Part-Time Pundit

Review: Emma’s Journal by Juli Loesch Wiley

As a male reading Emma’s Journal by Juli Loesch Wiley, I was somewhat uncomfortable. The book reads is if I picked up a diary of a woman who I did not know and started flipping through it. The account is a frank and open recollection of a 5 year period of the author’s life. That is, by far, the book’s biggest strength.

Juli is a vastly talented writer and it comes out in her book. She describes events and her inner struggles with wit and candor. She writes from the backdrop of the 80s as a peace activist and pro-life activist. That combination of activities when you include a serious and devout Catholic faith creates a unique life situation that comes out in the first few chapters.

The oddity that more a group or individual tends to take up social justice or peace activism, that they become less pro-life and less orthodox merits exploration (that is beyond the scope of the book). It’s rare that an individual synthesizes all those positions and you can’t help but feel the loneliness of someone who does, because they find themselves in “no one’s camp”.

The book is less a story of conversion (the author was a practicing Catholic at the time the journals begin), but a struggle of trying to live within the bounds of chastity in an environment and society that certainly isn’t built to foster that. The book retells events that seem to be familiar among other women I know, men who are out to simply bed women as if they were objects.

At points, the book does get somewhat detailed into various scenes of sexuality in the past of the author which could cause some to be a little squeamish. However, there needs to made a strong distinction between chastity and prudishness. Chastity seeks to put sexuality in its proper and sacred place; prudishness seeks suppression of any mention as if sexuality was some dirty and forbidden thing.

If the arguments for chastity are to make any inroads into society; people need to bare their souls and talk modestly about sexuality. That does not translate into an injunction against all discussion. Juli should be praised for her openness and courage in baring her soul in this way, much as Dawn Eden did in her book, Thrill of the Chaste. More books like these need to be written.

The book is an easy and enjoyable read along Juli’s 5 year journey chronicled in journals. I highly recommend it, particularly for Christian women, who are looking in frank personal testimonials in the trials and tribulations of being chaste in an unchaste country.

May 2nd, 2007 Posted by John Bambenek | Book Reviews, Features, Pro-Life, Religion, Sex | one comment

The Disquieting of the Unchaste: A Review of The Thrill of the Chaste by Dawn Eden

Dawn Eden quite literally bares her soul in The Thrill of the Chaste to show by personal experience that “Sex and the City” feminism doesn’t work nor does it produce happiness. What makes her “everyone’s second favorite scary conservative Catholic” (according to Gawker.com) is that her book is the heat-seeking missile of reality smashing full-speed into the delusion of casual sex as fulfillment.

Dawn is brutally honest in the book about her history and the effect it has had on her life. Usually the cliché word used to describe such books is “refreshing.” In this case, the better word is “disquieting” because it directly challenged deeply ingrained notions about sex and dating. It exposes “Sex and the City” feminism for responding to misogyny with misandry. Unintentional misandry perhaps but misandry nonetheless.

As a defense of Christian chastity, it pulls no punches. For the sake of discussion on issues of sex, Christians have been at a disadvantage for decades against the free sex crowd. For instance, certain feminists like to brag that we can “finally have a discussion about the female orgasm.” Christians aren’t beyond such discussions, they simply believe that those discussions take place between husband and wife and see no need to air the conjugal laundry in public.

That said, by not discussing sex in open yet modest terms, Christian sexual ethics have become quickly discarded and not part of the debate. Arguments like “because God say so” don’t work in a room full of adults. Dawn, by bringing in personal detail, not only displays great courage but provides powerful refutation to cherished sexual notions that do far more harm to women than they have ever done good. Sex and the City feminism has made it all but impossible for men and women to relate to each other as people. Women enter the “dating world” without the tools to have a relationship… aside from the one in the bedroom. There is a lot of talk and dating advice about people as “sexual beings” as if that was the only aspect of their humanity.

If Christianity ever expects to win people over to a Christian sexual ethic, it must answer in no unclear terms without being pornographic. Many have responded to this balancing act by simply avoiding the debate altogether. The result is many more women and men who have been harmed because they simply know no different.

The central point of the book is vulnerability. In order to have any real relationship, one must be vulnerable to hurt. In a society that values feelgoodism, this idea is anathema. However, by not only advocating vulnerability but demonstrating it in the book, she displays not only great courage but great integrity. Advocating what you yourself would not do is hypocrisy. Many of the children dressed up in adult’s skin in today’s world likely giggled at the more personal details of the book, but likely many more will be won over by the Dawn’s candor. In that way, the book is nothing short of heroic.

