Nixon Reconsidered 3

I have three items for my blog post today on Joan Hoff's Nixon Reconsidered.

1.  On page 82, Hoff talks about a controversial report that President Richard Nixon's liberal adviser, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, wrote about African-Americans.  The report covered a wide variety of subjects, but I noticed on page 82 that Moynihan referred to "low IQs among blacks" (Hoff's words on page 82, as she summarizes Moynihan's report).  Interestingly, after I read this, I came across an interesting column by African-American conservative Thomas Sowell, which gave examples of certain groups of African-Americans doing better on IQ tests than certain groups of whites.  Sowell attributed lower IQ scores (in certain cases) to isolation, meaning that race is not related to IQ.  You can read his argument here.

I don't think that IQ tests necessarily prove that isolated people are less intelligent than people in more cultured or developed areas.  Sowell mentions people in the fifteenth century who lived on the Canary Islands, and they were "people of a Caucasian race living at a stone age level."  Should we assume that they were less intelligent, just because they lacked progress or were away from more developed parts of the world?  I'm rather skeptical.  They are probably more intelligent than I am in areas.  For example, can you picture me hunting for my supper?  The reason that I would do better on an IQ test than them is probably that the IQ test would presume knowledge of my own culture.  I'd most likely do poorly on an IQ test that presumed intimate knowledge of another culture.

2.  On pages 91-92, Hoff says the following:

"Indeed, [President Nixon] had appointed several men who fought for a White House-dominated civil rights program: Secretary of Labor George Shultz, Assistant Secretary of Labor Arthur Fletcher, and OFCC Director John Wilks.  Instead of abandoning the Philadelphia Plan [on minority hiring in the workplace], they revised it to ensure as much executive-branch control as possible, an idea perfectly in keeping with Nixon's emerging New Federalism.  The revision also allowed the Nixon administration to keep the focus on the racism of the northern craft unions in the construction industry, rather than switching it to the equally racist hiring practices of southern textile industries.  But some prominent Democratic senators, such as Edward Kennedy, would have preferred Nixon to concentrate on practices in the South, thereby not allowing Dixie Democrats to be won over by Nixon's southern strategy.  Specifically, Nixon knew that if the Republican administration could be forced to implement nondiscriminatory federal contracts primarily against white southern textile owners and workers, such whites would stay in the Democratic camp."

That sounds rather disgusting, doesn't it?  I'm referring to Kennedy hoping that the Nixon Administration would get tough on southern textile owners in combating racial discrimination, because then more white southerners would get mad at the Republicans and vote for the Democrats instead.  That sounds like Kennedy suggesting that the Democrats exploit racism for political gain, the very thing that many liberals say that Nixon did through his Southern strategy.

Of course, I'm not sure what Hoff's evidence is that Kennedy said such a thing.  Her footnote refers to J. Larry Hood's "The Nixon Administration and the Revised Presidential Plan for Affirmative Action: A Study in Expanding Presidential Power and Divided Government," which was on pages 145-269 of the Winter 1993 Presidential Studies Quarterly.  One would probably have to check that to see if there's a quotation of Kennedy making that kind of statement.

Overall, at least in my reading thus far, Hoff does not appear to manifest too high of a regard for a number of liberal Democratic politicians.  She says that they opposed Nixon's domestic agenda because they felt he was stealing their thunder----that he was doing the sorts of things that they wanted to do, and wanted credit for.  Of course, what many liberals claimed was that Nixon did not adequately fund programs, but Hoff says that liberals would have supported Nixon's plans----even at the funding levels that he had----if a Democratic President had been responsible for them.  She also contends that, on certain domestic programs, Nixon spent more than his Democratic predecessors.

This is not to suggest that Hoff sees Nixon as perfect.  Far from it.  For example, Nixon's denials notwithstanding, she seems to acknowledge that Nixon had a Southern strategy.  She says that it was more successful on the rims of the South, allowing Nixon to be more moderate than conservative, but she also notes an example of someone within the Nixon Administration proposing that the Administration try to keep certain civil rights policies a secret so as not to offend white Southerners.  The thing is, I wonder how much of a secret Nixon's Administration could keep those policies, when white Southerners were being litigated!  And yet, I'm curious about whether the Nixon Administration's focus on minority hiring in the north rather than the south related somehow to the Southern strategy.  Hoff apparently does not want to go that far, for she simply says that we don't know George Shultz's motivation for having the policy the way that it was.

