Filings: With love and respect

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My wife and I attended our church’s Sweetheart Weekend this past weekend — in romantic, exotic Shoreview! The location, actually, was fine. Sure, a “warm and sunny” getaway is a plus but the expense and logistics for a group like ours makes “close and convenient” more of a draw. We were only two nights and 12 miles away from home, but the two of us enjoy getting away from the routine and devoting some time to one another beyond the usual daily newsflashes that pass for communication in a typical week.

(Speaking of getting out of the routine, Saturday night’s dinner was a formal affair and my wife wore a lethally stunning, coffee-colored gown confirming that, yes, it is good to be me. The dress and matching shoes were picked out by her personal shopper, the Mall Diva, who found and acquired the garment without her mother being present — and it fit perfectly even though sneezing might have been perilous. The Mall Diva may have been hoping that if I could accept my wife going out in public so attired that my restrictions on her own clothing might soften as well. Dream on, MD, but thanks for the dress.)

We’ve been to several of these couples events over the years and have always enjoyed them and gotten useful things from the teachings we’ve heard. In retrospect, however, from my perspective a lot of the teaching has been about how men can show our wives we love them. The assumption has been that women are naturally wired to be love transmitters and receivers. This presumes that women “know” love and understand how important it is to show love to their husbands, but that guys have to work to get on the right frequency. It also assumes that love is equally important to both husband and wife. It’s not a bad theory and you can do a lot of good in your marriage as a guy just by knowing that and trying to tune in. There is a missing part of the equation, however, and this last weekend our group was able to put a finger on it.

Every couple at the weekend received a copy of the book, Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs. My wife and I were one of the couples our pastors asked to review the book in advance and we found it amazing: not necessarily because it’s well written (though it’s not bad), but because the key truth Dr. Eggerichs and his wife had found in scripture has pretty much been hiding in plain sight all along (well, in plain sight if you read your Bible much). Ephesians 5:33 (New Living Translation) says (Paul writing),

So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Ok, that’s probably a familiar passage to anyone who’s been to a Christian marriage seminar, but again the focus has been on men learning to show unconditional love to their wives, while the women assume they’re doing their part by showing unconditional love to their husbands. That sounds like a good formula for success, but what the scripture says and what Dr. Eggerichs recognized is that wives are to show unconditional respect to their husbands. Now, this isn’t some “Woman, submit” power trip, but a realization that it there’s something different that floats the boat for each sex.

Respect is the currency for men; we grow up with it culturally in sports, in business, in military models. Guys usually are pretty efficient at sorting out which way the respect flows in any situation. True, guys can sound horrific in their good-natured trash talk to each other — in words that would crush a woman’s esteem if they were directed at her — but it typically occurs among guys who have sorted things out and know they’re all at the same level. Trash talk doesn’t go uphill and usually doesn’t flow downhill except to make a point. Respect can almost be ritualized as in the mafia expression and practice of “men of respect”, and it can be seen in extremis in the gangbanger culture of young men who haven’t learned the rules and applications of respect but will kill each other for being “disrespected” (but that’s for another post). If you asked a man, would you rather your wife showed you love or showed you respect (and the guy took a few minutes to think about it) most would say that respect is more important. Men are respect-oriented and its important to them to know that they measure up in the eyes of their wives.

That’s a challenging idea for women, who are love-oriented. Because love is more important to them they think love is what their husbands want (and we do, but it’s #2). A wife can grasp the unconditional love idea and take pride in unconditionally loving her husband, but still not respect him (“Of course I love the big lug, even if he’s an idiot, can’t hold a job, and can’t be trusted to dress himself without my help”). Asking her to unconditionally respect her husband, however, can be a big hurdle, especially if he’s been less than respectable (“I can love and forgive, but I can’t forget”).

Most men, meanwhile, have grown up knowing they’re supposed to respect women, especially their wives, and will confer that respect on them even if they’re not sure if they love them (“She’s great with the kids, I couldn’t function without her, I’d never deliberately hurt her, but I don’t know if I love her”). This can be especially true if she’s been less than loving and respectful in her actions toward him (“I can say ‘forget about it’, but I don’t forgive”).

