Andrew’s Miracle Drug

Last night my wife and I made a visit to Barnes & Noble, to use up some recently received gift cards and to buy some beach reading material (yes, dear reader(s), the Miracle Drug shall be down until Jan. 8th or so. My apologies. Do come back in January!). I was able to find some books that will be suitably undemanding on the intellect for a beach read, yet not so low culture that the front cover has embossed-lettering.

But I made discoveries far more interesting than mere beach reads. I learned that there is a kindly Barnes & Noble censor, trying to protect all from literature that was anti-religion, anti-Bush, or anti-Republican (which, as many on the right have taught us, is really all the same thing).

I walked past a display of politically- and historically-themed books and began perusing. I was surprised to see that there were two stacks of Ann Coulter’s new book - all the other new releases only had one stack each, and do Ann Coulter fans even shop at Barnes & Noble?

Upon further inspection, I realized that that the books underneath the two Ann Coulter books were a different size, and even had dust jackets that were of a different color. I slowly lifted the Ms. Coulter’s equine visage to discover a stack of copies of Paul Krugman’s new book, The Conscience of a Liberal. Underneath the other hypnotic glare of Ms. Coulter’s was an entirely separate stack of books: Craig Unger’s The Fall of the House of Bush. I was shocked to see the suggestion that George W. Bush “still imperils America” and immediately grateful that someone had at least attempted to protect my eyes from such malicious lies. (more…)

As a kid, Christmases that fell on Sundays were kind of a bummer. It meant that I’d have to go to church rather than play my new Nintendo game, or build a new Lego set. Now, however, as the thrill of gift-getting has worn off, I’ve found that I desire something to help my Christmas experience be a little more profound.

But in my church, Christmas services are limited to years when the 25th happens to be a Sunday (yes, there are Christmas services on the Sunday preceding Christmas, but it’s really not the same). I’m sure there are many ways short of church attendance that one can add some depth to their Christmas observance, but being the lazy and spiritually dependent person I am, I kind of like being spoon-fed.

So, with a willing wife, I attended my first Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve at the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City. If you’ve never seen the Cathedral itself, it is worth a visit. It is a magnificent building.

How strange it is that we wait until midnight to bring in the new year, but so few of us formally wait until midnight to celebrate a day far more important in the history of the world. And to welcome Christmas day with hundreds of other believers, searchers, hopers, was truly touching.

Among the crowd were young men in fur coats and sunglasses, a man with a three-day beard and a holey sweater, young families, gay couples, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, Anglo-Americans, and probably people of every faith. Many were there to take communion and left after the administration of the sacrament, while others, like my wife and me, stayed for the entire service, wishing to experience something new (in our case) and celebrate the advent of a holy day. It was touching to see how many people wanted to spend the early hours of Christmas morning with other believers.

At one point, one of the priests offered a prayer. He asked God to bless the the peacemakers, and to bless and help us be mindful of the vulnerable in our society - the poor, the sick, the unemployed, and the undocumented worker.  I found this prayer deeply touching and slightly saddening - saddening because I’ve never heard anyone in my church offer such a comprehensive prayer. It seems that in the LDS Church, we tend to bless the war-wagers rather than the peacemakers, and bless the successful and wealthy (world and church leaders) rather than those in most need. During the prayer, I found myself deeply saddened that we who claim to have the truth seemed to have ignored the lessons Jesus taught early in his ministry in the Sermon on the Mount.

The service continued, some of which was disorienting to non-Catholics like my wife and me, but beautiful nonetheless. The service ended perfectly: the lights low, the congregation on our knees, singing “Silent Night.”

I don’t know if we’ll be able to attend Midnight Mass again for several years, as we have a baby due in April. But to those of you who wish to bring in Christmas in a beautiful way next year, I cannot recommend highly enough Midnight Mass at the Cathedral of the Madeleine.

Ok, baseball fans and wannabe stat-fiends: this is probably the coolest (and most informative!) baseball statistic of all time.

