Charity: What Do We Owe to the Less Fortunate?

• "But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind." Luke 14:13
• "When Jesus heard this, he said to him, You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.'" Luke 18:22

I'm not sure when the Bible was written, but a long time ago. And in the Bible, at least the New Testament, there are many passages about the obligation of the righteous toward the poor. Jesus Christ has been quoted as saying we should make ourselves poor helping the poor, although there were no videotapes in those days so exactly what he said and the context in which he said it is still open to interpretation.

Even in the Bible the concept that giving to the poor may "enable" them to continue to be dependent is visible:

2 Thessalonians 3:10-12 New International Version (NIV):  For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. 12 Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat.

A woman I met recently said she objected to any sort of welfare because, "You learn quickly enough not to feed stray dogs. They just follow you home."  So there you have it--charity is enabling the feckless, that's the meme. Nice dodge, if you can convince yourself these "needy" are really just stray dogs. 

Much of the Christian commentary dwells on the attitude toward the poor--we should love the poor beggar: That's what the poor beggar really needs: love.  The poor beggar, I suspect would beg to disagree. I suspect he might say he'd prefer money to love. But I have no data.

A friend has a rule: when you are confronted by a beggar on the street, give him something--it may not help him but it makes you feel better, and it eliminates that uncomfortable moment for you. His name is Tommy, so all his friends call it "Tommy's Rule."  He carries change in his pockets for just that purpose.  I've employed this tactic and it does work for me.

Of course Tommy's Rule is not public policy and solves no problems except for the one it is intended to solve--it gets you down the street in psychic comfort.

Some people react to street beggars with anger.  They are worthless scum, not even trying, slackers, and they deserve their misery.

This is a tactic, like Tommy's Rule, which, I suspect, has emerged to solve the same problem--it makes you feel better if you can replace pity with anger. And it addresses the underlying problem of "there but for the grace of God go I."  One thing that makes you feel bad about that beggar is you think, "that might be me." But if you say, "that could  never be me, because I work hard," then you don't feel badly. Of course, you are delusional, in that thinking.

Ronald Reagan solved this crisis of conscience in his wonderful, facile way, by saying, "There will always be poor." And he shrugged.  And from that, flowed the idea that since there will always be poor, no matter what we do, there is no sense in trying to help the poor, because, well, no matter what you do to help, they will still be there, poor. What a liberating thought! No "liberal guilt." 

And where did that phrase come from? "Liberal guilt"  is rich man's guilt. Joe Sixpack, who drives a truck and is not rich, does not feel liberal guilt. He feels no guilt because he is not rich. He feels poor. He resents his place on the economic scale and he burns for the day when he will be rich.  Of course, he is rich compared to the street beggar, but he will deny that, too. Ask Joe and he'll tell you that street beggar goes home to a palace, having made more on the street begging than he would at an honest job. It's the welfare queen theory: These street beggars are manipulating us, trying to prey on our sense of pity. 

So, this line of reasoning goes: Have no pity. Then you don't have to spend time and money dreaming up programs to spend tax payer money helping people who are not just undeserving but who are scamming the rest of us.

Ah, that works even better than the tactic of keeping spare change in your pocket. 

Grains of Truth

This morning I heard Paul LePage on the radio raging on about some (likely mythical) woman from "overseas" who had traveled to Maine during her 6th  month of pregnancy so she could have her baby delivered at the expense of Maine taxpayers and so she could raise her children "on the dole" thereafter. She had done this for each of her three children,( And then, presumably, for some reason she had gone back home, in which case she was not raising her kids on the dole in Maine. Did not make a lot of sense on that point.)

Scourge of the welfare queens

This is the Paul LePage version of Ronald Reagan's "welfare queen" the woman who lives the good life by exploiting the welfare state the Democrats would so love to establish.  It speaks to all those folks who believe they are the hard working citizens supporting a bunch of undeserving slackers.

The problem is, now that I'm seeing patients near Lawrence, Massachusetts, where there is a substantial immigrant population, with one large group from the Dominican Republic, I can now see there is a grain of truth underlying the big lie.

Every day I see people who speak little or no English, who have moved to the USA to join family members in a subsided apartment, who, when asked about their job say, "Disabled" the one English word they know and who can afford any of the most expensive drugs I might want to prescribe because "Mass Health" covers these, while my hardworking auto mechanic is severely restricted by his own health insurance to a much smaller number of choices for medications. I can see from where the resentment arises. 