3.  On pages 97-98, we read the following about Nixon's adviser, Chuck Colson:

"Curiously, given his disregard for civil rights as a Nixonian hatchetman during the 1972 presidential campaign, Charles ('Chuck') Colson came into the White House charged with attracting ethnic votes to the Republican party by suggesting ways to improve their socioeconomic and political status.  In a fifty-two-page confidential memorandum to Ehrlichman at the end of 1971, entitled 'Issues for Spanish-Speaking Americans,' Colson accurately and persuasively argued for substantial and symbolic Hispanic programs, stressing housing, economic development, and education."

Colson doesn't look overly heroic here, since he wants for Nixon's Administration to help poor minorities for political purposes, rather than out of a deep moral conviction.  And yet, I do have to give him credit for proposing that Republicans devise ways to help poor minorities improve their socioeconomic status.  He's not like the Republican and Democratic politicians Senator Bulworth talked about, who told an inner-city church that the politicians came to the church, talked a good game to make news, and then left and forgot about their promises for the inner-city (see here).  There are Republicans nowadays who claim that they want to find ways to reach out to minorities.  I'm rather skeptical, for has the G.O.P. really cared much for minorities over the past twenty years or so?  And yet, like Colson, maybe now they will realize that they need minority votes, and this will influence them to come up with concrete policies that reflect concern about helping the marginalized to attain to a higher socioeconomic status, so that more people can have a shot at fulfilling their dreams.

(I apologize if I come across as a patronizing white liberal in the above paragraph.  I have good thoughts, but coming up with the right words to express them is not always easy for me!)

The Newsroom: "The Greater Fool" (the End of Season 1)

I finished Season 1 of Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom last night.  I have two reactions, both of which are about the last episode of Season 1, entitled "The Greater Fool."

1.  Will McAvoy is a news anchor, who has recently abandoned his milquetoast style of doing the news in favor of a hard-hitting (and some would say left-leaning) track.  An acquaintance of his, after hanging around the newsroom, has finally written his story about Will in a prominent magazine.  Will is devastated by the article's negativity about him and what he is doing, and he is especially upset that those he respects have said bad things about him.  Will self-medicates and ends up in the hospital, and, while there, he has a nurse whom he fears wants to euthanize him (or so he says jokingly).  Will learns that the African-American grandmother of his nurse will not be able to vote due to a voter ID law in Tennessee, for she does not have a car and thus lacks a driver's license.  The nurse demands that he do a story about that, Will can see the value of such a story, and so that is the top story in his next newscast.

The reason that I loved this part of the episode was that it's easy for me to identify with Will's depression about the rejection that he was experiencing.  And yet, Will was reminded that, even if people rejected him, he had an important mission to perform, a vital story to tell: he was going to expose the unfairness of voter ID laws to whomever would listen.  I'm not saying that having a significant mission can cure everyone's depression, but I wouldn't be surprised if that could help a lot of people.

2.  A famous scene on the first episode is when Will is at a college, and a blonde female college student asks him and the other two speakers to explain "in a sentence or less" why America is the greatest country in the world.  Will responds that it's not, but it used to be.  He also criticizes the lady who asked the question, calling her "sorority girl."

On the last episode of the series, sorority girl is applying to be an intern to work in Will's newsroom.  Will vaguely recognizes her at first, and then he realizes who she is.  "You're the one who asked that moronic question about why America is the greatest country in the world," he exclaims.  She soberly replies that she is that person, that she watches his show regularly, and that she thinks that the work that he is doing is important.  Will then requests that she ask her "idiotic" question again: Why is America the best country in the world?  She does so, and Will responds: "You are."  Watch the scene here (there are differences between the scene and my description, since I was writing from memory).

