Recently in Critiques & Controversies Category

Please forgive the paucity of entries the last several days. I have been in New York City, working hard to complete a project--and when I wasn't working I was spending time touring the city.

It is about this latter that I want to make some comments. The other day, I was down on Wall Street. I had gotten there walking up Broad Street after visiting Fraunces Tavern. After taking a picture of the place where Washington was sworn in as president and of two police men standing outside the J.P. Morgan building in gear little short of complete military including machine or submachine guns, I took one of my favorite pictures up the street of Trinity Church framed by the canyon of buildings.

Let me pause here for my first comment. It amazes me how little Wall Street "gets it". The entire street is blocked off to traffic, as is Broad street--the two on which the New York Stock Exchange sits. It is impossible to enter this building or, in fact, almost any building along Wall Street without passing through a battery of security. Now, I suppose it is wise for us to be cautious, but the purpose of 9-11 was not to attack Wall Street, American Finance, or anything else--it was to make a point--you are vulnerable--any time and all of the time. Period. You can be as secure as you care to be, but you are still vulnerable--completely. These buildings were chosen not because of commerce, or at least not entirely, but because they were one of the most recognizable landmarks on the American scene. But Wall Street hunkered in like a turtle withdrawing into its shell to the point of what happened next.

Continuing my walk to the end of Wall Street on Broadway, I saw a plaque. I love historical markers. I take pictures of nearly all that I see and then read them when I get home. This marker announced the location of the fortified wall that protected early New Amsterdam--certainly an important one for NYC and the United States. So, naturally I wanted to take a picture. Raising my camera, and very obviously focused on an otherwise completely blank piece of wall, I apparently alarmed a security person who informed me that no pictures were allowed. I pointed to the plaque. He said, "Not even of the plaque. It's stupid if you ask me, but that's the rule." Well the rule was made by the Bank of New York on which the plaque resides, and it struck me then, as it does now that in all senses of the word, a business does not own the exterior view of that business. They have neither right nor cause to prevent photography of exteriors. Even if we grant that some regulation can be sanctioned in these times, they certainly do not have the right to regulate what happens to the plaque on the building--a piece of public property and heritage if ever there was one.

Which leads me to the point. We have grown so security conscious and so frightened of our own shadows, that we have begun to sacrifice some of our liberty and some of our freedom to our fear. As Benjamin Franklin pointed out--"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

It can be legitimately argued that photographing a plaque on the side of a building does not constitute an essential liberty. I would probably agree with that. But nevertheless, if we live in such fear that we limit these kinds of activities, then haven't those who planned the attacks actually won a tremendous victory? Haven't we robbed ourselves of one of the essentials of a free people and government--that being living in reality, not in fear?

We have become a society of fear. Any group that requires old women in walkers to remove their shoes before getting on a plane has had something go wrong with its wiring. We've seen this problem in other aspects of our society as well. It is a continuation of the culture-of-death mentality that dominates the modern landscape. Global warming, abortion, euthanasia, airport security, and a host of other symptoms point to the essential facts of a people who have lost their faith and their willingness to believe. Whether or not we like to admit it, this is one of the things that transformed a handful of bickering colonies into a super-power. Our ascendancy was short, and is passing--we have moved into the shadow of fear from which I see no sign of return. Our work goes out to India and China and so our great wealth flows out of a land of promise into the lands of new promise. There is nothing much to mourn here except the loss of moral conviction without which we all stand naked--the emperor in his new clothes--and these clothes take the form of hyperprotected guards at the mouths of financial institutions of no interest to anyone save those who work within them, and hysterical prohibitions against celebrating our heritage and history.

Today in e-mail I received one of the more hideous come-ons I've seen in some time. I hesitate to share it because it was so awful; however, to blast it, it must come into the light.

It was a note that something about pain and suffering and the only line of the e-mail was "Jolie twins die of post-natal complications: see-it."

The awfulness of this knows no bounds--that someone would seek to exploit the prurience and the compassion of people in this way is indicative of just what kind of people we have become. The culture of death is in the ascendant (as if we had any doubt) and this is simply one of the pustules that form as a result.

If there were some way to reach through the internet and shake some sense into people, a note like this would certainly provoke me to do so.

This morning, for some reason, I was piqued to the point where it has flowed over into writing by thinking about some arguments I've either heard elsewhere, or fabricated in my head against voting.

