Andrew Sullivan had a great article on Paul Volckers report on the corrupt pre-war UN food for oil program. With wit and insight he correctly points out how the UN has neither the moral authority nor the functional accountability to play any sort of real leadership role in international affairs. He says,”And because the U.N. treats every sovereign country as morally indistinguishable, it cannot very easily avoid the kleptocrats. Or the tyrants, for that matter. That’s why the current Human Rights Commission’s working group is made up of the Netherlands, Hungary, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe. No, I’m not making that up. Next up: Robert Mugabe on the gay rights commission; Kim Jong Il to monitor non-proliferation; and Ayatollah Khameini on women’s rights.” Ouch! His conclusions related to why the status quo with Saddam Hussein had to end, thus making the war necassary, are compelling. If we hadn’t intervened, then Saddam would have continued to enrich himself with bribes and slush funds while using the UN Food Program to control his own people and enabling an inauspicious codependence with morally bankrupt UN program administrators.

Steve

“The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not the X-rated video, but the prime time dribble of triviality we drink in every night. For all the ill Satan can do, when God describes what keeps us from the banquet table of His love, it is a piece of land, a yoke of oxen, and a wife. (Luke 14:18-20). The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies but his gifts. And the most deadly appetites are not the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth. For when these replace an appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and almost incurable.”

John Piper - A Hunger for God: Desiring God Through Fasting and Prayer

Our house was filled with sorrow today. Our favorite guinea pig, Patch, died in the middle of the night. Jean discovered this unhappy “accident” when she got up to drink tea early in the morning. I use the word accident in its broadest sense. Her death was not accidental. Patch had a skin condition which would cause her to scratch and bite herself until she was covered with bloody patches. For many weeks, Jean had been laboring to restore Patch to health by daily dosing of antibiotics, the occasional sulfur bath, topical antibiotics, providing a separate living space from her sister (Cinammon), brother (Junior) and mother (Pepper) and frequent trips to the veterinarian. It was a terribly trying endeavor. After days or weeks of effort, it would seem that the tide had turned and we were finally winning the battle over Patch’s self-mutilating affliction. Only to wake to find her bloodied again. In the last 10 days we began to really hope. Our vet had recommended a different antibiotic and within a few days her skin looked better than it had in months. About 4 days ago, our anxiety took another form. Patch wasn’t eating. She was extremely listless. Her breathing seemed labored. Yesterday, we took her to the vet. He said that her breath sounds were good and her heart seemed strong. He asked whether she had diarrhea. Jean said “no”. He sent us home with high hopes of a recovery. That night we discovered, to our horror, under the hut where she spent more and more of her days, the watery, blackened evidence of disease instead of her normal compacted excremental pellets. We called the vet. He said to bring her to the office in the morning. But their would be no morning, only mourning.

I buried Patch under a pine tree in a patch of ivey in the backyard. I eulogized her by thanking God for the “no small amount of happiness” that Patch had brought us as a family. I reminded the family that this joy pointed to the blazing mercy and goodness of God because we are so undeserving. Mostly, I reminded them that any happiness here is but the faintest echo of the joy that we will have one day when we are in the presence of the Lord. The kids said their goodbyes with tears and each put a shovelful of dirt on her corpse. I completed the unhappy deed.

I have meditated today on the fragility of life and on the unseemliness, the unnaturalness of death. In my job, I work with the hospice industry. I love the work these people do. Hospice nurses are more passionate about their work then any other group in healthcare than I have ever seen. They devote themselves to the patients and their families at a time of great upheaval and crisis. Hospice nurses are wonderfully compassionate. They help patients take those final last steps torwards “shuffling off this mortal coil” with dignity and respect. What makes their job so hard? Why do we feel the loss so acutely when a loved dies? Physical absence is of course one reason. But I believe the primary reason is because we were made for eternity. The little joys and pleasures of this earth are but echoes of what we were intended for; to bask in the glory of God’s beauty and to delight in Him.

In memory of Patch, John Donne’s famous poem:

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;

For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow,

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;

And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
——–
Steve

“Pleasures are shafts of glory as it strikes our sensibility….But aren’t there bad, unlawful pleasures? Certainly there are. But in calling them “bad pleasures” I take it we are using a kind of shorthand. We mean “pleasures snatched by unlawful acts.” It is the stealing of the apples that is bad, not the sweetness. The sweetness is still a beam from the glory….I have tried since…to make every pleasure into a channel of adoration. I don’t mean simply by giving thanks for it. One must of course give thanks, but I meant something different… Gratitude exclaims very properly, ” How good of God to give me this.” Adoration says, “What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!” One’s mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun…. If this is Hedonism, it is also a somewhat arduous discipline. But it is worth some labor.”