I like that scene because the story of "sorority girl" does not end with Will's sarcastic, holier-than-thou put-down on the first episode of the series.  But the scene also made me think about something: can putting somebody else down actually encourage him or her to change?  Sometimes it can, and sometimes it does not.  My high school guidance counselor was a liberal, and I (who was a conservative at the time) was debating with him about politics one day.  He said that he used to think like I did, but when he was a teen he went to Washington, D.C. with a group of students and met his congressman, a Democrat.  He was criticizing the Congressman for voting for Medicare, and the congressman responded, "If that's how you feel, then you should go home and pray for your soul!"  The congressman's words had an effect on my guidance counselor, and, in the next election, my guidance counselor voted for the congressman.

Sometimes people are jarred out of their complacency or way of looking at things by a timely, strongly-worded remark.  At other times, however, put-downs do not work.  Another character on the Newsroom is pretending to be an Internet troll.  Internet trolls often do not change people's minds.  There are many times when I think back to insults that people on the Internet have hurled at me, and my thought is not, "Oh, I should repent and change my mind," but rather, "You self-righteous jackass" (I'm addressing the troll in my imagination). 

A Memorial Service, and Young People in the Church

I went to church twice today.  I went to the morning service, and then I went to a memorial service for an elderly congregant who recently passed on.  I did the latter to show support for her son, who has always been nice to me whenever I have come to church.

One theme that was in my mind in both services was young people in the church.  In the morning service, an elderly gentleman (who sits in front of me) was lamenting the lack of young people in the church, and he was noting that the church needs more young people because they are the ones who will provide the church with a future.

At the funeral, there was a well-dressed young person who was talking about the lady who had passed on.  He said that he was dressed nicely, but that he one time visited the church wearing a T-shirt.  The young man broke down crying as he related that the lady came up to him and said that God didn't care what he was wearing, since God was happy when he just showed up.  That incident obviously meant something to him.  But it must have occurred before I started coming to the church over two years ago, since today is the only time that I saw him at my church.

I don't really want to write a post about millennials in the church.  I didn't write a post about that topic when it was abuzz in the blogosphere.  I just kept on writing my perfunctory Nixon posts!  The reason I didn't write about millennials in the church was that, quite frankly, I don't know how to attract young people to church.  Some say churches should let young people wear what they want to church, whereas others claim that churches that promote reverence for God through dressing up can draw more people by showing that they take God seriously.  Some say that the church should be hipper----that it should have rock music, that the pastor should use pop-cultural references, etc.  Others take offense at any notion that young people are that shallow, saying that churches of substance can draw young people. 

Some complaints by young people about church are, in my humble opinion, quite offensive.  I one time read an article complaining that churches are like retirement communities.  That sort of ageism makes me sick.  If churches are to adapt to people with this type of prejudice, what exactly has the church gained?

Why wouldn't a young person want to come to my church?  Well, a young person should feel welcome there: it's a friendly place, the pastor is humble and is not on a power-trip, the sermons focus on Christian living and God's love rather than controversial political issues, etc.  The thing is, I think that it's set in its ways.  Many in the church are over fifty, including the pastor, and so his cultural references in his sermons and the music often cater to people over fifty.  I happen not to mind that myself because I'm a TV Land, old movie, and history buff.  When my pastor told a story about Howard Hughes, I knew who that was (due to my reading about Nixon)!  But I doubt that many young people would get the references.  At the same time, I wouldn't want for my pastor to be someone he's not, just to fit someone's definition of "cool".  I cannot picture my pastor coming to church in tight jeans and with colored hair!   

Nixon Reconsidered 2

I have two items for my blog post today about Joan Hoff's Nixon Reconsidered.

1. On page 21, we read the following about President Richard Nixon's environmental policy, specifically White House counsel John Ehrlichman's contribution to it:

"Often using poll data, [John] Ehrlichman----with his assistant, Egil [Bud] Krogh; John Whitaker, who served first as Nixon's cabinet secretary and later as undersecretary of the Interior Department; and Whitaker's assistant, Christopher DeMuth----substantially influenced both Nixon's ideas and the content of his environmental legislation by making it into a crisis issue.  In fact, Ehrlichman, who had specialized in land-use law in Seattle, has been described by one forest conservation specialist as 'the most effective environmentalist since Gifford Pinchot,' referring to the controversial chief of the U.S. Forest Service under Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.  He and Whitaker put Nixon out in front of Congress on environmental issues, especially with respect to the use of the permit authority in the Refuse Act of 1899 to begin to clean up water supplies before Congress passed any 'comprehensive water pollution enforcement plan.'  Curiously, Ehrlichman did not dwell on his own contribution to environmental reform in his 1982 book, Witness to Power, preferring to denigrate Secretary of the Interior Walter Hickel, whose anti- and then pro-conservation and pollution views he constantly had to counter."