First, let me make it perfectly clear--I have no problem with a deliberate, conscientious choice not to vote. I'm not certain, for reasons I'll discuss below, that I could make such a choice; however, there is a sense in which deliberate abstention is a positive participation in the governmental system (although I do have one question about this that I will ask after I limn the arguments to which I object).

The first, and possibly easiest to dismiss, is the political theory that by voting you give consent to the outcome. The very act of voting means that you are agreeing to the results. This is sheer nonsense as political and moral theory. You can in good conscience vote and NOT agree to the election of the candidate of opposition--you are not morally tied to that candidate in any way. Indeed, it would be as true to say that by living in this country you give consent to the outcome of the elections because you agree to be governed by the results. This is the argument under which Alec Baldwin decided that if Bush were elected he would leave the country (unfortunately, he reneged). A vote is an expression of will and if we will one thing we do not will its opposite (or at least so it can be with many of us). But the individual will is not all that is in operation in an election and under our system of government it is the will of the majority that is expressed in the results of the election. Jesus told us we are the salt of the earth--hence we are not the predominant flavor in most cases--our will is not likely to carry in a strictly secular society--but our influence within that society--including within the voting booths, can "flavor" the way we live.

A second argument that I may have misunderstood or that I may be misrepresenting here is that your vote doesn't count--it doesn't matter in the broad scheme of things. This also is nonsense reductionism. Under this argument the only vote that really counts is the single vote that decides the election and if that isn't yours, the vote doesn't count.

Every vote counts--every vote is an expression of will, a matter of desire. Every vote contributes infinitesimally to the outcome of an election. Not every vote is a deciding vote. The election does not hinge upon each individual choice. However, it does hinge upon the choice of the majority. In order for there to be a majority, there must be some number who are actually voting. If people whose will aligned with yours decided to stay away from the polls in droves, the election could have a different result. In this sense, every vote is decisive. It expresses your will and it contributes to one of the groups that will ultimately decide the outcome.

Mathematically, does it matter? Not to astrophysicists and persons working with gross celestial mechanics for whom 3 is a good enough approximation of pi. But in the mathematics of finite divisions, and most particular in the very fine math of chaotic dynamics, where a difference in the value of the thirtieth decimal place is expressed after four or five iterations, it does. Elections are more akin to chaotic dynamics than they are to celestial mechanics. (And probably bear even a closer kinship to some aspects of game theory.)

The end point is that every vote does count. Every vote is not decisive for the country, but it is so for the individual. Neither of the arguments expressed is a good reason for not voting.

There is one last point I promised to make above--the question of conscientious non-voting. If we grant that a single vote does not count for anything (a point I don't concede), then one must ask how conscientious non-voting can be reasonably distinguished from amoral or apathetic non-voting. Non-voting on principle seems to be indistinguishable from staying home and drinking beer because you just can't be bothered. Now, if we grant that a single individual can be influential (i.e., a vote counts) and that individual speaks up even to a small group about why she or he is not voting, then the picture comes into focus. But if we hold that a vote is meaningless, so too then is the distinction between non-voting on principle and non-voting as apathy.

One final point that rately comes up in the argument about voting. Much, it would seem, depends upon your view of voting. Those who hold with non-voting as an allowable discipline would see voting as a option or privilege--something one chooses because one may do so. That is a viable view--not one I agree with, but certainly one that could be argued with some validity. However, I hold that voting is not an option or a privilege, but the duty and responsibility of every citizen of a free republic run in a democratic fashion. Because I believe this, I am bound by it. (Fortunately for the rest of the world, no one else is bound by my conscience.) For those who regard voting as a privilege or option, non-voting is a meaningful expression of opposition to the current regime. To those who regard voting as the obligation and duty of the citizen, non-voting simply isn't an option. And I'm not certain that there is any way in which to easily alter this fundamental difference in viewpoints. I've tried to argue myself around to not voting--it would be by far and away easier and much less troubling to my conscience; however, no matter how I phrase the argument, no matter how clear I make the points, there is a part of me stubbornly resistant to that persuasion. I've learned, after hard experience, to trust that resistance--it is part of the still, small voice that sometimes speaks to me. And that still small voice speaks to each of us as we are here and now. In this case I do not know that there is a definitive right or wrong in a moral sense, and so what that voice says depends upon the entire aggregate of who each one of us is. As a result, I don't have leave to tell someone else that they are obligated to vote, although I can make the citizenship argument.