Of course, I'm getting the worm's eye view, as are the resentful Republican truck drivers and factory workers who hear about the welfare bums from their friends at the bar who had friends who knew about the bums. And the fact is, I never saw this population across the state line in New Hampshire, a state which is ungenerous, which simply refuses to care for its disabled and unemployed and unfortunate.  It may be true that people who are looking for a hand out know where to find it and where it won't be found.

Commenting on the LePage tirade, one of his supporters said, "You can't have a welfare state with open borders--they'll just pour in and bankrupt you."

"They" being those freeloading immigrants. 

Is his head really that pointy? And that tie!

Another uncomfortable moment: At the Planned Parenthood inquisition a Republican Congressman, Trey Cowdy, asked Cecile Richards if she could understand his revulsion over "partial birth abortions."  She said that wasn't a medical term. He did not not know enough to rephrase: "Late term"abortions. 

I could understand.  When I was a 3rd year medical student I saw a "salting out" procedure in which a fetus which was maybe 21 weeks, maybe older, was delivered after its mother was given an infusion of hypertonic saline into her uterus and what came out sure looked like a human being. I don't know if it had a heart beat, but I wouldn't doubt it. The nurse took it to the utility room and we stood there staring at it and I thought, "How is this not infanticide? This thing looks a lot like a baby."

In all the discussions of abortion since, I cannot shake the image of that fetus, conceptus, baby whatever you want to call it.  At 4 weeks, even 8 weeks the fetal material, when you see it on a gauze pad is pretty unrecognizable as anything that might, visually, qualify as a human being, but at 21 weeks, at least visually, it looks human and "alive." So I'm with the right to lifers at a certain point. Somewhere the fetus crosses a line to human being for me.  

It's all about where you draw the line. 

The thing is, the Republicans who are out there now are so repugnant, it's hard to agree with them, even when you agree with part of what they are saying. If they were Edward Brooke or Everett Dirksen Republicans, you could say, "Look, let's see where we have common ground. I might be willing to vote for a ban on abortions after say, 20 weeks--we can argue about where the line should be--but you have to agree on abortion up to a certain point. The moment of conception just cannot be it. 

 And, yes, we should tighten up the benefits for people who avail themselves of government welfare and health programs to be sure we are not simply acting like a magnet for those who simply find it easier to move than to work. 

But those discussions are not possible when you are facing the extremists sent to Congress by the dim witted citizens of Kentucky and South Carolina. 

Banned Books Night in Exeter

Last night at  Water Street Books  in Exeter, the ACLU hosted an event featuring readings of books which have been banned from various locales, including libraries, bookstores and school systems. 

This was the fourth annual event, and this one including Peyton Place, Howard Zinn's history of  America, Lillian Hellman's play, "The Children's Hour" and other pieces.

Excerpts were read from each. Renny Cushing read the splendid opening paragraph of Peyton Place and he gave some of the history of the storm it provoked, including the remarks from the Manchester Union Leader's William Loeb who said it was a harbinger of the imminent  end of Western Civilization.  Cushing read the description of Dr. Matthew Swain's confrontation with the reality of incestuous rape and the need to respond with an abortion.  There are many other passages he could have read from Peyton Place, which addressed the damage done by organized religion, the oppressive class structure in the town, and  the tension between prim and proper church going Norman Rockwell small town values and the hot sensual desires percolating unseen beneath.  Much of the book is an effort to show the Chamber of Commerce image of small town New England is a lie, but the abortion passages may have been chosen because of the congressional hearings on Planned Parenthood which were held that same day.

I suppose nothing quite undermines the notion that you can keep the lide on basic human drives more than abortion. If everyone could or would just say "No" then there would be no abortions--but people are not saints. 

A history and social studies teacher from Portsmouth High School read Howard Zinn's description of the murderous fury Christopher Columbus unleashed on the people he found living in Haiti, from whom he demanded gold which they did not have and could not provide. The atrocities were motivated by a capitalist drive to make the capital invested in the expedition pay off in gold, a harbinger of what was to come in the history of the United States. 

The head of the drama department at Phillips Exeter Academy read from the Lillian Hellman play, "The Children's Hour," which concerned two women teachers who have been accused by a student of having a lesbian affair.  The lie carries weight and it doesn't matter it's a lie because, as Shakespeare said, "In speech, there is logic."   It doesn't matter whether the statement is groundless, or the videotape photo shopped--all that matters is the accusation.  Scoundrels from Joseph McCarthy to Jason Chaffetz have known this--true is in the eye of the beholder and often it is simply what you claim it is, no matter how absurd.

It was wonderful to be among friends at the bookstore.  The readings remind us of the power of an idea, and the anger and desperation of those who want to try to kill ideas.

