office Tuesday with one hand on the Bible that Lincoln used in 1861. Inaugural planners drew so many ties between the Illinois legislators-turned-presidents that Obama may risk straining the comparison.

“Everyone wants to be Lincoln,” says Harold Holzer, who has written or edited more than 20 books on Lincoln and the Civil War. “Is Obama overdoing it? Maybe.”

For most of the 144 years since Lincoln’s death, presidents of all political persuasions have tried to enlist Lincoln’s reputation for honesty and courage in support of their own ambitions. Leaders “see in Lincoln’s suffering validation of the criticism they have to endure,” Holzer says.

Still, the election of America’s first black president, from the same state as the leader who issued the Emancipation Proclamation, gives Obama a stronger claim than most predecessors to Lincoln’s legacy, says Tom Schwartz, a historian at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield, Illinois.

‘Clear Thread’

There’s a “very clear thread that connects the two,” says Schwartz, who describes Obama’s history-making election as “a kind of bookend to Lincoln’s legacy in the Civil War.”

Obama will be sworn in at noon on Jan. 20, just three weeks before the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth on Feb. 12, 1809, an anniversary to be accompanied by museum exhibits, ceremonies, and new books planned long before Obama’s victory. “There’s a serendipity to it,” Schwartz says.

“Both of them were born to modest circumstances,” says former Democratic New York Governor Mario Cuomo, an amateur Lincoln historian. “Both of them wrote well, both of them spoke well, and neither of them is an ideologue.”

Obama’s childhood, as the son of a single mother who sometimes relied on food stamps, is a modern analogue of Lincoln’s log-cabin upbringing. Both presidents studied law and bested better-known U.S. senators from New York for their parties’ presidential nominations.

Strength of Oratory

Each man rocketed from relative obscurity on the strength of oratory, in Obama’s 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address and Lincoln’s 1860 anti-slavery speech at New York’s Cooper Union.

A week after moving his family to temporary quarters in a Washington hotel, Obama took his wife and two daughters for a moon-bathed visit to the Lincoln Memorial, where a 19-foot-tall statue of the first Republican president looks down on the National Mall where throngs of visitors will watch Obama’s inaugural address.

The four-day inauguration schedule starts this morning in Philadelphia, where Obama boards a train to trace the last segments of Lincoln’s route, stopping in Wilmington, Delaware, to pick up Vice President-elect Joe Biden.

Gilding a Lily

“The inaugural train may turn out to be one gilding of the lily,” Holzer says, noting that the Obamas came to the capital two weeks ago. “Backtracking north to come south may be bit of an artifice.” Obama also plans a public event in Baltimore, which Lincoln slipped through in disguise, under cover of darkness, after learning about an assassination plot there.

The 44th president will be sworn in with an 1853 printing of the Bible, bound in burgundy velvet, purchased for Lincoln’s first inauguration in 1861. After his speech, Obama will join members of Congress in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall for lunch, served on china that duplicates the dishware first lady Mary Todd Lincoln picked for the White House.

Obama is following a well-worn precedent in comparing himself to Lincoln. Earlier this week, at his final news conference, departing President George W. Bush said his most- vocal critics remind him of fierce opposition that Lincoln endured: “There’s some pretty harsh discord when it came to the 16th president, just like there’s been harsh discord for the 43rd president.”

Obama announced his candidacy on the steps of old state capitol building in Springfield, noting that he and Lincoln both served in the state legislature. In May, as he was pulling away from New York Senator Hillary Clinton in the fight for the Democratic nomination, Obama suggested that -- like Lincoln --he would consider stocking his Cabinet with former rivals.

‘One of My Heroes’

“I’m a practical-minded guy,” he said. “And you know one of my heroes is Abraham Lincoln.”

Obama did nominate Clinton for secretary of state, the same post Lincoln assigned to William Seward, a New York senator who was considered a frontrunner for the 1860 Republican nomination. For vice president, Obama tapped Biden, a Delaware senator and former presidential candidate.

Stephen Hess, a presidential scholar at the capital’s George Washington University, says that overplaying the Lincoln connections may raise false expectations. “At this point I would pull back a little,” Hess says.

Some efforts to link Obama and Lincoln may now be out of Obama’s control. The Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies picked “A New Birth of Freedom” as the official inauguration theme, lifting a phrase from the Gettysburg Address. For the post-inauguration lunch, the committee is serving dishes that Lincoln is believed to have liked, including a seafood stew, duck and pheasant.

“Some of his supporters go much too far,” says Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz. “Basically, a lot of it is twaddle, but it’s harmless twaddle.

“To the extent that he’s emulating any president, Lincoln is about as good as it’s going to get,” Wilentz says. “If he was trying to emulate Calvin Coolidge, that would be a problem.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Hans Nichols in Washington at hnichols2@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: January 17, 2009 00:01 EST
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Inauguration Journal - Day 16

Anthony Atwood's Inauguration Journal - Day 16

SATURDAY 17JAN09: Reveille Reveille. I hurry down to the subway to take the tube to the HQ. What a surprise – the subway is empty. Just deserted. Well, a four-day weekend has begun for the Washingtonians that will include the most important world event in history. They are sleeping in and making ready.

We are ready too, although operations are moving on autopilot. Those with early assignments are already underway. The train is coming. When you stop and think about it, it chokes you up. It has done that to me, and I have noticed others sometimes holding back tears, or even weeping quietly at the enormity of this. I think it is a universal feeling, and everyone wants help. Even my Brother Karl left Kansas and went to Miami at this time to look after our mother there, so that I would have a free hand for this mission.

The empty subway train sways back and forth. Don’t think for a moment anyone around here is oblivious.

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Where Do You Look for God?

Our favorite ethernet homilies come courtesy of Fr Vallee. His latest homily, begins as follows:

Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, and an unnamed disciple are the first to follow Jesus. The way the call takes place is extremely interesting. The two disciples ask Jesus where he lives. The two, then, spend the day with Jesus. Andrew promptly goes home and tells his brother, Simon: “We have found the Messiah.” It seems like the Gospel writer has left an awful lot of stuff out. What did Jesus say? What did Jesus do? Why is Andrew so sure that he is the one? It seems as though we have a call with no call. We know that there was a call but very little, almost nothing, about what the call was to or how the call took place.

To learn Fr Vallee's answer to that interesting question, click on 'Read more!' below to see his entire homily at the end of this post. If you want to read more homilies by Fr Vallee, just enter 'Vallee' in the search box in the upper right corner.

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Fr Vallee's Homily - Jan 18, 2009

I. Odd call
Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, and an unnamed disciple are the first to follow Jesus. The way the call takes place is extremely interesting. The two disciples ask Jesus where he lives. The two, then, spend the day with Jesus. Andrew promptly goes home and tells his brother, Simon: “We have found the Messiah.” It seems like the Gospel writer has left an awful lot of stuff out. What did Jesus say? What did Jesus do? Why is Andrew so sure that he is the one? It seems as though we have a call with no call. We know that there was a call but very little, almost nothing, about what the call was to or how the call took place.

II. What do we know?
So let us see what we do know from the little we are told. First, Jesus calls not men from the desert or religious leaders. He calls, not ascetics, scribes or Pharisees, but fishermen, uneducated men and, for the most part, married men. They are drawn to Jesus: not by what he says, he in fact does not preach to them; not by his political or ethical programs, he does not seem to have any; not by his theology, social work or ethics. They are drawn to Jesus by his evident holiness. Jesus is charismatic in the original and full sense of that term. But what is the source of that attractiveness?

III. What did he look like?
We do not know what Jesus looked like. Presumably, since he was a Jewish man, he looked like a Jewish man. I have never understood why so much religious art depicts him as a sort of bearded Brad Pitt. My guess is that the attempt to Christianize the Apollo Belvedere is just wrong on many levels. The whole point of the Gospels is that Jesus does not come as a political star or popular pretty boy. Look throughout history! Holy people are often slight, frail and not terribly attractive, St. Francis, Ghandi or Mother Teresa. The people of his day didn’t recognize Jesus because they were looking for him in the halls of power and privilege. I fear that if Jesus came back today, we wouldn’t recognize him either. We would look for one coming cloaked in power and glory, in beauty and strength. He did not, then, choose to come as High Priest or religious leader, why would he come back today as pope or priest? He did not then choose to be born as King of Israel, why would he today come back as President or movie star?

IV. Who followed him?
Moreover, look at the people who follow Jesus – the poor, the broken and the outcast. Hurt people are not drawn to the aggressively healthy, to the televangelist’s sugary rhetoric or 1000 dollar Armani suit, not even to the 2000 dollar Gamarelli cassock. Yet, hurt people are drawn to Jesus. Why? Because he understands their suffering. The attraction was in the fact that Jesus was a sensitive and loving man who affirmed and loved other hurt human beings. Jesus was not an athlete or a super salesman. He was not about power at all. He told Pilate, “My kingdom is not that kind of a kingdom, is not of this world.” Jesus is not a superhero, not a sort of sandaled John Wayne coming to take out the bad guys. John Wayne never cried once in a movie, as Jesus does twice in the Gospels.

