Midwestern Mugwump (mw)2

By(e) By(e) Ty

ESPN reports that Tyrone Willingham has been fired. 

While I've been frustrated with play this year and posted several times about frustrations with the program, I'm still a little disappointed.  He's a class guy and I wish he'd been given another year.  That said, they played very inconsistently over the last two years and the offense never substantially improved from the doldrums of the Bob Davie days.  I hope the team improves and I certainly wish Willingham the best, but I take no relish in his firing (nor, I think, should anyone else).   

UPDATE - An ESPN columnist states (brutally):

This move makes one thing clear: the Golden Dome might as well be located in Auburn, Ala., or Lincoln, Neb., or Tallahassee, Fla. All the things Notre Dame used to hold dear -- the class-and-dignity stuff, the special-institution stuff -- is officially of secondary importance.

But here comes the reality check for the Domers. Now that you've licked Willingham's blood from your claws and outed yourselves as a football factory, can you win like one?

Ouch!  I honestly don't think it's racism, I think its the fact that the teams have done so poorly (and inconsistently, particularly on offense) the last two years coupled with the fact that people were impatient to begin with.  The clock was already ticking (probably unfairly, but he was probably paid accordingly) when he got there. 

UPDATE II - Willingham speaks - in case anyone was confused about how classy a guy he is. 

36,000 Employees??

I don't know anything about the new Commerce Secretary - he seems like someone who is exceptionally talented.  I'm sure some advocacy groups will come out against him, but whatever, its an inspiring story.

What shocked me was the information that the Department of Commerce has 36,000 employees and a budget of almost $6 billion?  Holy Cow.  Whatever happened to getting rid of the department - or at least shrinking it a bit. 

Stuntz on Universities and Churches

Bill Stuntz has an insightful (and optimistic) article - Faculty Clubs and Church Pews - that discusses the similarities between these two groups.  He clearly loves his role in both and he is an excellent example to each of the best parts of the other.  Of the similarities:

Churches and universities are the two twenty-first century American enterprises that care most about ideas, about language, and about understanding the world we live in, with all its beauty and ugliness. Nearly all older universities were founded as schools of theology: a telling fact. Another one is this: A large part of what goes on in those church buildings that dot the countryside is education -- people reading hard texts, and trying to sort out what they mean...But one sees a good deal of day-to-day altruism, which is not common everywhere else.

Stuntz states that while evangelicals need to engage more with ideas, universities would do well to embrace a bit more of the humility to be found in most churches.  Both certainly true.  He also emphasizes evangelicals "combination of strong faith commitments with uncertainty, the awareness that I don't know everything, that I have a lot more to learn than to teach."  Probably not as true as it should be, but a good place to start.  In the end, he offers this:

Humility, love of serious ideas, commitment to helping the poor -- these are things my faculty friends and my church friends ought to be able to get together on. If they ever do, look out: American politics, and maybe American life, will be turned upside down. And all those politicians who can only speak in one color will be out of a job.

Its worth a more careful read.  The sociological factors that generally keep the two sides apart are difficult to bridge and the distrust runs deep - despite this knowledge he remains optimistic.  I'm also not particularly sanguine about the policy of the 'other issues' being pushed out of the foreground. 

The fundamental frustration this article highlights for me is the ongoing neglect of POLICY in favor of POLITICS in our public discourse.  We are obsessed with the game of elections, but can't pay attention to the substance of policy.  Discussions have already turned to the elections of 2006 and articles on religion center EITHER on the evangelical takeover of the Republican party OR how Democrats can increase their "God-talk."  Jim Wallis has essentially turned himself into Ralph Reed - and that's not a particularly flattering picture.  Christians, and all Americans, should talk more about common ground positive policy instead of our obsession with tit-for-tat political gamesmanship - or am I just naive?

