More selective amnesia, this time from the folks in the U.S. Postal Service:
A Stamp for a Stalinist
By Eric Fettman
New York Post | January 2, 2004
The U.S. Postal Service on Jan. 20 will formally unveil a first-class postage stamp, the latest in its Black Heritage series, honoring Paul Robeson, the renowned actor-singer-orator-activist - and unapologetic Stalinist.
Does Robeson deserve what the Postal Service rightly calls "one of the nation's highest recognitions"? It's not an easy question to answer - because of all the many Hollywood radicals now worshiped as political heroes, Robeson's legacy is the most complex.
Too many of those repelled by his unfailing worship of everything Soviet - including the USSR's most murderous leader - refuse to acknowledge his genuine personal achievements in several key areas: valedictorian of his Princeton class, All-American athlete, lawyer (until white clients refused to hire him), linguist, noted actor and accomplished singer.
In each of these areas, he overcame pervasive racism and discrimination. Nor did he remain silent to aid his career - indeed, he became a militant leader in the battle against Jim Crow, showing repeated personal bravery and open defiance to racist white leaders.
During his 1956 testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, for example, he confronted Rep. Francis Walter, sponsor of anti-immigrant legislation: "You are the author of all the bills that are going to keep all kinds of decent people out of the country. . . . You want to shut up every Negro who has the courage to stand up and fight for the rights of his people."
Little wonder, then, that Robeson looms so large as an icon of black America. And for those many accomplishments, a postage stamp would be the least of the honors he deserves.
But then there's Robeson's darker side: the steadfast foe of hatred could never see his way to denounce - or even acknowledge - the tyranny of communism.
He proclaimed that "any man who lifts a hand against [Russia] should be shot." He slavishly parrotted the political orders laid down for him by Stalin. (His Communist Party membership, long denied, finally was acknowledged in 1998.) The self-proclaimed "anti-fascist" hailed the Hitler-Stalin pact, denounced FDR as a "warmonger" and declared: "Is England's side better than Hitler's? No!"
So devoted was he to Stalinism that he remained silent even when told in Moscow that dozens of leading Jewish intellectuals - many of them his longtime personal friends - were slated for wholesale execution. In fact, he did more than remain silent: He flatly denied what he'd been told, insisting he'd "heard no word" about Stalin's war on the Jews.
Even after Khrushchev's historic speech exposing Stalin's crimes (which led many Communists finally to break with the party), Robeson simply refused to believe that his hero could have been so evil.
None of this is even alluded to in the Postal Service's press release, which describes him simply as "an outspoken participant in labor and peace movements." Indeed, in a blatant attempt to rewrite history, the statement calls Robeson "a prominent supporter of the Allied war effort during World War II" - only after Hitler invaded the USSR, that is.
Why this insistence on sanitizing Robeson's history? Even the greatest artists are capable of political blindness. It doesn't affect their artistry, of course. But you can't truly evaluate that artistry without at least mentioning the politics.
You can't talk about Leni Riefenstahl's greatness as a filmmaker without discussing how she used those talents to propagandize for Hitler. You can't analyze the poet Ezra Pound without noting that he spent WWII making fascist radio broadcasts from Europe.
But just mention Paul Robeson's slavish Soviet-worship - even while hailing his prodigious achievements - and you'll instantly hear the outraged cry "McCarthyism!" Same thing for just about any Communist, like Pete Seeger, or ex-Communists like Arthur Miller and the Hollywood Ten.
Why the double standard - indeed, the basic dishonesty of refusing to talk about the truth?
Robeson's refusal to acknowledge the truth about one of the 20th century's two great evils ultimately undermined his ability to persuasively confront white America about the racial injustices it continued to perpetrate even during his lifetime.
And it explains why licking the new Paul Robeson stamp may leave a bitter taste in your mouth.
Saturday, January 03, 2004
Friday, January 02, 2004
The women of Roe: 'Silent No More'
01/01/04
DAVID REINHARD
Before the past year vanishes into the mists of memory, I wanted to write about an event that was one of my 2003 highlights. I wasn't able to get to it at the time, and I return to it now because it was so moving and, I think, part of something that may one day move our nation in a more life-affirming direction. Late last October I heard Jennifer O'Neill speak at a Pregnancy Resource Centers of Greater Portland gala. In fact, at dinner, I sat next to the "Summer of '42" star and "Cover Girl" cosmetics spokeswoman.
For a man of my middle-age vintage, this would seem a dream come true. Since such dreams have a way of turning to disillusion when movie stars and models open their real-life mouths, I never expect too much. But O'Neill, sitting alone at the table, had me at "Hi, I'm Jen." She was intelligent, engaging, kind, unassuming and vulnerable. She proved to be as beautiful on the inside as she is -- still is -- on the outside. Indeed, more so.
And what O'Neill discussed in her after-dinner remarks had personal and cultural consequence, for she discussed her own abortion, and the pain and shame abortion has visited on millions of American women.
Some 25 million women have had the 40 million abortions since the Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973. "They're the walking wounded," said O'Neill who now is a spokeswoman for "Silent No More," a campaign begun last year to raise awareness about the after-effects of abortion.
Her life as a film star and model "looked so good on the outside." "But on the inside," she said, " I had this big hole in my heart, and I was bumping into life really hard."
This was not some practiced conversion story, though a conversion story it ultimately is. She experienced "the amazing, saving, patient grace of Jesus Christ" at 38. This night, however, the 55-year-old O'Neill talked mainly about her abortion. "It's a difficult story for me to tell," she says, "because it is the greatest shame in my life."
She was in love and had been engaged for two years. "I was really so excited," she said. "I thought I would spend the rest of my life with this man."
She became pregnant. "I was very excited about having this baby . . . ," O'Neill said. "And I went down to Wall Street and . . . said, 'We're going to have a baby.' And all of a sudden I was looking at this person that I didn't even recognize, and he said, 'I'm not going to have a baby with you. You're going to have an abortion.' "
It's a story that's all too familiar.
She got no more support from her parents or doctor. They told her it's not a baby. It's "just a blob of tissue."
"So I folded. I gave in," she says. "[I]n my case . . . it was that emotionally I didn't feel supported. [T]he lie from the pit of hell was being told to me that is still told today: that it isn't a baby."
It's the lie that ultrasound machines now lay bare. But such machines weren't around, and O'Neill didn't then have religious views on the subject. "All I knew is that I truly, deeply and profoundly hated myself," she says."
So began "the real negative" turn in her life, and she thinks she knows why: "Somewhere inside a woman, no matter what they're told, even if it's convenient, she can't accept herself as she's killed her own child. That's the damage that's done to the individual left behind."
She'd like women to know about abortion's after-effects -- the lower self-esteem, higher rates of depression, infertility, promiscuity, illicit drug and alcohol use. (HEART -- Healing Encouragement for Abortion-Related Trauma -- has support groups in the Portland area. Confidential voice mails can be left at 503-22-HEART.)
Last summer in First Things magazine, Mary Ann Glendon explored how the United States came to have the most wide-open abortion laws in the Western world. One of her explanations: "With almost a million-and-a-half abortions a year for 30 years, we have become a society where nearly everyone has been touched by abortion . . . ," the Harvard University professor of law wrote. "When we speak about abortion today, we are speaking to women who have had abortion; to men who have asked women to have abortions . . . and to mothers and fathers, friends and neighbors of those men and women. That knowledge often leaves us tongue-tied, at a loss for words, for what to say and how to say it."
In Jennifer O'Neill and "Silent No More," the broken women of Roe vs. Wade have at last found their voice, beautiful and strong and wiser for their wounds.
David Reinhard, associate editor, can be reached at 503-221-8152 or davidreinhard@news.oregonian.com.
Copyright 2004 Oregon Live. All Rights Reserved.
01/01/04
DAVID REINHARD
Before the past year vanishes into the mists of memory, I wanted to write about an event that was one of my 2003 highlights. I wasn't able to get to it at the time, and I return to it now because it was so moving and, I think, part of something that may one day move our nation in a more life-affirming direction. Late last October I heard Jennifer O'Neill speak at a Pregnancy Resource Centers of Greater Portland gala. In fact, at dinner, I sat next to the "Summer of '42" star and "Cover Girl" cosmetics spokeswoman.
For a man of my middle-age vintage, this would seem a dream come true. Since such dreams have a way of turning to disillusion when movie stars and models open their real-life mouths, I never expect too much. But O'Neill, sitting alone at the table, had me at "Hi, I'm Jen." She was intelligent, engaging, kind, unassuming and vulnerable. She proved to be as beautiful on the inside as she is -- still is -- on the outside. Indeed, more so.