Again, respecting your husband isn’t about being submissively obedient any more than a man loving his wife is about being mushy all the time. Differences in opinion and approach are fine when they can be discussed in ways that show he loves and cherishes his wife and wants the best for her and she shows she respects his ability and character. That can mean he is willing to give in on something in order to benefit her and that she doesn’t bring past failures or personal critiques into the discussion.

That’s just a sliver of what is in the book, and I encourage men and women to read it and evaluate themselves (not their spouses) according to what’s there. Some of what’s there gets a little too close to psycho-babble to my mind, but I think it’s fundamentally and scripturally sound and revelatory so that you sense the truth of it. A lot of what I’ve written here are things that my wife and I had already discovered in our marriage without realizing it was the love/respect principle in action. That’s probably why we’ve been happy … and another reason I can say, “It’s good to be me.”

An update on Charlotte Wyatt … and the state of socialized medicine

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Last April I posted on the story of Charlotte Wyatt, the British infant whose doctors had gone to court to get a “Do Not Resuscitate” order — over the objections of her parents. The doctors’ petition was granted, and to me it as an example of a socialist state demonstrating that it does indeed believe that it owns the children and is also the final arbiter of what constitutes “quality of life.” There is now more to report on this story and on some interesting developments closer to home.

In Charlotte’s case she is now nearly two and a half years old, despite her doctors’ original opinion that she wouldn’t live but a few months, and their later predictions that she wouldn’t survive each of the many challenges she encountered. (She was born at 26 weeks gestation and today her parents readily acknowledge that she has significant developmental issues; their issue all along is that their daughter has the same right to life as a healthier baby.) The judge’s order was never overturned, but it was lifted by the judge last fall when Charlotte’s improving health made it unnecessary. Charlotte’s parents were able to bring her home for an unsupervised visit last Christmas, and earlier this month the hospital indicated that she might soon be released for good. Now, however, she has caught a cold or picked up an infection in the hospital that has become serious and again the judge has instituted the DNR order.

But little ones cannot keep off infections forever, especially in a hospital and in wintertime, and she caught a cold which quickly began to hamper her breathing. In a normal case when your baby is ill the hospital will step up efforts to help. But Charlotte is special, and instead doctors submitted an emergency application to the judge to get permission not to treat her. Yesturday Justice Hedley concurred with them, reversing his previous order. Apparently the baby was on a “downward rather than an upward trend” and therefore not worth saving.

Never mind the vast improvements she had made, the way she had always made stunning recoveries after each of her illnesses, how she had proven the doctors wrong each time. Never mind that she had shown herself a fighter, and with all the strength in her little body was battling for her chance at life.

After all, she was Charlotte, and Charlotte… Charlotte might always be a disabled child. She might never be quite normal, and her joys might never be quite the same as ours. Disabled people aren’t like the rest of us, and when they are sick…they have to be allowed to die.

What has our grand world come to when we can do this, and still walk the streets without shame? How can we pretend we are innocent of a great crime? –for are indeed guilty to if we do not protest. And the measure of a society is in how it treats her most defenseless.

Or if you are a child with special needs, is it only if you can manage to never be ill, never show weakness, always be impoving that you will be considered worth having around? When it comes to the difficult times, will your life never be worth fighting for?

As in April, from this distance I can offer no perspective on Charlotte’s overall health, medical prospects or quality of life. I stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her parents, however, in saying that her level of care should be up to them and not to the state.

The state’s argument, of course, is that it’s paying the bills and therefore has the right to decide how and when care is appropriated. This position is coincidentally highlighted by this story from the New York Times reporting that an average of one private (and therefore illegal) health clinic per week is opening in our socialized neighbor to the north, Canada. The clinics are opening in response to demand from citizens willing to pay out of their own pockets to get needed surgery to improve the quality of their lives. As the head of one of these new clinics stated, “This is a country where a dog can get a hip replacement in under a week and in which a human can wait two or three years.”

