Unca Darrell

Rice parties like it's 2003

Behind the pitching of reliever Cole St. Clair, the Rice Owls beat St. John's 11-2 in the winners' bracket of the Houston regional NCAA playoff. You can hear Sunday night's game against the winner of the losers' bracket---Texas or St. John's---locally on KTRU-FM, 91.7, or nationally on the station's Web site.

UPDATE: Rice beat Texas 7-4, naturally, and will play Texas A&M in the Houston Super Regional this weekend. Winner goes to the College World Series.

I'm sorry, so sorry

Question of the day: Was this an apology?

[Reverend Michael] Pfleger, a well-known longtime activist and friend of Obama's, issued an apology late Thursday. "I regret the words I chose on Sunday. These words are inconsistent with Senator Obama's life and message, and I am deeply sorry if they offended Senator Clinton or anyone else who saw them."

(Susan Saulny, "Priest's apology to Clinton does little to quiet storm," New York Times, reprinted in the Houston Chronicle, May 31, 2008.)

An apology has these elements: (1) an admission of error or discourtesy and (2) an expression of regret, (3) both directed to the person who was injured by the error or discourtesy.

Reverend Pfleger apologized in the same way that President Clinton often apologized, which is to say, not at all.

Regret alone is not an admission of fault. You doubtless regret that World War II occurred, but that does not mean that you should, or can, take responsibility for having started it.

Reverend Pfleger expressed regret for "the words I chose." This statement could be interpreted many different ways, but not as an unambiguous admission of fault. Maybe he regretted only his choice of words, not the content of his offensive statement. Maybe he regretted that he was caught using such words. The burden was on him to make the subject of his regret clear, and he did not satisfy that burden.

One giveaway to an insincere apology is the word "if." Reverend Pfleger said he was "deeply sorry if [his words] offended Senator Clinton or anyone else who saw [sic] them."

This makes the alleged apology conditional, effective only if the victim was in fact offended. If turns the spotlight away from the wrongdoer and his wrongful conduct and toward the reaction of the victim.

An apology conditioned on the response of the victim is troublesome for two reasons. One is the suggestion that the victim perhaps should not have been so easily offended. Roughly: "If your eggshell sensitivity is so delicate that you have taken offense . . . ." The second is that if the victim was not offended, then no wrong was done and no apology was even necessary, which casts the false apologizer as the good guy for doing more than necessary.

President Clinton, like many other politicians, was a master of the faux apology. One technique was to say something like this: "Aplogizing is hard."

Careless reporters would take this declarative sentence as evidence that the president had, in fact, apologized offstage. But had he? In truth, who knows?

The press would then transmute the president's reference to an apology into the thing itself: an actual apology. "President Clinton apologized Friday for [fill in the blank]."

The most troublesome thing about Reverend Pfleger's limp nonapology is that it came from a cleric, a man of God. Apologizing is essential to Christian life. The practice is called confession; the wrong is called sin; and the one to whom the apology is owed is God.

Here is a biblical apology from the prodigal son, a model for Christian conduct, both in relation to God and in relation to other people:

"The son said to him, ' Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'" (Luke 15:21 (NIV))

No ifs, ands, or buts here.

Breaking Faith With Britain

Sociologists of religion have been telling us that the process of secularisation has been a very long one and, indeed, they locate its origin precisely in the Enlightenment’s rejection of heteronomous authority and its affirmation of autonomy. Historians, on the other hand, point out that faith flourished in industrial Britain in the 19th century and in the first part of the last century. Indeed, it is possible to say that it continued to prosper well into the 1950s. Was it long-term decline, then, or sudden demise? In fact, there are elements of truth in both approaches. It seems to be the case, however, that something momentous happened in the 1960s which has materially altered the scene: Christ­ianity began to be more and more marginal to the “public doctrine” by which the nation ordered itself, and this state of affairs has continued to the present day.

Many reasons have been given for this situation. Callum Brown has argued that it was the cultural revolution of the 1960s which brought Christianity’s role in society to an abrupt and catastrophic end. . . . The aim was to overturn what I have called the Evangelical-Enlightenment consensus so that revolution might be possible. . . . [I]nstead of the Churches resisting this phenomenon, liberal theologians and Church leaders all but capitulated to the intellectual and cultural forces of the time.

