Ursula K. Le Guin's newest book

Ursula K. Le Guin is one of the great authors currently writing in English. She uses words well, without being showy, or long-winded. She is interested in the craft of writing. She creates splendid characters. She imagines "what if?" situations, and writes about important themes. She is responsible for the invention of the concept of a communication device, the ansible, that is now commonly used in science fiction writing.

Le Guin was interviewed on National Public Radio's All Things Considered on April 26. The interview includes a brief reading from her book, Lavinia, by the author. It also describes the book, which is based on work by the ancient poet, Virgil. Le Guin said that the book is, in part, about the dreadfulness of war. The link to the interview goes to a page which includes an excerpt from the book. (Lavinia was published on April 21.)

Although written about the past, I am guessing that the book will be fantastic, in some ways.

Thanks for reading. Listen to Le Guin.

More on how we don't "Support our troops"

Reuters reports that a recent study indicates that about 18% of troops returning from Iraq or Afghanistan suffer serious emotional problems, which is bad enough. The really bad part is that about half of these don't receive any care for these problems. That's about 150,000 veterans needing and deserving care, but not getting it.

Once again, "support our troops," is a political slogan (used by persons of more than one political view) rather than a principle or policy. Whatever one thinks of the war, that would seem to be sad, bad, perhaps even hypocritical and cynical, on the part of the politicians.

A bipartisan group of U. S. Senators reacted to allegations that troops with war-related emotional problems have been discharged in such a way that they have been wrongly made ineligible for care by the Defense Department. (More on such charges, from a House member.) I don't know if these charges are true or not. I'm afraid that they are.

Thanks for reading.

Warfare in a theocracy

Deuteronomy 20:1 “When you go out to war against your enemies, and see horses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them, for the Lord your God is with you, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. 2 And when you draw near to the battle, the priest shall come forward and speak to the people 3 and shall say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel, today you are drawing near for battle against your enemies: let not your heart faint. Do not fear or panic or be in dread of them, 4 for the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.’ 5 Then the officers shall speak to the people, saying, ‘Is there any man who has built a new house and has not dedicated it? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man dedicate it. 6 And is there any man who has planted a vineyard and has not enjoyed its fruit? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man enjoy its fruit. 7 And is there any man who has betrothed a wife and has not taken her? Let him go back to his house, lest he die in the battle and another man take her.’ 8 And the officers shall speak further to the people, and say, ‘Is there any man who is fearful and fainthearted? Let him go back to his house, lest he make the heart of his fellows melt like his own.’ 9 And when the officers have finished speaking to the people, then commanders shall be appointed at the head of the people.

10 “When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. 11 And if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. (ESV)

One application for today's Christians is that, as long as we are on God's side, we don't need to fear. I'm not saying that the rest of these rules of war apply to anyone now, because I'm not sure that they do. Verse 10 didn't even apply throughout the Old Testament. It seems to have only applied to cities not in the territory of the Israelites -- they were to kill the adults in cities in their territory. I noticed this passage as a consequence of following the ESV on-line Bible reading for a day in April.

Thanks for reading.

On the cost of the Gulf War (Not the current one)

I was amazed to hear a report that stated that the US is paying about $12 billion (that's a thousand million) per month for veterans who became disabled because of the Gulf War, in which Iraq was driven back from Kuwait, by a broad coalition of military from several nations. (This was not the current Gulf War.) So I checked, and found this report, by CNN, that states that, indeed, in January 2003, there were 161,000 veterans receiving disability benefits because of their service in this war. (The report is not on this subject, but the statistic is included.)

A report says that we are paying 4.3 billion a year on personnel disabled in the first Gulf War, and cites the Veterans Benefit Administration as its source.

PRI's The World interviewed (scroll down to "Three trillion dollar war") Joseph Stiglitz, an economist, and he said that the current Iraq war will cost three trillion dollars, based, in large part, on estimates based on that same 4.3 billion a year for the first Gulf War, which, he said, was being spent on 40% of the veterans of that war, those who were disabled. These funds are not generally included in costs of the current war, but in costs of caring for veterans.

