Posts Tagged ‘damagnificent seven’

Olympic overload

Posted: August 3, 2021 by chrisharper in Uncomfortable Truths
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By Christopher Harper

For years, like many other Americans, I enjoyed the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat at the Olympics.

This year, like many other Americans, I have made it a point NOT to watch any of the Olympics.

Although politics has played a role in many Olympics, particularly the Cold War competition between the United States and the Soviet Union, the antics of this year’s athletes have been over the top.

At its opening match with Sweden, the U.S. women’s soccer team knelt in protest. Not only was I happy the team lost to Sweden but ultimately got knocked off its perch by losing to Canada. I hope Subway passes on Megan Rapinoe in its next round of commercials.

American shot-putter Raven Saunders stepped off the podium during the medal ceremony, lifted her arms above her head, and formed an “X’ with her wrists.

“It’s the intersection of where all people who are oppressed meet,” she said when asked what her protest meant. It’s a rather mediocre protest when you have to explain the meaning!

Moments after Saunders’s protest, American fencer Race Imboden had a circled “X” written on his hand as he went to the podium at a different venue after the U.S. men’s foil team earned a bronze medal. That protest came after his teammates wore pink masks to embarrass a colleague accused of sexual harassment. The teammate hasn’t been formally charged and was cleared by authorities to compete in the Olympics.

I guess the notion of innocent until proven guilty doesn’t have any meaning when you’re planning protests!

I marvel at the abilities of athletes and how they do something few can. I couldn’t care less about what they think about the state of the world unless they have some overarching knowledge of international and national events.

These political statements turn me off, and it’s readily apparent that others think the same as I do. People aren’t tuning out because of time differences and multiple delivery platforms. People are turning out because Olympians should be proud to represent the United States—not preach to others about political matters they know little about.

I hope that Olympic ruling body stands by its intention to punish those who protest. But that’s likely to generate yet another protest. It’s best to convince NBC, which is likely to lose a lot of money from the poor viewership, that few people really care about the Olympics, particularly because of the growing number of protests.

The Democrats’ delta variant

Posted: July 27, 2021 by chrisharper in elections
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By Christopher Harper

As Joe Biden’s approval ratings plummet and his policies falter, the Democrats are turning to a tried-and-true strategy of promoting anxiety and fear over the delta variant of COVID-19.

The renewed imposition of mask wearing in St. Louis and other locales seems to be just a start in the election battle for 2022. Moreover, some major cities are forcing students to wear masks when school starts in the fall.

I firmly believe that the COVID coup forced Donald Trump out of office, but I don’t think the strategy will work for the upcoming election.

At the outset, it should be noted that Biden’s approval rating, according to a recent Gallup poll, fell from 56% approval to 50% in only a month. An estimated 45% disapprove of Biden’s performance, with 5% having no opinion.  The poll found that 90% of Democrats, 12% of Republicans and 48% of independents approve of the job Biden is doing. His ratings among Democrats and independents are the lowest to date among those groups. See https://news.gallup.com/poll/352733/biden-approval-drops-lowest-date.aspx

As is often the case, the media have become water carriers for the Democrat strategy—as evidenced by recent stories about possible opponents.

For example, The Wall Street Journal ran a story that targeted Florida, the home of potential GOP presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis.

“Driving the rise are the delta variant, large numbers of unvaccinated, relaxation of preventive measures, and more indoor time,” the news organization reported.

The local CBS station in Miami picked up the attack by quoting a local physician. “While hospitals in our state were filling up, DeSantis was shouting about ‘Freedom over Faucism,’” said Dr. Bernard Ashby, who leads a group of Florida physicians. “If DeSantis were as concerned about stopping COVID-19 spread as he was about coming up with these clever jabs about Dr. Fauci, we might not be in this position.”

Ashby said DeSantis has bragged about Florida’s approach to handling the pandemic, but he accused the governor of being reactive and not having a plan to protect residents.

That sure sounds like the same media-fueled attack that Trump faced during the election campaign in 2020.

The article failed to acknowledge how successful DeSantis had been in dealing with COVID in comparison with other states.

But let’s be clear: The Democrats have no one other than themselves to blame for what’s happening in every aspect of American life.

As Gallup noted: “Consumers are paying higher prices for gas and other goods. Biden has also struggled to deliver on his promise of greater bipartisanship, although negotiations on an infrastructure bill continue in the Senate.”

Add to that Biden’s moves to divide rather than unite Americans over issues such as the border crisis, critical race theory, energy independence, and international affairs.

Simply put, the play toward politicizing the pandemic once again should not have much traction. That’s because Joe Biden—not Donald Trump—has been in charge.

Fool me once; shame on you! Fool me twice; shame on me!

Choosing ‘The Chosen’

Posted: July 20, 2021 by chrisharper in catholic
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By Christopher Harper

The Chosen, which ended its second season last week, provides a fascinating glimpse into the life of Jesus Christ and the apostles.

When someone talks about a saint, I usually think of a holy person without flaws. The Chosen depicts the lives of primarily ordinary men and women who were called to follow Christ, mainly because of their flaws.

The show’s creator, Dallas Jenkins, has a degree in Biblical studies and has a team of scholars to ensure the accuracy of the stories. The scriptwriters took the gospel accounts and added plausible details about the lives of the figures found there. They added backstories to well-known characters and fleshed out other characters who might receive only a passing mention in Scripture.

Simon Peter is sometimes a hothead who tried to outfox the Roman authorities. His brother Andrew seems to be a good man who often is unsure of himself.