A side note, while I'm doubtful that Obama is the guy to take us there, perhaps he is.  I am also doubtful that national politics are the best avenue for this.  I'm inclined to think that state and local governments might be more productive places to find common ground. 

One additional note - Christians would also do well to stop demonizing other Christians in this debate.  I vote Republican, it doesn't mean I hate the poor - really, it doesn't.  And I don't imagine that most Democrats consider abortion to be an unalloyed good.

Presbyterian INvestment

A friend pointed me to this article on the decision of Chicago's Fourth Presbyterian Church to actively invest in Israel.  According to the article - "Funds would be used to support companies that build infrastructure, such as schools, homes and roads."

Taken in response to the objections raised by Jewish groups to the PC(USA)'s decision to divest from companies that do business with Israel, Fourth Church's response is a good one - a positive step when too often people take only negative ones.  Unfortunately, they do say that "is not a protest against divestment."  I wish it were such a protest, but it's a good start.

Buy Nothing Day?

I didn't leave the house yesterday, but that doesn't mean that we didn't "Buy [Any]thing."  Instapundit has a few comments.  Pejman Yousefzadeh thinks that such an approach only keeps poor people (especially in developing countries) poor by depriving them of jobs.  I think he overstates for rhetorical effect.

I'm somewhere in between (as a corporate and securities lawyer how anti-capitalist can I really be).  Many Americans are in sufficient amount of unproductive debt (home and education loans are what I would [perhaps snobbily] consider productive debt), that buy nothing day might do them some good.  I'm also susceptible to the persuasion of moral arguments against consumerism.  But I'm not an economist and don't understand the role of large amounts of consumer debt on the nation's economy and the moral perils of consumerism are difficult to quantify and understand.  That said, it seems obvious that fewer purchases would considerably slow down economic growth and (ultimately?) reduce employment.  Is this right?  But we don't simply want any type of spending, do we?  I certainly prefer it when I spend money rather than the government spending it, but are each of these activities equally good for the economy?

That said, it seems (at best) foolish and naive (and frankly pernicious in its effects) to assume that some people don't need charity, both here and abroad, for whatever reason (this perspective is seen more in tone than actual words of many).  Your eyes don't have to be very open to see people struggling every day.  Giving to charities (like World Vision or CARE) isn't just ennabling poverty, its foolish to say so.  To call such an argument self-serving would be too generous.

At the end, I'll admit that macro (or micro) economics isn't really a specialty of mine. 

A Few Updates

My friend (and fellow Oak Parker) - long suffering cubs fan - provides a link to a detailed site about India.  The aforementioned 'cubs fan,' is one of the 85% of Oak Park's population that voted for Democratic nominee for President.  85% - its just like law school.

Regarding Fr. Neuhaus' book - The Naked Public Square - First Things has a very nice series of retrospectives on the book including Stanley Hauerwas, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Mary Ann Glendon, and Wilfred McClay.

Ashcroft in France

People love to demonize John Ashcroft.  I've never fallen into that camp as it has always seemed unfair and more than a little based in a dislike of his overt religiosity - not in all cases, but I think in noticeable portion.  Orin Kerr at Volokh offers this nice comparison of French anti-terrorism legislation and practice versus American, including several selections from the New York Times.  Kerr states, and not unfairly:

Public debates about the war on terrorism are filled with lots of delicious ironies. The fact that the French government has many powers that are orders of magnitude greater than anything in the Patriot Act surely ranks up as one of the better ones.

In particular, much less respect for American style habeas corpus proceedings and many fewer checks (because of judicial and prosecutorial cooperation) on prosecutorial powers and discretion.  A comparative look at civil liberties would be a welcome corrective to a Chicken Little approach to public discourse.

Stuart Buck offers his comments.

Thanksgriping

If you want a pleasant and elegant Thanksgiving tribute - go to One Hand Clapping.