And what O'Neill discussed in her after-dinner remarks had personal and cultural consequence, for she discussed her own abortion, and the pain and shame abortion has visited on millions of American women.
Some 25 million women have had the 40 million abortions since the Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973. "They're the walking wounded," said O'Neill who now is a spokeswoman for "Silent No More," a campaign begun last year to raise awareness about the after-effects of abortion.
Her life as a film star and model "looked so good on the outside." "But on the inside," she said, " I had this big hole in my heart, and I was bumping into life really hard."
This was not some practiced conversion story, though a conversion story it ultimately is. She experienced "the amazing, saving, patient grace of Jesus Christ" at 38. This night, however, the 55-year-old O'Neill talked mainly about her abortion. "It's a difficult story for me to tell," she says, "because it is the greatest shame in my life."
She was in love and had been engaged for two years. "I was really so excited," she said. "I thought I would spend the rest of my life with this man."
She became pregnant. "I was very excited about having this baby . . . ," O'Neill said. "And I went down to Wall Street and . . . said, 'We're going to have a baby.' And all of a sudden I was looking at this person that I didn't even recognize, and he said, 'I'm not going to have a baby with you. You're going to have an abortion.' "
It's a story that's all too familiar.
She got no more support from her parents or doctor. They told her it's not a baby. It's "just a blob of tissue."
"So I folded. I gave in," she says. "[I]n my case . . . it was that emotionally I didn't feel supported. [T]he lie from the pit of hell was being told to me that is still told today: that it isn't a baby."
It's the lie that ultrasound machines now lay bare. But such machines weren't around, and O'Neill didn't then have religious views on the subject. "All I knew is that I truly, deeply and profoundly hated myself," she says."
So began "the real negative" turn in her life, and she thinks she knows why: "Somewhere inside a woman, no matter what they're told, even if it's convenient, she can't accept herself as she's killed her own child. That's the damage that's done to the individual left behind."
She'd like women to know about abortion's after-effects -- the lower self-esteem, higher rates of depression, infertility, promiscuity, illicit drug and alcohol use. (HEART -- Healing Encouragement for Abortion-Related Trauma -- has support groups in the Portland area. Confidential voice mails can be left at 503-22-HEART.)
Last summer in First Things magazine, Mary Ann Glendon explored how the United States came to have the most wide-open abortion laws in the Western world. One of her explanations: "With almost a million-and-a-half abortions a year for 30 years, we have become a society where nearly everyone has been touched by abortion . . . ," the Harvard University professor of law wrote. "When we speak about abortion today, we are speaking to women who have had abortion; to men who have asked women to have abortions . . . and to mothers and fathers, friends and neighbors of those men and women. That knowledge often leaves us tongue-tied, at a loss for words, for what to say and how to say it."
In Jennifer O'Neill and "Silent No More," the broken women of Roe vs. Wade have at last found their voice, beautiful and strong and wiser for their wounds.
David Reinhard, associate editor, can be reached at 503-221-8152 or davidreinhard@news.oregonian.com.
Copyright 2004 Oregon Live. All Rights Reserved.
A Year To Clear The Decks
By George F. Will
Thursday, January 1, 2004
Welcome to 2004, the year before.
It is the year before the year in which Democrats probably will have one of their agonizing reappraisals. And it is the year before the year in which Republicans, having come to terms with the fact that the welfare state is here to stay, will prove that they are, or are not, serious about governing it.
When you turned the page on the calendar Wednesday night, the first page of 2004 should have had printed on it -- in large letters, in red ink -- this insomnia-producing warning: "DEMOGRAPHY IS DESTINY AND IT IS NOW JUST FOUR YEARS BEFORE THE DEMOGRAPHIC DELUGE -- THE BEGINNING OF THE RETIREMENT OF 77 MILLION BABY BOOMERS."
Fortunately, Democrats seem determined to nominate an angry apostle of reactionary liberalism, ready to die on the barricades in defense of the unsustainable Medicare and Social Security status quos. If Democrats do that, the electoral aftermath could be a creative moment for welfare state reform.
Lyndon Johnson's landslide victory over Barry Goldwater in 1964 created in Congress something that had not existed since 1938 -- a liberal legislative majority. It lasted only two years, but it did much. Howard Dean could be the catalyst of a conservative legislative majority which, although probably evanescent, might be emboldened to begin coming to grips with this:
The baby boom generation is twice as large as the generation it follows and 50 percent larger than the one that is following it. By 2030 the nation's population will be older than Florida's is today. Unless there are politically difficult changes, such as raising the retirement age, there will be twice as many retirees as there are today. And there will be perhaps only 18 percent more workers to pay for the retirees -- unless there is a much higher rate of immigration, which would involve its own political difficulties.
To begin dealing with all this, President Bush needs two things. One is the emancipation from reelection concerns that comes with a second term (and the 22nd Amendment's foreclosing of a third). The other is an enlarged legislative majority to work with before he begins to be, after 2006, a seriously lame duck.
Every president seeking a second term wants to have at his back the wind from three things -- a strong foreign policy, a strong economy and a weak opponent. The new year dawns with Democrats apparently determined to complete the wish list trifecta of the president they dislike more than any president since Richard Nixon. In 1972 they did Nixon the favor of nominating the opponent he would have chosen, George McGovern.
If this year the Democratic Party marginalizes itself, it will give Bush a chance to broaden his presidency. Before Sept. 11, 2001, he had a minimalist presidency, symbolized by what he was doing when the planes struck the World Trade Center -- reading to some Florida grade school pupils. He had pleased his core supporters and fulfilled a campaign promise by cutting taxes. He had launched his initiative to involve "faith-based" institutions in the delivery of social services. He had formulated a sophisticated policy on stem cell research. But as late as 8:45 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, it was unclear what would be the important additional substance, if any, of his presidency. At 8:46 a.m. there was clarity.
By then Bush had already begun taking Democratic issues off the 2004 table with the No Child Left Behind Act, which blurred traditional Democratic possession of the education issue. That bill became law just seven years after Republicans rode to a smashing victory in the 1994 elections promising, among many other things, to abolish the Department of Education.
In 1996 Democrat Bill Clinton became the first president to sign a law repealing a major entitlement (Aid to Families with Dependent Children, repealed as part of welfare reform). And in 2003 his Republican successor signed a law creating a major entitlement (to prescription drug benefits). Regarding the post-New Deal role of the federal government, the differences between the parties have narrowed. There shall be an enormous federal role in assuaging the two great fears of life, illness and old age. The arguments are about modalities.
But they are important arguments. They concern the feasible and proper role of individual choice in medical and retirement entitlements and the use of private retirement accounts to give Americans of modest means access to serious accumulation of funds over a lifetime. This could be the year before the year when Congress comes to grips with those arguments.
georgewill@washpost.com
By George F. Will
Thursday, January 1, 2004
Welcome to 2004, the year before.
It is the year before the year in which Democrats probably will have one of their agonizing reappraisals. And it is the year before the year in which Republicans, having come to terms with the fact that the welfare state is here to stay, will prove that they are, or are not, serious about governing it.
When you turned the page on the calendar Wednesday night, the first page of 2004 should have had printed on it -- in large letters, in red ink -- this insomnia-producing warning: "DEMOGRAPHY IS DESTINY AND IT IS NOW JUST FOUR YEARS BEFORE THE DEMOGRAPHIC DELUGE -- THE BEGINNING OF THE RETIREMENT OF 77 MILLION BABY BOOMERS."
Fortunately, Democrats seem determined to nominate an angry apostle of reactionary liberalism, ready to die on the barricades in defense of the unsustainable Medicare and Social Security status quos. If Democrats do that, the electoral aftermath could be a creative moment for welfare state reform.
Lyndon Johnson's landslide victory over Barry Goldwater in 1964 created in Congress something that had not existed since 1938 -- a liberal legislative majority. It lasted only two years, but it did much. Howard Dean could be the catalyst of a conservative legislative majority which, although probably evanescent, might be emboldened to begin coming to grips with this:
The baby boom generation is twice as large as the generation it follows and 50 percent larger than the one that is following it. By 2030 the nation's population will be older than Florida's is today. Unless there are politically difficult changes, such as raising the retirement age, there will be twice as many retirees as there are today. And there will be perhaps only 18 percent more workers to pay for the retirees -- unless there is a much higher rate of immigration, which would involve its own political difficulties.