The article also notes that Canada is the only industrialized nation to outlaw privately purchased medical care. The new clinics are encouraged, however, by a Canadian Supreme Court ruling last year that a Quebec provincial ban on private health insurance was unconstitutional when people are suffering and even dying on waiting lists. I suppose if you’re one of those people on a list it’s probably a good thing for you that drugs are so cheap.

But that’s still not the whole story as far as this post is concerned. As Amy Ridenour notes, here’s what one of the leading lights of our own “reality-based community”, Sen. Ted Kennedy, had to say in a speech last year:

…I propose that, as a 40th birthday [of Medicare] gift to the American people, we expand Medicare over the next decade to cover every citizen from birth to the end of life …

… I call this approach Medicare for all, because it will free all Americans from the fear of crippling medical expenses and enable them to seek the best possible care when illness strikes …

… Right-wing forces will unleash false attack ads, ranting against socialized medicine and government-run health care … Today we are immunized against such attacks by the obvious success of Medicare. It is long past time to extend that success to all…

(You can read Kennedy’s entire speech here, but doing so will make you glad you can still buy aspirin over the counter.)

Amy goes on to note that this “successful” plan is currently underfunded for future obligations by $29.7 trillion — more than seven times that of Social Security, and that the system as currently constructed will go broke in 2020, 21 years ahead of Social Security.

We’ve seen what this system leads to in the UK and in Canada, and what is already happening here. And if mental capacity should become a standard for determining whether someone should be resuscitated or not then Sen. Kennedy should look at Charlotte Wyatt and feel humbled … and very, very concerned.

See also, 21st Century British Healthcare.

Challenging Word of the Week: atticism

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Atticism
(AT ih siz um) noun

Atticism (often with a lowercase a) is concise, superior, polished discourse and diction. The adjective attic describes elegant, subtle, incisive expression and articulation, with a strong admixture of subtle wit. The English poet John Milton (1608 – 1674) wrote:

What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice, of Attic taste…

Attica was the name of a region in the southeasterly part of ancient Greece. It was under the rule and influence of Athens, whose culture reached its height around the middle of the fifth century B.C. — the age of Pericles, the great poets, dramatists, sculptors and architects. The Roman historian Pliny the Elder (23-79) wrote of “sal atticum” (Attic wit — literally, Attic salt; sal (salt) was used figuratively by the Romans to mean “wit”). Attic wit is dry, delicate, subtle wit. The Romans had a verb atticisare (“atticise”) to describe the imitation of Athenian diction and expression. Atticism, then, is the art of the elegant, well-timed expression, refined simplicity laced with sophistication and wit. In more modern times, the distinction between these two styles has been described in a learned article by Bryan A. Garne in Volume X, No. 3 of Verbatim, the Language Quarterly, which includes this passage:

English inherited two strains of literary exression, both deriving ultimately from Ciceronian Latin. One the one hand is the plain style now in vogue, characterized by unadorned vocabulary, directness, unelaborate syntax, and earthiness. (This syle is known to scholars as Atticism). On the other hand we have the grand style, which exemplifies floridity, allusivenss, formal sometimes abstruse diction, and rhetorical ornament. Proponents of this verbally richer style (called Asiaticism) proudly claim that the nuances available in the “oriental profusion” of English synonyms make the language an ideal putty for the skilled linguistic craftsman to mold and shape precisely in accordance with his conceptions.

Well may you ask, what has this to do with the attic of a house, the room or story just under thre roof? Here is the answer: In the residences of the rich in old Attica, there was often a small row of columns or pilasters placed on the roof, as a decorative feature. Neo-Grecian architecture became fashionable in England in the 17th century. In error, the top floor of a building fashioned in the Attic style was called the “Attic storey” (story meaning, “floor of a house,” has an e before the y in British English). Error, because the Attic feature was a facade, whereas the English imitation was an eclosed floor. In time, the upper case A became a small a, the “storey” was dropped, and we wond up with, simply, attic.