The hypothesis says it all:

I hold that gritty players are those who sincerely want to win or succeed at baseball (determination), but due to a lack of natural skill (talent), are forced to do so through the least efficient means possible, resulting in an excessive amount of dirt on their uniform.

Grittiness rankings follow. Enjoy.

As long as I’ve been politically aware, I’ve been amazed by the devotion of many of my fellow Mormons (and those who consider themselves Christian) to the Republican Party. Scratch that: I’ve been more than just amazed; deeply troubled is perhaps a better description.

And the extent to which I’m troubled by that political marriage has only deepened in the past six years, as the Republican Party has become increasingly more bellicose and less tolerant - stances that are antithetical to Christianity, at least inasmuch as I understand the teachings of Jesus. I’ve always thought that one who takes the teachings of Jesus seriously should consider, if they are to be a party to parties, a more liberal party (here’s a brilliant article written by the wife some years ago on that very topic).

That’s not to say that I think the Democratic Party is more “righteous” or “Christian;” I would hope that no political party in the United States would presume to call itself the Party of God.

But the Republican Party has all but officially claimed that mantle for itself. The result is, of course, an amazing disconnect between the teachings of the man whose name his followers take upon themselves when they call themselves Christians and their practical beliefs (that is, non-esoteric beliefs, like grace, redemption; rather, actionable beliefs - those that people vote about).

For some time, it has seemed that only those in the small contingent of believing liberals have noticed this disconnect. Mostly we just complain that many of these believers who loyally adhere to the Republican Party don’t get it: “it” being either politics or the teachings of Jesus, or both. Of course, this sort of condescending attitude towards conservative Christians and Mormons only further entrenches their belief systems. How we get past that to understanding and actual conversation, I don’t know.
The Washington Post’s Harold Meyerson notices the same disconnect between faith and politics, but connects the dots. There’s a danger in the marriage of faith and politics - one far more threatening than the prospect of a President Bush or Huckabee. The religion of the Republican Party, Meyerson observes, is more of a tribal form of Christianity: one filled with nationalism bordering on idolatry, hero worship and American exceptionalism.

And that potent mixture could lead us down dangerous paths.

Though I am an unrepentant liberal Democrat, as a Mormon and a relative of one of Mitt Romney’s fellow ward members, I really did try to give ol’ Willard a fair shake.

But almost as soon as Romney officially declared his candidacy for the presidency, I found reasons to detest the man (or rather, the candidate) - and those reasons had much less to do with actual policy proposals than with a troubling tendency of Romney’s.

That tendency was an amazing ability to be on the “right” side of every issue, at least in the mind of an average right-wing Republican. Whether it was the illegal detention of prisoners at Guantanamo, his recent conversion on the abortion issue, or his inability or unwillingness to call a spade by its name (that is, that waterboarding is indeed torture), Mitt always took the convenient stance, the stance least likely to cause waves amongst the Republican base.

John McCain, on the other hand, isn’t afraid to incur the wrath of the right wing when he’s on the “wrong” side of an issue.

The difference between the two men is, in two words, moral courage. McCain has it. Romney most definitely does not.

Family members who know Mitt have sworn to me that this is not “the real Mitt,” whatever that means. The “real” Mitt would govern from the center, they often tell me.

That may be true. I tend to believe that Mitt would be the least awful president of all the Republican candidates. But that, for me, is not the only issue. I want a president who has the integrity and courage to say things that are unpopular, things the American people might not want to hear, but need to.

I want a president, in other words, who will lead.

After seeing Lawrence O’Donnell’s distasteful and misinformed rant on Mitt Romney and the LDS Church, I was encouraged to see this response on Hit & Run, a blog hosted at the libertarian magazine Reason.