V. “Into the Wild”
When I was in seminary, I loved the gorgeous painting of Jesus by Piero della Francesca. The painting depicts Christ arising from the tomb, stately and impassive, bearing the marks of his crucifixion like purple hearts on a dress uniform. Just this week, I saw a marvelous film called “Into the Wild,” which is based on a true story. There is a scene where the main character is trapped in the wilderness. His face is scarred and scared. His beard and hair are unkempt. His eyes are wild with fear, pain and loneliness. I love Renaissance art and Piero della Francesca. But the true face of Christ, I am positive, is more like the haunted, hunted face of that young man lost in the wild.

VI. Conclusion
So, what do we know about why the first disciples were drawn to Jesus? This much, I think, at least: they were drawn by the holiness of a simple man, not by the beauty of a rock star or the power of hero. As St. Paul states with prodigious clarity: “Though Jesus Christ was in the form of God, he did not deem equality with God something to be grasped at, rather he emptied himself and took the form of a slave.” If Jesus Christ laid aside power and embraced weakness, why, why do we still keep looking for him amidst the powerful rather than the weak?
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Inauguration Journal - Day 15

Anthony Atwood's Inauguration Journal - Day 15

FRIDAY 16JAN09: Our preparations are complete. I have been issued a couple of MRE's (Meals, Ready to Eat). They are bringing cots into our office spaces, where many folks will be camping out. In the line of duty I have to visit the Cathedral once more. I have been assigned an Army photographer and we go to assist the civilian PIC people and church people who are planning things.

Did I tell you about Father Vincent Capodanno, a Servant of God?

I learned about him in the summer of 2006 by accident. Historically he was a priest who volunteered to join the Navy during Vietnam. He was assigned to be Chaplain for a Marine Corps regiment. The good chaplain served in a lot of combat. On September 4, 1967, while saving lives on the battlefield, he was killed in action. The circumstances were such that he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, the United States’ highest decoration. That is not all. Since that time so many Marines have testified they have prayed to him, in memory, and been helped by it, that the Church has declared him a “Servant of God,” and opened a case for canonizing him a Saint.

Not many folks receive the Medal of Honor. Fewer still are Navy people. Chaplains? Only Callahan off USS Franklin in WWII. And being looked at for Sainthood? Zip. The Capodanno case is one of a kind. I picked up a church card about him by accident passing through the airport in Atlanta, and only learned the story little by little. For luck I brought the card with me and keep it in my security badge holder.

Late this day I had to go to the Navy Annex of the Pentagon to buy shoulder boards for my Bridge Coat. The lady at the uniform shop stayed late to help me. She gave me a cook’s tour of the Annex. Near the front doors a framed picture of Fr. Capodanno is on the wall. We go outside and stand on the steps. We are on high ground and the panorama is breathtaking: Right across the road is Arlington National Cemetery, row on row of headstones of thousands of our honored dead who rest here. Down at the foot of the hill is the Pentagon. Behind it is the river. Just beyond is Washington’s Monument and the Dome of the Capitol. She points out the section of the Pentagon wall that looks like all the rest of the building, except that it is a slightly lighter shade because it is the new construction. The moon is rising and it is cold enough your teeth chatter. It is simply breathtaking.

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Confessions of a Periodic Basketball Junkie

Wednesday started off like a very good normal day. Early walk. Mass. Marching orders from the WSJ Editorial page. Billing at work. Client promises of payments. Productive billable hours at clients. Drive around town filled with audiobook [Hot, Flat and Crowded] and half-hearted rumors of Castro's death on Spanish AM radio [my generation's muzak]. I knew I was meeting friends at the University of Miami's home basketball game against Maryland later on, so I squeezed in a dinner with my kids beforehand. I was positively wafting through this day.

My first time back to the Convocation Center since a pre-election event with Mary Matalin and her hack husband. I try to shake off the stench of that memory. Game begins. The Canes were playing very sloppy and found themselves down 17 midway through the second half and the small crowd was as listless as the home team. Sitting to my left, a former CABA president checks his crackberry and yawns periodically. To my right, a dentist performs an impromptu exam. A deplorable sports environment.

Then it happened. The Canes start a comeback. Now, to a veteran basketball fan, this really should not raise many hopes, since it would be rare for the home team in this situation not to make a run to make the final score respectable. But then again, to quote Joaquin Andujar's favorite word, youneverknow. Lurking in the recesses of the brain, potentially useful fan-venom, a skill nurtured at the Asylum of Miami Senior High and honed as a Miami Heat fan during the early years.

They cut the lead to 11, Maryland calls timeout. Sure signs of the transition from normalcy to partisan fan begin to become evident. I find Maryland's coach, Gary Williams, one of the top coaches in the NCAA, increasingly annoying. The tipping point. One of those God-awful-are-you-kidding-me calls goes against the Canes. For some inexplicable partisan reason, I believe that the ACC referee--whom I am sure is actually a lovely person--is the spitting image and likely reincarnation of Bull Connor. [This despite the fact that I only saw a picture of the real Bull Conner while writing this post]. Experts refer to this point in the transformation process as the undeterred by facts stage.

Canes further cut the lead to 5 with 4 minutes to go. More signs of the comeback, my brother, a classic front runner, appears. Crowd gets loud. My Bull Connor taunts are now barely audible. Friends ask when I took a 'Tico' pill. [Tico is/was a legendary Canes fan since the 70's who is reported to have moved to Ecuador upon the signing of Larry Coker as coach, based upon a late-night pledge offered up at Duffy's Tavern].

Happy ending. The Canes best player, Jack McClinton, hits a three with under a minute left and Maryland literally misses a shot to win at the buzzer. Home team joy and opposition anguish, the ideal mix. Great game and comeback. But this alone, obviously, does not raise [lower?] one to junkie status.

No, to achieve junkie status, you had to then:

• Get home at 11:15 and begin watching the Heat's victory over Milwaukee, which you had called home to make sure it had been taping before the Canes game.
• Slow motion replay action before a timeout to understand why Spoelstra was incredulous over something Michael Beasley [born in Maryland] had done.
• Watched Spoelstra's post-game comments.

By the way, I parked 6 blocks away to avoid traffic, but since it's not a basketball related pathology, I don't offer this as evidence.

All articles referenced are copied in full at end of post.

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Miami Hurricanes continue to have Maryland's number

Posted on Thu, Jan. 15, 2009

By MANNY NAVARRO

For the better part of Wednesday night's prime-time game against Maryland, the BankUnited Center was quiet enough to hear Terrapins fans taunting the Hurricanes from the first row of the student section.

By the time it was over, Jack McClinton had the crowd on the verge of erupting.

Trailing by as many as 17 points with 12 minutes left, the University of Miami mounted its greatest comeback under coach Frank Haith, sticking another knife into coach Gary Williams and the Terrapins with a thrilling come-from-behind 62-60 victory.

McClinton hit the final and decisive dagger, swishing a three-pointer with 24.2 seconds remaining to give UM its final lead. Maryland's Greivis Vasquez took two three-point attempts after that, including one as the buzzer sounded, but it clanked off the rim, sending most of the 4,651 in attendance into a frenzy.

'We kept telling the guys at every timeout, `We're going to win this game,' '' Haith said. ``We had to believe we were going to win this game. We just had to make plays. It started with Lance [Hurdle] and James Dews helping Jack.''

It started with Maryland, which had dominated UM with speed and effort in the transition game, suddenly struggling to guard the Hurricanes on the perimeter. After Dews hit a runner with 11:54 remaining to make it 52-37, the Hurricanes went on a 12-2 run over the next six minutes. Dews hit back-to-back three pointers before Hurdle and McClinton hit threes to make it 54-49 with 5:32 to play.

After Maryland extended its lead back out to 58-51 with 2:49 left, Hurdle and McClinton hit three-pointers before Hurdle stripped the ball from Adrian Bowie and drove the length of the court for a layup, which gave UM its first lead at 60-59 with 1:22 remaining.

'You could just see our guys' energy pick up after that,'' Haith said. ``But before the 10-minute mark, they just had more energy than us.''

UM improves to 13-3 overall and 2-1 in the Atlantic Coast Conference heading into another prime-time showdown Saturday at No. 5 North Carolina (14-2) -- one of four teams from the ACC ranked in the nation's Top 10.

Wednesday night's comeback continued UM's mastery over Maryland. It was Miami's fourth consecutive victory over Maryland and sixth in seven tries. Maryland (12-4, 1-1) will play host to the rematch at 8 p.m. Jan. 31.

The Terrapins came out attacking with a frenetic pace, trapping defensively and blazing up the court for open three-pointers and fast-break layups. Maryland forced five turnovers, and when David Tucker hit an open three-pointer, it led 21-12 with 11:56 remaining in the first half.

After Brian Asbury converted a three-point play on a jumper and free throw to trim Maryland's lead to 23-17, Maryland closed out the first half with a 35-23 lead. The first-half effort was the worst of the season for the Canes, who shot 32 percent from the field, had 10 turnovers and were just 3 of 7 from the free-throw line.

