Andrew’s 8 Year Old Idea of a Vacation

We asked Andrew what he would do if he could take any vacation he wanted.  He said, "I'd relax.  You know, find someplace where they put pickles on your eyes."

Hopes for a Post-Racial America

I recently moved to Jackson, Tennessee for my job with Union University.  Prior to living here, my son attended public school in a suburb of Houston.  His school was perfectly diverse.  A rainbow of colors and ethnicities.  Now, he and my daughter both attend a public school in Jackson.  He is in third grade.  She is in kindergarten.  It is also very diverse.

In the evenings at dinner, we always ask the children to tell us about their day.  Two days ago, something struck me about the way they talk about the kids at school.  They NEVER mention race.  Grace has talked about a couple of little girls “who we have to help learn English,” but neither she nor her brother ever talk about “black” kids or “hispanics” or anything of the sort.  If pressed for a description of a child, they will sometimes say something like, “She has dark skin and black hair,” or “He has light skin and blonde hair,” but they never convey any sense of “us” or “them” in their description.

It makes me wonder if we were to stop talking about it all the time in politics and in the academy, would we finally enter the post-racial period we’ve been hoping for?

John Wayne, Johnny Cash, John Deere

It's political philosophy, y'all.  http://youtu.be/ZLvziNM2eyE

The Mind of Andrew Baker LOTR Edition

I showed Andrew The Fellowship of the Ring.  He was digging it until Gandalf goes down in the matchup with the demon in the mines.  At that point, he turned, looked at me accusingly, and said, "I thought you said Gandalf was REALLY powerful!!!"

Great Shatner and Nimoy Interaction

Shatner deals with Nimoy's allegation that he stole his bicycle.  Hilarious stuff.

From the Mind of My Eight Year Old

I was making jokes and generally acting silly as we went around town taking care of errands yesterday. My wife, Ruth, acted exasperated and said, "Kids, where did we get your father?"  Andrew said, "Don't you know?  He came out of Gram's stomach!"

Objection to gay marriage?

We can probably find social precedents for almost any arrangement in the world over 5k years, but not gay marriage. Does that give pause?

A Country Saying I Shall Adopt

Country Talk here in TN: "That's nuttier than squirrel poop." That's pretty nutty, by the way.

Anne Rice’s Catholic Anti-Catholicism

By now, most have read Anne Rice’s emphatic rejection of Christianity.  She laid out her template of left-wing values which are more important to her than being part of the church which rejects these things (anti-science, anti-Democrat, anti-gay, anti-life, waitaminute, did she say anti-life?) and declared her allegiance to Jesus alone.

What fascinates me about the way she has done this is how Catholic she is in her rejection of the Catholic Church.

If Anne Rice were a Protestant of almost any kind, she would surely flee to a denominational group or congregation which embraces Jesus while more closely approximating her values.  There is no doubt it would be possible to do so.  There are liberal Baptists, liberal Lutherans, liberal Methodists, etc.

But Rice doesn’t avail herself of that opportunity.  And I think I know why.  Anne Rice movingly wrote of her Catholic childhood and of her dramatic return to the church.  At no point did she apparently consider returning to faith as a Protestant.  She clearly believes that the Catholic church is the only true manifestation of the Christian church.  And thus, when she rejects it, there is no other church for her to join.  She is affirming the church at the same time she loudly and publicly is slamming the door and running away.

In Praise of Chris Christie and Political Responsibility

Here’s my latest for the Acton Institute:

Regaining a Sense of Taste in Political Leadership

by Hunter Baker

When watching the Food Network on television, the viewer focuses on a number of things. What technique does the celebrity chef use in dicing an onion? How is her hair highlighted? What kind of appliances has the network placed in the kitchen set? How does the food look? The attention is everywhere except on how the food will taste because that part of the process is too difficult to convey through a glass screen. A celebrity cooking program could be made in such a way that the viewer would be fully entertained and ready for another episode even if the dish were an absolute failure. Audiences lock in on everything other than the actual eating because they are culinary voyeurs.

American politics resembles cooking on television because our palate has been out of practice. We’ve eaten a relatively unseasoned mash of policy for a long time with little variation based on the chef. With the taste of the food varying so little, we have focused more on the politician as a celebrity. How does the prospective office holder look? What obstacles has the candidate overcome in childhood? Who makes for the best profile in People Magazine? David Brooks, a columnist for the New York Times, memorably swooned at the sight of President Obama’s “perfectly creased” pant leg. The presentation has taken precedence over the taste.