O’Donnell claims in his rant that “Romney comes from a religion that was founded by a criminal who was anti-American, pro-slavery, and a rapist.” All false, of course. While charges of rape dismiss themselves, the charge that Joseph Smith was “anti-American” and “pro-slavery” is simply dead wrong and warrants a response.

Joseph Smith taught that the Constitution was inspired of God (though I’m sure he was frustrated at the inability/unwillingness of state and local governments to actually uphold it, particularly the first, fourth and sixth amendments), and was avowedly anti-slavery. One of the reasons early Latter-day Saints were greeted with such hostility in Missouri was, in fact, because they typically espoused anti-slavery, if not abolitionist, views. (more…)

Sometimes, on the verge of an impulse purchase, I’ll scan Amazon.com reviews. Usually, I end up unpersuaded either way and just end buying the item.

Which leads to my lament: If only all Amazon reviews were of as high a caliber as this one or this one.

Hat tip: Sullivan.

I’m encouraged that even Utah’s obstinate state legislature recognizes that health care must be reformed.

State Rep. David Clark is pushing a health care proposal, which Governor Huntsman seems to be amenable to, that would require every Utahn to have health insurance.

There are parts of the proposal that I like - the notion of transportable insurance, meaning you kept your insurance when you changed jobs, is very attractive. And the notion of requiring insurance companies to cover any applicant, regardless of their medical history, is also a good thing. I also think the creation of a “state clearinghouse” allowing customers to compare various plans, is long overdue.

But the devil, as always, is in the details.

The proposal, at least in the Salt Lake Tribune’s reportage, only makes mention of providing subsidies to “the working poor.” Insurance is expensive. I can imagine quite easily a situation in which a family doesn’t qualify as “working poor,” but can’t reasonably afford to buy an insurance policy without existing funds.

Second, the article explicitly mentions barriers to work or education to those that chose not to enroll in a health care program. A market-based program must have some sort of enforceable mandate, but this is too coercive for my tastes. I’d prefer to see incentives to enroll - like tax credits or something like that.

But overall, it does seem to be a decent proposal, considering its inherent limitations - namely, being a single-state and market-based program.

Real health care reform - reform that actually transforms the way insurance companies operate (or preferably, does away with the entire notion of health care for profit) and addresses the problems of rising costs and the sheer number of un- or under-insured people, must happen at the federal level.

My hope is that the knuckle-dragging state legislature rejects this legislation, and we elect a president who is willing to implement vast and meaningful reforms.

Update: The Trib has more on this plan today. Gov. Huntsman is requesting $30 million to expand eligibility for SCHIP and Medicaid. This is encouraging.

I admit that I worried that talk of expanding public health care programs would be little little more than that. The fact of the matter is that reforming health care in a meaningful way requires expanding coverage - of everyone. It’s a moral imperative, but it also gets to the basic economic problem of health care - that is, spreading the costs across a wider base of people. Short of regulation and price controls, spreading the risk more widely is the only way that I can see that we can begin to control the costs of health care.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised with Jon Huntsman in his three years as governor - he’s been far more progressive than I anticipated.

And he’s taking initiative on a number of issues - and forcing the legislature to address issues that they have consistently failed to address, or addressed with a modicum of restraint or sympathy for anyone who disagrees with them (see here for Huntsman leading, see here for legislature).

And he’s leading the way again public education - an issue that the state legislature has been particularly prickly about.

Utah, of course, has consistently ranked near the bottom in per pupil spending in the nation, in students-to-teacher ratio, and other education metrics. Rather than actually addressing these issues, legislative leaders have attempted (and, mercifully, failed) to make vouchers law and railed against the UEA.

So it will be interesting to observe how Huntsman’s proposal to give additional funding to schools is met by the legislature and its leaders. A proposal that actually addresses issues of teacher pay and shortages.

Perhaps I misjudge the legislature. They do, after all, talk a good game. Perhaps they’ve been sufficiently chastened by their voucher misadventure to realize their views on education are a touch out of step with the rest of the state’s.

A man can dream, right?