From the book, “1000 Most Challenging Words” by Norman W. Schur, ©1987 by the Ballantine Reference Library, Random House.

My example: There’s no better place in the MOB to find atticism practiced than at The Attic which regularly features superior, polished discourse in its more direct and concise form as demonstrated by drjonz or by the more florid and rhetorically ornamental Joey.

I post a weekly “Challenging Words” definition to call more attention to this delightful book and to promote interesting word usage in the blogosphere. I challenge other bloggers to work the current word into a post sometime in the coming week. If you manage to do so, please leave a comment or a link to where I can find it.

Friday Fundamentals in Film: The Red Badge of Courage

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The Red Badge of Courage is a John Huston Civil War classic starring Audie Murphy and Bill Mauldin (yes, the WWII creator of the “Willie and Joe” cartoons). Barely over an hour long, the movie pretty much sticks to Stephen Crane’s novel and features multiple passages read outloud by the film’s narrator. While clearly a war movie about “courage”, I found the most interesting embedded message here to be about the untested soldier Henry Fleming’s struggles to match his confidence and self-image with what he wanted it to be or hoped it could be and with his perception of the expectations of others. Battle happens to be the ready setting for this story, but the essential conflict could have been depicted in many ways.

At the beginning of the story Fleming and his Union comrades in arms have never been in battle and are bored with military life and useless drilling. Itching to fight (each other if they can’t get at the Rebels) the men talk boisterously of the feats they will perform under fire and young Fleming joins in while alternately withdrawing into his doubts. He struggles because he’s afraid he will be afraid, and because the realization of his fear appears to confirm the worst. Yet he doesn’t want to consider himself a coward, or be considered a coward by his fellow troops or his family. He speaks and writes in ways meant to show that he will stand firm, but he has to question himself.

Battle looming or not, untested young men have to deal with the same concerns and hope they will rise to be among the best while fearing they will be among the worst, and the fear of failure can be more motivating than the fear of death itself. This movie is a good opportunity to look at the nature of courage, the influence of others around us in inspiring our best or most craven characteristics, and even to examine the role of faith in giving us a workable handle for grabbing hold of the world. It is also good preparation for young men (or older men) who have not been tested so that they know their doubts or thoughts are not unique to them.

Point to Ponder:
After the Rebels’ first brief attack and retreat, and then after the last battle, Fleming and the others saw the world – and appreciated things – in a different way. Imagine yourself in those same moments; how would you describe the sensation?

Questions to ask:

  1. Fleming was embarrassed first to have run, and then embarassed to be recognized for his fighting. Why do you think both were embarrassing to him?

  2. What was the philosophy of the “happy soldier” (played by Andy Devine) that Fleming met the night after the first battle? Did this have an affect on Fleming?

  3. Was it courage or another kind of fear that propelled Fleming into battle on the second day?

  4. What effect did the actions of the soldiers who ran and the soldier’s who stayed and fought have on Fleming? What consequences did his actions have on others on the first day and then on the second? Which behavior do you think was closest to his true character?

  5. The narrator said, “He had performed his mistakes in the dark so he was still a man.” If nobody sees what you do does it make a difference?

  6. Even when Fleming confessed the truth to his friend he couldn’t bring himself to tell the whole truth. Was this another kind of fear? How well did he confront and overcome this challenge? All in all, would you say he was brave, or a weasel, or something in between? Why?

Great quote:
“So it came to pass as he trudged from the place of blood and wrath his soul changed. He had been to touch the great death…and found that after all it was but the great death. Scars faded as flowers and the youth saw that the world was a world for him. He had rid himself of the red sickness of battle.”