I make no claim to be a political pundit. I am not. I have no insider knowledge and, frankly, I don't have a horse running in this race. Seems to be the truth from the time I could vote. I also don't pretend to deep knowledge, deep reading, or a profound ability to identify the symbols and read the semiotics of ordinary life. All I will record here is a reaction--a reaction that came to me as I was reading Faulkner's superb novel Light in August. One of the many passages of interest is below.

from Light in August
William Faulkner

He now lived as man and wife with a woman who resembled an ebony carving. At night he would lie in bed beside her, sleepless, beginning to breathe deep and hard. He would do it deliberately, feeling, even watching, his white chest arch deeper and deeper within his ribcage, trying to breathe into himself the dark odor, the dark and inscrutable thinking and being of negroes, with each suspiration trying to expel from himself the white blood and the white thinking and being. And all the while his nostrils at the odor which he was trying to make his own would whiten and tauten, his whole being writhe and strain with physical outrage and spiritual denial.

Unfortunately, that's how I read Obama's entire campaign--a desire to become "black enough," whatever that might mean, while, in some ways, denying his actual heritage. He seeks to play the race card when he is in an absolutely perfect place NOT to do so. He need not make a big play for a small minority, but he would make a big play for the majority and drop the whole racial pretension thing.

I don't dogbird politics, but I've seen enough to know that I don't like the tones of the campaigns--any of them. Of all of them, this is the one I like the least because it depends heavily upon a polarization that is not healthy nor is it helpful. Obama is and can be and can claim legitimately black heritage. Heritage is not something either to be proud of or to be ashamed of--we have no control over where we came from or who we are at the start. But we do have some measure of control over what we do with the cards we have been dealt--what we make of our heritage. In Light in August Joe Christmas makes of his a trail of tragedy, unhappiness, and longing to understand himself. I don't think Obama will end up there, but sometimes his rhetoric and his positioning reminds me of Joe Christmas's struggle with identity and it saddens and appals me because that is not the way to move forward. Not at all.

The other day I wrote a short review of Ralph Nader's book The Good Life in which I said that it was disappointing but unsurprising; however, I'm unconvinced that I made my main point about disappointment because it was so lost in digression. And so, I'd like to revisit that in a more focused way.

Explicitly, my disappointment in Mr. Nader's book stems from the difference between stated objective and actual accomplishment. At the beginning Mr. Nader makes a powerful point about the necessity and obligation of the ordinary citizen to participate in the political and social world around them. In short, the ordinary person in the street is called upon to contribute to change. This is a powerful, wonderful, much-needed message. The book goes on to detail why such change is needed. Unfortunately, in so doing, much too much is made of those who are to blame for our present situation--and that blame is always thrown at anyone who disagrees with Mr. Nader and most of the time there appears to be in the implicit assumption of malice, conspiracy, or both. For example, the Republicans are out to deliberately oppress and create an underclass of the ordinary working person. While it may be true that there are some Republicans who might positively delight in such a prospect, I seriously doubt whether that is the express intention of the majority of Republicans, even powerful republicans, as they go about their daily duties. Why not look at the households of famous Democrats or liberals who hire and mistreat illegal immigrants routinely? I'm sure that the number of these is approximately equal to the number of Republicans whose deliberate mission it is to create an underclass.

In all political discussion of the present day, there appears to be an at least implicit assumption of ill-will or malice. This may be the case with all political writing through time, but I don't get the same sense from writers of previous eras. That may be because what survives to come to us today, survives because it transcends the tropes and diatribes of the time. It may, however, be indicative of the time, I do not have the breadth of experience to suggest the truth of the matter.

However, I do believe that it is possible to urge people to action on an issue without spending time blaming one group or another for the present situation. What does it matter who is responsible for allowing parking lots to be built on the watershed that directly feeds into the Everglades. The reality is that they are being built and will continue to be so until action is taken to prevent it.

Any effective action is by its own nature bipartisan any way. Yes, some laws are passed by a party, but those that stay in place are usually passed by a majority in both parties. The situation we are in is the result of input from both groups--it implies at least implicit consent from one group or another despite griping. (This goes, of course, only for true legislation, not for legislation from the bench, which seems almost impossible to overcome by any means allowed within the Consitution,)

My point is that civic action is a duty of all citizens. Involvement in the the political life around us is required so that we can inform it. It is the realm in which religion legitimately and purposefully enters into the social sphere. It is the intersection of "in the world" and "Of the world." and as such, helps to define that world for better or worse. As we choose to remain outside that interaction, society is deprived of the proper formation of conscience. Thus, there is a purpose to peaceful prayer outside of an abortion clinic, but no purpose to violent bombing of clinics or assassination of doctors who perform abortions.

