Tread lightly on the things of earth

This slide show shows what’s going on where I live. I’d call what happened last Tuesday morning (July 22) an inland hurricane. Now it’s Saturday evening and at my house there’s still no electricity. I don’t think power has been off this long in my lifetime. That this is a first counts as a blessing, yes. As does my family’s escaping damage or injury. And that it hasn’t been nearly as hot as usual so far.

Meanwhile, I’m learning that modem dialup (from a car-charged, battery-powered laptop) is a wee bit slower than the cable access I’ve become spoiled to. :-)

2003-07-30 update: Power back at 4:15 AM! The experience was kind of like an unplanned, week-long camping trip without the amenities. Hmmm. All else being equal, I like having electricity. I don’t think I’ll take it for granted again any time soon.

In today’s Washington Post article The war after the war:

Twice a week, transport planes land at Andrews Air Force Base, bringing fresh casualties. Accidents, ambushes, pockets of resistance. Nearly 650 soldiers have passed through Walter Reed [Army Medical Center] during Operation Iraqi Freedom, more than half of them since the conflict was officially declared over.

On TV, the war was a rout, with infrared tanks rolling toward Baghdad on a desert soundstage. But the permanent realities unfold more quietly on Georgia Avenue NW, behind the black iron gates of the nation’s largest military hospital.

Associated WaPo photo gallery The Soldiers of Ward 57 is required viewing for every American IMO.

If I or anyone I know has to sacrifice a limb or a life for this country as these guys have, it had damn well better be for an unshakeably sound reason. If there’s any doubt as to why we’re doing it, any doubt whatsoever, then the cost is unthinkable.

In this conflict, not only is there some doubt as to why we’re doing it, it’s essentially all doubt; there’s hardly a trace of evidence to support our having launched a preemptive war against Iraq.

This situation goes far beyond politics: As one of my theological heroes Jim Wallis said of this conflict back in May, “America is making not only a political mistake, not only a theological mistake; we are making a spiritual mistake.”

I am ferociously angry at the men and spiritual powers in the White House that are doing this. And I am simultanously overcome with compassion for our longsuffering men and women in uniform who are bearing the consequences.

One powerful way to honor and give meaning to our soldiers’ sacrifices is to let their sacrifices motivate us to forcible action that stops further sacrifice in this unjust, unnecessary, unwinnable, ungodly, unending war.

For me this means, Bring them home. Initiate regime change here.

[thoughts initiated by Daily Kos entries The men of Ward 57 and How to volunteer at military and veterans hospitals]

The Bush Administration’s house of cards, built lie upon lie upon lie, is finally starting to fall. I thought I’d be happy when this finally came to pass, but now that it’s begun, I just feel grief at how far we’ve missed the mark as a people.

Why do different ones of us come to see things at different rates?

I foresaw the buildup to this present situation months ago, years ago. Why me? I don’t know.

It’s December 2000: I close my eyes and see this unfolding of events — it looks like a hurricane seen from a weather satellite. And not a satellite loop on a video screen, either, but a live, continent-spanning hurricane I’m seeing as I literally cling to the in-orbit satellite with cold numb hands, looking down at the earth, trying not to fall. I can’t see the storm’s details or the full extent of its destruction, but its trajectory across the face of the earth is clear.

I’ve been compelled since then to “bear witness to the truth,” as Jesus said the stones would do if the disciples didn’t.

Sometimes the truth borne witness to is positive, as was the disciples’ — “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”

Mine has been a “fire in the bones” variety I can’t get rid of, a warning more along the lines of Isaiah 30:

“Woe to the obstinate children,” declares the Lord,
“to those who carry out plans that are not mine,
forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit,
heaping sin upon sin;

who go down to Egypt without consulting me;
who look for help to Pharaoh’s protection [Might],
to Egypt’s shade for refuge.

But Pharaoh’s protection will be to your shame,
Egypt’s shade will bring you disgrace. …

Because you have rejected this message,
relied on oppression and depended on deceit,
this sin will become for you
like a high wall, cracked and bulging,
that collapses suddenly, in an instant. …

“In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it.”

—Isaiah 30, Woe to the Obstinate Nation

Now, though, I’m stuck in a quagmire of my own, profoundly disillusioned that so many of us, even very bright ones of us, were so easily duped and so defiant about staying that way.

What disillusioned me most was seeing some of my Christian brothers and sisters who not only didn’t denounce this god-awful national leadership debacle early on but instead actively embraced it.

Now I’m disconnected from participation in my church community for a reason I can’t get past: if persons there are sufficiently undiscerning as to praise the Bush team’s godliness, how can I trust their discernment in other areas? I can’t bring myself to worship in an environment where I cannot trust.