John and James, the other fishermen, are tried and true but often prone to anger. That’s why they are called the “sons of thunder.”

Matthew is the odd man out of Christ’s followers, a tax collector hated by almost everyone. He is by far the most intelligent, but The Chosen portrays him like someone with a Asperger’s disease or autism. Nevertheless, he becomes quite close to Christ because of his ability to write down the Messiah’s actions and words for what would become one of the four gospels.

Thomas is the consummate doubter—a good man who has his doubts up until the end.

Phillip is a follower of John the Baptist, who provides a rational balance and is sometimes the arbitrator of disagreements among the apostles.

Simon the Zealot once served in a group of militant Jews bent on ridding the Holy Land of the Romans.

James the Lesser, Bartholomew, and Thaddeus haven’t significantly been featured in the first two seasons, but it’s likely that they will play greater roles over the next five seasons that are planned.

At the end of Season Two, Judas Iscariot becomes a follower of Jesus Christ. He’s described as a man who is an orphan and a poet. He’s a real estate wheeler-dealer who helped the apostles rent the land on which the Sermon on the Mount took place.

But there are many other interesting followers of Christ, including Mary Magdalene. She’s a prostitute who came to follow Jesus because he cast out her demons with the simple touch of His hand. The Blessed Virgin also travels with Christ during his trips throughout the Middle East, making sense because she is now a widow and has little money to provide for herself.

One engaging figure is Nicodemus, a Jewish rabbi and powerful leader considered a saint in some Christian religions. He decides that Jesus is the Messiah, but he is conflicted about stating in public what he believes because of his position in Jerusalem.

All told, The Chosen provides a fascinating backstory of Christ’s apostles and other followers.

Although the series can be challenging to find because it doesn’t appear on Hulu, Netflix, or Amazon, try https://watch.angelstudios.com/thechosen.

It’s definitely worth a watch, even if you aren’t sure about your personal beliefs.

History and critical race theory

Posted: July 13, 2021 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

Amid the debate over teaching critical race theory or CRT, I decided to search for how a K-12 curriculum would look.

I found a website for Learning for Justice, an organization founded by the Southern Poverty Law Center. See https://www.learningforjustice.org/

Many people should recognize the law center as a leader in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. The organization maintains that more than 500,000 individuals access the teaching materials on a continuing basis. 

Under “A Framework for Teaching American Slavery,” Learning for Justice argues that “most students leave high school without an adequate understanding of the role slavery played in the development of the United States—or how its legacies still influence us today. In an effort to remedy this, we developed a comprehensive guide for teaching and learning this critical topic at all grade levels.” Note: I would argue that most students leave high school without an adequate understanding of anything to do with U.S. history.

The “Teaching Hard History” curriculum for kindergarten through 12th grade includes 10 basic tenets:

1. Slavery, which Europeans practiced before they invaded the Americas, was important to all colonial powers and existed in all North American colonies. Note: Many Black African countries also engaged in slavery–as did the many empires, such as the Romans.

2. Slavery and the slave trade were central to the development and growth of the colonial economies and what is now the United States. Note: Not all colonial economies depended on slaves.

3. Protections for slavery were embedded in the founding documents; enslavers dominated the federal government, Supreme Court, and Senate from 1787 through 1860. Note: There was a lot of other good stuff in the founding documents.

4. Slavery was an institution of power designed to create profit for the enslavers and break the will of the enslaved and was a relentless quest for profit abetted by racism. Note: I wouldn’t disagree with this statement.

5. Enslaved people resisted the efforts of their enslavers to reduce them to commodities in both revolutionary and everyday ways. Note: I learned about John Brown in the 1960s in high school. I assume his rebellion and others are still taught in schools.

6. The experience of slavery varied depending on time, location, crop, labor performed, size of slaveholding, and gender. Note: I couldn’t disagree with this statement, although I’m not sure what exactly it means in terms of a school curriculum.

7. Slavery was the central cause of the Civil War. Note: I would hope that all students, like me in the 1960s, learns this truism.

8. Slavery shaped the fundamental beliefs of Americans about race and whiteness, and white supremacy was both a product and legacy of slavery. Note: I would call this statement a gross generalization.

9. Enslaved and freed people worked to maintain cultural traditions while building new ones that sustain communities and impact the larger world. Note: I don’t know, but it’s probably true.

10. By knowing how to read and interpret the sources that tell the story of American slavery, we gain insight into some of what enslaving and enslaved Americans aspired to, created, thought, and desired. Note: It would seem better to address current issues than these historical ones.

The organization provides various materials, including lesson plans, videos, podcasts, and consultations with critical race theory proponents, to teach students about these issues. 

Education Week, which broadly supports critical race theory in schools, provides some background about the debate over the inclusion of CRT into schools.  

“Critical race theory emerged out of postmodernist thought, which tends to be skeptical of the idea of universal values, objective knowledge, individual merit, Enlightenment rationalism, and liberalism—tenets that conservatives tend to hold dear,” EdWeek’s Stephen Sawchuk wrote recently. “In history, the debates have focused on the balance among patriotism and American exceptionalism, on one hand, and the country’s history of exclusion and violence towards Indigenous people and the enslavement of African Americans on the other—between its ideals and its practices.” See https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-is-critical-race-theory-and-why-is-it-under-attack/2021/05

That seems to me to be a fair assessment of precisely what the debate is about. I would fall on the side of promoting universal values, objective knowledge, and individual merit. I’m not so sure about Enlightenment rationalism and liberalism. I would hope the first set of values are not only held by conservatives.

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