The book itself was written as a woman to other women, so in a sense it seems to exclude men. The wreckage of sexual pathology left in the wake of the sexual revolution has incapacitated men just as much as women in the area of romantic relationships and such books hold great value for men who want to understand what the mindset is of the women they try and meet and date. However, reading this book has made me keenly aware that no counterpart from the male perspective is out there and that this is a great oversight of tragic proportions.

The book bills itself on a new sexual revolution built around chastity. This isn’t entirely accurate. The book is a relationship revolution that tries to detach sex as the solitary component in male-female relationships. For those about to enter the dating scene or those who are dissatisfied with the “meet” market, this book is a must-read.

December 13th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Book Reviews, Politics | 3 comments

The Antitheism of Richard Dawkins: A Review of The God Delusion

You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but you can tell a lot from what comments make it on the back of the book. So it is with New York Times bestseller The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Observe the following review from Philip Pullman: “Many religious leaders are men who, it’s obvious to anyone but their deranged followers, are willing to sanction vicious cruelty in the service of their faith.” While it is ironic that those who would defend relativism shroud themselves in the robe of self-righteous sanctimony, this book is not one of reason. It is one of hate.

It is not a hate caused by someone who has done you grave harm such as killing your family. It is not even a hate caused on some petty slight because you got cut off in traffic. It’s a deep-seated hate that consumes and overwhelms. It is a hate without explanation; it is blind and irrational. Dawkins does not present a case for atheism — he presents a polemic for antitheism. His first principle is that religion is a grave harm to humanity, and he then proceeds to fit the facts around that principle.

The book itself is separated into two main components. The first is a philosophical attack against religion and the existence of God. The second is a long series of case studies showing the supposed harm of religion on humanity. Dawkins is clearly an intelligent and rational being, but throughout the book you can see the struggle between his reason and his irrational hate. Unfortunately for him, the hate usually wins out.

The first portion of the text is rather unremarkable and boring, as it contains many of the same arguments that have been hashed and rehashed for centuries. However, one argument stands out: that those who hold God exists have argued from “personal experience” that God exists — they know He has touched them somehow in their lives. Dswkins responds by saying that some people experience pink elephants.

With one swift stroke, not only has Dawkins dismembered any proof for religion, but he has annihilated the entire body of human knowledge. Imagine using the argument that some people see pink elephants in a courtroom to discredit a witness on the stand. It is nothing short of intellectual laziness. There are criteria to judge which experiences are credible and which are not, and that includes religious ones.

Dawkins himself brings up the alleged miraculous apparition in Fatima, Portugal, where thousands saw the sun dance in the sky. He disregards “collective hallucinations” as a legitimate explanation, but then quickly runs away from dealing with the event. For that matter, he ignores many well-documented miracles revolving around Mary or the Eucharist. He simply accepts the facts that support his point and tries to disregard the rest, while his rationality can’t completely ignore the unfriendly facts that continue to surface.

The second portion of the book takes the more infamous religious figures and sets them up to show how corrupt religion is. First, Dawkins doesn’t seem to recognize a difference between being religious and being fundamentalist/absolutist, as he uses the terms interchangeably. Second, case studies are fine to help fill in gaps when accompanied by some other information, but case studies can very easily be used to justify negative stereotypes in the absence of real facts. Every stereotype has its poster child. I can do a case study on the stereotypical black criminal; it doesn’t mean I’ve proven all blacks to be cutthroat murders.

In addition, some of the case studies are just plain ludicrous. There is a common (yet completely devoid of fact) charge that Pius XII helped the Nazis slaughter the Jews. The proof? That the pope didn’t issue a statement against the Nazis, despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of Jews were protected by the Church. We can forgive an academic mistaking action with making statements; however, the leading Jewish figures of the time all commended the Church for her aid.

Then there is the oft repeated statement that religion causes wars. However, when Dawkins faces the fact that the thoroughly secular governments of Nazi Germany, Stalin’s USSR and Mao’s China are responsible for the biggest atrocities in recorded history, he quickly abandons any possible connection between those governments and antitheism. He is unable to consider that many wars were not fought over religion, but that religion played a role in wars that would have taken place anyway. For example, the conflict in Northern Ireland is often characterized as a struggle between Catholics and Protestants. The fact is that there are three counties that the Irish (who have a national religion) believe are theirs and the English (who also have a national religion) believe rightly belong to them. The conflict is a geopolitical one. I’ve not heard of a bombing in Belfast because Henry VIII’s fertility issues.