C.S Lewis - as quoted in “When I Don’t Desire God, How to Fight for Joy!” by John Piper.

I know what you’re thinking. I’ll sleep better because I know that, in our capitalist society, the markets are busy regulating prices, improving quality, and allocating resources efficiently? Peace of mind? Right?

Actually the answer is “a better bed“. In response to competitive pressure, Marriott announced a few weeks ago that they will be replacing the beds and linens at all 2,400 Marriott properties worldwide. The first salvo in the bedding wars was fired by Westin five years ago with the introduction of their wildly popular “Heavenly Bed“. Now the hotel chains are trying to outdo themselves with better and better bedding. Yeah for me! And yeah for capitalism!

Steve

P.S. Notice the timestamp on this story. I couldn’t sleep. I’m at a Marriott. If only they could fix my blogging fixation.

I had lunch today with a friend, Peter, that I have not seen in years. He, along with his wife, Gretchen and two daughter, have spent the last several years as missionaries in Peru. They started off in Lima and eventually settled in Cusco. Their ministry is focused on street children. I was deeply impressed with the wisdom with which they approach their ministry. Here is a little of what I learned.

Worldwide the vast majority of children who live on the streets are neither orphaned nor abandoned. In other words, most of these kids have homes and parents. But their families are so poor, they send the children off to beg or shine shoes or do whatever they can to bring in a little money. When the child gets home, the money is added to the family kitty. They soon realize they are better off on their own, hussling for themselves. On their own, their are gangs of street children to show them the ropes and provide a social and support network. It is a societo-cultural problem that spans generation. The parents and grandparents and great-grandparents of street children were once on the street themselves. The problem has been documented to go back as far as the 1500’s.

Peter and Gretchen have come to understand that for this cycle to be broken, the institution of the family must be restored. Parents must take responsibility for their children. Children need to be disciplined. Emotional bonding and healing needs to take place. Christ-like sacrificial love has to be ed.

The most common solution for many missionary and social organizations to the problem of street children is institutions. Although, admittedly better than living in a cardboard box, institutions can be a problem. They are very expensive to run. Many are poorly managed. Some will milk peoples compassion by exploiting the children’s desperate situation as a fundraising tactic. Most importantly, institutions can play an enabling role to the families of these children. When free housing, education and health care are provided, the institutions become an easy solution for the parents. The family unit is shattered and the cycle is continued. Peter emphasized that many of these institutions do good work. They play a role in providing a haven for families who have no alternative.

The primary ministry goal of Peter and Gretchen is the restoration of the family. They share the gospel while providing the structural and spiritual supports to keep the family intact. These supports include foster families, a social center across from the local high school, temporary housing, medical care and micro-financing of small businesses.

I have a strong interest in economics and finance so I was intrigued by the micro finance ministry. I recently read an article about how institutional deficiencies (such as corruption, lack of private property protections, etc) create the need for microfinance programs in many third world economies. Peter’s program is structured so that groups of ten or so come together and pool small amounts of money and offer it in the form of a loan to one of the members of the group. The recipient then pays back the loan with interest. I asked Peter whether they had ever considered acquiring outside capital with the intention of growing this aspect of the ministry? Of course, the question assumes that the lack of capital is the problem. In fact, by structuring the microloans this way, among a small group of friends, it makes the recipients more responsible and creditworthy. A benificiary might default on a loan administered by a nameless microloan ministry beaurocrat, but not on one from your friends. Nor will your friends let you.

Peter and Gretchen have shown tremendous courage, wisdom and determination in their time in the mission field, even in the face of incredible challenges. They leave in a few more days to return to Peru for four more years. My prayers go with them. I wish them Godspeed.

Steve

I continue to watch with interest the debate surrounding Wal-mart’s decision to close its store in Saguenay, Quebec. The comments of the leadership of the New Democratic Pary (NDP) lead me to believe that we will see a battle royale over the next few months between the Canadian government and the retailing giant. To make my position clear, I believe that Quebec employees have every right to Unionize and collectively bargain for better wages, working conditions and benefits with Wal-mart. I also believe that Wal-mart has every right to close one of its stores for any reason.