Despite being at a clear size advantage, the Terps found a way to make Dwayne Collins irrelevant by double-teamming him and forcing him to pass the ball out in the post. Collins took just two shots in the first half and had two points.

In three previous trips to BankUnited Center, Maryland's biggest lead had been three points.

Sophomore Adrian Bowie scored a career-high 23 points and, along with Vasquez, who finished with 15 points, helped the Terps take control early before Miami came charging all the way back behind a barrage of threes.

''Nobody in that was negative at all,'' said McClinton, who finished with 18 points. ``It was all just about winning.''
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Miami Heat survives Dwyane Wade's off-night to beat Bucks

Posted on Thu, Jan. 15, 2009

By SARAH ROTHSCHILD

All season, the Heat has proved it can win when Dwyane Wade carries the load.

On Wednesday, the Heat proved it could thrive even Wade struggles offensively.

Daequan Cook made sure of it. The second-year guard scored a career-high 24 points, burying 6 of 8 three-point attempts.

''I knew,'' Cook said, ``it was going to be a long night for the opponent.''

Cook helped propel the Heat to a 102-99 victory against the Milwaukee Bucks. The Heat won its second consecutive game and improved to 3-2 on a season-long seven-game trip.

Cook scored 15 points in his first seven minutes off the bench, and finished 6 of 6 from beyond the arc in the first half.

His performance came a night after teammates ribbed him following a scoreless night on 0-for-3 shooting against the Minnesota Timberwolves.

''Were you even at the game?'' Cook recalled his teammates teasing.

He made his presence felt against the Bucks. And there was no question the Heat needed a spark.

Wade shot 5 of 20 and finished with 17 points, well below his season average of about 29 points.

''It was a night where every shot I shot, they hit me in the arm,'' Wade said.

Milwaukee coach Scott Skiles was pleased with his team's defense on Wade, but frustrated that it wasn't enough.

''We were slow to recover to the other guys and slow to recognize that they had a guy that was making multiple threes out there,'' Skiles said referring to Cook.

ENCOURAGING PLAY

Coach Erik Spoelstra was encouraged by the way the Heat played despite Wade's off-shooting night. Shawn Marion had his second consecutive double-double, scoring 14 points and 10 rebounds, and Udonis Haslem had 18 points and eight rebounds.

''Earlier in the year, I don't know if we win a game when Dwyane shoots 5 of 20,'' Spoelstra said.

Rookie Michael Beasley had 21 points, his seventh straight game scoring in double figures. Beasley and Cook became only the fourth tandem in franchise history to score at least 20 points off the bench in the same game.

They stepped up on a night starters Mario Chalmers and Joel Anthony were off.

They were on the bench to start the second half, and Chris Quinn and Jamaal Magloire played with the starters. In the first half, Chalmers had converted just one of his last 13 shots, and Anthony had no points, one rebound and one blocked shot.

Chalmers finished scoreless for the second time in three games and Anthony wound up with two points.

''I wanted to get a little more size [with Magloire] and Quinny was doing a very good job of getting us organized,'' Spoelstra said of the lineup change.

COOKING IT UP

But this night belonged to Cook and the Heat finding a way to hold off Milwaukee's late run without relying on Wade's offensive heroics at the end of the game.

''We are starting to smell when it's winning time and our defensive intensity starts to pick up,'' Spoelstra said.

The Bucks pulled to within two points with 1:26 left, but Shawn Marion blocked Richard Jefferson's shot with 21.3 seconds remaining.

Milwaukee guard Luke Ridnour pulled the Bucks to 100-99 with 9.8 seconds remaining, but Cook drew a foul on rookie Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and hit two free throws to give the Heat its final score.

Down the stretch, the Heat was resilient.

''That's what it's all about,'' Wade said, ``finding another way.''
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Inauguration Journal - Day 14

Anthony Atwood's Inauguration Journal - Day 14

THURSDAY 15JAN09: Today we run more radio checks on the mall. In just one week it has been transformed. Legions of folding chairs set up in ranks in front of the Capitol building. MSNBC setups, trailers with cable feeds the size of elephant trunks running in and out, pressure cleaning on some building cornices, traffic detours, and the red, white, and blue. The day is cold; puddles of water have iced over.

There is a briefing for all hands in the Voice of America theater. I bump into the only other Navy guy from Miami I’ve seen so far, a Petty Officer First Class from the Reserve Center in Hialeah. The briefing is more information about the big picture: The Inaugural Period begins January 17th with preliminary events. The main event, the swearing in of the new president will occur on the capitol steps with first the Vice President, and then the President taking the oath of office, timed to finish exactly at noon, as per the Constitution. There is then a luncheon in the Capitol, following which the new President will take to the reviewing stand near the White House.

The parade is set for the next three hours and includes about 12,500 people. A couple thousand are military bands, color guards, honor guards and marching units from each branch of service, including the Merchant Marine. The vast majority are civilians units; everyone from bagpipers to Mickey Rooney, to the Shoshone Nation, to Taravella High School. Included are 10 floats and 250 horses. Near the White House, the military units will pass before the president, who is also our Commander in Chief, and he will take the review.

That evening there will be Inaugural Balls all over town. There are ten “official” balls, but the whole number is closer to sixty.

The following morning there is the National Prayer Service at church. The Inaugural Period was supposed to run to January 24th, but President-elect Obama has indicated he wants to start work right after church, so that is the final official event.

One of my two assignments is to assist at the Pentagon where the parade groups will assemble on I-Day. On account of this location I will miss seeing the activity on the Mall. It is a small price to pay, and I will give a shout-out to the Taravella High School bus when they arrive. They are in Division Six, towards the end of the parade. My taskings will necessitate a couple of very long days.

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God and Periplaneta Americana

I came to believe in God through Periplaneta americana, otherwise known as the American cockroach. That's not actually true in my case--I came by other means--but I would pay handsomely for any book with that title. Heck, let's go all the way, here's the subtitle: Why cockroaches' early warning system and 15 milliseconds reaction time [it takes 100 to blink] shattered [splattered?] my faith in Darwinism.

Here is why they are so hard to catch:

To measure the insect's response to different wind currents, Rinberg glued a cockroach between two wind tunnel tubes, then attached electrodes (metal plates that measure electric current) to the roach's nerve cells. When Rinberg bombarded the roach with different wind speeds from varying directions, he discovered its caused by nerve cells respond mostly to slow-moving currents. "That was surprising--you'd expect the roach to react to fast-moving wind currents," Rinberg says. Turns out, leisurely currents are just the kind the cockroach's natural predators--mainly frogs and wasps in the wild--produce before strike.

Two spiked "tails," called cerci, on the end of a roach's body, are covered with nearly 200 tiny hairs that act like antennas. Nerve cells attached to each hair detect precise measurements in wind strength and direction--and tell the roach whether it should chill out or scram.

It gets better [or worse]:

Cockroaches scurrying in response to threats aren’t random, but they aren’t entirely predictable either. Cockroaches choose from one of several preferred trajectories when running from a predator, and that variability is enough to confound their attackers most of the time.

You want quick?

Christopher Comer, a neuroscientist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, studies roach escape behavior. "When you puff wind on a cockroach, it's off and running in 50 milliseconds," Comer says. "If you smack a roach's antenna abruptly, it can turn and run in 15 to 20 milliseconds. Quicker than the blink [100ms] of an eye." Compare that with a human, whose brain usually needs about 200 milliseconds (a fifth of a second) to respond to a stimulus.

Imitation being the most sincere form of flattery, engineers at Johns Hopkins University join the fan club:

They want to see if a mechanical device can mimic the insect's behavior. So, they built a flexible, sensor-laden antenna. Like a cockroach's wriggly antennae, the artificial antenna sends signals to a wheeled robot's electronic brain, enabling the machine to scurry along walls, turn corners, and avoid obstacles.

Does all this, does any of this, sound random to you? Did earlier roaches reaction time of 300ms doom an earlier million year evolutionary cycle? Were there only one cerci and 50 hairs on the earlier roach models? If roaches developed more hairs, does that mean that rogaine is on its 2nd go around here on earth?

So while we know that we should see Christ in our fellow man, it's a lot to ask to see God in the just vanquished Blattaria gumming up your kitchen floor at 3 in the morning. But however you may feel about His final products [especially non-insects], you can still appreciate the intelligent and divine design which they reflect.

See the Cockroach FAQ here.

Some articles referenced are copied in full at end of post.

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Why Roaches Rule

The cockroach is one wily critter. Merely walk into a room, or try to swat one, and chances are the roach will race into a corner before you can say "Gotcha!" Until recently, experts didn't know what made the insect so crafty, but now scientists at the NEC Research Institute in Princeton, N.J., think they have an answer: Roaches boast antenna-like sensors that detect tiny wind currents generated by potential predators.

Intrigued by the insect's sophisticated warning system, physicist (scientist who studies energy and matter) Dima Rinberg wanted to know whether the common cockroach (Periplaneta americana) can distinguish between wind currents produced by the shutting of a door, for instance, and a predatory frog. "A cockroach doesn't jump at just any breeze," Rinberg says.