To begin dealing with all this, President Bush needs two things. One is the emancipation from reelection concerns that comes with a second term (and the 22nd Amendment's foreclosing of a third). The other is an enlarged legislative majority to work with before he begins to be, after 2006, a seriously lame duck.
Every president seeking a second term wants to have at his back the wind from three things -- a strong foreign policy, a strong economy and a weak opponent. The new year dawns with Democrats apparently determined to complete the wish list trifecta of the president they dislike more than any president since Richard Nixon. In 1972 they did Nixon the favor of nominating the opponent he would have chosen, George McGovern.
If this year the Democratic Party marginalizes itself, it will give Bush a chance to broaden his presidency. Before Sept. 11, 2001, he had a minimalist presidency, symbolized by what he was doing when the planes struck the World Trade Center -- reading to some Florida grade school pupils. He had pleased his core supporters and fulfilled a campaign promise by cutting taxes. He had launched his initiative to involve "faith-based" institutions in the delivery of social services. He had formulated a sophisticated policy on stem cell research. But as late as 8:45 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, it was unclear what would be the important additional substance, if any, of his presidency. At 8:46 a.m. there was clarity.
By then Bush had already begun taking Democratic issues off the 2004 table with the No Child Left Behind Act, which blurred traditional Democratic possession of the education issue. That bill became law just seven years after Republicans rode to a smashing victory in the 1994 elections promising, among many other things, to abolish the Department of Education.
In 1996 Democrat Bill Clinton became the first president to sign a law repealing a major entitlement (Aid to Families with Dependent Children, repealed as part of welfare reform). And in 2003 his Republican successor signed a law creating a major entitlement (to prescription drug benefits). Regarding the post-New Deal role of the federal government, the differences between the parties have narrowed. There shall be an enormous federal role in assuaging the two great fears of life, illness and old age. The arguments are about modalities.
But they are important arguments. They concern the feasible and proper role of individual choice in medical and retirement entitlements and the use of private retirement accounts to give Americans of modest means access to serious accumulation of funds over a lifetime. This could be the year before the year when Congress comes to grips with those arguments.
georgewill@washpost.com
Brilliant post here from the Touchstone blog:
SOMETHING CONSERVATIVES MUST REMEMBER
A recent conversation with a friend on the abuse of ministers by people within their congregations turned my mind to the significant degree to which conservative religion draws to itself certain types of unbalanced and, often enough, genuinely pathological personalities. Our liberal counterparts are happy enough to point this out to us, particularly if they can manage to identify sick conservatism in their personal histories as part of their justification for departing orthodoxy.
If we who call ourselves conservative or orthodox, however, fail to take full and serious account of this phenomenon, we have failed to recognize the body of Christ for what it is, and to maintain it as we should, by permitting the church to take into itself the idolatries that can hide effectively under the cloak of orthodox religion.
When we allow those who love Jesus so much that they neglect or mistreat their spouses or children or subordinates in his name, or attempt to force their petty and unbiblical legalisms on the church, or glorify Ignorance as the handmaiden rather than the enemy of faith, or who use religion to deny the personhood of others, and the freedom, dignity, and responsibility this entails, or who use church structures, offices, or theological systems to control and manipulate, or who, in pointing out that liberals destroy orthodoxy and its practices in the name of love, reason, and kindness, justify their own defects in these qualities—when these are not properly dealt with by the churches, incalculable damage is done.
I used to think that much of this could be tolerated in the mindset of “erring on the side of conservatism.” But this is wrong, because too much of what passes for conservatism, and gets by with it in self-consciously conservative churches, is in fact evil.
Orthodox Christianity is dogmatic. In the face of every "liberal" attempt to emancipate it from this supposed bond, which in fact is the very form of its constitution, it is conservative in that it resolves to conserve, without change or deviation, the faith once delivered to the saints. There are to be no apologies for this, ever. But our faith cannot be maintained, the body and mind of Christ are not realized among us, unless our object, whatever our proclivities, is not to err at all. This means those of us who are not especially tempted by liberal religion need to be doubly on guard for sins against charity and reason that come among us wearing our dress, fluent in our dialect.
—S. M. Hutchens
SOMETHING CONSERVATIVES MUST REMEMBER
A recent conversation with a friend on the abuse of ministers by people within their congregations turned my mind to the significant degree to which conservative religion draws to itself certain types of unbalanced and, often enough, genuinely pathological personalities. Our liberal counterparts are happy enough to point this out to us, particularly if they can manage to identify sick conservatism in their personal histories as part of their justification for departing orthodoxy.
If we who call ourselves conservative or orthodox, however, fail to take full and serious account of this phenomenon, we have failed to recognize the body of Christ for what it is, and to maintain it as we should, by permitting the church to take into itself the idolatries that can hide effectively under the cloak of orthodox religion.
When we allow those who love Jesus so much that they neglect or mistreat their spouses or children or subordinates in his name, or attempt to force their petty and unbiblical legalisms on the church, or glorify Ignorance as the handmaiden rather than the enemy of faith, or who use religion to deny the personhood of others, and the freedom, dignity, and responsibility this entails, or who use church structures, offices, or theological systems to control and manipulate, or who, in pointing out that liberals destroy orthodoxy and its practices in the name of love, reason, and kindness, justify their own defects in these qualities—when these are not properly dealt with by the churches, incalculable damage is done.
I used to think that much of this could be tolerated in the mindset of “erring on the side of conservatism.” But this is wrong, because too much of what passes for conservatism, and gets by with it in self-consciously conservative churches, is in fact evil.
Orthodox Christianity is dogmatic. In the face of every "liberal" attempt to emancipate it from this supposed bond, which in fact is the very form of its constitution, it is conservative in that it resolves to conserve, without change or deviation, the faith once delivered to the saints. There are to be no apologies for this, ever. But our faith cannot be maintained, the body and mind of Christ are not realized among us, unless our object, whatever our proclivities, is not to err at all. This means those of us who are not especially tempted by liberal religion need to be doubly on guard for sins against charity and reason that come among us wearing our dress, fluent in our dialect.
—S. M. Hutchens
From The Nashville Tennessean:
More than 1,000 come to bid farewell to Vestal Goodman
By CRAIG HAVIGHURST
Staff Writer
Gospel singing legend Vestal Goodman was celebrated yesterday as joyful, loving and optimistic — a ''prayer warrior'' who had gone on to her heavenly reward.
More than 1,000 people witnessed a music-filled memorial service at Christ Church, where clergy, friends and family offered insight into the talents and qualities that led Mrs. Goodman to be recognized as ''the Queen of Gospel Music.''
Mrs. Goodman died Saturday night in Celebration, Fla., of complications from the flu. She was 74.
''If you wanted to have a day of discouragement, you didn't want to be around Vestal. It just wouldn't work,'' said her longtime pastor, the Rev. Marvin Gorman. He cited an occasion when she left a concert engagement to fly to meet him when he was going through a difficult time. ''She could make you feel so loved — so special,'' Gorman offered.
As the service began, Mrs. Goodman's casket, smothered in pink roses, was wheeled into the large sanctuary as a tape of her steel guitar-saturated duet with George Jones, Mansion Over the Hilltop, played on the public address system. Jones, a close friend in recent years, was in attendance, as were numerous Christian music figures including Dottie Rambo and Michael W. Smith.
Mrs. Goodman's son Rick Goodman spoke at length about his mother's affection for people. ''If you didn't feel at home and like family around Mom, it wasn't because she didn't try,'' he said.
Fellow gospel notable Bill Gaither, who helped Mrs. Goodman and her Grammy-winning group the Happy Goodman Family come back in the early 1990s, rhapsodized about her spirit and her coconut cake. The Rev. Johnny Minick, who sang with the Happy Goodmans in its later years, observed that success hadn't changed her outgoing, generous character.
President Bush sent a message of ''heartfelt sympathy,'' and a letter from Gov. Phil Bredesen cited Mrs. Goodman's ''remarkable life of musical ministry.''
The service, like Mrs. Goodman's life, was anchored in upbeat, sacred music. Joy Gardner led the congregation in Blessed Assurance. Country star Vince Gill sang his grieving but uplifting Go Rest High on that Mountain. And a video montage of Mrs. Goodman's performances at the end concluded with one of her signature songs, I Wouldn't Take Nothing for my Journey Now.
Beth Chapman, a friend and a state official from Mrs. Goodman's home state of Alabama, announced as part of her eulogy that a stretch of Highway 75 running into Mrs. Goodman's birthplace of Fyffe will be named after her. And the Goodman family released a statement late Monday saying that Mrs. Goodman had recently been informed she will be inducted into the Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame this spring.