It is this situation that has created the moral and spiritual vacuum in which we now find ourselves. While the Christian consensus was dissolved, nothing else, except perhaps endless self-indulgence, was put in its place.

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, "Breaking Faith With Britain," Standpoint Magazine, May 2008

Carbon chastity

For a century, an ambitious, arrogant, unscruplous knowledge class---social planners, scientists, intellectuals, experts and their left-wing allies---arrogated to themselves the right to rule either in the name of the oppressed working class (communism) or, in its more benign form, by virtue of their superior expertise in achieving the highest social progress by means of state planning (socialism).

Two decades ago, however, socialism and communism died rudely, then were buried forever by the empirical demonstration of the superiority of market capitalism . . . .

Just as the ash heap of history beckoned, the intellectual left was handed the ultimate salvation: environmentalism. Now the experts will regulate your life not in the name of the proletariat or Fabian socialism but---even better---in the name of Earth itself.

Environmentalists are Gaia's priests, instructing us in her proper services and casting out those who refuse to genuflect. . . . And having proclaimed the ultimate commandment---carbon chastity---they are preparing the supporting canonical legislation that will tell you how much you can travel, what kind of light you will read by, and at what temperature you will set your bedroom themostat.

Who's on first?

"And the second [greatest commandment] is like [the first]: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

(Jesus Christ, quoted in Matthew 22:39)

Okay, Bible scholars, what is the greatest command?

Would L'Osservatore Romano misidentify . . .

. . . the Pope? Would the New York Times misidentify Senator Obama? Would the Houston Chronicle misidentify the greatest football coach in Houston history?

Here is a recent correction in our local paper of record: "The photo on Page E3 Thursday incorrectly identified former Houston Oilers coach Bum Phillips . . . ." ("Corrections," Houston Chronicle, May 30, 2008, Page A2.)

I would have put a link so you could see for yourself, but the Chronicle's search engine was remarkably reticent about returning an item for the search terms "corrections and 'Bum Phillips'" and variants. You can see it here.

The Chronicle really does not understand the culture of its readers. Too many Chronicle reporters and editors are strangers in a strange land.

Grooming tip from bigtime journalist

Back when newspapers were edited by, you know, adults, this would not have been so comic:

But now [Scott] McClellan is back---and he's got a new set of talking points that attack the very people he was trained to defend. He's a bit thinner around the middle, and the sideburns are comically longer, but McClellan's famous fealty to his message is as stubborn as ever.

(Dana Milbank, "McClellan makes his case, repeatedly," Washington Post, reprinted in the Houston Chronicle.)

It's a small point, but telling: Mr. Milbank takes the role of the mean girl in middle school, mocking the class nerd.

One reason not to do this in a straight news story---the practical reason---is that some male readers sport the same "comically longish" sideburns and, one assumes, their significant others find the style becoming.

Neither Mr. Milbank, the Washington Post, nor the Houston Chronicle much cares, apparently---even in an era of declining circulation---that a few readers might take this knee-slapper as a personal insult.

The attitude seems to be, "Who wants readers who don't groom themselves as well as newspaper reporters?"

Not gratuitously offending subscribers: That's the practical reason to avoid such insults. There are many other reasons, of course, one of which is moral.

Why I resigned . . .

. . . from the Baby Boom

Three old bulls

Great thundering herds of conservative Democrats once ruled Texas.

For a century after 1874, Democrats ran Texas and one faction, conservatives, mostly mostly ran the party. Republicans? Well, they were the party responsible for Reconstruction.

Tradition held when Uvalde rancher Dolph Briscoe, 49, took his oath of office in front of the pink granite Texas capitol on a bitterly cold January 16, 1973.

In the 1972 primary and runoff, candidate Briscoe had defeated incumbent Preston Smith and the golden boy of Texas politics, Lieutenant Governor Ben Barnes. Both were tainted by the Sharpstown banking scandal. In the runoff, he easily dispatched liberal Frances "Sissy" Farenthold.