But things are changing. The unseasoned mash is getting a bit spicier (maybe enough to cause a little health care related heartburn?) and the sheer amount of it threatens the ability of even a championship eater to digest. And the bill at the end of the meal, by the way, is starting to look intimidating even for those carrying the fancy black American Express cards. With the change, the focus of the diners will also move. They will devote less attention to the image and more to what exactly it is they are putting into their mouths.

The test case is in New Jersey. Chris Christie, part Sicilian and part Irish, is no threat to cause anyone palpitations over the perfect cut of his big and tall size suit. But he has managed to make major changes to budget policy in a reliably liberal state. The Garden State, with taxes high and coffers empty much like the Roman Empire at the end of its existence, turned to the no-nonsense prosecutor. He has proved to be a serious man by successfully taking on public unions and attacking budget liabilities. The type of leadership he has provided has been little valued during the last 20 years, but it is coming back in vogue. Anyone can spend money and make vague promises about how to pay the promissory notes. It takes a leader who recognizes the moral responsibilities of governance to work through the ledger and decide where cuts must be made.

Debt-wise, we are now in a situation similar to the one America faced at the halfway point of the 20th century. We’d fought a hard, expensive war against the Nazis and the Japanese empire and needed to help rebuild Europe to forestall the victory of aggressive totalitarianism from the Soviets. The scandal is that we’ve reached a similar ratio of debt to GDP without anything approaching the kind of civilizational crises we battled through earlier. Western nations at that time chose able leaders to rebuild the world. Winston Churchill. Konrad Adenauer. Dwight Eisenhower. They had to be good, wise, and credible. Not only were they bringing the west out of the ashes, they were facing Stalin and Mao.

As good as those leaders were, they had an advantage we don’t have. Their people had been on rations for years and were ready to consume. Our citizenry, in contrast, has matched the habits of our government. But things have changed. The people have become wiser in the wake of financial meltdown in the real estate markets and on Wall Street. We are loaded with debt, but are now looking to save. As the government rolls out increasingly shocking deficits, we react by salting away more money against the possibility of dark days. Profligate spending by Washington undermines the confidence needed to fuel expansion. We realize that our political leaders are taking us on the path of greater spending accompanied by more debt service and higher taxes. The bill is going to come due and we know it. Like a wife hiding funds from an unreliable husband with grandiose visions and a record of failure (the War on Poverty), we are stewarding our resources and hoping for more responsibility.

Aristotle said the best judges of whether a chef has succeeded in his craft are the diners rather than his fellow chefs. No matter how much other politicians may laud their peers who effortlessly spend other people’s money without worrying about tomorrow, the citizens (the diners) grow restless. We need leaders, like Chris Christie, who want no better legacy than to have applied the brakes on a runaway locomotive and who have the intestinal fortitude for the task.

Hunter Baker is the associate dean of arts and sciences at Union University and the author of The End of Secularism

Rambling Man . . . Ramble No More?

We’ve moved into our home in Jackson, Tennessee.  During our 15 year marriage, Ruth and I have now occupied a total of nine different domiciles.  Only one of those was a really short stay apartment.  If you throw in stays of one month or more with other families during transitions, the number goes to 11.  I feel like The Fugitive.

It sounds a little more sane when you just consider the municipalities:

1. A newlywed year in Jacksonville, Florida
2. Four intense years of training for both of us in Houston, Texas (residency for her, law school for me)
3. Three years of early professional activity in Atlanta, Georgia and baby #1
4. Two years of Ph.D. work in Waco and the beginning of my relationship with Robert Sloan, plus baby #2 (a native Texan!)
5. Two years of Ruth being on call almost continuously in Athens, Georgia plus trying to read a hundred books and then write a dissertation with two very young children (one very ill)
6. Three amazing years back in Houston finding my calling and Grace’s first years of good health
7. And now, Jackson, Tennessee and Union University — No idea what will happen here.

But I mentioned to Ruth that I was thinking of staying at least eight years and she almost had an anxiety attack.  ”NO MORE TALK OF MOVING!  NOT IN EIGHT YEARS!  NOT IN A DECADE!”

The rambling, God willing, may be done for a while.