Sen. Byrd on Iraq

Lots of ink today on the passing of Sen. Robert Byrd.  Steve Kettman, author with Sen. Byrd of Letter to a New President, wrote on Huffington Post quoting Ted Kennedy on Byrd's opposition to the Iraq war

During the work on the book, the late Senator Ted Kennedy invited me into his office for a private talk about Byrd and he singled out Byrd's leadership in opposing the Iraq War.

"His eloquence and passion and his leadership on this will be memorable," Kennedy said. " My sense is that so much of that memory went back to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, and where the United States got started on the war in Vietnam and they just couldn't end it. The Congress couldn't end it. The people couldn't end it. Presidents didn't end it. In '68, you had candidates to end the war and the government, the President, promised it, and it still went on until '75, still fighting in '72 or '73.

So in that sense, the fact that he had this historic perspective and awareness is something that really served the country in a very, very important way. Too many others were sort of taken up with the passion of the moment."

The loss of the blues

Professor Camille Paglia on what she sees as America's "sexual malaise," traces part of it to the commercialism of rock music

... rock music, once sexually pioneering, is in the dumps. Black rhythm and blues, born in the Mississippi Delta, was the driving force behind the great hard rock bands of the ’60s, whose cover versions of blues songs were filled with electrifying sexual imagery. The Rolling Stones’ hypnotic recording of Willie Dixon’s “Little Red Rooster,” with its titillating phallic exhibitionism, throbs and shimmers with sultry heat.

But with the huge commercial success of rock, the blues receded as a direct influence on young musicians, who simply imitated the white guitar gods without exploring their roots. Step by step, rock lost its visceral rawness and seductive sensuality. Big-ticket rock, with its well-heeled middle-class audience, is now all superego and no id.

Music to my ears - bring back the blues.

Can a society have PTSD?

Interesting questions from James Carroll

A psycho-medical diagnosis — post-traumatic stress syndrome — has gained legitimacy for individuals, but what about whole societies? Can war’s dire and lingering effects on war-waging nations be measured? Can the stories of war be told, that is, to include aftermath wounds to society that, while undiagnosed, are as related to civic responsibility for state violence as one veteran’s recurring nightmare is to a morally ambiguous firefight?

Firing McChrystal is not enough

Tom Andrews, director of Win Without War, on McChrystal and the war.

It's not enough to fire General McChrystal for his latest public act of insubordination. It's time to fire the entire Afghanistan strategy.

Dealing with death

Nice piece by Celeste this morning on how the church can help us deal with death.

Lessons for Mideast peace advocates

Op-ed by J Street's Jeremy ben-Ami worth carefully reading and pondering. 

It’s a true act of friendship for us to help Israel see how critical it is to end the occupation and create two states, to make this the centerpiece of American and Israeli policy, and to rely again on our people’s moral compass to guide the way.

Repentance and grace

Another theological lesson from baseball. Wednesday evening, umpire Jim Joyce blew a call at first base with two outs in the ninth inning, costing Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga a perfect game. After watching replays, Joyce immediately admitted his mistake and publicly apologized. 

I just missed the damn call. . . . This isn't 'a' call. This is a history call. And I kicked the [expletive] out of it. I take pride in this job, and I took a perfect game away from that kid over there who worked his [butt] off all night.

 Galarraga responded,"I give a lot of credit to that guy. . . . You don't see an umpire, after the game, say, 'I'm sorry.' Nobody's perfect."  Last night, with Joyce behind the plate, the Tigers sent Galarraga out with the lineup card while the crowd gave both of them a long ovation.

Tom Boswell concluded, 

There's a rumor going around that everybody makes mistakes. But it's what you do after you make them that matters most. Perhaps it is equally true that how we react to the mistakes of others, especially when they hurt us, reveals us like an open book.