To measure the insect's response to different wind currents, Rinberg glued a cockroach between two wind tunnel tubes, then attached electrodes (metal plates that measure electric current) to the roach's nerve cells. When Rinberg bombarded the roach with different wind speeds from varying directions, he discovered its caused by nerve cells respond mostly to slow-moving currents. "That was surprising--you'd expect the roach to react to fast-moving wind currents," Rinberg says. Turns out, leisurely currents are just the kind the cockroach's natural predators--mainly frogs and wasps in the wild--produce before strike.

Two spiked "tails," called cerci, on the end of a roach's body, are covered with nearly 200 tiny hairs that act like antennas. Nerve cells attached to each hair detect precise measurements in wind strength and direction--and tell the roach whether it should chill out or scram.

Rinberg isn't surprised the agile insects are experts in evading danger: "They've been around for more than 300 million years-100 times longer than humans."

FAST FACT:

There are about 4,000 different roach species.

FAST FACT:

Roaches eat pretty much anything--food scraps, paper, clothing, dead insects and glue!
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Inauguration Journal - Day 13

Anthony Atwood's Inauguration Journal - Day 13

WEDNESDAY 14JAN09: The atmosphere of anticipation, and of pride extends to the apartment house staff. They are delighted to be playing a part and bend over backwards to help. In my case, that meant loaning me a needle and thread for some uniform items I needed to fix. The three hardcore skills the service taught me are these: to make my bed, to wash dishes, and wield a needle and thread. All come in handy.

The apartment house/hotel is now full to capacity with Navy people, State Department people, and FBI. The staff has put out flyers and they throw a party this evening for everyone. It is held at the top floor, the once planned future penthouse, which has been converted into an internet café/exercise lounge. The spaces are packed, at least 75-people including a few of those solemn fellows in dark suits who resemble Matrix-enforcers.

The menu? Pizza, of course. And square pizzas in honor of the occasion. Another Navy guy and I break out our guitars and we play some impromptu Bob Dylan and U2. Even one of the Matrix-guys is tapping his foot too, until he cuts it out when he realizes he is being observed. Because this is a civilian function there is beer and wine, But although all the pizza boxes are emptied, not so the other. Everyone has a reserve about them that fits comfortably.

Gravitas, the ancients would call it.

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"I've lost fifty years thanks to this regime ..."

I had an earlier post which spoke critically of the regime-friendly quotes run in the Washington Post. Contrast that with this quote in the left-leaning French newspaper Le Monde:

All that’s left for Cubans, says the correspondent, is black humour, nourished by rumours, always denied, of Castro’s death. A man called Ernesto, named after Guevara by his mother who greatly admired the unwashed comandante, told the correspondent that ‘Castro is held up by props, like all the buildings in old Havana.’

Ernest hated Guevara and the official adulation of which he is the object. ‘I’ve lost fifty years of my life thanks to this regime, and my engineer’s salary gives me enough to eat for ten days a month.’

Now ask yourself what's wrong with the Washington Post? Why can Le Monde report, that which the Washington Post chooses to avoid? The reason is that the Post's editorial position on Cuba [end economic sanctions], dictates that they avoid topics which may be distracting from 'the real challenges facing ... yada yada yada.'

When you're in an ideological battle, you don't want to lend credence to the enemy [pro economic sanctions] by focusing on topics that which confirms the opposition's claims. No problem, basic politics. However, when you are the major newspaper in America's capital city, it's a problem for the rest of us.

Please read the full article at end of post, titled, CUBA: A CEMETERY OF HOPES.

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CUBA: A CEMETERY OF HOPES

January 9th, 2009

FrontPageMag.com- Theodore Dalrymple

To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, the French newspaper, Le Monde, which is vastly more informative about the world than any English-language journal (and therefore loses a lot of money), had a four-page spread.

What was surprising about the tone of three of these four pages, written by Frenchmen, was their hostility to the Revolution. This was surprising because the newspaper is generally left-leaning, and for a very long time the French left felt a deep sympathy for Castro and his dictatorship. From Sartre to Madame Mitterand, prominent French personalities have raised shameful hosannas to the Cuban caudillo and all his works. Last Saturday, in the market of the rich and bourgeois little town near which I live in France, Che Guevara T-shirts were still for sale.

The special correspondent, Guillaume Carpentier, did not mince his words. Under a headline ‘Broken down roads and crumbling facads, empty markets, closed cinemas and bookshops: fifty years after the triumphal entry of the barbudos into the most beautiful city in Latin America,disillusion reigns in Havana,’ he writes:

Practically all cinemas have shut down. Of the 135 cinemas that Havana had – more than Paris or New York – no more than 20 remain open. With nationalisation, they closed one by one, for lack of maintenance, films or electricity... Havana, Cubans complain, is a cemetery of cinemas. It is also a cemetery of bookshops, markets, shops... In short, Cuba is a cemetery of hopes.

All that’s left for Cubans, says the correspondent, is black humour, nourished by rumours, always denied, of Castro’s death. A man called Ernesto, named after Guevara by his mother who greatly admired the unwashed comandante, told the correspondent that ‘Castro is held up by props, like all the buildings in old Havana.’

Ernest hated Guevara and the official adulation of which he is the object. ‘I’ve lost fifty years of my life thanks to this regime, and my engineer’s salary gives me enough to eat for ten days a month.’

An old sympathiser with the Revolution, a woman called Martha, complains about how a foreign-currency store has opened on the site of the Woolworth Ten-Cent store where she worked before the Revolution. She complains that the prices in the foreign currency store (open only to those who receive remittances from abroad) are twice to four times those in the United States.

‘It’s armed robbery,’ she said. ‘It’s even more astonishing that the store should be on the site of the Ten Cent store, whose philosophy was to lower the prices as much as possible for the working classes, and where everything was available.’ And then, demonstrating how even relatively simple ideas do not necessarily penetrate people’s minds even after fifty years of bitter experience, she adds that she does not understand why a socialist enterprise should sell much dearer than a capitalist one.

A long article by Alain Abellard entitled "The Birth of a Myth" describes the mendacity of Castroite historiography. He does not deny that Castro was a most remarkable man: his exploits were among the most remarkable of the Twentieth Century. But remarkable and good are different qualities. Abellard points out that Cuba had a literacy rate of 80 per cent in 1959, its per capita income in 1953 was more or less that of Italy’s (and the 22nd in rank in the whole world), that Italians and Spaniards still emigrated to it in search of a better life, its health system was the second best in Latin America, it had the third largest economy in Latin America, it produced 80 per cent of its food (now it is only 20 per cent, and that at a reduced level of consumption), it was far less given over to prostitution than it is now, and that Cubans now say ‘Everything is rationed, except the police and disillusion.’

Abellard writes:

When he entered Havana on 8th January, 1959, Castro could not have imagined for a single moment the extent to which the facades of this marvellous city, built from 1513 onwards by the Spanish, and elaborated over four centuries, were going to become, after decades of tropical socialism, a temple of disrepair, an open air museum of ruins.

From the very first, the author states, Castro deceived his followers and lied his way to absolute power. Many of his close associates learnt this to their cost. Camilo Cienfuegos disappeared in ysterious circumstances; Huber Matos spent twenty years in prison in appalling conditions; Carlos Franqui fled. Even the dreadful Ernesto Guevara was more useful to Castro dead than alive.

Now of course none of this is new: it is very old news indeed. What is new is the frankness with which it is all acknowledged. It seems that there is a natural history of acknowledgement by western intellectuals of the horrors of socialist revolutions: it takes about half a century for the penny to drop.

Americans, however, will no doubt take patriotic pride in the rearguard action fought in the pages of Le Monde by the former chief of the American mission in Cuba, and now professor of Latin American studies at Johns Hopkins University, Wayne Smith. Interviewed by the newspaper, he was asked about human rights abuses in Cuba. The Cuban regime – he said – is not democratic. It is an authoritarian regime... But the policy of the United States hasn’t helped. Each time Washington threatens the Cuban Revolution, the authorities react against opponents by accusing them of being American agents.

Let us pass over the designation ‘authoritarian,’ when what the professor meant, or ought to have meant, was ‘totalitarian.’ What he seems to be implying is that, if only the Americans had been friendly towards Cuba, Castro would be a freedom-loving constitutionalist. If Cubans are now denied the most elementary of freedoms, the responsibility is shared between the Cuban and American governments. This is so preposterous (and, incidentally morally grandiose and deeply imperialistic, in that it seems to imply that not a sparrow falls but that our father in Washington is behind its death) that refutation is a waste of words.

That a man can know as much as the professor and yet understand so little is perhaps a tribute to the complexity of the human psyche. Asked how the Cuban Revolution became communist, he answered:

Fidel Castro wasn’t a communist when he arrived in power. He had no intention of aligning himself with the Soviet Union. The turning point was the Bay of Pigs, in April, 1961. To defend himself from American armed action, he turned to the Soviet Union. While the invasion was taking place... he made a speech announcing ‘the socialist revolution.’

Let me here quote a phrase from the special correspondent’s article. ‘With the nationalisation in 1960 of all commercial, industrial and cultural activities...’