My disappointment with the book stemmed from the fact that I was hoping to read about individuals who were working for the good life implied by the title. Instead, I'm told about how messed up life is and how it is all the result of Republican scheming to maintain and enlarge the underclass while exploiting the world.

Why is it not possible to engage in political discussion with an assumption of good will (if perhaps bad reasoning, or poor thought) on the part of all of those engaged. Why do we find it so hard to refrain from maligning the person rather than dealing with the idea? I think this is in part the same phenomenon that occurs when we drive and there are not longer people on the road, but cars. In the same way when we address people who hold ideas and call them idiots, morons, whoremongers, or whatever terms we use, we have placed a child of God within the vehicle of idea and have condemned them both.

By all means, bring every weapon to bear upon bad thinking. Help to correct the immoral or incorrect assumptions or bad data or other source of error in the thought of a person holding an opinion that differs from one's own. But my plea to all politicians and to all who would engage in political debate is to debate the ideas. Do not tar with one brush all people who self-label. All Republicans do not want to exploit migrant workers and toss them out of the country. All Democrats do not want to open the borders to all and sundry and allow the terrorists to overrun us. Why do so many writers write as if it were so?

As I view the situation there are problems with both liberal and conservative strains of thought. The problem with liberal thought is intrinsic to the philosophy, the problem with conservative thought is extrinsic, but so pervasive one might be led to conclude that it is an underlying principle.

The intrinsic problem with liberal thought is the Rousseau-derived absolute confidence in the ability of human reason to restore paradise and the assurance that human will follows human reason. The extrinsic problem in conservative thought is the underlying turf-rooted suspicion of absolute depravity and the Puritan assumption that the elect are identifiable by their lot in this life.

As a result conservative thought, particularly economic conservative thought, tends to overlook the plight of the poor and suggest that they shift for themselves. The suggestion that one might consider raising a minimum wage sends thrills of horror through them, convinced as they are of two things: economic disaster is immediately upon us, and those who are doing poorly are doing poorly because they don't care to work for themselves. The ultimate conservative economic statement comes from Ebenezer Scrooge--"'Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned-they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there." Which is not to say that every individual conservative holds to these lines of thought, nor even that it is a majority, nor even that the thought is held consciously--I don't think it is. But I do not among conservative thinkers a distinct lack of appreciation of the plight of the poor. Conservatism has been and continues to be the economic philosophy of the well-off.

In this sense, the intrinsically flawed philosophy of liberalism offers seemingly better recourse. The problem here is that the recourse depends both upon the strength of the idea and upon an assumed willingness to see the idea through to completion. Liberal thought is the supreme philosophy of incompletism. There is the assumption that because government is established for the common good it is, within a society, the source of all good and what good may come should come through the government. In a sense, the liberal mindset establishes the prisons and the workhouses that the resentful conservative supports and pays for.

These two strains of thought working in tandem do and have done absolutely nothing to relieve the true desperation of the poor. Over the last hundred years or so fewer of the poor die from hunger, malnutrition, and other woes visited on those who do not have enough to eat (at least in industrialized nations), but the number of poor and their condition has neither diminished nor has there been any sign that it ever can be diminished. The welfare state grows larger and larger, and still the poor are poor and remain visited by non-economic manifestations of poverty.

The solution may not be in raising minimum wage or in any sort of governmental assistance, but it certainly does not rest in refuting and refusing all such helps and providing no useful suggestion about how to address the problem. More often than not, a conservative thinker will suggest why a solution is not viable without suggesting anything that is more viable. For example, alleviating poverty through an individual response to the poor. How is this to be organized, on what basis can we rely upon it to happen, what will be done to encourage and foster this response? On these question the conservative thinker is silent. On these same questions the liberal thinker, ever-ready to contradict his or her own Rouseauian roots doubts the capacity of individuals to address the problem. Not only do they doubt the capacity, but the willingness, and therefore the solution must be forced upon everyone through governmental interference.

What is needed in the realm of economics is for both sides to come to the table and admit their failings. Each needs humbly to approach the problem and seek viable solutions that may be organizationally or even governmentally mediated, but not institutionalized. In this sense "the thousand points of light" is the right view of how to approach many of the problems of poverty. Mother Teresa's approach to the alleviation of the strife of the poor was not to seek more money and set up a foundation that would dole out food or money or both to the poor, but to help each one with human hands and human heart. I don't know for a fact that she ever lifted anyone out of poverty, but she taught each person that she came in contact with what it was to be loved whether rich or poor.