I thought this passage was funny.  John Ehrlichman, "the most effective environmentalist since Gifford Pinchot."  Really?  But, come to think of it, I don't know a whole lot about Ehrlichman, since I know of him primarily on account of what I have read about Watergate.  Maybe he was an environmentalist, for all I know!

The part about Ehrlichman not dwelling on his contributions to environmental policy in his 1982 book stood out to me.  I am tempted to think that, whereas Democrats liked to talk about reform, Republicans (specifically the Nixon Administration) were actually bringing it about, and were doing so in a low-key way.  Maybe there's some truth to that (though one should not undervalue the reforms that Democrats brought about).  But I doubt that it's the whole story.  The paragraph opens, after all, by saying that Ehrlichman and others used poll data.  Why would they use poll data, if they wanted their environmental policies to be low-key and unknown to the voters?  My hunch is that they would use poll data because, on some level, they are crafting their policies according to what would be effective politically, in terms of what would effectively advertise the Nixon Administration to the public.  This raises a question that I have asked since I started reading Hoff's book, and that I may continue to ask until I finish it (and perhaps even beyond): to what extent were the Nixon Administration's domestic reforms motivated by a commitment to principle, and to what extent were they politically-motivated attempts to get votes?  The impression that I am getting was that Nixon was quite a politically-calculating person.  But I can't rule out from my reading that there may have been some noble principles motivating Nixon.

2.  On pages 62-63, Hoff talks about the Office of Economic Opportunities' Legal Services Program, which aimed to provide legal services to the poor.  Under the Nixon Administration, Donald Rumsfeld headed the OEC for a while, and (when Rumsfeld was made Counsel) his replacement was Howard Phillips, a conservative who wanted to dismantle the OEC.  Howard Phillips would go on to become a conservative activist, and he passed on recently.

"...in November 1969 Rumsfeld believed that the White House was not supporting his opposition to the so-called Murphy amendment, which would have given each governor veto power over the OEO Legal Services Program funded by that state without the OEO directors being able to override the veto.  This issue arose over Nixon's proposal to turn the Office of Legal Services into a separate government corporation chartered by Congress and funded at the local level with revenue-sharing funds.  Since it was evident that local officials might choose not to use federal funds for such antipoverty programs, critics feared for its survival.  Women and Native American leaders were particularly concerned about continued legal aid for their constituents.  The White House went to great lengths between 1969 and 1973 to respond that the president's intent was to 'make sure that every citizen has access to legal services,' while 'correcting the abuses which went on under this program' and removing 'legal services from the recurring political controversy which has attended it.'  Nixon claimed, for example, in an August 11, 1969, statement to Congress about restructuring OEO that legal services to the poor would be 'strengthened and elevated' by having independent status...Civil rights advocates and antipoverty activists questioned both the motives and intent of the White House and, like Rumsfeld, were against the obvious intent of the Murphy amendment to allow governors to cut back funding for legal services benefiting the poor.  This prompted Ehrlichman, in a carefully worded memorandum, to point out to Nixon that 'in view of Don's [Rumsfeld] public stance and the nature of the opposition to Murphy's amendment you cannot favor the amendment'...Nixon ultimately supported Rumsfeld over those in favor of the Murphy amendment..."

This passage stood out to me for two reasons.  First of all, it brought to my mind a passage that I read in Roger Morris' Richard Milhous Nixon: The Rise of an American Politician.  Morris referred to a paper that Nixon wrote as a Duke Law School student that defended legal services for the poor, and Morris regarded that as ironic, in light of Nixon's efforts as President to undermine the Legal Services Program.  The thing is, according to Hoff, Nixon did not feel that he was trying to undermine the Legal Services Program, nor did he as President oppose the provision of legal services to the poor.  His whole point was that he was trying to preserve legal services for the poor by making the program more efficient.  On pages 64-65, Hoff says that Nixon believed that the OEO's provision of money to political groups like the American Indian Movement and the National Welfare Rights Organization was resulting in the "diversion of funds away from representing poor people in the courts."  (This is a line from a news summary, and Nixon indicated agreement with it.)