Let me quote also from Alain Abellard’s article:

The only attitude that Fidel Castro had for certain [when he came to power] ... was his anti-Americanism. In a letter of 6 June, 1958, written from the Sierra Maestra, Fidel Castro expressed himself clearly: ‘When this war is finished, a much longer and more important war will begin: that which I am going to lead against the North Americans. I am sure that that is my true destiny.’

In summary, Castro wanted nationalisation and he wanted war with America. But, for Professor Smith, the primary blame for Cuba’s half century of penury and totalitarian mendacity lies with America. Can imperialism go further?
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Inauguration Journal - Day 12

Anthony Atwood's Inauguration Journal - Day 12

TUESDAY 13JAN09: Today I had the occasion to return to the Cathedral in the line of duty. I was sent, and thought to cut through Jesuit Georgetown University to get there. How should I know there was construction going on, and I got all turned around in the maze of classrooms, dorms and construction. So I leaned out the window and asked the construction workers: “I’m just passing through. How can I get to Wisconsin (Street) to reach the Cathedral?” I got blank stares from the workers in hardhats, but they looked like people I know. So I changed gears: “Pardon, caballeros. Ayudeme por favor. Yo quero del Eglesia Grande. ?A donde es?”

There are big smiles all around, and they give me spanglish directions that get me out of the Georgetown maze. At the National Cathedral I must wait for a group of others to make some arrangements. I kill time leaning against the wall by the church door. There is a quote chiseled on the wall beside me. It really works under the circumstances, so I wrote it down, and share it with you herewith:

“He must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being worked out here below, of which we have the honor to be the faithful servants. It is not given to us to peer into the mysteries of the future….”

Winston Churchill--Dec 26, 1941

Those who I wait for finally arrive. We go for a walk through of the underground crypts. This is the place I was drawn to first on arrival. Our meeting ends before the Altar.

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Generation Y [Not] Somewhere Else

You'll think of Cuban 'volunteers' differently after reading what may be going through their minds according to Yoani Sanchez in her much praised blog from inside Cuba, Generation Y:

When the eighth leak appeared in the dining room ceiling, you accepted the mission to go to Venezuela as a doctor. You knew that with each month’s salary you’d never have been able to tear out the paneling and replace the worn out columns. Also, the resale of some appliances you bought there would help pay for the cost of cement and rebar. In Havana, your bank account would grow with the fifty convertible pesos you’d receive each month for your stay in Caracas. Your wife ordered a laptop and your youngest son asked for Play Station.

The first months you slept badly with the sounds of gunfire coming into the small room shared with five other colleagues. To chase away the nostalgia, you thought about your relatives’ faces when they’d learn about all the nice clothes you had gotten at a discount. Meanwhile, the small bank account grew in Cuba, under the condition that you could enjoy it only at the end of your mission.

Someone in the group confessed one night that he was going to cross the border and take off for Miami. You listened to him with the trembling of one who can forget about the leak, the new roof, and the requested laptop, and use your savings to start a new life. Suddenly you remembered the nurse who escaped and has never been able to get her family off the Island. Deserters are punished with separation, marked by the impossibility of being reunited with their families.

So you spent your two years curing people and saving lives, suffering the separation, the fear and the shared housing. With relief, you got news that your wife had started to buy the bags of cement to repair the roof. When it was almost time for you to return, someone announced that an agreement to stay another six months could be made by signing a paper. “No problem,” you thought, “with the extra money I’ll earn in that time, maybe I’ll have enough to repair the walls of the house.”

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Plutarchians for a Planet Pluto

Plutarch was a bright dude. If he was around today, I know he would be championing Pluto's cause, if for nothing other than the plentiful alliterations which it plovides us to play with.

Since this blog is positively starving for reader comments. Imagine my glee this afternoon when I received a 480-word response to my 270-word post about Pluto. There it was finally, proof! One of the things I love about this technology, is that I believe there are people out there who care enough to learn and inform others about seemingly everything. And so it is dear readers that Pluto, and it's place among the planets, has an advocate.

As such, my 1 day fling with thinking of Pluto as something less than a planet, questioning it's planethood in effect, is over. See the original post about Pluto in the Blog for Highland Park. In addition, please see the petition protesting the IAU's irresponsible actions.

All Planet Pluto comments which in appeared in the comments section of the earlier Pluto blog post, are copied in full at end of this post.

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Laurel Kornfeld in the Blog for Highland Park

Pluto IS a planet because unlike most objects in the Kuiper Belt, it has attained hydrostatic equilibrium, meaning it has enough self-gravity to have pulled itself into a round shape. When an object is large enough for this to happen, it becomes differentiated with core, mantle, and crust, just like Earth and the larger planets, and develops the same geological processes as the larger planets, processes that inert asteroids and most KBOs do not have.

Not distinguishing between shapeless asteroids and objects whose composition clearly makes them planets is a disservice and is sloppy science.

As of now, there are three other KBOs that meet this criterion and therefore should be classified as planets—Haumea, Makemake, and Eris. Only one KBO has been found to be larger than Pluto, and that is Eris.

The IAU definition makes no linguistic sense, as it states that dwarf planets are not planets at all. That’s like saying a grizzly bear is not a bear. Second, it defines objects solely by where they are while ignoring what they are. If Earth were placed in Pluto’s orbit, by the IAU definition, it would not be a planet. That is because the further away an object is from its parent star, the more difficulty it will have in clearing its orbit.

Significantly, this definition was adopted by only four percent of the IAU, most of whom are not planetary scientists. No absentee voting was allowed. It was done so in a highly controversial process that violated the IAU’s own bylaws, and it was immediately opposed by a petition of 300 professional astronomers saying they will not use the new definition, which they described accurately as “sloppy.” Also significant is the fact that many planetary scientists are not IAU members and therefore had no say in this matter at all.

Many believe we should keep the term planet broad to encompass any non-self-luminous spheroidal object orbiting a star.

We can distinguish different types of planets with subcategories such as terrestrial planets, gas giants, ice giants, dwarf planets, super Earths, hot Jupiters, etc.

We should be broadening, not narrowing our concept of planet as more objects are being discovered in this and other solar systems.
In a 2000 paper, Dr. Alan Stern and Dr. Hal Levison distinguish two types of planets—the gravitationally dominant ones and the smaller ones that are not gravitationally dominant. However, they never say that objects in the latter category are not planets.

I attended the Great Planet Debate, which actually took place in August 2008, and there was a strong consensus there that a broader, more encompassing planet definition is needed. I encourage anyone interested to listen to and view the conference proceedings at http://gpd.jhuapl.edu/ You can also read more about this issue on my blog at http://laurele.livejournal.com

You can find the petition of astronomers who rejected the demotion of Pluto here: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/planetprotest/

January 12, 2009 4:42 PM
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Inauguration Journal - Day 11

Anthony Atwood's Inauguration Journal - Day 11

MONDAY 12JAN09: Sunday night is worth documenting. The steak dinner was great. Some of us Navy people went next door to the American Legion for that steak dinner. They grilled the steaks outside, baked potato, veggies, and Caesar salad. The big story is on the television. All the bridges from Virginia into the city are going to be closed on I-Day. We are sitting with some of the local Legionaires and it is the topic du jour. “It has never happened before,” they vow. They are taking a homey pride in the unfolding events. The Billy Mitchell portrait in full-fig dress uniform and medals looks on agreeably.

We learn from the legionnaires how it came about we got so lucky to get the nice quarters we got: furnished apartments with sleek European décor; track lighting, gooseneck faucets, and picture windows look out over the city and its cathedral across the river. What it was is that the building went up planning to sell the units as condos. Just when they finished construction and were all primed to go on sale, the bottom dropped out of the market. They went into default. Like a lot of real estate, the place is tied up in knots. So the apartment house is as happy to have us, as we are to be there.

Like the unprecedented news the bridges will close, the preparations on the mall have been kicked up to the next level. There are long rows of porto-lets standing at parade rest along tree-lined green areas. The bleachers that were going up at the capitol are finished, and they have been painted white so they blend in with the building. If you did not know, they look like part of the building that has always been there. Reviewing stands are going up here and there, and intersections round-abouts are being closed off with jersey barriers. Red, white, and blue bunting is beginning to decorate window sills. The train station has hung some very big stars and stripes between the massive pillars. The lady is putting on her makeup.

At the steak dinner table I had confided to the Vietnam-era legionnaire guy next to me: “I think he’s going to be good.”

“So do I,” he nodded affirmatively.

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If a Planet is Dropped, Will Anyone Notice?

By taking Pluto off the planetary map, Neil Degrasse Tyson has put himself on the astronomer map. But it took a while.

Do you remember the mnemonic about the planets? My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. Guess what, Mom turned out to be empty-handed.

Back around the year 2000, Tyson--director of Hayden Planetarium, part of the American Museum of Natural History--looked at the data and dropped Pluto from their new planetary exhibit. In effect, an obit from the planetary orbit. How could he not? At Caltech, someone had even discovered an iceball bigger than Pluto! Today Pluto is considered part of the icy worlds beyond Neptune.