About Fundamentals in Film: this series began as a class I taught to junior high and high school boys as a way to use the entertainment media to explore concepts of honor, honesty, duty and accountability. The movies were selected to demonstrate these themes and as a contrast to television that typically either portrays men as Homer Simpsons or professional wrestlers, with little in between those extremes. I wrote questions and points to ponder for each movie to stimulate discussion and to get the boys to articulate their thoughts and reactions to each movie. I offer this series here on this blog for the benefit of parents or others looking for a fun but sometimes challenging way to reinforce these concepts in their own families or groups. As the list of films grows each week, feel free to use these guides and to mix and match movies according to your interests or those of your group. I’m also always open to suggestions for other movies that can be added to the series.

12 Thingama-whatevers Meme

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Kevin the meanie tagged me with a meme.

1: Black and White or Color; how do you prefer your movies?
Colorful.

2: What is the one single subject that bores you to near-death?
Listening to discussions about wars in other countries.

3: MP3s, CDs, Tapes or Records: what is your favorite medium for prerecorded music?
CDs. And vinyls so I can kick it old-school.

4: You are handed one first class trip plane ticket to anywhere in the world and ten million dollars cash. All of this is yours provided that you leave and not tell anyone where you are going … Ever. This includes family, friends, everyone. Would you take the money and ticket and run?
Heck yeah, I’d take it. I won’t tell them where I’m going, but once I get there, I’ll tell them where I am.
I’m so clever, I can’t even believe it! heeheehee!

5: Seriously, what do you consider the world’s most pressing issue now?

Well, since there are so many, I’ll pick one that doesn’t depress me too much:

So many people don’t know how to dress themselves.
…okay *sniff*, I promised myself I wouldn’t cry…

6: How would you rectify the world’s most pressing issue?

I’d give those people my personal shopper business card.

7: You are given the chance to go back and change one thing in your life; what would that be?
Can I bank this one for later when I’m older?

8: You are given the chance to go back and change one event in world history, what would that be?
Adam screwing it all up for the rest of us.

9: A night at the opera, or a night at the Grand Ole’ Opry –Which do you choose?
I don’t know. Both would be good places to see and be seen! (I am the Diva, after all.)

10: What is the one great unsolved crime of all time you’d like to solve?
The question to the answer of life, the universe, and everything, i.e. 42. Even though that’s not a crime. Oh, well.

11: One famous author can come to dinner with you. Who would that be, and what would you serve for the meal?
Lileks!

I’d serve lunchables and Hi-C.

12: You discover that John Lennon was right, that there is no hell below us, and above us there is only sky — what’s the first immoral thing you might do to celebrate this fact?
I’d move out of my parents’ house, smoke a pack of cigarettes, get a tattoo and have my belly-button pierced aaand….

I’d make Kevin buy me two beers.

Bonus! Random act of the week: I counted all of my shoes and the census came in … 33 pairs! (Can you guess who my role model is?)

An ethical challenge

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Great post from Andy at Residual Forces yesterday, deboning the celebration of those hailing the decisions of three Californian anesthesiologists who refused to execute a convicted murderer and rapist on ethical grounds.

These doctors in California who have suddenly gotten ethics and won’t assist with the Death Penalty may be the best example of hypocrisy ever.

Here we have Legislatures demanding that Doctors prescribe the morning after abortion pills, against their will.

That Walmart must sell the Morning After abortion pill against their will.

The Supreme Court says that Doctors in Oregon can euthanize people. (That means assisting them to die)

Abortion are considered a medical procedure worthy of public financing.

Partial birth abortion is still acceptable round most parts.

But these doctors in Cali won’t help rid the world of a convicted x murderer and rapist because of their ethics.

Personally, I may not agree with the decisions these anesthesiologists made, but I respect their right to do so. I endorse so-called “conscience clauses”. And as Andy points out, those who are happy by these particular actions might not be so supportive in other circumstances.

If they can stand up to a court order and refuse this, can other doctors refuse court orders and laws and protect other forms of life? Can doctors and pharmacists refuse to abort the unborn now? Will the ethics of every doctor be tolerated now?

On a related topic, go back and check out this classic from Craig Westover.