Was Nixon right on this?  Or would his policy have had deleterious effects on the ability of the poor to be represented in court?  I'm sure this was debated.  One reason that I like Hoff's book so far, however, is that she presents Nixon's characterization of his own domestic policies: we get to hear what he said about his own motives and agendas, not just his detractors' characterizations of them.  Some may say that Nixon was giving the public spin.  Perhaps.  But his side of the story should still be heard, and I would say the same about the perspectives of others in the debate: the political groups who feared the consequences of Nixon's OEO policy, Democrats, etc.

Second, Hoff refers to a concern about Nixon's policy regarding the Legal Services Program: that federal money would be given to the states, and the states would choose not to fund legal services to the poor adequately.  This was actually a widespread criticism of Nixon's New Federalism agenda in general: that it would give money to the states for certain programs, and the states would choose not to spend all of it on those programs, choosing instead to spend it elsewhere, or to use it to balance the state budget.  Unfortunately, as far as I could see (and I have not read all of Hoff's book), Hoff does not adequately address this concern.  She distinguishes Nixon's New Federalism from the policies of Ronald Reagan, whom she says did not particularly care for government involvement even at the state level (which is interesting to me, since Reagan talked about turning over power to the states, and yet it would not surprise me, since there are many Tea-Partier types today who seem to oppose more taxes and spending at the state and local levels, not just the federal).  According to Hoff, Nixon's policy was to give lots of money to state governments, and they would use that money for certain programs.  But Hoff should have rigorously addressed the question: What if the money would go to the state governments, and the state governments would not use all of it for the programs?

I guess that, ultimately, Nixon did oppose an amendment that would allow states not to use money for legal services for the poor.  His good, I suppose.  The thing is, it appears to me that he was doing so for political purposes, and also because (on some level) his arm was being twisted by Don Rumsfeld, whom I never envisioned as a progressive, but that's what he apparently was in this case.  According to Ehrlichman, Rumsfeld was making a stink about the Murphy amendment, and that put Nixon in a position of having to oppose it.  I can't say that Nixon comes across as particularly heroic, here (though I will say that he did come across as more of a progressive hero in his policies regarding Native Americans, at least in what I read about that in Hoff's book).

Life of Pi (the Movie)

I watched Life of Pi last night, and I rewatched parts of it this morning.  Life of Pi was a reward-winning movie that was released in 2012, and it is based on a 2001 book by Yann Martel.  It is about Pi, an Indian (from India) whose dad owns a zoo.  Pi as a child explores different religions----the gods of India, Christianity, and Islam.  Pi admires the heroism of Indian gods, along with Vishnu's cosmic significance, but he is also drawn to the love of the Christian God (though he says that the doctrine of Jesus taking the punishment for people's sins initially did not make sense to him), and the sense of holy space within Islam.  Pi's father is a rationalist who is skeptical about religion, yet he is okay with Pi adopting a belief system that he (the father) does not share, just so long as Pi chooses one belief system rather than adhering to multiple religions.  Pi's mother was disowned by her parents for marring someone of whom they disapproved, and Pi narrates that her devotion to Hinduism was a way for her to remain attached to her Indian heritage.  When the mother speaks for herself in the movie, however, she says that science is about what's "out there," whereas religion is about what's "in here" (the heart).  The main reason that I liked this movie was that it was about religious exploration.  I'm interested in stories that explore what people believe and why, and what draws people to certain belief systems. 

Pi and his family have to leave India, and they're taking the zoo animals with them.  The ship has a serious accident, which takes the lives of Pi's family, and the outcome is that Pi is on a little boat in the middle of the sea, with a ferocious tiger named Richard Parker.  Pi is trying to survive with the tiger on board, and he eventually develops compassion for the tiger and saves him from drowning.  Pi finds that the tiger is keeping him alive by making him afraid, and also by giving him someone to care for.  Pi is sad when the tiger leaves him without looking back, or giving some indication of saying "good bye." When Pi saved the tiger from drowning, I had some compassion for the tiger, since the tiger reminded me of my own cats.  At the same time, I said when I was watching that scene that I would have let the tiger drown, since the tiger was threatening Pi's life and peace of mind.  My statement was not well received by my Mom and her husband, and even one of our cats, Figaro, had something to say about my remark!  In any case, I came to respect Pi's relationship with the tiger, and the scene in which Pi was petting the tiger's head while the tiger was sick was sweet (see the trailer for a snippet of that scene). 

