Off the Map: 24 October 2004

Saturday, October 30, 2004

Wank Mountain in Garmisch

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

A Meeting with the Ambassador

Quite the Gala Event went down this evening.

The other American students and I were able to meet and speak with the American Ambassador to Germany, Daniel R. Coats, at a ritzy gathering set to excellent acapella.

A couple German officials and people of note made inspiring speeches about German-US relations, and then the Ambassador gave a brief Thank-You speech (its his first time in Regensburg) before mingling. Though there were students from Wesleyan, Vanderbilt, and one or two other well known schools there, the CU Crew was able to engage both Mr. and Mrs. Coats significantly longer and more excitedly than the others combined. Score 1 for the Uni. of Colorado!

The Ambassador, a Republican, was very well spoken (as he should be!) and had some interesting perspectives on American positions. In short he defended our administration's record far better than Bush's campaign is currently. He also made a couple interesting insights on being part of the foreign service branch rather than stuck on Capitol Hill: The big difference being that you can actually get things accomplished abroad, as you don't find yourself stuck in the legislative mess back in DC.

Just prior to the end of the event the a-capella choir sang a soulful goodbye song - causing the Ambassador and his wife to get very teary eyed and emotional. I was standing near them at the time and heard something about this being the end of something. Obviously they weren't emotional to be leaving one more of probably several hundred such events. Anyone have any ideas? Will the next president be reviewing posts?

A great experience (great drinks and bread too!). I'll have a picture to post soon of me and a couple others with the Ambassador. Stay tuned.

Aunt Jane Package Note

Aunt Jane, I received your package on Tuesday, October 26 at 2 PM. THANK YOU!!!

Monday, October 25, 2004

America, Germany and the Middle East

Last night I had dinner with my host family and several members of their extended family. An excellent (and huge!) dinner with lively banter and really a fun experience to sit in on a real German (non-student) gathering.

Sometime during the conversation the topic of Vacations came up. My host mum was just in the forests of Bavaria with some of her girl friends. My host dad was just in Turkey with his brothers. My host aunt was just in Iran. Yes, Iran. For a fun 3 week vacation with a couple friends. They just went with no particular plan in mind, without a company holding their hands. I was in disbelief for some time.

When was the last time you heard an American causally remark that they bummed around Iran (or any other hardcore Muslim country) for 3 weeks? The best part was that everyone else at the table hearing it for the first time didn't give it a second thought. It was like she said she was in Italy.

Why does our reputation and position in the world have to be such that this Christian, White, Female, Middle Class German can take a trip like that not fearing for her life, and even a Muslim American would be at risk of abduction or assault?

I ran across another really interesting article in the NYT on how setting up more free trade with Muslim countries could decrease terrorism and foster better relationships with those who's hearts and minds we so want to win. Apparently Pakistan was just in DC a few weeks ago asking for free trade, esp. In regard to textiles, and we gave them a flat "No", oh, "But do you want some more F16s?"

Read it Here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/25/opinion/25mon1.html?th

Sunday, October 24, 2004

Thought Provoker...

God and Sex

New York Times

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: October 23, 2004

So when God made homosexuals who fall deeply, achingly in love with each other, did he goof?

That seems implicit in the measures opposing gay marriage on the ballots of 11 states. All may pass; Oregon is the only state where the outcome seems uncertain.

Over the last couple of months, I've been researching the question of how the Bible regards homosexuality. Social liberals tend to be uncomfortable with religious arguments, but that is the ground on which political battles are often decided in America - as when a Texas governor, Miriam "Ma" Ferguson, barred the teaching of foreign languages about 80 years ago, saying, "If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for us."

I think it's presumptuous of conservatives to assume that God is on their side. But since Americans are twice as likely to believe in the Devil as in evolution, I also think it's stupid of liberals to forfeit the religious field.

Some scholars, like Daniel Helminiak, author of "What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality," argue that the Bible is not anti-gay. I don't really buy that.

It's true that the story of Sodom is treated by both modern scholars and by ancient Ezekiel as about hospitality, rather than homosexuality. In Sodom, Lot puts up two male strangers for the night. When a lustful mob demands they be handed over, Lot offers his two virgin daughters instead. After some further unpleasantness, God destroys Sodom. As Mark Jordan notes in "The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology," it was only in the 11th century that theologians began to condemn homosexuality as sodomy.

In fact, the most obvious lesson from Sodom is that when you're attacked by an angry mob, the holy thing to do is to offer up your virgin daughters.

Still, the traditionalists seem to me basically correct that the Old Testament does condemn at least male anal sex (scholars disagree about whether the Hebrew phrasing encompasses other sexual contact). While homosexuality never made the Top 10 lists of commandments, a plain reading of the Book of Leviticus is that male anal sex is every bit as bad as other practices that the text condemns, like wearing a polyester-and-cotton shirt (Leviticus 19:19).

As for the New Testament, Jesus never said a word about gays, while he explicitly advised a wealthy man to give away all his assets and arguably warned against bank accounts ("do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth").

Likewise, Jesus praises those who make themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven, but conservative Christians rarely lead the way with self-castration.

Theologians point out that that the Bible is big enough to encompass gay relationships and tolerance - as well as episodic condemnations of gays. For example, 1 Samuel can be read as describing gay affairs between David and Jonathan.

In the New Testament, Matthew and Luke describe how Jesus cured the beloved servant of a centurion - and some scholars argue that the wording suggests that the pair were lovers, yet Jesus didn't blanch.

The religious right cites one part of the New Testament that clearly does condemn male homosexuality - not in Jesus' words, but in Paul's. The right has a tougher time explaining why lesbians shouldn't marry because the Bible has no unequivocal condemnation of lesbian sex.

A passage in Romans 1 objects to women engaging in "unnatural" sex, and this probably does mean lesbian sex, according to Bernadette Brooten, the author of a fascinating study of early Christian attitudes toward lesbians. But it's also possible that Paul was referring to sex during menstruation or to women who are aggressive during sex.

In any case, do we really want to make Paul our lawgiver? Will we enforce Paul's instruction that women veil themselves and keep their hair long? (Note to President Bush: If you want to obey Paul, why don't you start by veiling Laura and keeping her hair long, and only then move on to barring gay marriages.)

Given these ambiguities, is there any solution? One would be to emphasize the sentiment in Genesis that "it is not good for the human to be alone," and allow gay lovers to marry.

Or there's another solution. Paul disapproves of marriage except for the sex-obsessed, saying that it is best "to remain unmarried as I am." So if we're going to cherry-pick biblical phrases and ignore the central message of love, then perhaps we should just ban marriage altogether?

Off the Map