Ann Althouse has a short post wondering why Thanksgiving doesn't have a negative analogue (like Scrooge or the Grinch) like Christmas.  There may be reasons, but that isn't the point.  She suggests "The Thankswitholder" or "The Ingrate."  I prefer the latter or, alternatively, offer up the title as a possibility - The Thanksgriper.

Speaking of being a Thanksgriper, the Times 'conservative beat' reporter, David Kirkpatrick had a piece on Sunday about conservatives pushing the "true meaning of Thanksgiving."  I'll agree that the genuine religiosity of the Puritans is too often caricatured or ignored altogether.  But conservatives are becoming whiny and demanding (perhaps I should say - "are being portrayed as" but I'm inclined to think the former is as true as the latter besides the latter is itself whiny) - particularly after the election (perhaps more on this later).  Thanksgiving does build not only off the Plymouth Pilgims initial fall celebration, but also off of the Puritan tradition of holding periodic "days of public thanks" for important events.  Of course, their practice was different from ours, noticeably less self-indulgent, a fact that evangelicals would do well to remind themselves.  It's also true that our present holiday (instituted by Lincoln as an annual event) was solidified by FDR into its present form in part to properly frame the Christmas holiday shopping period.  The past is never quite what we want it to be.  Should we return to some of the true meaning of Thanksgiving?  Sure, but the church should do that itself first - as a postive example, instead of griping about public culture. 

One practice of the New England church was to have a "sacrifice of thanksgiving" - to give to others as a showing to God of your gratefulness for all that He has given to you knowing from whom your bounty comes.  That's probably a good place to start. 

But whatever you do, don't be a Thanksgriper. 

UPDATE - Professor Althouse (thanks for the link) is clarifying her call for an "iconic character" "who embodies our hostility to Thanksgiving" and not simply "a term for a Thanksgiving hater."  I think she needs a scriptwriter or producer - John Hughes is a bit outdated, what about Todd Komarnicki from ELF?

Times on Liberty (the law school)

The Times apparently got bored and decided they needed an article on religiously based law schools - as you know, Liberty University has a new one.  Really - most of us discovered this a long time ago.  The article was kind of lame, I imagine its a part of their "Taking Over America Series." 

Being that they were talking about Liberty, they couldn't help interviewing Jerry Falwell.  Given prior instances of this, I imagine they interviewed Falwell until they got the quotes they wanted.  I realize he's their hook in the story and that he loves publicity, but why not provide some originality and focus on the substance. 

They did interview Peter Schuck, at my alma mater, who commented that:

"There is a sort of soft tolerance of competing views," Professor Schuck, who described himself as a political moderate [at YLS that 'might consider voting for a RINO'], said, "but no real interest in exposing students to seriously developed contrary points of view that proceed from a strong faith-based perspective. Fundamentalism is derided."

I agree with Bainbridge that it isn't all that is derided.  Actually, I've never met Professor Schuck, and while YLS was several standard deviations left of center, only in Con Law and Education Law (though I didn't take other courses where it might have come under increased fire) did I feel like religion was derided, generally people were pretty respectful of other's beliefs.  We loved tolerance there, even if the standard narrative went overwhelmingly in the other direction. 

Hello, Hello

Got up this morning and bought the new U2 album - while still in my pajamas.  Hooray for I-Tunes.  Given that I have other responsibilities in the morning other than just listening to music, I only heard about half of it (and that while doing other stuff), but what I heard was great.  We got it for $9.99 on I-Tunes and its $10.99 via Amazon (plus shipping and with immediate digital access), so the savings was minor, but the concept is great.

UPDATE - CT has a review of the album by Scott Calhoun, who teaches English at Cedarville and writes for @U2.com.  That entire last sentence illustrates how conservative evangelicalism has changed over the last 25 years.  Can anyone write a review without resorting to phrases like "high-flying riffs" and "crooning ballads"?  If not, why not?

UPDATE II - The New Republic has an interesting and short piece about U2's use of technology, most recently their embrace of the I-Pod.