Mr. Briscoe squeaked by the general election. The reverse coattails of the Democrats' unpopular presidential candidate, Senator George McGovern, dragged Republican challenger Hank Grover within a percentage point of winning. Briscoe was also hurt by Ramsey Muniz, candidate of the radical La Raza Unida.

But all was well on that inauguration day, or so it seemed.

Sharing the podium with the governor were Lieutenant Governor Bill Hobby, Attorney General John Hill, House Speaker Price Daniel, Jr., and Secretary of State Mark White, Democrats all. And the party still controlled the Texas Senate and House.

Also on the podium that day was the biggest Texas Democrat ever, Lyndon Baines Johnson. Four years out of the presidency, his now-longish silver hair curled over his ears and down his neck.

Six days later, he would be dead.

And six years later, a Republican would replace Mr. Briscoe as governor of Texas, driving a stake through the heart of the old one-party system.

Wednesday night---more than thirty-five years after he took office---Governor Briscoe spoke briefly at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. He was there to celebrate publication of his new memoir, Dolph Briscoe: My Life in Texas Ranching and Politics, as told to Don Carlton.

Sponsors of the event were two old bulls from 1973---Bill Hobby, who went on to become Texas's longest-serving lieutenant governor, and Mark White, who later served as Texas attorney general (after defeating James A. Baker, III), then one term as governor in a brief mid-1980s restoration.

Mr. Hobby and Mr. White were a few pounds heavier than their fighting weight and Mr. White's hair had gone, well, white, but both men were still in good form.

"If there is a single man, a single person, who exemplifies what Texas is all about, it's Dolph Briscoe," Mr. Hobby said from the microphone.

Don Carlton explained how hard it had been to convince the former governor to write his memoir. Talking about himself was like bragging, Mr. Carlton said, and for Dolph Briscoe, "bragging is right under lying and stealing and murder."

The governor himself, now 85, was frail. He had lost his beloved Janey in 2000. He used a walker and spoke from his chair, but his voice was strong as ever.

"This is a great time to be a Texan," he said. The state is "a land of opportunity for those who are willing to work, willing to apply themselves."

The audience was mostly old, mostly white, mostly dressed in suits and ties, and---one suspects---mostly Republican. 

The past has been great, Governor Briscoe continued, but the best is yet to come.

"I'd like to knock about 60 years off and start over."

As Governor Briscoe signed books, Governor White held court.

What had gone wrong for the Democrats? he was asked.

"I think we've been guarding the wrong border," he joked.

When Californians, New Yorkers, and others migrated to Texas looking for jobs in the 1970s and 1980s, he said, "they thought Democrats in Texas were like the Democrats back home." 

"We weren't."

As good as a mile

The airplane had taxied to the end of the red dirt airstrip in San Augustine, Texas, when the reporter noticed that Governor Dolph Briscoe and his wife, Janey, were not seated. They were standing behind the cockpit bulkhead.

It was 1974, and the governor was on his way to an easy reelection. This stop, like others in rural East Texas, had turned out small, but enthusiastic, crowds. The governor was a rancher, he was a conservative, his first term had seen an end to the Sharptown scandal of 1972, and most importantly, perhaps, he offered homestyle comfort to conservative Texas Democrats who, like him, viewed their last national presidential candidate, George McGovern, as a disaster for their party. 

"Here, take my seat," the reporter said to Mrs. Briscoe. He struggled to rise, but the acceleration of the aircraft pushed him back.

"We need to stand over the wheels so the tail will lift," Governor Briscoe said.

He was campaigning on  an ancient World War II-vintage plane with a tail wheel, not a nose wheel. The runway was short and the aircraft would not take off, apparently, until the tail came up.

The reporter was sitting in the last seat. Suddenly, all he could think about was unbuckling his seatbelt, moving his own considerable mass far from the potentially deadly tailwheel.

"Don't worry," Mrs. Briscoe said. "I'm praying that we'll make it."

Pine trees surrounded the small airstrip, barely visible through the red dust thrown up by the twin props. At the last instant, it seemed, the plane stopped rattling and started flying. Treetops flashed by the reporter's window, almost close enough to touch.

"I wish you'd prayed harder," the reporter said to Mrs. Briscoe. "We cleared those pines by about a foot."

"When God answers a prayer," she replied, "a foot is as good as a mile."