More than 1,000 come to bid farewell to Vestal Goodman
By CRAIG HAVIGHURST
Staff Writer
Gospel singing legend Vestal Goodman was celebrated yesterday as joyful, loving and optimistic — a ''prayer warrior'' who had gone on to her heavenly reward.
More than 1,000 people witnessed a music-filled memorial service at Christ Church, where clergy, friends and family offered insight into the talents and qualities that led Mrs. Goodman to be recognized as ''the Queen of Gospel Music.''
Mrs. Goodman died Saturday night in Celebration, Fla., of complications from the flu. She was 74.
''If you wanted to have a day of discouragement, you didn't want to be around Vestal. It just wouldn't work,'' said her longtime pastor, the Rev. Marvin Gorman. He cited an occasion when she left a concert engagement to fly to meet him when he was going through a difficult time. ''She could make you feel so loved — so special,'' Gorman offered.
As the service began, Mrs. Goodman's casket, smothered in pink roses, was wheeled into the large sanctuary as a tape of her steel guitar-saturated duet with George Jones, Mansion Over the Hilltop, played on the public address system. Jones, a close friend in recent years, was in attendance, as were numerous Christian music figures including Dottie Rambo and Michael W. Smith.
Mrs. Goodman's son Rick Goodman spoke at length about his mother's affection for people. ''If you didn't feel at home and like family around Mom, it wasn't because she didn't try,'' he said.
Fellow gospel notable Bill Gaither, who helped Mrs. Goodman and her Grammy-winning group the Happy Goodman Family come back in the early 1990s, rhapsodized about her spirit and her coconut cake. The Rev. Johnny Minick, who sang with the Happy Goodmans in its later years, observed that success hadn't changed her outgoing, generous character.
President Bush sent a message of ''heartfelt sympathy,'' and a letter from Gov. Phil Bredesen cited Mrs. Goodman's ''remarkable life of musical ministry.''
The service, like Mrs. Goodman's life, was anchored in upbeat, sacred music. Joy Gardner led the congregation in Blessed Assurance. Country star Vince Gill sang his grieving but uplifting Go Rest High on that Mountain. And a video montage of Mrs. Goodman's performances at the end concluded with one of her signature songs, I Wouldn't Take Nothing for my Journey Now.
Beth Chapman, a friend and a state official from Mrs. Goodman's home state of Alabama, announced as part of her eulogy that a stretch of Highway 75 running into Mrs. Goodman's birthplace of Fyffe will be named after her. And the Goodman family released a statement late Monday saying that Mrs. Goodman had recently been informed she will be inducted into the Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame this spring.
Thursday, January 01, 2004
Nothing like another great Ann Coulter column to start the New Year off right
Place Your Right Hand On The Quran And Repeat After Me
by Ann Coulter
THE AMERICAN Civil Liberties Union began its onslaught against Alabama Judge Roy Moore in 1995, when an ACLU lawyer, depressed that he was not chosen to play Mrs. Claus in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade that year, wrote a letter to all the state judges in Alabama protesting their practice of having a prayer in the courtroom every few weeks. (Obviously you can't have prayer in court: It might distract all the people holding their hand over a Bible and swearing before God almighty to tell the truth.)
Everything had been going just fine in Alabama – no defendant had ever complained about the practice – but upon receiving a testy letter from the ACLU, all the other Alabama judges immediately ceased and desisted from the foul practice of allowing prayer in court. Judge Moore did not.
For resisting the ACLU's bullying, Moore became High Value Target No. 1. Soon the ACLU and its ilk were filing lawsuits and anonymous ethics complaints against Moore. The ACLU along with the Southern Poverty Law Center sued Moore for having a Ten Commandments plaque in his courtroom. (Poverty had been nearly eliminated in the South until a poor person happened to gaze upon Moore's Ten Commandments – and then it was back to square one.)
An affirmative action, Carter-appointed judge (oh sorry, I forgot – we're only allowed to say that about Clarence Thomas) found that the Ten Commandments plaque violated the First Amendment. Apparently, in a little-noticed development, Judge Moore had become "Congress," his Ten Commandments plaque was a "law," and the plaque established a national religion. The Taliban had better legal justification to blow up centuries-old Buddha statues in Afghanistan.
The then-governor of Alabama, "Fob" James, responded to the inane ruling by saying he'd send in the Alabama National Guard if anyone tried to take down Moore's Ten Commandments.
That's all it took. The Alabama Supreme Court backed off from a confrontation with the governor by dismissing the ACLU's suit on technical grounds.
Both Moore and James were soon re-elected in landslides, Moore to chief justice. Liberals reacted to the overwhelming popularity of the state officials who resisted the ACLU by accusing them of stirring up the Ten Commandments dispute as a publicity stunt. The president of the Alabama ACLU said "the whole thing is political," and that Moore and James were using it as an election issue. The ACLU sues, and for not surrendering immediately, state officials are media whores.
Thus, according to Time magazine, Judge Moore has been on a "crusade" since – in Time's own words – "he defended his right to display" the Ten Commandments. It "should have surprised no one" the magazine continued, when Moore installed the Ten Commandments monument in the courthouse lobby and "forced a showdown by refusing to remove it."
In other words, Moore defended himself from one ACLU lawsuit and then – as if that weren't enough! – he did not instantly surrender when the ACLU filed a second lawsuit. That guy sure knows how to get publicity.
Indeed, Moore maintained his disagreement with the ACLU's interpretation of the Constitution as creating a universal ban on God right up until he was out of a job.
A lot of conservatives said Moore was wrong to refuse to comply with the court's idiotic ruling. The conservative argument for enforcing manifestly absurd court rulings is that the only other option is anarchy.
But we are already living in anarchy. It's a one-sided, "Alice in Wonderland" anarchy in which liberals always win and conservatives always lose – and then cheerfully enforce their own defeats. Oh, you see an abortion clause in there? OK, I don't see it, but we'll enforce it. Sodomy, too, you say? OK, it's legal. Gay marriage? Just give us a minute to change the law. No prayer in schools? It's out. Go-go dancing is speech, but protest at abortion clinics isn't? Okey-dokey. No Ten Commandments in the courthouse? Somebody get the number of a monument removal service.
What passes for "constitutional law" can be fairly summarized as: Heads we win, tails you lose. The only limit on liberal insanity in this country is how many issues liberals can get before a court.
Apparently the only thing standing between a government of laws and total anarchy is the fact that conservatives are good losers. If we don't give liberals everything they want, when they want it, anarchy will result. We must obey manifestly absurd court rulings, so that liberals obey court rulings when they lose.
Point one: They almost never lose. Point two: They already refuse to accept laws they don't like. They do it all the time – race discrimination bans, bilingual education bans, marijuana bans. They refuse to accept the Electoral College when their candidate wins the popular vote, and they refuse to accept sexual harassment laws when their president is the accused. If you don't let them win every game, they walk off with the football.
I'm not sure what horror is supposed to befall the nation if the liberals started ignoring the law more than they already do, but apparently it would be even worse than a country in which the Ten Commandments have been stripped from every public space, prayer in schools is outlawed, sodomy is a constitutional right, and more than 1 million unborn children are aborted every year.
Place Your Right Hand On The Quran And Repeat After Me
by Ann Coulter
THE AMERICAN Civil Liberties Union began its onslaught against Alabama Judge Roy Moore in 1995, when an ACLU lawyer, depressed that he was not chosen to play Mrs. Claus in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade that year, wrote a letter to all the state judges in Alabama protesting their practice of having a prayer in the courtroom every few weeks. (Obviously you can't have prayer in court: It might distract all the people holding their hand over a Bible and swearing before God almighty to tell the truth.)
Everything had been going just fine in Alabama – no defendant had ever complained about the practice – but upon receiving a testy letter from the ACLU, all the other Alabama judges immediately ceased and desisted from the foul practice of allowing prayer in court. Judge Moore did not.
For resisting the ACLU's bullying, Moore became High Value Target No. 1. Soon the ACLU and its ilk were filing lawsuits and anonymous ethics complaints against Moore. The ACLU along with the Southern Poverty Law Center sued Moore for having a Ten Commandments plaque in his courtroom. (Poverty had been nearly eliminated in the South until a poor person happened to gaze upon Moore's Ten Commandments – and then it was back to square one.)
An affirmative action, Carter-appointed judge (oh sorry, I forgot – we're only allowed to say that about Clarence Thomas) found that the Ten Commandments plaque violated the First Amendment. Apparently, in a little-noticed development, Judge Moore had become "Congress," his Ten Commandments plaque was a "law," and the plaque established a national religion. The Taliban had better legal justification to blow up centuries-old Buddha statues in Afghanistan.