Tyson--even though Mike Tyson has been referred to as 'being from another planet', there is no relation--got a lot of negative feedback, not unlike this one from an elementary school child:

I think Pluto is a planet. Why do you think Pluto is no longer a planet? I do not like your answer!!! Pluto is my faveret planet!!! You are going to have to take all of the books away and change them. Pluto IS a planet!!!!!!!

Tyson's problem was that the industry's ruling society, the International Astronomical Union, would not get around to ruling on Pluto for a few more years. Actually, Tyson's real problem was that no one noticed until an article by Kenneth Chang in 2001. Chang followed up recently to vindicate Tyson. Tyson has a new book about it all, The Pluto Files.

All articles referenced are copied in full at end of post.

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How I (Ken Chang) Tormented Neil Degrasse Tyson
January 8, 2009, 4:02 pm

By Kenneth Chang

Neil deGrasse Tyson is director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History here in Manhattan. This month, he has a new book coming out called “The Pluto Files.”

It’s all my doing, hee hee.

It’s a cool ego stroke to find an index entry for oneself at the back of a book: “Chang, Kenneth, 80-83, 85-87.” Turning to those pages, I found Dr. Tyson telling how a Kenneth Chang article “would disrupt my life for years to come.” He gets bonus points for describing me as “eager, smart, young.”

It’s also notable how rare something that I write in The New York Times generates identifiable ripples in the world.

A bit of backstory: When the museum’s Rose Center for Earth and Space opened in February 2000, it quietly left out planethood for Pluto, placing it instead among the “icy worlds” beyond Neptune. This was years before the International Astronomical Union officially reclassified Pluto as a dwarf planet. Yet almost no one noticed the museum’s actions. Actually, the New York Post noticed in its preview of the new center, and no one noticed that.

Months passed. Then someone in the sports department noticed and told Cory Dean, then the science editor. She called me over and said, “I don’t know if there’s anything to this, but check it out.” I called the museum, which yielded a quizzical response that they hadn’t done anything since the Rose Center opened months earlier. I interviewed Dr. Tyson and other astronomers. I tromped up to the museum a couple of times to look at the incriminating exhibits and talk to confused visitors.

The result was this article, published Jan. 22, 2001, two days after George W. Bush was inaugurated: “Pluto’s Not a Planet? Only in New York.”

I knew I had written a good article. I thought it was one of those “fun reads” that people would enjoy, share with friends, and forget in a week.

Man was I wrong. I turned Dr. Tyson into Public Enemy Astronomer #1, for years.

Take this letter he received from an elementary school child:

I think Pluto is a planet. Why do you think Pluto is no longer a planet? I do not like your answer!!! Pluto is my faveret planet!!! You are going to have to take all of the books away and change them. Pluto IS a planet!!!!!!!

And then there was the response he got from other scientists like Robert L. Staehle of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory:

What gives? Did someone there have a memory lapse? What will take to get Pluto back up there where it belongs?

The museum quickly added a plaque explaining, “Where’s Pluto?” I consider that my personal plaque. Until Dr. Tyson’s book, this was the one thing I could point to and say, “I caused that.”

But I didn’t cause any of the larger events, and there was little that I, or any other newspaper reporter, could have written to alter them much. Certainly, the media could not have saved Pluto’s planetary status. Pluto would have become a dwarf planet regardless, because Michael Brown of Caltech discovered an iceball bigger than Pluto. (Not that I was trying to change anything. I didn’t consider myself a persecutor or defender of Pluto. I just thought it was a fun story.)

Now, a year and a half after the International Astronomical Union decision, it seems to me that most people have reached the acceptance stage that there are eight planets in the solar system. And for all the grief Dr. Tyson suffered, at least he will get royalties.
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Pluto's Not a Planet? Only in New York

January 22, 2001

By KENNETH CHANG

As she walked past a display of photos of planets at the Rose Center for Earth and Space, Pamela Curtice of Atlanta scrunched her brow, perplexed. There didn't seem to be enough planets.

She started counting on her fingers, trying to remember the mnemonic her son had learned in school years ago.

My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas.

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.

''I had to go through the whole thing to figure out which one was missing,'' she said.

Pluto.

Pluto was not there.

''Now I know my mother just served us nine,'' Mrs. Curtice said. ''Nine nothings.''

Quietly, and apparently uniquely among major scientific institutions, the American Museum of Natural History cast Pluto out of the pantheon of planets when it opened the Rose Center last February. Nowhere does the center describe Pluto as a planet, but nowhere do its exhibits declare ''Pluto is not a planet,'' either.

''We're not that confrontational about it,'' said Dr. Neil de Grasse Tyson, director of the museum's Hayden Planetarium. ''You actually have to pay attention to make note of this.''

Still, the move is surprising, because the museum appears to have unilaterally demoted Pluto, reassigning it as one of more than 300 icy bodies orbiting beyond Neptune, in a region called the Kuiper Belt (pronounced KY-per).

''Pluto is noticeable by its difficulty to find,'' Dr. Richard P. Binzel, a professor of planetary science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said of the Rose exhibits. ''They went too far in demoting Pluto, way beyond what the mainstream astronomers think.''

Dr. S. Alan Stern, director of Southwest Research Institute's space studies department in Boulder, Colo., also dislikes the change. ''They are a minority viewpoint,'' he said. ''It's absurd. The astronomical community has settled this issue. There is no issue.''

The International Astronomical Union, the pre-eminent society of astronomers, still calls Pluto a planet, one of nine of the solar system. Even a proposal in 1999 to list Pluto as both a planet and a member of the Kuiper Belt drew fierce protest from people who felt that the additional ''minor planet'' designation would diminish Pluto's stature.

The proposal was abandoned, and the astronomical union, which is based in Paris, released a statement reaffirming that Pluto was and is a planet. ''This process was explicitly designed to not change Pluto's status as a planet,'' the organization said.

But even some astronomers defending Pluto admit that were it discovered today, it might not be awarded planethood, because it is so small -- only about 1,400 miles wide -- and so different from the other planets.

While the international union's debate stirred considerable astronomical passion, the Rose Center's Plutoless planet display has not generated much controversy or consternation.

''I learned it one way for the first 50 years,'' said Mrs. Curtice's husband, William. ''I'll learn it another way now, I guess.''

Jane Levenson, an ''explainer'' at the center, says that perhaps one out of every 10 visitors asks her about the missing planet. She tells them about the debate over Pluto's status and says ''a decision had to be made'' as the museum was assembling the new exhibits.

''Children in particular ask,'' she said. ''Children say, 'Did they forget about Pluto?' Some even say, 'Did you forget my friend Pluto?' ''

Ilisse Familia, a sixth grader from the Good Shepherd School in Manhattan, was surprised when she heard the museum no longer counted Pluto among the planets. ''No wonder I couldn't find Pluto,'' she said. ''It's kind of weird.''

As a planet, Pluto has always been an oddball. Its composition is like a comet's. Its elliptical orbit is tilted 17 degrees from the orbits of the other planets. Pluto was discovered on Feb. 18, 1930, by Clyde W. Tombaugh, and astronomers initially estimated it to be as large as Earth. They have since learned it is much smaller, smaller than Earth's Moon.

But Pluto continued to be called a planet, because there was nothing else to call it. Then, in 1992, astronomers found the first Kuiper Belt object. Now they have found hundreds of additional chunks of rock and ice beyond Neptune, including about 70 that share orbits similar to Pluto's, the so-called Plutinos.

''We're much more subtle, but not deviously subtle,'' Dr. Tyson, the planetarium director, said of the Hayden exhibits. ''We decided to organize the information for the visitor in such a way that Pluto's classification would become self-evident.''

The exhibits refer to the inner four ''terrestrial planets'' -- Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars -- and the four gas giant planets -- Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Pluto, a small ball of rock and ice, does not fall into either group. ''Pluto does not have a family except for the icy bodies in the outer solar system,'' Dr. Tyson said. ''So we simply group it with the Kuiper Belt. In a sense, we're sidestepping the definitional problem altogether.''

A display describing the solar system includes this carefully worded sentence: ''Beyond the outer planets is the Kuiper Belt of comets, a disk of small, icy worlds including Pluto.''

A diagram of the planets shows eight, not nine, rings around the Sun.

Other planetariums have not followed the Rose Center's lead. The entryway to the Adler Planetarium in Chicago includes bronze plaques of only eight planets, but that is because it opened just before Pluto was officially named. Inside, the exhibits include Pluto among the planets.

The Denver Museum of Nature and Science is building a $45 million, 30,000-square-foot space science center, scheduled to open in 2003. Those exhibits will also still count nine planets in the solar system. ''We're sticking with Pluto,'' said Dr. Laura Danly, curator of space sciences at the Denver museum. ''We like Pluto as a planet.''

But, she also said, ''I think there is no right or wrong on this issue. It's a moving target right now, no pun intended, what is and is not a planet.''

Planet, in the original Greek word, meant ''wanderer,'' referring to the dots of light that moved across the night sky. When the 16th-century astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus realized that the universe did not revolve around the Earth, Earth became another planet circling the Sun.