Blood Moon, Lunar Eclipse Come to Hampton, New Hampshire

It is easy to forget how small we are in the universe, but last night held some reminders.  

The sky was nearly cloudless in Hampton but the stars were not prominent because the moon was full and lighted up the sky. It looked much larger than even a full moon ordinarily looks. Then, slowly, beginning around 9 PM, a smudge appeared on its left hand edge and worked its way across the moon. Over a little more than an hour, it slowly progressed, as the earth came between the moon and the sun and as this happened the moon took on a red cast.

It was all visible from my house.  No need for telescopes. 

I'm told the next time this happens will be 18 years.  We always used to say in Maryland, it'll be a long time before that happens again--the Cicadas will be back around the time that happens--the Cicadas are on a 17 year cycle. They are large cricket like insects which bloom every 17 years and fill the night air with their Cicada sounds and they fall dead all over the ground, covering surfaces like snow. 

Up here, we'll be saying--it'll be another blood moon before we see that happen again. 

All this comes just a month or two since the blue moon.

This morning, before sunrise, the full moon had drifted across the sky to the Southwest and hung low over my neighbor's rooftop. The sky was now sparkling with stars, constellations.  The air was clear and brisk.  

Mr. Boat, aka Tugboat went about his business peeing, not looking up at the sky. He's a full blooded lab and he does not look skyward much. He keeps his nose to the ground. There is enough there to keep him occupied. That is one difference between dogs and people. Dogs focus on what is on the ground, what is within their reach or scent. People look to the heavens and wonder.

Best Pope Since Pope John XXIII

I should start by saying I'm not Catholic. Not even a renegade or a recovering Catholic. Not born to the fold. But  I'm Catholic the way I was a New Yorker--an honorary New Yorker, a Catholic by association, Catholic not in spirit so much as affection, a sort of Jesuit-o-phile.

Spent almost 30 years on the faculty of Georgetown University Medical School, a Jesuit institution. The Jesuits are so low key about their Catholicism they have one photo of the Pope in the front hall, near the elevators but crosses in the rooms are so discrete, you never notice them, really have to look for them.

Over all those years, there were only two times the Catholic thing came up at Georgetown.

One time I sent a man to the lab at Georgetown for a semen sample. He was trying to get his wife pregnant and after two years, no luck and part of the evaluation is to examine the semen for a sperm count to be sure the problem is not with the male.  I got  a call from an embarrassed lab director on the phone. 
"Uh, doctor, you sent a patient for a semen sample."
"Yes, infertility work up."
"Well, there's a problem with that."
"Oh?"
"We don't do semen samples at Georgetown."
"Why not?"
"Well, in order to provide a semen sample, the patient has to masturbate."
"Yes, I'm aware of how semen samples are obtained."
"Well, the thing is, masturbation is a carnal sin. Touching in impure fashion."
"But, the thing is, I'm trying to help this guy make more little Catholics."
"Sorry, doctor. There are rules."

So that was that. The other time was a little more dire. A patient of mine delivered twins at Georgetown. One was anencephalic. No brain. No head, really above the eyes. The question was whether to provide life support for the baby or just let it die, as it surely would eventually.  The medical ethics committee visited, mostly priests, but some doctors and some professors. They agreed no respirators, intravenous or feeding tubes. They did want to the mother to see the baby. Not for theological reasons--just so she would never have regrets later. 

I'm still not sure making people who are not medical look at deformed fetuses or, for that matter images which look real but are essentially deceptive on fetal ultrasounds is a good idea.

But all this is a digression. We were talking about this Pope.
This Pope condemns abortion, and he is not for same sex marriage and he is a Catholic, which one would expect from a Pope.

But he seems to be willing to listen, to tolerate opposing points of view.  He's less into bombast and warnings of eternal damnation than sympathy and concern for the underdog. He rides around in a Fiat, for Christ's sake. He understands the value of symbolic acts.   And he's willing to fight what must be very entrenched people in the ultimate bureaucracy.  

He also is not afraid of seeing today's truths:  climate change, man's likely role in it, the moral depravity of mega wealth when there are so many impoverished.   He mentioned the pedophile priest problem, which is the first step toward solving it. 

One wonders whether he'll call a Vatican III, which might, like Vatican II could change things.  Allowing priests to marry, which, as I understand it is custom not doctrine. The one thing which would ultimately solve the pedophile priest problem long term, would be allowing married priests. You don't need three years of psychiatric training to understand the population of men willing to be celibate, to not consort with womankind is a select group, and it's apparent that group is going to contain men who harbor sexual pathology. 