The then-governor of Alabama, "Fob" James, responded to the inane ruling by saying he'd send in the Alabama National Guard if anyone tried to take down Moore's Ten Commandments.
That's all it took. The Alabama Supreme Court backed off from a confrontation with the governor by dismissing the ACLU's suit on technical grounds.
Both Moore and James were soon re-elected in landslides, Moore to chief justice. Liberals reacted to the overwhelming popularity of the state officials who resisted the ACLU by accusing them of stirring up the Ten Commandments dispute as a publicity stunt. The president of the Alabama ACLU said "the whole thing is political," and that Moore and James were using it as an election issue. The ACLU sues, and for not surrendering immediately, state officials are media whores.
Thus, according to Time magazine, Judge Moore has been on a "crusade" since – in Time's own words – "he defended his right to display" the Ten Commandments. It "should have surprised no one" the magazine continued, when Moore installed the Ten Commandments monument in the courthouse lobby and "forced a showdown by refusing to remove it."
In other words, Moore defended himself from one ACLU lawsuit and then – as if that weren't enough! – he did not instantly surrender when the ACLU filed a second lawsuit. That guy sure knows how to get publicity.
Indeed, Moore maintained his disagreement with the ACLU's interpretation of the Constitution as creating a universal ban on God right up until he was out of a job.
A lot of conservatives said Moore was wrong to refuse to comply with the court's idiotic ruling. The conservative argument for enforcing manifestly absurd court rulings is that the only other option is anarchy.
But we are already living in anarchy. It's a one-sided, "Alice in Wonderland" anarchy in which liberals always win and conservatives always lose – and then cheerfully enforce their own defeats. Oh, you see an abortion clause in there? OK, I don't see it, but we'll enforce it. Sodomy, too, you say? OK, it's legal. Gay marriage? Just give us a minute to change the law. No prayer in schools? It's out. Go-go dancing is speech, but protest at abortion clinics isn't? Okey-dokey. No Ten Commandments in the courthouse? Somebody get the number of a monument removal service.
What passes for "constitutional law" can be fairly summarized as: Heads we win, tails you lose. The only limit on liberal insanity in this country is how many issues liberals can get before a court.
Apparently the only thing standing between a government of laws and total anarchy is the fact that conservatives are good losers. If we don't give liberals everything they want, when they want it, anarchy will result. We must obey manifestly absurd court rulings, so that liberals obey court rulings when they lose.
Point one: They almost never lose. Point two: They already refuse to accept laws they don't like. They do it all the time – race discrimination bans, bilingual education bans, marijuana bans. They refuse to accept the Electoral College when their candidate wins the popular vote, and they refuse to accept sexual harassment laws when their president is the accused. If you don't let them win every game, they walk off with the football.
I'm not sure what horror is supposed to befall the nation if the liberals started ignoring the law more than they already do, but apparently it would be even worse than a country in which the Ten Commandments have been stripped from every public space, prayer in schools is outlawed, sodomy is a constitutional right, and more than 1 million unborn children are aborted every year.
The honor of the first post for 2004 goes to:
The NoDepression Group Top 50 Albums of 2003
1. Jayhawks - Rainy Day Music 134
2. Calexico - Feast of Wire 116.5
3. Fountains of Wayne- Welcome Interstate Managers 112.5
4. Drive By Truckers - Decoration Day 102
5. Rodney Crowell - Fate's Right Hand 90
6. New Pornographers - The Electric Version 76
7. Kathleen Edwards - Failer 74.5
8. Pernice Brothers - Yours Mine and Ours 61.5
9. Nada Surf - Let Go 56
10.Shins - Chutes Too Narrow 55
11. Jay Farrar - Terroir Blues 52
White Stripes - Elephant 52
13. Grand Champeen - The One That Brought You 49.5
14. Tim Easton - Break Your Mother's Heart 41
15. Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros - Streetcore 41
16. Lucinda Williams - World Without Tears 39.5
17. Mavericks - s/t 36.5
18. Richmond Fontaine - Post To Wire 35.5
19. Paul Westerberg - Come Feel Me Tremble 35
20. Caitlin Cary - I'm Staying Out 34
21. Grandaddy - Sumday 33
22. Ryan Adams - Love Is Hell Part 1 32
23. Gillian Welch - Soul Journey 31.5
24. Jesse Malin - The Art of Self-Destruction 31
25. Thad Cockrell - Warmth and Beauty 30
26. Josh Ritter - Hello Starling 26
27. Ryan Adams - Rock'n'Roll 24
Belle and Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress 24
29. Centro-matic - Love You Just The Same 22.5
Sun Kil Moon - Ghosts of the Great Highway 22.5
31. Ryan Adams - Love Is Hell, Parts 1 & 2 21
32. Neil Young - Greendale 20
33. Kings of Leon - Youth and Young Manhood 19.5
34. Black Keyes - Thickfreakness 19
Death Cab For Cutie - Transatlanticism 19
36. Al Green - I Can't Stop 18.5
Outkast - Speaker Boxx/Love Down Below 18.5
38. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists 18
Wrens - The Meadowlands 18
40. Warren Zevon - The Wind 17.5
41. Bottle Rockets - Blue Sky 17
Cosmic Rough Riders Too Close to See Far 17
43. Clem Snide - The Soft Spot 16.5
My Morning Jacket - It Still Moves 16.5
45. Evan Dando -- Baby I'm Bored 16
Longwave -- The Strangest Things 16
47. Graham Lindsay - Anonymous Wildnerness 15
Postal Service - Give Up 15
Thrills - So Much For the City 15
You Am I - Deliverance 15
The NoDepression Group Top 50 Albums of 2003
1. Jayhawks - Rainy Day Music 134
2. Calexico - Feast of Wire 116.5
3. Fountains of Wayne- Welcome Interstate Managers 112.5
4. Drive By Truckers - Decoration Day 102
5. Rodney Crowell - Fate's Right Hand 90
6. New Pornographers - The Electric Version 76
7. Kathleen Edwards - Failer 74.5
8. Pernice Brothers - Yours Mine and Ours 61.5
9. Nada Surf - Let Go 56
10.Shins - Chutes Too Narrow 55
11. Jay Farrar - Terroir Blues 52
White Stripes - Elephant 52
13. Grand Champeen - The One That Brought You 49.5
14. Tim Easton - Break Your Mother's Heart 41
15. Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros - Streetcore 41
16. Lucinda Williams - World Without Tears 39.5
17. Mavericks - s/t 36.5
18. Richmond Fontaine - Post To Wire 35.5
19. Paul Westerberg - Come Feel Me Tremble 35
20. Caitlin Cary - I'm Staying Out 34
21. Grandaddy - Sumday 33
22. Ryan Adams - Love Is Hell Part 1 32
23. Gillian Welch - Soul Journey 31.5
24. Jesse Malin - The Art of Self-Destruction 31
25. Thad Cockrell - Warmth and Beauty 30
26. Josh Ritter - Hello Starling 26
27. Ryan Adams - Rock'n'Roll 24
Belle and Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress 24
29. Centro-matic - Love You Just The Same 22.5
Sun Kil Moon - Ghosts of the Great Highway 22.5
31. Ryan Adams - Love Is Hell, Parts 1 & 2 21
32. Neil Young - Greendale 20
33. Kings of Leon - Youth and Young Manhood 19.5
34. Black Keyes - Thickfreakness 19
Death Cab For Cutie - Transatlanticism 19
36. Al Green - I Can't Stop 18.5
Outkast - Speaker Boxx/Love Down Below 18.5
38. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists 18
Wrens - The Meadowlands 18
40. Warren Zevon - The Wind 17.5
41. Bottle Rockets - Blue Sky 17
Cosmic Rough Riders Too Close to See Far 17
43. Clem Snide - The Soft Spot 16.5
My Morning Jacket - It Still Moves 16.5
45. Evan Dando -- Baby I'm Bored 16
Longwave -- The Strangest Things 16
47. Graham Lindsay - Anonymous Wildnerness 15
Postal Service - Give Up 15
Thrills - So Much For the City 15
You Am I - Deliverance 15
Tuesday, December 30, 2003
A couple of good posts here taken from Blogs4God:
"Whenever I meet a Buddhist leader, I meet a holy man. Whenever I meet a Christian leader, I meet a manager."
This is Dan Kimball quoting Os Guinness who is quoting a Japanese businessman.