Dawkins mentions the story of Edgardo Mortara, a child of Jewish parents who was baptized secretly and subsequently taken from his Jewish parents. Dawkins avoids dealing with any of the controversy surrounding the incident, including Edgardo’s own testimony, because it conflicts with his antitheistic principle. He also states, falsely, on page 312, that no consent is required for infant baptism (Canon 868 in the Code of Canon Law states that in all but the most exceptional circumstances parental consent is required).

He labels Mother Teresa a hypocrite for speaking out against abortion but never mentions exactly what the nature of her hypocrisy is. In fact, when Dawkins enters the squalor that Mother Teresa served in, perhaps then he might be fit to stand over her in judgment.

Dawkins never mentions that the religious give more in charity, volunteer more, and are generally active in trying to make their communities a better place to live. He brings up figures that have long been ignored or have shown themselves to be frauds such as Jerry Fawell, Ted Haggert, Fred Phelps, and so on. He pre-selects the most scandalous religious figures and casually ignores the noblest ones. He makes sweeping generalizations that simply aren’t true. Speaking only from the Catholic perspective, I know of no serious Catholic theologian or cleric that says unquestioned faith is a virtue.

Yet his rationality does creep in from time to time. He is skeptical of the onslaught against the Catholic Church in the wake of the sex abuse crisis. While one pedophiliac priest is one too many, there are many other institutions that have far greater problems with sex abuse and covering it up (i.e. Planned Parenthood, high school guidance counselors, etc). He doesn’t subscribe to the widespread censorship in the name of “separation of church and state” either, realizing that the Bible is important for literature and a proper understanding of history.

Throughout the book, you can see the internal unconscious struggle in Dawkins between irrational hate and reason. Occasionally his reason creeps to the surface only to be shoved back down again. This latest missive of antitheistic thought, while celebrated by cognoscenti as a defense of reason, is a radical departure from reason. Dawkins states he despises confrontational gladiatorial contests that substitute for intelligent discourse these days, yet he just can’t help himself from descending into misanthropic zeal. The book remains a rehash of pop philosophy and loosely strung-together anecdotes, half-truths, and outright falsehoods. A defense of reason? Hardly.

December 12th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Book Reviews, Religion | 7 comments

Book Review: Conservatives Betrayed by Richard Viguerie

The marriage between the Republicans and conservatives has been a loveless and unsatisfying marriage. The Republicans keep “stumbling home after midnight, smelling of booze and cheap perfume.” And it is time for the marriage to come to an end.

Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause by Richard Viguerie thoroughly lists, more than any other resource I can think of, the balance of indiscretions the Republicans have visited upon conservatism under the Presidency of George W. Bush (and even before that election). The days of the Contract With America are long gone and replaced with what can only appear to be a very similar spending philosophy of Democrats.

Viguerie systematically dissects the policies of the George W. Bush administration in the key areas of foreign policy, immigration, the right to life, the culture of life, the courts, and taxation. He shows beyond a reasonable doubt that the canard that this is one of the most extreme right-wing administrations in history is absolutely absurd. Sure, Bush has thrown conservatives some carrots, but he has shown that he’s more than willing to grow the federal government and not buck the system. He, after all, has only recently cast his first veto and has used no rescissions to block pork barrel spending.

Chart after chart, figure after figure, the book painstakingly reveals what is apparent to most conservatives, George Bush isn’t one of them.

This disaffection has been brewing for some time and came to a head with the immigration debate. While the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court and the UAE ports deal resulted in acquiescing to the grassroots conservatives, immigration showed the GOP literally telling conservatives to go to hell. The argument was that by leaving the Republican plantation, we got eight years of Clinton, so now we had to suck it down. If that statement seems like it is defecating on conservatives, that is because it is exactly what it is doing. Conservatives should shut up and keep sending money to the GOP. We should leave the governing to the elites.

This book is a challenge to that accepted logic and presents a game plan to attempt to bring principles back into politics. The central premise is that conservatives should stop being wedded to the GOP and start being a movement that hopefully brings both parties into line or at least gives us an occasional chance to vote against the GOP candidate without implicitly supporting a repugnant alternative.

The status quo will lead to the situation we have here in Illinois — party insider Rod Blagojevich running against party insider Judy Baar-Topinka with both having approval ratings on a good day rivaling President Bush. Not even party loyalists like their candidate. The state is on the verge of bankruptcy, in the worst financial shape of any other state, and there is no discernable difference (quite literally) between the policies of either party. Lastly, both are corrupt to the core having fair numbers of high-level staffers in both parties under federal indictment or conviction. That is the future of national politics if we do nothing… a bankrupt government, corrupt politicians, and sham elections between candidates no one likes.