The Wikipedia article on the Gulf War states that, as of 2000, there were 183,000 veterans who were suffering from a disability, and that this was one-quarter of the total number of troops. I'm not sure why there is a discrepancy in both the number and the fraction disabled, but, unless both sources are seriously false, there are a lot more people who were disabled from the Gulf War than I had supposed, and the cost must be significant. If there are "only" 150,000 such (lower than either report gives) and the cost of treating each one, including medical personnel, record-keeping, prosthetics, physical therapy, surgery, counseling, facilities, medicine, disability support, etc., is only $2000 per month per person (which must be a low estimate) the cost would be $300 million per month, or 3.6 billion a year.

The current war may or may not have been justified. Continuing it may or may not be justified. But no one, including even politicians who oppose this war, seems to be talking about this aspect of the tremendous monetary cost. (And, of course, we don't seem to be giving our veterans very good care, in some instances. Besides which, none of this says anything about costs for caring for Iraqi civilians, or insurgents, or the Iraqi army.)

Perhaps others realized how many veterans can expect to be disabled, but I had no idea that the projected percentage was so high. War may be necessary some times, but it is a terrible event, at best.

Thanks for reading.

Two Quotes from On Blue's Waters, by Gene Wolfe

On Blue's Waters: Volume One of the Book of the Short Sun, by Gene Wolfe (New York: Tor, 1999) is the first of a trilogy of fantastic novels. Wolfe is a good writer. He considers lots of ideas. Here are two quotations from the book:
Immediate action is the soul of war, as I learned many years ago by observing General Mint. It is not the soul of peace. (p. 185)

Listen all you phantom readers. Buildings are temporary, ideas permanent. (p. 348)

Thanks for reading!

"Messiah, Prince of Peace," an anti-war hymn by Charles Wesley

This year is the 300th anniversary of Charles Wesley's birth. Wesley wrote many hymns. One that I have never heard, but which is appropriate for this advent season, is "Messiah, Prince of Peace." It is also an anti-war hymn! These are the words, as posted by the Cyberhymnal:

Messiah, Prince of peace!
Where men each other tear,
Where war is learned, they must confess,
Thy kingdom is not there.
Who, prompted by Thy foe,
Delight in human blood,
Apollyon is their king, we know,
And Satan is their god.

But shall he still devour
The souls redeemed by Thee?
Jesus, stir up Thy glorious power
And end the apostasy!
Come, Savior, from above,
O’er all our hearts to reign;
And plant the kingdom of Thy love
In every heart of man.

Then shall we exercise
The hellish art no more,
While Thou our long-lost paradise
Dost with Thyself restore.
Fightings and wars shall cease,
And, in Thy Spirit giv’n,
Pure joy and everlasting peace
Shall turn our earth to Heav’n.

These words were published in 1762, hence are public domain.

Thanks for reading.

Musings about September 11th

Some musing about September 11th, 2001, posted on September 11, 2007.

1) The attacks were a disaster for the US, certainly. However, although I can't find statistics on this, I'm pretty sure that more people die each year because they don't have health insurance than the total of those who died in the attacks, plus the US military who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

* * * * *
Added September 12th: A commenter says that this is comparing apples to oranges. I guess so. My point was not that being attacked by terrorists is the moral equivalent of not having universal health care, but that we responded massively to a few thousand deaths from a terrorist attack, but aren't responding much to an equivalent number of deaths because we don't have a good health care system. We also don't seem to respond much to other things that kill thousands of people, such as gang violence and drunken drivers. We just accept these deaths as normal. I wish we would do something about these three killers, too, or instead of, our "war on terror."

2) Osama Bin Laden is still at large. Why?

3) Except for those in the military, and their families, there has been little sacrifice in the so-called "War on Terror." The President, with the complicity of Congress, has not called upon US taxpayers to pay for our activity in the Middle East, at least not directly. The expenses for the war, as I understand it, have just been added to the national debt. We haven't had to ration things we need, and, although gas prices have risen, this doesn't seem to be mostly due to the war. I saw a TV new program, where they interviewed the wife of a soldier, and she said that most of us weren't sacrificing. We are at the mall, or Starbuck's, she said.

4) Quoting from an article in Slate: The surge will be over in April 2008, when the U.S. Army and Marines run out of deployable troops, and therefore at least a quarter of the 20 brigades now in Iraq will inevitably be withdrawn and not replaced. This is by now common knowledge. At the same time, nearly all politicians, including most Democrats, have come out against a total withdrawal and have recognized that we will have some military presence in Iraq for a long time to come.
If that's the case, what's the political furor all about? Posturing and trying to get votes, I guess.