For Dr. Tyson, the redefining of Pluto has historical precedent. In 1801, astronomers combing the large gap between Mars and Jupiter discovered Ceres, and for a short while, Ceres was a planet. Then another large rock was found in the same region. And another. Soon it became apparent there was a ring of rocky bodies between Mars and Jupiter. Since astronomers did not want to call all of them planets, they renamed them asteroids.

Just as Ceres, which turned out to be about 580 miles wide, was reassigned from planet to asteroid, Pluto should join the Kuiper Belt objects, Dr. Tyson said. ''It's entirely analogous to the asteroid belt,'' he said, ''except there's a 60-year delay between the discovery of the first and second objects.''

The new view of Pluto would recast it ''from puniest planet to king of the Kuiper Belt,'' Dr. Tyson said. ''And I think it's happier that way. I'm convinced our approach will prevail. It makes too much scientific sense and too much pedagogical sense.''
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Giving Obama Credit, the non-TARP Kind

A bit silent here about Obama lately, except to note I was 'comfortably numb' initially. But, in attempting to emulate the late great Ronald Reagan, I've become cautiously optimistic. I agree with everything Michael Barone says in this article about Obama's economic strategy. The highlights from my perspective:

All of which strikes me as good politics. Congressional Democrats are complaining about the tax cuts and calling for more public works spending -- even though, for all their talk of shovel-ready projects, pretty much everyone knows that such spending won't provide much in the way of an immediate stimulus to the economy. And that's especially true if their environmental group allies gin up lawsuits to protect this or that supposedly endangered species from imperilment from this or that highway or bridge.

Republicans, pleasantly surprised by the presence of tax cuts, are scurrying away from the demands for all-out opposition from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and movement conservatives. They're pleased that Democrats like Speaker Nancy Pelosi are displeased by Obama's unwillingness to raise taxes on high earners immediately.
...
Obama's decision to include tax cuts as well as stimulative spending in his George Mason speech indicates that he's not willing to bet on any one policy to succeed anytime soon -- and that he's interested in spreading any resulting political blame.

Article referenced is copied in full at end of post.

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Obama's Economic Strategy By Michael Barone

January 10, 2009

How will Barack Obama govern as president? One clue, I think, is the site where he chose to make his first post-election policy speech, laying out his economic stimulus plan last week.

Presumably he had many invitations and could have made it anywhere in Washington. But he chose to trek out to Northern Virginia, to George Mason University, a school known for its free market economics department. And the plan he unveiled there is not exactly what you might have expected from a politician who in 2007 had the most liberal voting record in the Senate, according to National Journal.

To be sure, he called for massive infrastructure spending, for alternative energy investment, for more health care spending -- all items from the Democratic wish list. But he also called for tax cuts for individuals and businesses -- the sort of thing Republicans usually press for. Three weeks ago, I put forward the guess that Obama would hold himself aloof from and above his party, much as Dwight Eisenhower did in the 1950s. It seems that, for the moment anyway, I guessed right.

All of which strikes me as good politics. Congressional Democrats are complaining about the tax cuts and calling for more public works spending -- even though, for all their talk of shovel-ready projects, pretty much everyone knows that such spending won't provide much in the way of an immediate stimulus to the economy. And that's especially true if their environmental group allies gin up lawsuits to protect this or that supposedly endangered species from imperilment from this or that highway or bridge.

Republicans, pleasantly surprised by the presence of tax cuts, are scurrying away from the demands for all-out opposition from the likes of Rush Limbaugh and movement conservatives. They're pleased that Democrats like Speaker Nancy Pelosi are displeased by Obama's unwillingness to raise taxes on high earners immediately.

Obama seems to have drawn this lesson from recent and comparatively ancient legislative history: that both parties need to be drawn into the legislative negotiations, even though Democrats have sufficient majorities to pass a bill all by themselves.

Ancient history: Bill Clinton's decision to pass his 1993 economic package only with Democratic votes cost him and his party critical support. Recent history: The failure to draw the ordinarily powerless House Republican minority into discussions resulted in the (temporary) defeat of the $700 billion financial rescue package last September.

After 1994, Clinton pursued policies by way of "triangulation," standing above and separate from both parties and negotiating with each. Last October, Democrats and the Bush Treasury made concessions to the House Republicans. Obama is doing the same sort of thing ahead of time.

The likelihood then is that the final stimulus package will be supported by many in both parties. And that both parties will be held responsible for the results. Moreover, Obama was careful to note that good results may be long in coming. Just as he eliminated the possibility of a primary challenge by Hillary Clinton in 2012, so Obama seems to be trying to remove an issue that Republicans might run on in 2010.

Good politics, then. But is it good policy? That's harder to say. We are in the midst of a financial crisis unlike any we've seen in many years and are facing the threat of deflation, of the sort that choked off economic growth in America in the 1930s and Japan in the 1990s. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke probably knows more about the economics of the 1930s than anyone else on earth. Outgoing Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and incoming Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner know as much about financial markets as just about any two experts you could find. Obama's lead adviser Lawrence Summers, in the opinion of others as well as himself, is one of the world's most knowledgeable economists.

But it is not apparent that any of them knows how to produce the optimal economic conditions that Americans have become used to over the past quarter-century at the speedy pace that American voters are inclined to demand. In a time of deflation, prices tend to fall -- and so it makes sense to hold onto your money and buy things next year. In a time when households are overburdened with debt, it makes sense to pay your credit cards and your mortgage down and not take on more.

Obama's decision to include tax cuts as well as stimulative spending in his George Mason speech indicates that he's not willing to bet on any one policy to succeed anytime soon -- and that he's interested in spreading any resulting political blame.

Copyright 2009, Creators syndicate Inc.
Page Printed from: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/01/obamas_economic_strategy.html at January 11, 2009 - 02:08:02 AM PST
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Inauguration Journal - Day 10

Anthony Atwood's Inauguration Journal - Day 10

SUNDAY 11JAN09: Reveille Reveille: 0300. We are underway early this Sunday morning for a dry run in advance of the big parade. We report to the office and scatter on foot and in vans all over town to our assigned places. Mine is across the river at the Pentagon. There is a full moon overhead crossing the river. My duty station for the exercise is in the Pentagon parking lot, which is where the parade units will stage. A trailer has been pre-positioned there and that is a good thing as the dawn is nippy.

Early on I-Day, one hundred and one charter buses (don’t quote me on numbers) will converge on this parking lot bringing the various marching units for the parade. These groups are from across the country. Many are military, but many more are civilian participants, such as high school bands that have been invited. Because it is a large parade it is grouped into six divisions. The parking lot is spacious.

I-Day the bridges across the river will be closed to regular traffic. Once a parade division of buses has collected, they will depart the parking lot with police escort to the assembly area at the start of the parade. That would be the White House Ellipse (the big back yard), where the marchers will disembark from their buses, fall in, and step off. The route of the parade is such that it will bring them back to the same place. BTW, there is a host of information about it readily available, see it by clicking here.

This morning many of the local units have come in their buses and are there for the dry run. There are four busloads of Navy cadets from Annapolis. Go Navy! Our team huddles in the trailer for radio checks and to go over the plan. On I-Day it is expected that media will be on hand to report on their hometown marching units. I’ve heard a high school band from Broward County is in the line-up. Our team at the Capitol passes the word that some-350 media outlets have gathered there to cover this daybreak walk-through. That is a great amount of interest.

In the trailer the Army Major on our team is sitting on a folding chair framed in the window as we go over things. Over his shoulder in the distance the beautiful Washington Monument can clearly be seen rising above the trees, standing tall in the dawn.

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Caveat: H&R Block Will Empty Your Tax Refund

H&R Block just settled a lawsuit for acting as a loan shark to people desperate to get their IRS tax refunds. No word yet on whether they will attempt to parlay these type of services into accepting betting on NFL games. When the commonly used Latin phrase for buyer beware, caveat emptor [caveat represents the beware part], is a part of your informational literature as a result of a court order, that's always a tough nut to crack for financial advisors. The WSJ article explains:

In the complaint, filed in early 2006, Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. alleged H&R Block disguised refund anticipation loans, which carry fees and other costs, as tax refunds, and used unfair debt collection practices where customers' refund proceeds were used to pay off debts they supposedly owed.

"This settlement prevents H&R Block from marketing high-cost loans as early tax refunds," Mr. Brown said. "This is especially important because often these loans go to those who can least afford them."

Article referenced is copied in full at end of post.

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H&R Block Reaches Settlement in Ad Suit

JANUARY 2, 2009, 5:57 P.M. ET

By JOHN KELL

The California Attorney General's office reached a $4.85 million settlement with H&R Block Inc. in a lawsuit that alleged the tax preparer used deceptive advertising of tax refund loans.

In the complaint, filed in early 2006, Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. alleged H&R Block disguised refund anticipation loans, which carry fees and other costs, as tax refunds, and used unfair debt collection practices where customers' refund proceeds were used to pay off debts they supposedly owed.