One of the more scandalous, but most insightful, suggestions is dropping support for the death penalty. This stand, more than others, directly contradicts the general conservative support for a culture of life and undermines the moral authority that would otherwise be present if that stand was not there. Controversial, yes, but spot on.

The missing piece of the puzzle, however, is a social justice component (and I don’t mean that term in the typical regressive way). Only one sentence of the book makes mention of communities supporting their members but the fact is, there are times where people will need a helping hand from others. Disasters strike, illnesses drain life savings, people die, and so on. A political ideology that does not explicitly have a plan on how to handle those situations is one that leaves a large portion of the population as a captive audience to the left and big government. Big government may not effectively meet people’s needs, however many view it as “better than nothing”. Arguing against minimum wage laws makes good economic sense, but is politically meaningless when there is no response to the fact some people simply don’t earn enough for their families. The argument must seek to address this, and that comes by creating a living wage by reducing the cost of living (most of which comes in the form of taxation or increased cost of regulations passed down to the consumer).

Further, if an effective conservative movement is to be founded and empowered, it will take more than focusing on politics. Liberty is impossible unless it includes both political and economic liberty. Likewise, reform is impossible unless it includes both political and economic aspects. The book mentions Google and Yahoo as regressive-supporting companies. There needs to be conservative equivalents so people can vote with their pocketbooks. Arguing for conservative principles while supporting regressive causes (by using companies that are in the tank with regressive causes) is self-defeating, or at least self-impeding.

The book is exactly what it purports itself to be, a starting point and a moment to reflect. It is a quick read and should have nothing foreign for anyone moderately informed about politics. The disaffection of conservatives is a growing one and now, more than ever, is the opportunity to fight for the principles we believe in. Viguerie includes several steps to take to the field of battle which involves common people to run for office, or at least take effort to support conservatives over Republicans. It won’t be until common people run for office that we’ll have any real reform, or at least a return to some attempt at representing common people instead of the enfranchised elites.

In 2006, when only Congressional seats are up for grabs, conservatives have the chance to make it clear to Republicans that conservatism will win or lose elections for them, just as MoveOn has just proved that moderate and sensible Democrats like Joe Lieberman are not welcome in the Democratic Party. If conservatives engage the political system now, we can win. If we fall silent, we will become like Illinois, where all the potential leaders and talent flee the state and surrender it to the left. For now, Republicans have won only because of the incompetence of the Democrats; that will not be the case forever.

The question is: can we put principle above partisanship?

August 9th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Book Reviews, National, Politics | no comments

Enterprise Security – IT Security Solutions: Concepts, Practical Experiences, Technologies edited by Fumy and Sauerbrey

This book has the look and feel of a business school textbook, moving from topic to topic in a fairly academic matter. It is a combination of 14 essays from prominent authors in the topics they are writing on. This allows for a book that can treat a wide range of concepts and still maintain credibility and a tone of expertise with the downside being the structure of each essay is slightly different between authors. As such, it is meant more as a higher-level introduction to concepts and ideas that swirl around the information security industry but it is couched in the language of business in the hopes that enterprises will adopt a measure of culture change in the area of security. The book seems to have a more European focus, but it is not without value to an American audience.

The book begins with an introduction by the editors laying out what they view as three areas driving enterprise security and what they hope to accomplish with the book. They finger security threats, creating new business opportunities, and regulatory compliance as the main drivers of security investment for the enterprise. In their experience, the editors see businesses still creating processes and applications designed around speed and convenience with security being an afterthought. The editors then establish 4 items they wish to see changed in industry: review of information security requirements, assuming legal liability for poor security practices (it’ll never happen), creating a security-aware culture, and security against insider threats. The rest of the book doesn’t seem to truly address how to bring these four changes to fruition.

The rest of the book is divided into three sections: (1) Concepts & Trends (better described as emerging security technologies), (2) Practical Experiences, and (3) Technologies & Standards. As far as organization, it would seem better to have Practical Experiences come last in the book and address the technologies discussed previously; however this is not a serious deficiency in the book.

Parts 1 and 3 are presented to the reader from a high-level perspective. It assumes little prior technical knowledge and thus is accessible to a wide audience, particularly the business community. It helps the reader understand why these technologies are beneficial from an economic standpoint. Readers who are technically savvy may get easily bored from this section unless they are trying to develop a “business case” for the adoption of security mechanisms for their organization. In that regard, these essays help bridge the gap between “tech heads” and the “pointy-haired management”.