5) "Support our Troops" is, unfortunately, partly a sound bite, a cruel joke. A recent USA Today report, which I read, but cannot locate, indicated that several members of Congress, from both parties, had felt it necessary to take some extreme steps, such as contacting defense contractors to encourage them to hurry, in order that our military have up-to-date equipment, because the Pentagon wasn't doing enough. It is well known that the troops were not sent to Iraq with adequate armor. Health-care in the military, especially for those with various kinds of mental illness, is in trouble.

6) For many Christians, the "War on Terror" is problematic. (Some Christians are against all wars.) See this post on the subject. I attended a large group discussion, shortly after September 11, 2001, which was supposed to consider a Christian response. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that what most of those present wanted to do was to state their plans for pursuing attacks against the terrorists. In other words, they wanted revenge. That didn't strike me as a Christian response. Besides, the direct perpetrators had all died in the attacks.

7) I wonder, but don't know, if Iraq and Afghanistan are more open to the gospel than they were six years ago? I hope so.

8) Although President Bush has been criticized for a lot of things related to the war in Iraq, and, no doubt, some, maybe a lot of this, is deserved, he would probably have been impeached if he hadn't done something pretty drastic in response to the September 11 attacks.

9) The moral standing of the United States has suffered because of our actions in the Middle East.

Thanks for reading.

Sunspots 104

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Science: A proposed experiment to see if quantum indeterminacy applies to objects larger than the sub-atomic.

There is at least one double asteroid -- two bodies, one in orbit around the other, as they orbit the sun.

On why New York City is the most environment-friendly place in the US. Really.

Cellphone radiation may be interfering with the lives of bees.

Politics: "Even the highest morale is eventually undermined by back-to-back deployments...Something has to give and it's giving. Resources are overstretched. Frustration is up, as families are separated and strained. Morale is down. Recruitment is more difficult. And many of our best people in the military are headed for civilian life."*

(or maybe Science)
A US government study on the effect of government-sponsored programs using encouragement of sexual abstinence as a deterrent to teen pregnancy, etc. Here's a quote from .PDF page 17 (not the report's page number, but the number as counted in the file): Findings indicate that youth in the program group were no more likely than control group youth to have abstained from sex and, among those who reported having had sex, they had similar numbers of sexual partners and had initiated sex at the same mean age. . . . however, program group youth were no more likely to have engaged in unprotected sex than control group youth. In other words, such programs didn't help, but they didn't hurt, either.

Music: The German government has studied the so-called "Mozart effect."

Computing:
Catez Stevens has awarded this blog a Thinking Blogger award. Thanks!

This is two years' worth of the Sunspots part of this blog, and I enjoy doing it, and the blog as a whole. It helps me think.

Literature: A brief, but on-the-mark, essay on "Conflicts in Out of the Silent Planet."

There is a Christian Carnival this week! You can submit an entry yourself, for the next couple of days. For information on these Carnivals, go here.

Thanks for reading! Keep clicking away.

Image source (public domain)

*According to USA Today, this statement was made by President George W. Bush in 1999, when he was a candidate for President.

The Iraqi election, in California

Many things have been said about the manner of entry of the US into a war in Iraq, about the conduct of that war, and the like. I've said a few myself. But at least one good thing seems to have come from this war, and not a small one -- an evil dictator is in prison, and Iraqis have a voice in their own future.

This restaurant, in El Cajon, California, was one of the sites where Iraqis living in the U. S. could vote in the recent election. We drove by, a couple of days after the election, and took this picture. God bless them. May Iraq not only have elections, but may Iraqis be able to decide upon the claims of Christ, too.

You should be able to see a larger version of this photo, if you wish, by clicking on it. You can also get to all of our Flickr photos that way.

Thanks for reading!

Ethics and the wars of Lewis and Tolkien

In a previous post, I quoted a secondary source, which credited Aquinas with three parts of a just war: proper authority to wage one, having a just cause, and having right intentions. A commenter said, I think correctly, that Augustine also contributed to just war theory.

Did the "good guys" in C. S. Lewis' Narnia books wage just wars, when they waged them? How about the "good guys" in J. R. R. Tolkien's Ring books? I'll try to answer those questions.