Tough neighborhood

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Noisy parties, stray dogs and the occasional wildlife intrusion by bats, gophers or a raccoon here and there sum up most of the inconveniences where I live.

(Sigh). That’s probably why I’ve gotten so soft, at least compared to this story from the Toronto Globe and Mail:

Bear crashes hockey game, mom saves kids

By Paul Waldie
Toronto Globe and Mail

IVUJIVIK, Quebec — Lydia Angyiou’s kids sure won’t be giving her much trouble any more, now that they’ve seen her wrestle a 700-pound polar bear.

Angyiou lives in Ivujivik, a village of 300 people on the shore of Hudson Bay in northern Quebec.

One Wednesday evening earlier this month, Angyiou was walking near the village community center with her two sons when a group of children playing street hockey nearby started shouting and pointing frantically.

Angyiou, 41, turned around and saw a polar bear sizing up her 7-year-old son.

She told the children to run and raced around to get between the bear and her son. Then she started kicking and punching the animal, according to police reports.

In a flash, the bear swatted her in the face and she fell on her back. With the bear on top of her, Angyiou began kicking her legs in a bicycle-pedaling motion. She was swatted once more and rolled over, but the bear moved toward her again.

Siqualuk Ainalik heard the commotion and came rushing over. Seeing Angyiou wrestling with the bear, he ran to his brother’s home, grabbed a rifle and headed back to the street. He fired a few warning shots.

The sound diverted the bear’s attention from Angyiou just long enough for him to aim and fire again. According to police, Ainalik fired four shots into the bear before it finally died.

…

“I’ve been here 24 years and I’ve never seen this before,” said Larry Hubert, a regional captain with the police force who arrived on the scene just after the bear was shot. “For sure, she saved the kids’ lives.”

Hubert has known Angyiou for 15 years and he can’t believe she took on a bear. He said the bear measured eight feet in length and weighed at least 700 pounds.

Angyiou “is about 5-foot-nothing and 90 pounds on a wet day,” Hubert said with a laugh. “She’s pretty quiet. I’m surprised she went and did this.

Angyiou (who suffered only some scratches and a black eye) and Ainalik can join our Neighborhood Watch program any time.

HT: Amy Ridenour’s National Center Blog.

SPAM SPAM SPAM and SPAM

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I had a little lunch with the Llama Butchers today and found this intriguing link to the SPAM-ku page; a web-site devoted to haiku about SPAM®. No, not the annoying email, but the delightful pork particle product from our own Austin, Minnesota!

Reading through the site which features more than 19,000 poems to SPAM really got the creative (and other) juices flowing. Mmmm, SPAM – the smell, the slimy gelatin coating, the light pink color! Lord help me, but I love it! Here are some of my own SPAM-ku, touched by the processed pig muse:

How I Like It
One quarter inch thick,
Fried crispy on both sides with
toast, lettuce, mayo!

Pilgrimage
The Spam Museum,
a temple to temptation;
revelation comes.

The Monty Python diet
Egg spam spam bacon!
Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!
I like spam a lot!

The Next Generation
Sharing processed pork,
the Mall Diva likes it, too!
My work here is done.

The Food Capital of Southern Minnesota
Go to Austin, MN,
proud city of pork shoulders;
keep your Green Giant.

They did burn down the White House, after all

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“After careful review by our government, I believe the transaction ought to go forward,” Bush told reporters who had traveled with him on Air Force One to Washington. “I want those who are questioning it to step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a Great British company. I am trying to conduct foreign policy now by saying to the people of the world, `We’ll treat you fairly.‘” (Breitbart/AP)

Um, okay, Mr. President. How about, “Because the British haven’t attacked us since 1812?” Not that that has to be the precedent, of course. Hey, I’d be willing to reconsider selling control of six of our largest ports to a Middle Eastern company in, say, maybe half that amount of time.

Update:

Related posts from other blogs: The Impudent Finger, Blogizdat, Bogus Gold, the Psycmeistr and Hammerswing.