The Practical Experience section is a collection of four case studies of four different organizations facing four different problems. It helps the reader to understand the challenges and obstacles in actual implementation of technologies. It helps bridge the gap between book-learning and real-world experience. 3 of the 4 essays revolve around PKI and digital identities. It is clear based on the focus of the editors that authentication is important to them, however and expansion of case studies based on their other goals would make the text that much more effective.

All in all, the book is a valuable primer for consultants and non-savvy managers who are seeking to get their minds around security and how best to sell the investment of security.

May 29th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Book Reviews, InfoSec, Information Security, Technology / Internet | no comments

Book Review: The Meaning of Marriage by Robert George and Jean Elshtain

The debate on gay marriage is full of conjecture and assumption on all sides. In preparing for a recent panel discussion on gay marriage, I looked for resources that could help me cut through the various facets of marriage and its history. I found those resources in The Meaning of Marriage.

This book is a collection of essays (see below) that take different approaches to marriage and its recent development in the United States. As a complex social institution, all too often discussion on marriage is over-simplified depending on the area of expertise (or for that matter, the agenda) of the author. This book overcomes those problems by presenting a wide range of thinkers from a variety of fields to present their views on marriage. It takes approaches from the law, philosophy, sociology, history, economics, and religion and puts them into a concise volume.

The essays themselves are easy to access and digestible, even for readers not fluent in the fields the author is coming at marriage from. The authors are well-known and respected in their fields of study. They provide fresh intellectual ammunition that seems lacking in the gay marriage debate by answering and providing a framework to discuss what marriage has meant, what it means, and what is should mean.

Many of the essays shed light on the philosophical underpinnings of marriage that make it possible to overcome the various rhetorical traps gay marriage advocates use to deconstruct the traditional view of marriage. The legal analyses bring to the fore some of the disturbing and absurd trends in marriage law that has virtually made marriage into nothing more than any relationship between two people who share property. For instance, recent court decisions have stated that sex is not required nor an essential component of marriage. Lastly, the sociological discussions take apart the recent studies that gay marriage advocates like to use to defend their viewpoints even though those studies are fatally flawed.

The collection is a timely work that presents the history and theory of marriage in a cogent manner that makes discussing marriage policy not only possible, but can provide a framework for actually coming to a serious policy other than the typical libertarian “do-whatever-you-want” nonsense that ends up going nowhere.

1 - “Sacrilege and Sacrament,” by Roger Scruton
2 - “What About the Children? Liberal Cautions on Same- Sex Marriage,” by Don Browning
3 - “Changing Dynamics of the Family in Recent European History,” by Harold James
4 - “Why Unilateral Divorce Has No Place in a Free Society,” by Jennifer Roback Morse
5 - “The Framers’ Idea of Marriage and Family,” by David F. Forte
6 - “The Family and the Laws,” by Hadley Arkes
7 - “What’s Sex Got to do with It? Marriage, Morality, and Rationality,” by Robert P. George
8 - “Soft Despotism and Same-Sex Marriage,” by Seana Sugrue
9 - “(How) Does Marriage Protect Child Well-Being?” by Maggie Gallagher
10 - “The Current Crisis in Marriage Law, Its Origins, and Its Impact,” by Katherine Shaw Spaht
11 - “Suffer the Little Children: Marriage the Poor, and the Commonweal” by W. Bradford Wilcox

May 13th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Book Reviews, Politics, Religion | no comments

Book Review: Linux Desktop Pocket Guide by David Brickner

The Linux Desktop Pocket Guide is a valuable resource for new users to the Linux world. Almost everyone has heard of Linux and recognizes it as the “next big thing”. However, many people are taken aback at the shear number of Linux distributions. The advantage of Windows is that there is only one company to go to and that provides some simplicity. With Linux, there is no one-stop shopping, and each distribution has different strengths and weaknesses. This book helps the novice user to navigate the most popular distributions to decide which will work best for them.

The book compares Fedora, Gentoo, Mandriva, SUSE, and Ubuntu with a focus on their desktop environments. This book has some value for system administrators, particularly new ones, but will make the biggest impact to the casual home-user to the beginner power-user.

It covers a wide range of desktop issues including Gnome/KDE support, application support, updating the OS, configuration for hardware support, and probably most usefully laptop support. Laptops have traditionally been less than friendly with laptops and this book helps navigate the big issues making Linux a viable option for laptops.

It is a little thick as pocket guides go but that’s more of a factor of the breadth of material covered. Like many of the O’Reilly books, it is concise and easy-to-read. It is accessible to the unsophisticated user and presents information in manageable chunks. For those looking to get a handle on Linux and making it work for them, this book is a great resource.

May 5th, 2006 Posted by John Bambenek | Book Reviews, Technology / Internet | no comments