At the end of the movie, we're left in doubt about whether Pi's story about the tiger is true, or if instead something else happened.  The movie seemed to be going in a postmodern direction (if it hadn't already), and my Mom is better at understanding postmodernism than I am.  I was scratching my head, wondering if the tiger story actually happened (within the narrative of the movie, of course).  But the movie appeared to be asking which story the hearer wants to accept, the more fantastic one, or the less fantastic one.  Was the tiger story an allegory?  I don't know.  While postmodern movies make me scratch my head, at times, their postmodernism does gives the movies a certain degree of depth, which I happen to like.

Nixon Reconsidered 1

I started Joan Hoff's Nixon Reconsidered.  I first heard of this book when I was in high school.  I believe it was in 1994, when the book came out.  I had a subscription to the rather conservative Insight magazine (which someone bought for me for my birthday present), and it had an article about Nixon Reconsidered.  According to the article, Hoff's book was arguing that Nixon made significant progressive accomplishments on the domestic front.  I guess that didn't surprise me that much.  Back when I was in the sixth grade, I read Peter Hannaford's book, The Reagans, and (if I recall correctly) it discussed how Reagan was quite critical of President Nixon's proposed Family Assistance Policy (FAP).  In my mind, the fact that Nixon even proposed such a policy told me that Nixon was open to liberal ideas.  Moreover, one of my relatives had a copy of John Bircher Gary Allen's Richard Nixon: The Man Behind the Mask, and I read pieces of it when I visited his house.  At the beginning of the book, Allen quoted someone who complained that, under the Nixon Presidency, liberals get the action, whereas conservatives get the rhetoric.  I knew that Nixon wasn't exactly a conservative, in the Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater sense.

Still, the article in Insight about Hoff's book intrigued me.  I hoped to read Hoff's book someday, and, nineteen years later, that is what I am doing.  Why did Insight's description of the book intrigue me at the time?  Well, although I was aware that Nixon was open to liberal ideas, I really didn't know anything about his accomplishments in the environment and civil rights.  The notion that a Republican President would have a successful track record in making progressive accomplishments on issues of concern to liberal Democrats gave me a sense of glee.  Moreover, I was intrigued by a historian stepping forward and arguing that Nixon was essentially a good President.  My impression at the time was that not many people did that (though some praised his China policy).  My perception (limited as it was) was that Nixon was widely considered to be a crook, a liar, and a villain, and those who thought otherwise were Republicans (like the fictional Alex Keaton) who were blinded by their own partisanship.  But, with Hoff's book, here was someone who was proposing an alternative understanding, one who was arguing that we should reconsider Nixon.

As I said in my post here, I was worried that Hoff's book would be primarily a laundry list of President Nixon's domestic accomplishments, which I thought might get old and dull after a while.  But, as I look at the book's Table of Contents, I see that Hoff discusses other issues as well, such as Nixon's foreign policy, and also Watergate.  The book may be worth reading to get her take on a wide variety of issues pertaining to the Nixon Presidency.

So far, my reading of Hoff's book had not been dull.  I have had to go back and reread sentences because I was mindlessly reading, and something told me that Hoff had just said something profound and so I needed to go back and reread what I just read.  Hoff discusses such issues as Nixon being aprincipled (in her eyes), and also how the "modern industrialized state" and the media have been conducive to "the formation of the aprincipled megastate" (page 12), one that is repressive yet generous, and that justifies morally questionable activities using righteous-sounding terminology.