Much academic ink has been spilled about the loss of power and influence of unions in America over the past 50 years. Globalization has rightly been defined as one of the major reasons for this decline. If XYZ Widget company can’t reach terms with a domestic labor union, it could decide to have their widgets made in China. This is not an option for retailers like Wal-mart (although Wal-mart’s focus on a low price strategy clearly has contributed to the off-shoring of much manufacturing in the US). I believe that the unionization effort in Saguenay was particularly vexing for Wal-mart where the company would have had to submit to binding arbitration if agreement could not be reached (the only place in North America that such disputes can be arbitrated). No one likes being told what they must do. I don’t buy Wal-mart’s claim that the Saguenay store was losing money. Wal-mart’s critic’s supposition that the purpose of this closure was to intimidate other Canadian stores threatening to unionize(such as the one in Saint-Hyacinthe, south of Montreal) is probably on the money. However, in closing the store, Wal-mart will bear an enormous opportunity cost. In other words, they will forego the profits the store would have generated in the future. That takes commitment! It will be very interesting to see how this battle plays out. Say what you will about Wal-mart’s corporate citizenship and their business practices, Wal-mart is good for consumers and wildly popular. In my experience as a defender of Wal-mart for several years, every critic that I have confronted has admitted that they shop there. I am sure there are some on the fringes that don’t. But for most people, wallet issues tend to outweigh ideology. It will be interesting to watch how the Canadian government responds. Particularly given how the terms of the battle are being drawn and the description of Wal-mart as an “economic terrorist”. Gimme a break! “Terrorist” has become the slander du jour for the left. But prejudicial language does not an argument make. Once you have labelled an entity a “terrorist”, governments become quite heavy handed in their imposition of justice. How will this play against Wal-mart’s popularity with consumers? I wonder how the average consumer on the street in Saguenay, Quebec is responding to the news of the imminent shutdown of its only Wal-mart store?

I really liked this blog on the issue written by a Canadian.

Steve

Wal-marts move to shutter its store in Quebec because of the likely Yes vote by the employees to unionize is certainly ironic given how seriously it says it is about cleaning up its image. Or at least defending itself against the big box onslaught .

Steve

MSNBC - French lawmakers OK longer work week Check out the second to last paragraph: “The Socialists had instigated the 35-hour workweek — down from 39 hours— as a means of reducing soaring unemployment. The idea was that companies would hire more employees to compensate. But France still has an unemployment rate of nearly 10 percent.” Maybe the socialist should consider growth policies instead. Oh yeah, but then someone might get rich!

Steve

Ebert has posted an essay by Jim Emmerson on his website taking on Michael Medved’s criticism of Clint Eastwood’s movie Million Dollar Baby. The Jewish Medved is aligning himself in typical fashion to Christian pro-life concerns in critiquing Eastwood’s movie. I am sympathetic to those concerns. But Emmerson is convincing that Medved’s criticism’s are more about policy and worldview than about art. I have not yet seen the movie. After I have seen it, I will give a first-hand impression of the movie and the controversy. One brazenly innacurate assertion that Emmerson makes is that there is no causal relationship between critical acclaim, box office success and industry awards. Huh! Hollywood constantly curries the favor of critics and academy award members. And they spend millions of dollars doing it. Emmerson’s declaration, in the funniest line of the essay, that “money is the only religion that counts in Hollywood, anyway. Cash may not be non-denominational, but it’s entirely ecumenical” contradicts his non-causality argument. They spend this money because there is a good return for doing so.

Steve

WSJ.com - Does Bush’s Budget Proposal Set Right Priorities on Health Care?
This debate blog posted at the WSJ illustrates the enormous complexities and difficulties with pleasing all the parties associated with Healthcare policy in the US. Although, I am sympathetic with Mr. Roberts desire to see patients have more say in their own healthcare, his implication of the health insurance industry (who supposedly is picking up the tab on all those expensive dinners) is absurd. Insurance in any form is a free market answer to mitigate risk where there is a possibility of catastropic economic loss. We need a system that can align the consumers economic incentives (or disincentives) with what is in the best interest of their health while eliminating conflicts of interest. I have no idea what that system looks like.

Steve