It’s like I finally ran outside the grace that kept me connected.

I recognize this is my problem, but it’s no less a problem to me.

Where I am reminds me of what I wrote to a friend back in March,

If you try to support war in Iraq and confess faith in Jesus, your integrity is breached, because, God knows, the two are mutually exclusive. If you try to do both, you become a stumbling block to Christians and non-Christians alike.

Defending the faith while promoting aggressive war is playing “soul jeopardy” in the gravest way, for who can say how many turn away from the Lord in grief or revulsion as a result?

I just didn’t foresee being so tripped up by the stumbling blocks myself.

[I’m recording this here in hopes I can look back from a near-future vantage point, whole and reconnected, and rejoice at how far we’ve come. Meanwhile, maybe I’m providing a point of identification for anyone else in the same boat.]

Bush shifts blame to the CIA and its director George Tenet for not stopping his use of the Niger uranium fiction in his SOTU speech as a justification for war with Iraq.

Where is the outrage? I got yer outrage right here.

Take responsibility for what comes out of your own mouth, man.

You said it. It wasn’t true. You take responsibility for it. Say, “I said so-and-so in my speech, which I now know was not true. I apologize for the error and its ramifications.”

(I’m setting aside for the moment the question of whether passing on known unreliable information as fact is a sign of manipulative lying or managerial incompetence.)

Accept responsibility. Repent for mistakes. That’s all it takes to demonstrate some measure of character, all it takes for me to give anyone the benefit of the doubt.

But almost no one in the Bush Administration, as far as I can see, is willing to do either. Meanwhile, the mistakes and their consequences are reaching epidemic, catastrophic proportions.

“It’s not my fault for misleading the public because the CIA didn’t stop me”?

That’s unacceptable. It’s beyond unacceptable.

In fact, it’s beyond politics: Anyone who won’t take responsibility for his or her own words and actions is not fit to be class president, much less President of the United States.

See also Billmon’s rant-free Spin Dry and, on a related but lighter note, his Rogues Gallery.

2003-07-18 update: Josh Marshall provides a bit of the transcript from yesterday’s White House press conference:

QUESTION: Regardless of whether or not there was pressure from the White House for that line, I’m wondering where does the buck stop in this White House? Does it stop at the CIA, or does it stop in the Oval Office?

Scott McClellan: Again, this issue has been discussed. You’re talking about some of the comments that — some that are —

QUESTION: I’m not talking about anybody else’s comments. I’m asking the question, is responsibility for what was in the President’s own State of the Union ultimately with the President, or with somebody else?

Scott McClellan: This has been discussed.

QUESTION: So you won’t say that the President is responsible for his own State of the Union speech?

Scott McClellan: It’s been addressed. …

QUESTION: Scott, on Keith’s question, why can’t we just expect, basically what would be a non-answer, which is, of course the President is responsible for everything that comes out of his mouth. I mean, that’s a non-answer. Why can’t you just say that?

Scott McClellan: This issue has been addressed over the last several days.

Wow, these guys in the White House can’t even say they accept responsibility for what happens on their watch.

Martin Sheen uses AA Twelve Step language “very, very dysfunctional” to assess the Bush Administration (and these times, and this society).

Yes. Personal responsibility is a core necessity for healthy and functional individuals. By extension, it’s also necessary in quantity for healthy and functional organizations and societies. Its lack is a measure of an individual’s (or a society’s) illness.

2003-07-31 update: According to the AP yesterday, I see that at least some manner of bravo is warranted —

Bush accepted blame for his Jan. 28 State of the Union claim that Saddam Hussein was shopping for nuclear materials in Africa.

“I take personal responsibility for everything I say, absolutely,” the president said. Previously, he let CIA Director George Tenet and a national security aide take blame for the controversy.

I’m frankly surprised, but I’m willing to give credit where due. Late, very late, but better than never.

2003-08-06 update: OTOH, Marc Ash at truthout reasonably asks, “What does ‘Bush takes responsibility’ mean?” —

Does it mean that George Tenet was lying when [Tenet] said he was responsible? Or does it mean that George W. Bush was personally responsible for deciding that Tenet would lie? … Does it mean that Bush now admits what is clearly obvious, that he knew the Niger reports had no merit but insisted on using them anyway, over the objections of the intelligence community and his senior staff? …

Is personal responsibility a public relations slogan, or are there ramifications for those who are personally responsible? What is the downside for Mr. Bush if he is really held responsible? 285 men and women of the US. and British armed forces have given their lives so far for this wanton military profiteering. You can bet that they were personally responsible. The Iraqi people are personally responsible; their suffering is unimaginable.