In the settlement, H&R Block agreed to pay $2.45 million in restitution for consumers who purchased a refund anticipation loan -- a short-term loan secured by a taxpayer's anticipated income tax refund -- between January 2001 and December 2008. H&R Block will pay $500,000 in penalties and $1.9 million in fees and costs.

"This settlement prevents H&R Block from marketing high-cost loans as early tax refunds," Mr. Brown said. "This is especially important because often these loans go to those who can least afford them."

H&R Block denied any wrongdoing but said it has worked with Mr. Brown to improve its practices.

Additionally, H&R Block is required to offer disclosures to consumers prior to their purchases of the products.

Shares of H&R Block were even in after-hours trading after closing down 0.9% to $22.51 in the regular session.

Write to John Kell at john.kell@dowjones.com
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Inauguration Journal - Day 9

Anthony Atwood's Inauguration Journal - Day 9

SATURDAY 10JAN09: 0630. This day is one of preparations for a coming trial-run of the parade on I-Day. There is a briefing in the basement, where a huge map of the parade route has been set up. I don’t mean set up on the wall. The map is larger than the floor space of some homes, so it is laid out on the floor of the basement. The team collects around the fringes and we go over tomorrow’s exercise; who’s on first, what’s on second, and so forth. You would be proud to see the loving care and attention to detail being poured out.

We are cut loose a bit early since the following day will start early. At mid-afternoon I set forth to find the Fort Myer thrift shop. Fort Myer borders Arlington. Military thrift shops are about the same as Goodwill stores, but with their own flavor. Such stores keep odd hours and offer a miscellany of items such as used golf clubs, secondhand toasters, footlockers, and bric-a-brac. I shop them looking for the items of historical militaria sometimes to be found. The post runs alongside Arlington National Cemetery and is home to the “Old Guard,” the elite soldiers who guard the Tomb of the Unknowns 24/7.

The thrift shop is located in an old brick stable and this warms my heart. Long after horses are no longer used for anything but occasional ceremonies and play, the Army has kept these sturdy and good looking buildings, restored them, and turned them around for creative reuse as warehouses, storerooms, office space, and… thrift shops. It is a fine application of historic preservation. Military posts may appear quaint and old-fashioned to the short-sighted. Yet in large measure they are the living repositories of our common American heritage.

My finds this day are a reproduction of a Romanoff family portrait, an Army Air Corps commemorative calendar, and an Air Force paperweight dating 1970. Price: two dollars, American. There are four second-hand Navy Bridge Coats hanging on a rack in the uniform section. These are long officer winter coats studded with gold buttons, and they are a uniform item in great demand among us, as we were all directed to report with one. Alas, I bought a brand new one before coming from Miami! So I pass, although they are going for a song. If those coats could talk, what would they tell about where they have been and who has worn them? Outside, the day has become rainy, and a scattering of light snow has fallen. Night comes quickly. Taps Taps. Lights out.

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Tattoos, Peter Lynch and Good Investment Advice

I was walking on the Key Biscayne bridge Saturday morning and noticed an attractive woman runner. As she passed me, I cringed as I briefly confused the tattoo on her back with an open wound. In fairness, it probably more closely resembled a color depiction of a colonoscopy administered to Kobayashi following a competition and a side bet involving Push-Up® Frozen Treats [Rainbow Sherbet flavor].

It naturally made me think about investment strategies. A classic opportunity to use use common sense to help guide our investments, as often preached by Peter Lynch. If I were to miss the tattoo removal boom, I'm not sure I could forgive myself, it's that obvious. Quick search turned up these companies, some are not public for now.

• DH Gate.com [China]
• Guang Zhou Hua Fei Tong Da Technology Co.
• TLC Vision Corp (TLC)

Finally, it made me wonder, what other, cosmetically speaking, spectacularly bad decisions can people make early in life that will haunt them more than their tattoos? Bad hairstyles and cuts grow out. Cosmetic surgery is typically available with the higher disposal income which comes in later years and besides, people get to decide when sober. Younger balding men can be bailed out by the shaved head alternative, thereby depressing the plug nation candidates. Tattoo's really have no competition.

Which is why I see Peter Lynch's investing philosophy in every tattoo.

Your investor's edge is not something you get from Wall Street experts. It's something you already have. You can outperform the experts if you use your edge by investing in companies or industries you already understand.

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Why is Christ baptized?

Fr Vallee weighs in on Sunday's gospel reading and tackles the question, Why is Christ baptized?

Augustine tells us: “Discover why he was born and you will discover why he was baptized. There, I mean to say, you will discover the way of humility” [Sermon 292, 3-4]. In the birth of Christ, we see the ultimate power of God as powerlessness. He was God, yet he became a human being. He emptied himself and took the form of a slave. He humbled himself. John is clear as to his unworthiness: “it is you who should baptize me.” This is a great confession of humility. Jesus is teaching us by this action. He is teaching us that humility is the way of perfection and the only path to true love. Jesus did not need to be baptized, he did not need to be born either. He performs both actions out of pure love and humility and not for any external reason. The truest things we do, we do purely out of love and not for any ulterior or practical motive. As Gabriel Marcel said, “If you know exactly why you love me, you do not love me.”

...
Humility is the way of our Lord. If you understand why Christ was born, you will understand why he was baptized. Arrogance is death -- death to life, death to love, death to faith. Being a Christian does not mean you support Christ the way you would support a political candidate. Being Christian means you are like Christ. The way of our Lord is not the way of power and politics. Religion is not convertible to a political platform on the right or the left. The way of our Lord is the way of love and humility.

Entire homily and gospel reading are copied in full at end of post.

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Why is Christ baptized?

I. Why is Christ baptized?
Bishop Noonan tells the cute story of his preaching at a children’s mass. He asked the children why Jesus was baptized. One of the kids said, “to get his big sin forgiven.” Bishop Noonan said, “big sin, what big sin?” The little boy said, “Remember, he ran from his parent s, then he talked back to them.” It really is a fair question. Why exactly was Jesus baptized? First, the baptism of John is not the baptism of the Christian faithful, is not the sacramental baptism which Jesus will give to his Church. I mean being baptized does not illogically make Jesus Christ a Christian. On the other hand, Jesus Christ does not have sins that need to be forgiven So, why did Jesus get baptized by John at all? Actually many theologians have taken up this question. Thomas Aquinas gives us three reasons: first so that we would recognize Christ; second, to sanctify baptism; and third to persuade us to do penance. These are all good reasons but my personal favorite comes from Augustine.

II. Discover why he was born and you will discover why he was baptized
Augustine tells us: “Discover why he was born and you will discover why he was baptized. There, I mean to say, you will discover the way of humility” [Sermon 292, 3-4]. In the birth of Christ, we see the ultimate power of God as powerlessness. He was God, yet he became a human being. He emptied himself and took the form of a slave. He humbled himself. John is clear as to his unworthiness: “it is you who should baptize me.” This is a great confession of humility. Jesus is teaching us by this action. He is teaching us that humility is the way of perfection and the only path to true love. Jesus did not need to be baptized, he did not need to be born either. He performs both actions out of pure love and humility and not for any external reason. The truest things we do, we do purely out of love and not for any ulterior or practical motive. As Gabriel Marcel said, “If you know exactly why you love me, you do not love me.”

III. Father’s birthday party
There is a story of an old Irish pastor, not Bishop Noonan this time, who was celebrating his birthday. The children came to bring Father presents. Little Suzie came first. Her mother ran the local bakery. When Father saw the round box, he said, “ah Suzie darling, thank you for the lovely cake.” Suzie said, “Father, how did you know it was a cake?” Father said, “sure enough, Father knows everything.” Jose came up next. Jose’s mom was a seamstress. When Father saw the bulky package, he said, “Jose lad, I sure do thank you for the beautiful sweater.” Jose said, “Father how did you know it was a sweater?” Father said, “Father knows everything you know.” Finally Johnnie came up. Johnnie’s dad ran the local liquor store and Johnnie came up with a package that was a bit wet at the bottom. Father said, “Johnnie thank you for the lovely bottle of scotch.” Johnnie said, “Oh no, Father, it isn’t scotch.” Father said, “it’s not? Let me see it then.” Then he touched it and said to himself, “Maybe not scotch.” So, he said, “gin then, is it gin you have there?” Johnnie said, “No Father, not gin.” Father decided to give it one last try and smelled the liquid carefully. He said “Bourbon, is it a nice bottle of bourbon you have there for me?” Johnnie said, “no it’s not bourbon.” Father said, “I give up then.” Johnnie proudly announced. “It’s a puppy.” Humility is the way of our Lord. If you understand why Christ was born, you will understand why he was baptized. Arrogance is death -- death to life, death to love, death to faith. Being a Christian does not mean you support Christ the way you would support a political candidate. Being Christian means you are like Christ. The way of our Lord is not the way of power and politics. Religion is not convertible to a political platform on the right or the left. The way of our Lord is the way of love and humility.
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Mark 1: 7 - 11
7 And he preached, saying, "After me comes he who is mightier than I, the thong of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.
8 I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."
9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.
10 And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove;
11 and a voice came from heaven, "Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased."
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