First, Lewis. I have seen the trailer for the soon-to-be-shown "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe," and, judging from the emphasis given in the trailer, the battle fought in the book the movie is supposed to be based on will be more important than it was in the book. This war seems to have unquestionably been just, on the part of Peter and his siblings, and, of course, Aslan. The White Witch attacked them.

Other wars are mentioned briefly in the Narnia books, and I don't think there's enough information to judge as to whether or not they were just. In The Last Battle, much of the book is about warfare between King Tirian and the Telmarines. Again, self-defense was involved.

Tolkien described lots of wars in The Silmarillion, and in the appendix to the Ring trilogy. I won't concern myself with these. What about the final war, where Gondor, Rohan, and others (such as the Ents) go into combat against Sauron. Although it's more complicated than the battles in Narnia, I think, again, that this is mostly self-defense. Sauron or Saruman have harried and harrassed, and conquered lands they were not entitled to. Sauron attacks Gondor. Saruman destroys sentient Ents. Sauron clearly plans to overcome the world. Gandalf gives, as it were, supernatural approval and encouragement to go to war. So does prophecy.

Because I have temporarily left most of our library behind, including our Tolkien and Lewis books, I am operating from memory. Also, this is merely musings on the wars in these books. Perhaps a reader can take this much further than I have. For what it's worth, Lewis and Tolkien (who had both served in the British military) presented wars that had to be fought, against enemies who were grossly unjust, in these works of fiction. There was proper authority: Aslan/Peter, or Gandalf/Denethor/Aragorn/Theoden. There was just cause: evil conquest and destruction that needed to be defeated. There was right intention: restoration of justice (including, in both worlds, better care of the environment.)

Ethics and War

War, or the possibility of war, brings up grave ethical questions.

In the Old Testament, God directed the Israelites to attack and destroy some nations. One aspect of Saul's rebellion against God was his reluctance to completely destroy the Amalekites--he didn't kill Agag, their king, or their cattle. Samuel finished the job that Saul didn't. God sometimes ordered non-believing nations (including the Assyrians, precursors of the Iraqis) to attack the Israelites in the Old Testament.

Things had changed in the New Testament. Jesus did not come to set up an earthly kingdom, and He doesn't seem to have preached against the actions of the Romans any more than He preached against the actions of everybody else. John the Baptist didn't tell Roman soldiers to leave the army, but to be content with their wages. The Romans, lest you forget, were a conqueror occupying the Holy Land. Although Christ didn't advocate against the military, he clearly didn't mean that his Kingdom should be brought by military force. He said, in the Sermon on the Mount, "But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." (Matthew 5:39)

Matthew 5:39 is not the platform that George W. Bush, nor John Kerry, both avowed Christians, ran on. (It is not clear to everybody that Christ's command here is for nations. Perhaps it is only for individual Christians.)

Some Christians believe that no war is justified. They are pacifists.

Some Christians believe that striking first is never justified, but that responding may be.

Some Christians believe that the U. S. is God's people, and can fight anyone who gets in our way, with God's blessing. After all, we haven't been beaten on our own soil by an outside force in our history, which must prove that God is on our side. Maybe God was on our side once, but that doesn't prove He is now. Maybe it's geography on our side, not God. We are more difficult to invade (other than by Canada and Mexico) than most nations, because of geography. God's people, in the 21st century, are Christians, not the U. S.

Other Christians believe that some wars are justified, and some not. The idea of a just war goes way back in Christian history, at least to Thomas Aquinas. The standard position is that there are certain criteria that must be met, in order for a war to be just:

“For a war (bellum) to be just,” Aquinas writes, “three things are necessary”:
sovereign authority, just cause, and right intention. ("Just War, As It Was and Is," James Turner Johnson, First Things, January 2005)

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy's article on "Just War Theory." has almost the same wording. See also the article on "Just war," by the Wikipedia, which points out that there are conditions for a just war after it starts, including that treatment of prisoners should be just.

If there can be just wars, that means that some wars are surely unjust. Even fighting a just war, by Augustine's criteria, may lead to ethical problems. How so?

Here are a few general problems with wars:

Governments which perceive themselves as under threat of war or terrorism almost always begin to do things which are questionable ethically. One not-so-shining example was the imprisonment of many innocent Japanese-Americans during World War II. Some who were arrested shortly after the September 11, 2001 event are still in custody, not granted the usual hearings and other legal rights. There have been recent moves (The Patriot Act) to institutionalize some kinds of invasion of privacy, like e-mail monitoring and being able to find out who had checked out what library materials. Governments usually distort the truth to make their cases, and there are some indications that our present government has done that, for example in over-claiming ties between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, or in defining torture in ways that allow it to say that we have not tortured anyone.