What particularly interested me in my latest reading, however, was Hoff's discussion of her historical methodology.  She said that she did not want to rely solely on interviews with people "about events that took place a quarter of a century ago", since one cannot always trust people who are interviewed, people who have their own agenda and who may want to rehabilitate their own reputation "by telling researchers or reporters what they want to hear" (page xiv).  Rather than just relying on interviews, Hoff also wanted to look at documents.  The reason that this interested me was that I had just finished Roger Morris' Richard Milhous Nixon: The Rise of an American Politician.  Morris does refer to documents, but he also relies a lot on interviews, or the testimony of eyewitnesses.  I wondered if I could really trust what many of these eyewitnesses were saying, or if they had their own agenda, which either clouded their recollection or influenced them to distort the past deliberately.  At the same time, I figured that if more than one eyewitness testified to something, there was greater likelihood that what they related actually happened.  In addition, I wondered if we would have much of a history if we could not, on some level, trust the testimony of eyewitnesses.  I recently watched a YouTube video of Pat Buchanan interviewing Gore Vidal in the 1980's about Vidal's book, Lincoln.  Buchanan appeared to be taking issue with Vidal's claim that Lincoln had syphilis, and Vidal responded that he was basing this on the testimony of someone who knew Lincoln, someone who is actually one of the few sources we have about Lincoln's young adulthood.  If one dismissed this source, Vidal seemed to be implying, we don't have much left about that particular time in Lincoln's life!

Psalm 121

For my weekly quiet time post today, I'll be talking about Psalm 121.  I have three items.

1.  I'd like to share two pieces of music about Psalm 121: see here and here.  The first is Susan Ashton's "Psalm 121."  This was one of the many Christian Contemporary Music songs that I would hear on the way to and from work, as my car radio was tuned in to my local Christian radio station.  The second YouTube video, I believe, is of Paul Wilbur.  I just now found this rendition of Psalm 121 on YouTube, but I originally heard it on a CD that I have of Messianic Jewish praise music, a CD that I used to play a lot when I was in college.

2.  Well, as Paul Wilbur (I think that's who the singer on the second video is) says in introducing the song he will sing about Psalm 121, "Psalm 121 says: 'I lift up my eyes to the hills.  Where does my help come from?  My help comes from the LORD, maker of heaven and earth.'"

There is actually quite a bit of discussion about this verse.  Why, people ask, does the Psalmist lift up his eyes to the hills when he's looking for help?  There are a variety of answers that have been proposed to this question, but I will mention two.  The first proposal is that the Psalmist is journeying to Jerusalem, and the Temple of Jerusalem is on a mountain.  The mountain where God's temple stands can apparently be pluralized, as seems to be the case in Psalm 87:1, so the Psalmist lifting his eyes to the hills (plural) could mean that he's looking at one hill, the one where the Temple is.  As the Psalmist makes his journey to Jerusalem, through the hostile terrains, the Psalmist looks to the mountain where God is, realizing that his help comes from the God who dwells on that mountain.

The second proposal is that the Psalmist is saying that he is not looking to the hills for assistance, but rather to the LORD.  Adherents to this view appeal to Jeremiah 3:23, which states (in the King James Version): "Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains: truly in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel."  On the hills were sanctuaries that certain Yahwists did not particularly like, sanctuaries that either had pagan worship, or the worship of the LORD in a manner that certain Yahwists did not deem to be appropriate.  Some say, therefore, that the Psalmist in Psalm 121:1 is rejecting false worship, choosing instead to look to the LORD for help.

3.  Psalm 121:6 states (in the KJV): "The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night."  I can understanding wanting protection from the hot sun during the daytime, but why would one desire protection from the moon at night?  One can't die of moon-stroke, right?

John Gill refers to Macrobius and Plutarch, who apparently believed that the moon did generate heat.  Keil-Delitzsch says that the moon can injure one's eyes.  And J. Vernon McGee remarked that the moon can have a funny effect on people!

Leslie Allen and the Intervarsity Press Bible Background Commentary, however, say that, in ancient times, the moon was believed to cause health problems.  The Intervarsity Press Bible Background Commentary refers to first millennium B.C.E. texts from Babylonia and Assyria about health problems being caused by the moon god, some of which sound like epilepsy.  And Leslie Allen refers to the Greek word that is often translated in terms of epilepsy in English translations of Matthew 4:24 and 17:15, seleniaxesthai, which literally means "to be moonstruck."  Did the author of Matthew's Gospel believe that the moon caused health problems?  Or did he simply use the word for "to be moonstruck" for epilepsy because that was the common word for epilepsy in his day, whether or not he agreed with the notion that led to that word, namely, that the moon caused epilepsy?