Last fall when Jeff Szymona posted four MTMacro macros to correct MT’s p tag wrappage around blank line-delimited blockquote tags — which breaks XHTML 1.0 validation — I immediately started using them and they solved my validation problem.

But now as I implement backshaded multi-paragraph blockquotes, I find I need a little more filtering.

I’ve been wrapping each paragraph of a multi-paragraph blockquote with its own blockquote tags. But this makes CSS styling of the blockquote as a contiguous block difficult. And adding the extra blockquote tags has been a hassle.

Here’s what’s correct according to the W3C:

<blockquote cite="http://www.example.com/tolkien/twotowers.html">
<p>They went in single file, running like hounds on a strong scent, and an eager light was in their eyes. Nearly due west the broad swath of the marching Orcs tramped its ugly slot; the sweet grass of Rohan had been bruised and blackened as they passed.</p>
</blockquote>

That is, the blockquote element needs to contain one or more block-level elements, not bare text (the cite attribute is optional).

Here’s what I want to enter (with a quick copy and paste):

<blockquote>The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain. The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain.

The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain. The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain.</blockquote>

Here’s how I want MT to render it:

<blockquote><p>The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain. The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain.</p>

<p>The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain. The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain.</p></blockquote>

I created three additional macros to supplement Jeff’s, and AFAICT they’re meeting this goal. All seven macros in a clean text snippet here.

Jeff’s original macros:

<MTMacroDefine name="pdiv1" pattern="m/<p\x3e<div/"><div</MTMacroDefine>

<MTMacroDefine name="pdiv2" pattern="m/<\/div\x3e<\/p/"></div</MTMacroDefine>

<MTMacroDefine name="pbq1" pattern="m/<p\x3e<blockquote/"><blockquote</MTMacroDefine>

<MTMacroDefine name="pbq2" pattern="m/<\/blockquote\x3e<\/p/"></blockquote</MTMacroDefine>

My three additional ones:

<MTMacroDefine name="pbq3" pattern="m/<blockquote\x3e(?!(<p\x3e|\r))/"><blockquote><p></MTMacroDefine>

<MTMacroDefine name="pbq4" pattern="m/(?<!<\/p\x3e)<\/blockquote\x3e/"></p></blockquote></MTMacroDefine>

<MTMacroDefine name="pbq5" pattern="m/(?<!\x3e)\s*\n\n\n*<p\x3e/"></p><p></MTMacroDefine>

Alas, I’m no Friedl; I think it’s the negative lookbehind assertion in my pbq4 macro that slurps clock cycles. If you see a more efficient solution, please comment.

I see I really need to start using the blockquote element’s cite attribute. Brad even provides code to automatically make the citation a visible link in the blockquote.

Here’s what the new macros are doing:

pbq3: from `perldoc perlre` —

/foo(?!bar)/   ("foo" not followed by "bar")

I want "<blockquote>" not followed by "<p>" or "\r".

find                                replace
/<blockquote>(?!(<p>|\r))/          <blockquote><p>     straight Perl regex
/<blockquote\x3e(?!(<p\x3e|\r))/    <blockquote><p>     encoded for MTMacro use

<MTMacroDefine name="pbq3" pattern="m/<blockquote\x3e(?!(<p\x3e|\r))/"><blockquote><p></MTMacroDefine>

pbq4: from `perldoc perlre` —

/(?<!bar)foo/   ("foo" that does not follow "bar")

I want "</blockquote> that does not follow "</p>".

find                              replace
/(?<!</p>)</blockquote>/          </p></blockquote>   straight Perl regex
/(?<!<\/p\x3e)<\/blockquote\x3e/  </p></blockquote>   encoded for MTMacro use

<MTMacroDefine name="pbq4" pattern="m/(?<!<\/p\x3e)<\/blockquote\x3e/"></p></blockquote></MTMacroDefine>

pbq5: from `perldoc perlre` —

/(?<!bar)foo/   ("foo" that does not follow "bar")

I want "\n\n\n*" that does not follow ">" (to insert line-end </p> instances that MT seems to have missed).

find                              replace
(?<!>)\n\n\n*<p>                  </p>\n\n<p>   straight Perl regex     
(?<!\x3e)\n\n\n*<p\x3e            </p>\n\n<p>   encoded for MTMacro use

<MTMacroDefine name="pbq5" pattern="m/(?<!\x3e)\s*\n\n\n*<p\x3e/"></p><p></MTMacroDefine>

I’m not sure how to enter returns in an MTMacro pattern macro replace. (Neither "\n\n" nor "\\n\\n" works.) The emitted HTML would be more cosmetically pleasing if two returns were present between the previous line’s </p> and <p>.