12 Steps for the Recovering Pharisee (Like Me)
1. We admit that our single most unmitigated pleasure is to judge other people.
2. Have come to believe that our means of obtaining greatness is to make everyone lower than ourselves in our own mind.
3. Realize that we detest mercy being given to those who, unlike us, haven't worked for it and don't deserve it.
4. Have decided that we don't want to get what we deserve after all, and we don't want anyone else to either.
5. Will cease all attempts to apply teaching and rebuke to anyone but ourselves.
6. Are ready to have God remove all these defects of attitude and character.
7. Embrace the belief that we are, and will always be, experts at sinning.
8. Are looking closely at the lives of famous men and women of the Bible who turned out to be ordinary sinners like us.
9. Are seeking through prayer and meditation to make a conscious effort to consider others better than ourselves.
10. Embrace the state of astonishment as a permanent and glorious reality.
11. Choose to rid ourselves of any attitude that is not bathed in gratitude.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we will try to carry this message to others who think that Christians are better than everyone else.
"Whenever I meet a Buddhist leader, I meet a holy man. Whenever I meet a Christian leader, I meet a manager."
This is Dan Kimball quoting Os Guinness who is quoting a Japanese businessman.
12 Steps for the Recovering Pharisee (Like Me)
1. We admit that our single most unmitigated pleasure is to judge other people.
2. Have come to believe that our means of obtaining greatness is to make everyone lower than ourselves in our own mind.
3. Realize that we detest mercy being given to those who, unlike us, haven't worked for it and don't deserve it.
4. Have decided that we don't want to get what we deserve after all, and we don't want anyone else to either.
5. Will cease all attempts to apply teaching and rebuke to anyone but ourselves.
6. Are ready to have God remove all these defects of attitude and character.
7. Embrace the belief that we are, and will always be, experts at sinning.
8. Are looking closely at the lives of famous men and women of the Bible who turned out to be ordinary sinners like us.
9. Are seeking through prayer and meditation to make a conscious effort to consider others better than ourselves.
10. Embrace the state of astonishment as a permanent and glorious reality.
11. Choose to rid ourselves of any attitude that is not bathed in gratitude.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we will try to carry this message to others who think that Christians are better than everyone else.
The Best Albums of 2003
There wasn't one album that towered over the rest for me the way The Rising did in 2002. Through CDRs of Springsteen's 2003 tour, his live music dominated my listening for the last year. Leaving the magic of audience recordings aside, these were the albums that gave me the most pleasure and/or nourishment for the year gone by.
1) Fleetwood Mac -Say You Will
2) Vince Gill -Next Big Thing
3) Drive By Truckers -Decoration Day
4) Brooks & Dunn -Red Dirt Road
5) Daryl Hall -Can't Stop Dreaming
6) Ronald Isley/Burt Bacharach -Here I Am
7) Michael McDonald -Motown
8) The Thorns
9) Various Artists -Gotta Serve Somebody:The Gospel Songs of Bob
Dylan
10) Warren Zevon -The Wind
Honorable Mention
In no particular order:
Various Artists -Light of Day:A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen
Steely Dan -Everything Must Go
The Jayhawks -Rainy Day Music
Joss Stone -The Soul Sessions
Jesse Malin -The Fine Art of Self Destruction
Pernice Brothers -Yours, Mine, & Ours
There wasn't one album that towered over the rest for me the way The Rising did in 2002. Through CDRs of Springsteen's 2003 tour, his live music dominated my listening for the last year. Leaving the magic of audience recordings aside, these were the albums that gave me the most pleasure and/or nourishment for the year gone by.
1) Fleetwood Mac -Say You Will
2) Vince Gill -Next Big Thing
3) Drive By Truckers -Decoration Day
4) Brooks & Dunn -Red Dirt Road
5) Daryl Hall -Can't Stop Dreaming
6) Ronald Isley/Burt Bacharach -Here I Am
7) Michael McDonald -Motown
8) The Thorns
9) Various Artists -Gotta Serve Somebody:The Gospel Songs of Bob
Dylan
10) Warren Zevon -The Wind
Honorable Mention
In no particular order:
Various Artists -Light of Day:A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen
Steely Dan -Everything Must Go
The Jayhawks -Rainy Day Music
Joss Stone -The Soul Sessions
Jesse Malin -The Fine Art of Self Destruction
Pernice Brothers -Yours, Mine, & Ours
Sunday, December 28, 2003
Another slightly contrariarian view of ROTK from a National Review guest columnist.
Give the Hobbit a Break
The Lifetime-ization of Tolkien.
By Gina R. Dalfonzo
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article contains spoilers about The Return of the King. Proceed at your own risk.
Poor Frodo Baggins. He just can’t catch a break.
It’s not bad enough that many literary critics and readers of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings are always elevating one supporting character or another to the position of hero, completely overlooking the gentle, unassuming hobbit at the heart of the story, the one who has to carry an evil, burdensome, corrupting ring to be destroyed. To add insult to injury, whenever a dramatic adaptation is made of The Lord of the Rings, the adapters can’t seem to resist the urge to tamper with the character.
It happened years ago with the BBC’s prestigious radio dramatization. Ian Holm — who, by the way, plays Bilbo Baggins in the current film adaptations — gave a strong performance as Frodo, at least at the beginning. But by the time they got to the halfway point, whether at the behest of the writer or the director, he was as snappish as if he’d somehow picked up a bad case of PMS along with the ring.
Now, much the same thing has happened again with Peter Jackson’s movie adaptations. Though I’ve enjoyed these three films, I have a bone to pick with the director and his team, a weakness that many other viewers have observed as well. Let me put it this way: Jackson never errs in the direction of making any character nobler. So while watching the second movie in the series, The Two Towers, I started to worry about what they were doing with Frodo, one of my favorite literary characters. I hadn’t a fault to find with Elijah Wood’s performance; he’s been consistently good throughout the films (and, it now turns out, extraordinarily good in the latest installment, The Return of the King. Wood communicates so effectively with his eyes in certain scenes that I’m inclined to think he made an extensive study of Jimmy Stewart’s famous wheelchair-bound performance in Rear Window). Again, it was the adapters who just couldn’t keep their hands off the character. Though the ring Frodo carries is notorious for driving people crazy, it seemed to me he was going crazy too early and too often.
So I wasn’t surprised when, in The Return of the King, Jackson and company added a scene that completely deviated from the book. Here Frodo’s mind is so addled by the ring that he believes the lies of Gollum, his monstrous, corrupt guide, about Sam, his faithful servant and friend, and sends Sam home. Jackson has said that his intent was to punch up the “psychological drama” of the story, a phrase ominously reminiscent of a Lifetime Channel movie. And the scene is dramatic, all right. But it not only weakens the portrayal of one of the strongest, most trusting friendships in literature; it also diminishes Frodo’s character. It’s no wonder that many viewers are thinking of Sam — who follows Frodo at a distance and (as in the book) eventually saves his life — as the real hero of the piece.
The need for psychological drama may also be the reason why Jackson repeatedly stresses the possibility that Frodo might become as possessed by the malevolent ring as Gollum is, whereas Tolkien only provided the occasional intriguing hint in that direction. The story goes that Jackson even shot a scene where Faramir, the young captain who helps Frodo (and whose own sterling character undergoes some shoddy treatment in The Two Towers), has a vision of Frodo turning into a Gollum-like creature. In the end, Jackson left the scene out for fear of confusing the audience, but it hints at another reason for the liberties he took with the story: It may be that he finds evil more fascinating than good.
If this is the case, he’s hardly alone. Our culture is sadly unused to fully realized portrayals of good characters. So was Tolkien’s, in fact; when he created his hobbit hero, literary anti-heroes were very much in vogue (which may help explain why his own books were so popular). As he put it, “Goodness is . . . bereft of its proper beauty.” Now we’ve gone so far down that road that, for the most part, we seem to have run out of the resources we need to portray a really heroic hero. We find our heroes much more palatable — or so the entertainment industry assumes, anyway — with a few major flaws thrown in, perhaps to make us more comfortable with our own.
So in the movies, though we still get a brave and good-hearted Frodo, we get less of a sense, for instance, of exactly why Sam is so devoted to his master and friend and why he looks up to him. Tolkien, on the other hand, had no trouble at all explaining it, in passages like this: “It had always been a notion of [Sam’s] that the kindness of dear Mr. Frodo was of such a high degree that it must imply a fair measure of blindness. Of course, he also firmly held the incompatible belief that Mr. Frodo was the wisest person in the world.”