The solution to poverty is in God's hands. But a first step is for everyone to see what it looks like and experience it first hand--frequently. When we understand that poverty is not a disease and not infectious, we might begin to have a better appreciation for how to begin to combat it, or at least the effects of it. As it stands, we remain opposed (rightfully so) to the forced reapportionment of goods that we work hard to obtain, while providing no other recourse for those who cannot fend for themselves. The hard reality we need to face is that for every child we pray or argue away from the hands of the abortionists, we incur an obligation to assure that that child will have at very least all that he or she needs to thrive and become a productive citizen. There is a cost to doing what is right, sometimes a painful cost, but that is our sacrifice offered up to God. In the words of this morning's morning prayer:

"We have in our day. . .
no holocaust, sacrifice, oblation, or incense,
no place to offer first fruits, to find favor with you.

But with contrite heart and humble spirit
let us be received. . .
so let our sacrifice be in your presence today
as we follow you unreservedly;
for those who trust in you cannot be put to shame.

And now we follow you with our whole heart. . . ."

Next stop--liberal and conservative social thought (maybe).

Reading a number of things at once sometimes leads to some interesting observations that might not come from reading any one of them separately or from reading them sequentially.

Saturday the bookgroup decided to read Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point. I duly went out and bought this book because I felt that it was one that I was likely to want to refer to in the future. It is certainly getting a lot of play in business circles and I thought it might be useful to have on hand. (I'm not usually one to read books that are popular in business circles, but this also seems to be about memes and the effect thereof on people--and that is of intense interest.)

Also to hand as a result of a visit to the library yesterday is Ralph Nader's The Good Fight. Subtitled, Declare Your Independence and Close the Democracy Gap, Mr. Nader's thesis is that we are slowly abdicating our form of government from a sense of helplessness and the futility of it all. (For example those among us who would argue that our vote "doesn't make a difference" because ultimately it doesn't boil down to one vote.)

It occurred to me that it would be possible that the "futility" argument could become a particularly virulent (and fashionable) sort of meme that would lead to a crisis of voting and governmental participation. While I wholeheartedly agree with folks who point out that when the choice is between Giuliani and Clinton, there is not no candidate to vote for, does that mean necessarily that I must or should not vote.

No. Once again, I'm led to the conclusion that we must vote. We must exercise the franchise each and ever time, even if voting means writing in the name of a person we liked but who didn't make it through the primaries. Even if it means writing in, time and again NONA. Even if it means, eventually, getting involved ourselves--on a local, state, or even national level.

If the way of life we celebrate today, given to us through the actions of many noble people who lost life, limb, family, and property while fighting, is to continue we are required to take action. Each of us is required to exercise that franchise in whatever little way we do, because THAT is the meme we want infecting future generations. Not angst, trial, apathy, and cultural anemia, but a strong statement that we believe in our present way of life and we will, in our own small way, honor those who came before by exercising to the fullest the freedom they bequeathed us.

Shalom to all on this Veteran's Day celebration. May the happy memory of those who gave their lives, literally or through their toil in the defense of our country, remind us always to be respectful of what they have secured for us. And may those who passed away in battle or as a result of war rest in peace and rise to the resurrection dawn assured of their place in heaven by their sacrifice for others. As we remember those who died, let us offer some suffrage that they might see God's glory and dwell in the light of the beatific vision.

but what the heck does global warming have to do with peace?

Every year the committee goes further out of its mind in following its insane and paranoid vision of world politics.

If they ever had one shred of validlity (for example when they nominated Mother Teresa of Calcutta) this undermines it all. Anyone less deserving than Al Gore of such a prize would be hard to imagine. I'm surprised it wasn't awarded posthumously to Saddam Hussein.

Such a blatant and obvious attempt to influence the American Political scene should be soundly repudiated by any person thinking properly.

This is in response to something that I thought both sad and exemplary of poor form for a Christian critic.