It should be noted that in the early centuries, the Church allowed abortion. I'm not saying Vatican III would go back to that, but if the Church wants to move forward, it has to change. 

This Pope clearly knows that. 

My big problem with the Pope is he is a pope. The hubris involved in any human being claiming to know the mind of God, claiming to speak for God, claiming superiority over other human beings in knowing what God wants is simply beyond my ken. If you are concerned about offending God, one would think a really reliable way to do that would be to presume to speak for Him.

But that's just me. What do I know? 

Or, as Pope Francis might say: Who am I to judge?

Bacha Bazi Pederasty: Captain Dan Quinn and the Silence of the Lambs

We knew the United States has stayed too long in Afghanistan before this.  If I recall correctly, we landed our troops and our tanks and flew our drones to rout the Taliban, which is a group who we did not like because they may have embraced Osma Bin Laden and even if they did not know the guy, they sounded pretty unappetizing because they beheaded teachers in front of their students for the crime of teaching girls to read. 

We were there, I had thought, to get out. To get Bin Laden and get out. 

But like so many other American quagmires, we just could not resist getting involved with local politics and culture and we had all sorts of neo-cons pontificating about the importance of staying with Afghanistan for the long run, not like all the other American interventions where we left too soon.

The New York Times runs an article today which tells us why staying more than ten days in that cesspool of a nation is always a bad idea. 

It turns out the local military and police officers being trained and supported by our troops like to rape boys for fun, to keep them chained to beds for easy accessibility and occasionally one of them will murder his own daughter for kissing a boy and disgracing the family. 

When an American officer responded to such behavior by beating the stuffing out of one of these Afghan pederasts, he was drummed out of the military.  We are there to help fight whoever the American generals deem to be our enemy and not to get in fights with people who offend us by raping local village boys in a practice so entrenched it has a name:  bacha bazi, "boy games." 

When a German concentration camp guard does not resist the atrocities he sees, we try him at Nuremberg. When an American soldier resists an atrocity, we drum him out of the military.  

Cultural relativism says we ought to respect the culture of others, not impose our values upon a culture.  When we are sending our young to fight in Afghanistan, I don't see the value of cultural relativism. We are there with guns and we can tell people to do what we think they ought to do or we'll kill them. Once we leave, they can go back to raping their children, murdering their daughters and growing poppies to feed the craving for heroin in Manchester, New Hampshire. 

Captain Dan Quinn

Until then. we should be pinning medals on men like Daniel Quinn, the soldier who beat up the pederast, not getting rid of men like him.  The men we should be drumming out of the military are the generals who drummed Quinn out of the military. 

It's entirely possible there is more to this story: Maybe Captain Quinn was a bad actor in some ways which did not come out in the NY Times story. Maybe he did not talk enough before he started throwing fists.  This is a story which ought to be explored and presented more fully. But it is entirely possible to imagine a narrative of upper rear echelon general officers falling all over themselves to enforce "discipline" on a junior officer who saw an appalling offense and took action to stop it.  The Times documents other reports from American soldiers in Afghanistan saying they heard boys screaming all night long on these bases, as they were, presumably, raped.  The soldiers reported this up the chain of command and were told this is something Americans had no right to interfere with.

You can just imagine the folks at the Obama White House who are now scrambling to manage this story.  I am looking forward to hearing President Obama address this at a news conference, which I hope will be soon.

As Nashville Goes, So Goes the Nation

Nashville, Tennessee is something of an anomaly in the South.  The home of a thriving music industry, it is far more liberal than the state in which it lives.  New hotels are rising up the way Starbucks and McDonalds sprout in most cities--which is to say, almost on every block. 

When New York chefs look to open a new restaurant in a different locale, they have been choosing Nashville lately. The demographics, the sophistication of taste and the money are there.

And now, Nashville has just elected a woman mayor, for the first time. Megan Barry beat her opponent, whose name happened to be Fox, and that turned out to be providential, because he conducted his campaign as Fox News would have.  He launched a whispering campaign that Ms. Barry is an atheist, so she had to resort to appearing at prayer breakfasts in church. Ms. Barry, apparently, was fighting against charges she is not Christian enough, which in a Bible belt state, even in a liberal enclave, is a slur. 

She will build on what her predecessor, Karl Dean, did to make Nashville an emerging national hub. And, Mayor Dean is not from Nashville, or even Tennessee. The man grew up in Massachusetts.  Imagine that. The good citizens of Nashville chose first a Yankee and then a woman to lead them. 

Politics is a strange estuary.  

Sometimes the voters get it right.

If this is possible in Nashville, maybe voters could get it right when they think about who should be living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.