Tolkien’s original Frodo, though he starts out a bit naïve, is a morally rich, exceptionally mature character. As he struggles against the ring’s control, he actually grows in wisdom and moral stature, reflecting what Tolkien called in a letter the theme of “the ennoblement (or sanctification) of the humble.” And though he is not always able to be as steadfast as Sam, the often overlooked truth is that Sam doesn’t have to fight the same battle Frodo does. Which is why I’ve always thought that honoring Sam over Frodo — honorable and faithful though Sam is — is a bit like honoring Simon of Cyrene over Christ.
The comparison isn’t such a wild exaggeration as it may appear. The truth is that Frodo has many of the characteristics of a Christ figure, chiefly a willingness to sacrifice himself, to forgive others, and to bear an awful burden for the sake of others. And that hardly means a lack of drama. When the ring takes control of Frodo one final, terrible time at the climax of the story, it is in such sharp contrast to what we’ve come to expect from him — especially without our having been subjected to the kind of foreshadowing so dear to Peter Jackson’s heart — that we fully grasp the horror of the situation. As Baylor University professor Ralph C. Wood puts it in his new book The Gospel According to Tolkien, “Tolkien demonstrates that the mightiest evil can summon forth the very highest good in a character like Frodo, even as it defeats him.” Moreover, as the scene plays out, we grasp three truths that are fully in line with Tolkien’s deeply Christian imagination: that moral strength can carry us farther than we could have imagined possible; that even the greatest human moral strength cannot stand against the strongest evil (a Christ figure is not Christ, as Tolkien would have been well aware); and that there is a Power in the world greater than we can understand, great enough to save us when we can’t save ourselves.
Tolkien emphasized qualities in his hero — an iron will, unfathomable courage, humility, selflessness, and wisdom — that help to make these points. Jackson and his writers, though they did include all these qualities in some degree, chose to deemphasize them for the sake of their modern conception of “psychological drama.” Their movies, moving and powerful as they undoubtedly are, are nevertheless the poorer for it.
— Gina R. Dalfonzo is a writer for BreakPoint and a graduate student in English at George Mason University.
Give the Hobbit a Break
The Lifetime-ization of Tolkien.
By Gina R. Dalfonzo
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article contains spoilers about The Return of the King. Proceed at your own risk.
Poor Frodo Baggins. He just can’t catch a break.
It’s not bad enough that many literary critics and readers of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings are always elevating one supporting character or another to the position of hero, completely overlooking the gentle, unassuming hobbit at the heart of the story, the one who has to carry an evil, burdensome, corrupting ring to be destroyed. To add insult to injury, whenever a dramatic adaptation is made of The Lord of the Rings, the adapters can’t seem to resist the urge to tamper with the character.
It happened years ago with the BBC’s prestigious radio dramatization. Ian Holm — who, by the way, plays Bilbo Baggins in the current film adaptations — gave a strong performance as Frodo, at least at the beginning. But by the time they got to the halfway point, whether at the behest of the writer or the director, he was as snappish as if he’d somehow picked up a bad case of PMS along with the ring.
Now, much the same thing has happened again with Peter Jackson’s movie adaptations. Though I’ve enjoyed these three films, I have a bone to pick with the director and his team, a weakness that many other viewers have observed as well. Let me put it this way: Jackson never errs in the direction of making any character nobler. So while watching the second movie in the series, The Two Towers, I started to worry about what they were doing with Frodo, one of my favorite literary characters. I hadn’t a fault to find with Elijah Wood’s performance; he’s been consistently good throughout the films (and, it now turns out, extraordinarily good in the latest installment, The Return of the King. Wood communicates so effectively with his eyes in certain scenes that I’m inclined to think he made an extensive study of Jimmy Stewart’s famous wheelchair-bound performance in Rear Window). Again, it was the adapters who just couldn’t keep their hands off the character. Though the ring Frodo carries is notorious for driving people crazy, it seemed to me he was going crazy too early and too often.
So I wasn’t surprised when, in The Return of the King, Jackson and company added a scene that completely deviated from the book. Here Frodo’s mind is so addled by the ring that he believes the lies of Gollum, his monstrous, corrupt guide, about Sam, his faithful servant and friend, and sends Sam home. Jackson has said that his intent was to punch up the “psychological drama” of the story, a phrase ominously reminiscent of a Lifetime Channel movie. And the scene is dramatic, all right. But it not only weakens the portrayal of one of the strongest, most trusting friendships in literature; it also diminishes Frodo’s character. It’s no wonder that many viewers are thinking of Sam — who follows Frodo at a distance and (as in the book) eventually saves his life — as the real hero of the piece.
The need for psychological drama may also be the reason why Jackson repeatedly stresses the possibility that Frodo might become as possessed by the malevolent ring as Gollum is, whereas Tolkien only provided the occasional intriguing hint in that direction. The story goes that Jackson even shot a scene where Faramir, the young captain who helps Frodo (and whose own sterling character undergoes some shoddy treatment in The Two Towers), has a vision of Frodo turning into a Gollum-like creature. In the end, Jackson left the scene out for fear of confusing the audience, but it hints at another reason for the liberties he took with the story: It may be that he finds evil more fascinating than good.
If this is the case, he’s hardly alone. Our culture is sadly unused to fully realized portrayals of good characters. So was Tolkien’s, in fact; when he created his hobbit hero, literary anti-heroes were very much in vogue (which may help explain why his own books were so popular). As he put it, “Goodness is . . . bereft of its proper beauty.” Now we’ve gone so far down that road that, for the most part, we seem to have run out of the resources we need to portray a really heroic hero. We find our heroes much more palatable — or so the entertainment industry assumes, anyway — with a few major flaws thrown in, perhaps to make us more comfortable with our own.
So in the movies, though we still get a brave and good-hearted Frodo, we get less of a sense, for instance, of exactly why Sam is so devoted to his master and friend and why he looks up to him. Tolkien, on the other hand, had no trouble at all explaining it, in passages like this: “It had always been a notion of [Sam’s] that the kindness of dear Mr. Frodo was of such a high degree that it must imply a fair measure of blindness. Of course, he also firmly held the incompatible belief that Mr. Frodo was the wisest person in the world.”
Tolkien’s original Frodo, though he starts out a bit naïve, is a morally rich, exceptionally mature character. As he struggles against the ring’s control, he actually grows in wisdom and moral stature, reflecting what Tolkien called in a letter the theme of “the ennoblement (or sanctification) of the humble.” And though he is not always able to be as steadfast as Sam, the often overlooked truth is that Sam doesn’t have to fight the same battle Frodo does. Which is why I’ve always thought that honoring Sam over Frodo — honorable and faithful though Sam is — is a bit like honoring Simon of Cyrene over Christ.
The comparison isn’t such a wild exaggeration as it may appear. The truth is that Frodo has many of the characteristics of a Christ figure, chiefly a willingness to sacrifice himself, to forgive others, and to bear an awful burden for the sake of others. And that hardly means a lack of drama. When the ring takes control of Frodo one final, terrible time at the climax of the story, it is in such sharp contrast to what we’ve come to expect from him — especially without our having been subjected to the kind of foreshadowing so dear to Peter Jackson’s heart — that we fully grasp the horror of the situation. As Baylor University professor Ralph C. Wood puts it in his new book The Gospel According to Tolkien, “Tolkien demonstrates that the mightiest evil can summon forth the very highest good in a character like Frodo, even as it defeats him.” Moreover, as the scene plays out, we grasp three truths that are fully in line with Tolkien’s deeply Christian imagination: that moral strength can carry us farther than we could have imagined possible; that even the greatest human moral strength cannot stand against the strongest evil (a Christ figure is not Christ, as Tolkien would have been well aware); and that there is a Power in the world greater than we can understand, great enough to save us when we can’t save ourselves.
Tolkien emphasized qualities in his hero — an iron will, unfathomable courage, humility, selflessness, and wisdom — that help to make these points. Jackson and his writers, though they did include all these qualities in some degree, chose to deemphasize them for the sake of their modern conception of “psychological drama.” Their movies, moving and powerful as they undoubtedly are, are nevertheless the poorer for it.
— Gina R. Dalfonzo is a writer for BreakPoint and a graduate student in English at George Mason University.
From the fine folks at The corner, the National Review blog:
ADVENTURES IN LIBERAL RELIGION [Rod Dreher]
The Rt. Rev. John Bryson Chane, the Episcopal Bishop of the nation's capital and Dean of National Cathedral, delivered a real lulu of a Christmas sermon this year. Excerpt:
And what was God thinking... when the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the Law to Moses? And what was God thinking... when the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the sacred Quran to the prophet Muhammad? And what was God thinking... when the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God?