Wars cost money, which might be used for other things, by governments, or by the citizens, if there hadn't been a war. We have gone, in a few short years, from actually paying down the U. S. deficit to increasing it greatly. Much of this is because of military spending.

Another ethical problem with a war is that wars, or threatened wars, often become an excuse for the ruler or government to ignore other problems. Castro has run Cuba for many years, with much of his policy directed toward hatred of the U. S. Belief among many of the citizens that the U. S. is a monstrous enemy has probably strengthened Castro's grip on power. If the perceived threat were not so large, the people might have asked themselves if they wouldn't be better off with some other leader, or some other type of government, or some other relationship with the U. S. The U. S. is the "Great Satan" to all too many poor, ignorant Muslims. Hating the U. S. makes them feel that they don't need clothing, food, education, etc., as much as they probably would if they weren't concentrating on the hatred so much.

Although it would seem that war isn't directly related to environmental and medical ethics, there are connections. Wars do cause harm to the environment, do cause injuries, illnesses, and death, and wars take resources which might be spent on protecting the environment, providing
health care, or both.

Innocent civilians, including children, almost always get killed in wars.

War brings up many serious ethical questions, and usually leads to serious unethical behavior by at least one side. One of the things I ought to pray for more is that the current war, and wars that may happen, will not lead me, my loved ones who are in the military, other Christians, or government leaders, to do wrong things.




This work is licensed under a Creative
Commons License.

War, again, plus good news

This post has two purposes.

One is to commend some parts of the mainstream media. CSPAN and CSPAN2 can be as dull as watching paint dry, or riveting, depending on what's on, but they perform a vital service, and I am grateful that they exist. Then there's CBS's Sunday Morning. Since we got a VCR, I've taped that more than any other program. Granted, there are lots of advertisements, and that there is usually a segment on some popular entertainer that I fast-forward through, but this program does good things. For example, last Sunday there was a segment on good news, pointing out that it doesn't get much coverage, and showing three examples. Simple stuff, but powerful: an 11-year-old who raised $5,000 for surgery for a dog at the city pound; a public school cafeteria who had a fancy chef change their menus (the kids claim they like tilapia); a police force that stops bicyclers at night and puts on bike lights, free. There are thought-provoking commentaries, as good as Andy Rooney. There's Bill Geist, wandering the country in search of oddball people and events. There's coverage of the arts. Last Sunday they reported on the 75th anniversary of American Gothic, and on a recently discovered Beethoven manuscript. There's poetry by the host, Charles Osgood, and, finally, there's a brief segment, with no music or narration, of some natural area, for example the first snowfall in New England, or wild turkeys somewhere. Thanks, CBS!

CNBC has a program entitled "Tim Russert" on Saturday nights. Again, lots of commercials, but, around them, Russert spends the entire hour talking to some author. He does a wide variety, and, by the time he's through, you really know something about that person or persons.

Then there's PBS's News Hour. I know, mostly talking heads. But these people are given more time than the commercial networks usually would give them, and they are queried and rebutted.

That brings up the second purpose of this post. Last night, on the News Hour, two war-related questions were debated, and both had serious moral questions related to them. Is it right to pay for news coverage favorable to the US, in Iraq? Should torture by intelligence agencies be allowed? There were experts on both sides of both questions, and I think I understand the argument. Here's my opinion. I don't want my country to be buying news reports, whatever the reason. I don't want my country to be using torture, whatever the reason. If we claim to be an example for others, we need to set a good example.

A tribute to a military wife

I don't expect her to see this, and I'm not naming her, but she (and, no doubt, many other military spouses) deserves a tribute. I know that whether war can be just at all, and whether this particular one is, are subject to debate. I'm leaving that aside.

She came to SWU from a place far away. She was a good student, and graduated, then went back to her home area. Eventually, she married, and her husband was sent to Iraq, from a military base a couple of time zones from the rest of her family. He is now about to finish his second tour of duty. While he has been gone, She has raised three children, the youngest of which has yet to see his father, and, somehow, taken the oldest to school, gone to the doctor, etc., all the little things that have to be done, all by herself. God bless her, her children, and her husband.