There are only a few very good reason for conducting public criticism of an author's work. Most important of these is to inform the public about a work that is either exemplary of Christian and literary value or utterly detrimental to a person in a profound spiritual way. Another important reason for literary criticism is to allow a reader to better understand a work. A third is to express an opinion or recommendation on a work by an established author to give the reader some indication of its worthiness for taking up an extended period of time. For private critique you may add the betterment of the author to complete the task of a writer--instruction and correction. This last is NEVER a legitimate purpose of public criticism. Such work should be conducted privately ONLY and ONLY at the request of the individual. Following Updike's rule for criticism, even if one doesn't care for a work, the exposition of it should set forth all of its best points even as one's own opinion of its merits is made manifest. But once again, this is ONLY for those well-established in the field.

Another reason NOT to pursue criticism is to show how much one knows. Or, by far the worse crime, to attempt to profit from making others look bad--either by the work of criticism itself, or by making one's own work stand out from that of the riff-raff that is not worthy to stand nearby. It is very unappealing to watch a person show off their intellectual prowess at the expense of another. If this is the way to success, it were better not to succeed.

Young writers, writers just starting out, are prone to a great many errors and a tremendous arrogance regarding the work of others. When this arrogance expresses itself in launching full tilt at T.S. Eliot, William Butler Yeats, and William Wordsworth, it can be at once amusing, and a marvelous example, as one ages of youthful folly--the literary equivalent of those pictures most mothers have of naked babies on sheepskin rugs. The folly is the author's entirely and as Yeats, Eliot, and Wordsworth are unlikely to suffer any real harm at the hands of one so arrogant as to take them on, only the author is likely to suffer any consequences.

However, when an author takes on contemporaries, and particularly contemporaries who are just beginning to emerge into the writing world, there is only one conclusion one can draw from extensive negative public criticism. That is, of course, that the critic intends to profit from this by making his or her own work look good. This is absolutely unacceptable. One becomes the John McEnroe or Bobby Fisher of the literary world. One takes what one is not entitled to and profits thereby--the very definition of theft. By calumny and hurtful speech one is set in a better light--either with respect to one's own literary writing, or by the sparkle of one's wit and intellect. It is simply better to keep one's mouth shut and continue to produce one's own good work rather than seek to profit by the destruction of another.

So, the bottom line, one should not try to excuse the literary equivalent of chewing with the mouth open, by noting that it could improve the world for literature. Arnold wasn't able to accomplish this goal, Eliot didn't do it, Wilson didn't do it. How likely is it that some 20-something literary ingenue is likely to do so? And more importantly, who really gains thereby?

No, if the strong need to help make the world a better and safer place for literary endeavors manifests itself express it in one of two ways: write those better literary works and leave the "lesser lights" alone in their gloom; or offer to share insights with the author of the works in question--then do so privately. Public display of aggressive intellect is no more appealing than PDoA. The only poor light it casts is on its perpetrator.

This site details a miscarriage of justice which, even if it occurred only once suggests strongly the utterly demented view courts have of patent and copyright.

When you patent a gene, particularly a gene for a plant whose material is spread by pollinators other than humans, you cannot reasonably expect that the gene will remain bound to its original planting ground. Already we've seen several genetically modified plants "escape" from their original founding ground.

And, in fact, does it make any sense at all to allow patents on genes? After all a gene is not something anyone can own, and particularly not when genes spread through an aegis beyond human control.

In the realm of intellectual property rights, our legal system is utterly demented: it grants nearly eternal rights to works of authors and creators of works of art and then supports idiotic lawsuits such as the one detailed in the links above.

I am not a sensationalist regarding Genetic engineering. There are tremendous risks involved and tremendous potential benefits; however, I find the idea that I could be sued if some came around and discovered the corn in my field had a "patented" gene in it absolutely horrifying. The small farmer is already under enough pressure for the industrial farming business, there's no need to add this to it.

It's amazing how, too often, it is easy to overlook some of the astounding ramifications of our own twisted systems of logic. Among the most twisted strains are the theories of who can own what. In point of fact, on Earth, if you can't eat it, you can't really own it. You can take care of it, it can own a piece of you, but lacking portability, there are precious few things you can own. The European theory of land ownership, for example, is ludicrous in the extreme and made more so by the extremes to which it is brought in American jurisprudence.

Every material thing is simply a loan for our time on Earth--our sense of ownership of it deprives us, in a a very real way, of our sense of dependence upon providence. It deprives us further of focus on the One Thing that matters. We endlessly toil and preserve "what's ours" with no real sense of the fact that "you can't take it with you." Even our bodies are not our own--but sheer gift and grace--given by God and returned ultimately to Him should we find ourselves in the state of grace at death.