It will come as news to many Christians that an Anglican bishop believes that the Islamic revelation was true, not false, as Christianity teaches implicitly. Nevertheless, a Michigan lawyer friend suggests that Bp. Chane has opened up a new and exciting area for exploring ecumenism/syncretism. Now, the Episcopalians of Washington can have a gay wedding in the church, and push a wall over on the two grooms at the reception.
ADVENTURES IN LIBERAL RELIGION [Rod Dreher]
The Rt. Rev. John Bryson Chane, the Episcopal Bishop of the nation's capital and Dean of National Cathedral, delivered a real lulu of a Christmas sermon this year. Excerpt:
And what was God thinking... when the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the Law to Moses? And what was God thinking... when the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the sacred Quran to the prophet Muhammad? And what was God thinking... when the Angel Gabriel was sent by God to reveal the birth of Jesus Christ, the Son of God?
It will come as news to many Christians that an Anglican bishop believes that the Islamic revelation was true, not false, as Christianity teaches implicitly. Nevertheless, a Michigan lawyer friend suggests that Bp. Chane has opened up a new and exciting area for exploring ecumenism/syncretism. Now, the Episcopalians of Washington can have a gay wedding in the church, and push a wall over on the two grooms at the reception.
An unexpectedly fine post on Christmas from Washington Post political columnist E.J. Dionne.
God, as We Hadn't Seen Him
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Thursday, December 25, 2003
My 6-year-old rummages around in our Christmas boxes looking for the figures to place in the Nativity scene. "Where is Joseph?" she asks urgently. Joseph eventually turns up, and she happily places him where he belongs, near the baby Jesus.
But 6-year-olds are among our best theologians because they ask the difficult questions. We were driving together a few days later, and she wanted to know how Jesus could be the Son of God when His father was Joseph.
My daughter's curiosity is delightful -- and humbling. I am no theologian and know that my answers to her were thoroughly inadequate. So, therefore, are my answers to myself.
Christmas is like that, a season of joy and affirmation that can also prompt intense questioning about the nature of the event being celebrated. It is a matter that cannot be settled by going to the videotape.
The core claim of Christianity, that God sent His Son to redeem the world, is one of the most liberating concepts in human history. It revolutionized the idea of who God is -- a distant, all-powerful ruler transformed into a fellow pilgrim working in solidarity with His creation.
This, I think, explains why the Nativity scene has inspired creativity in art, music and poetry across all cultures in which Christianity has found a home. The immediate attraction of the moment is obvious enough -- the joy of new birth, the young couple forced to experience this joy in a stable surrounded by farm animals. "Why lies He in such mean estate?" asks the hymn.
But that points to the Nativity's larger appeal. It depicts a vulnerable God, a helpless child, the "little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay." The Christmas hymns are eloquent in explaining the historical moment. "Born to raise the sons of Earth," "God and sinners reconciled" -- this is about a universal quest for liberation from human frailty and failure.
Understanding Christmas in this way explains the power of Christianity in the face of all its difficulties. So many Christian testimonies speak of a God who chooses to identify with suffering human beings.
I recently ran across this passage from the great German theologian Jurgen Moltmann. It suggests that for all his formidable intellectual power, his attraction to Christianity was, finally, personal. "In 1945," he wrote, "I was imprisoned in a wretched prisoner of war camp in Belgium. The German Reich had collapsed. German civilization had been destroyed through Auschwitz. My hometown Hamburg lay in ruins; and in my own self things looked no different. I felt abandoned by God and human beings, and the hopes of my youth died. . . .
"In this situation, an American chaplain put a Bible into my hands and I began to read it. . . . I was drawn to the story of the passion, and when I came to Jesus' death cry, I knew: this is the one who understands you and is beside you when everyone else abandons you. 'My God, why have you forsaken me?' . . . I began to understand the suffering, assailed and God-forsaken Jesus because I felt he understood me. And I began to understand that this Jesus is the divine Brother in our distress."
Now the skeptic can ask whether this reaction says anything at all about Jesus and the divine. Is it instead a commentary on a human being seeking, well, tidings of comfort and joy in a very hard circumstance? In his masterpiece of nearly 40 years ago, "Belief and Unbelief," the Catholic writer Michael Novak asked how the believer "can assure himself that he is not talking about nothing at all, in a void peopled by his own imaginings." At another point, Novak asks: "How does one know that one's belief is truly in God, not merely in some habitual emotion or pattern of response?"
For many, of course, "habitual emotion" is another way of describing an experience of the divine that is no less authentic for being a habit.
As I said earlier, I am no theologian. I am, however, drawn to those theologians who themselves struggle with what we know and what we don't. "If God is God," wrote the Christian writer Jacques Ellul, "he obviously cannot be totally known or circumscribed or put into a human formula. There is always something more to know and understand and receive."
My hunch is that if God is God, the Christmas story offers an insight that is more than a human invention. The idea that the divine would choose to embrace His creation reflects a yearning, but also a realistic hope. It's why they call it good news.
God, as We Hadn't Seen Him
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Thursday, December 25, 2003
My 6-year-old rummages around in our Christmas boxes looking for the figures to place in the Nativity scene. "Where is Joseph?" she asks urgently. Joseph eventually turns up, and she happily places him where he belongs, near the baby Jesus.
But 6-year-olds are among our best theologians because they ask the difficult questions. We were driving together a few days later, and she wanted to know how Jesus could be the Son of God when His father was Joseph.
My daughter's curiosity is delightful -- and humbling. I am no theologian and know that my answers to her were thoroughly inadequate. So, therefore, are my answers to myself.
Christmas is like that, a season of joy and affirmation that can also prompt intense questioning about the nature of the event being celebrated. It is a matter that cannot be settled by going to the videotape.
The core claim of Christianity, that God sent His Son to redeem the world, is one of the most liberating concepts in human history. It revolutionized the idea of who God is -- a distant, all-powerful ruler transformed into a fellow pilgrim working in solidarity with His creation.
This, I think, explains why the Nativity scene has inspired creativity in art, music and poetry across all cultures in which Christianity has found a home. The immediate attraction of the moment is obvious enough -- the joy of new birth, the young couple forced to experience this joy in a stable surrounded by farm animals. "Why lies He in such mean estate?" asks the hymn.
But that points to the Nativity's larger appeal. It depicts a vulnerable God, a helpless child, the "little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay." The Christmas hymns are eloquent in explaining the historical moment. "Born to raise the sons of Earth," "God and sinners reconciled" -- this is about a universal quest for liberation from human frailty and failure.
Understanding Christmas in this way explains the power of Christianity in the face of all its difficulties. So many Christian testimonies speak of a God who chooses to identify with suffering human beings.
I recently ran across this passage from the great German theologian Jurgen Moltmann. It suggests that for all his formidable intellectual power, his attraction to Christianity was, finally, personal. "In 1945," he wrote, "I was imprisoned in a wretched prisoner of war camp in Belgium. The German Reich had collapsed. German civilization had been destroyed through Auschwitz. My hometown Hamburg lay in ruins; and in my own self things looked no different. I felt abandoned by God and human beings, and the hopes of my youth died. . . .
"In this situation, an American chaplain put a Bible into my hands and I began to read it. . . . I was drawn to the story of the passion, and when I came to Jesus' death cry, I knew: this is the one who understands you and is beside you when everyone else abandons you. 'My God, why have you forsaken me?' . . . I began to understand the suffering, assailed and God-forsaken Jesus because I felt he understood me. And I began to understand that this Jesus is the divine Brother in our distress."
Now the skeptic can ask whether this reaction says anything at all about Jesus and the divine. Is it instead a commentary on a human being seeking, well, tidings of comfort and joy in a very hard circumstance? In his masterpiece of nearly 40 years ago, "Belief and Unbelief," the Catholic writer Michael Novak asked how the believer "can assure himself that he is not talking about nothing at all, in a void peopled by his own imaginings." At another point, Novak asks: "How does one know that one's belief is truly in God, not merely in some habitual emotion or pattern of response?"
For many, of course, "habitual emotion" is another way of describing an experience of the divine that is no less authentic for being a habit.
As I said earlier, I am no theologian. I am, however, drawn to those theologians who themselves struggle with what we know and what we don't. "If God is God," wrote the Christian writer Jacques Ellul, "he obviously cannot be totally known or circumscribed or put into a human formula. There is always something more to know and understand and receive."
My hunch is that if God is God, the Christmas story offers an insight that is more than a human invention. The idea that the divine would choose to embrace His creation reflects a yearning, but also a realistic hope. It's why they call it good news.
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