Ageism or Elder Abuse?

Watching President Biden’s most recent tumble the other day I wondered whether voters or the Democratic Party ought to be held liable for elder abuse. Surely in any other situation, allowing someone of Biden’s age to continue to put themselves in danger of falling and severely hurting themselves or even causing their death would be seen as irresponsible in the highest degree. And I’m sure there is no shortage of folks who, watching their aging parents or grandparents being allowed to go about without assistance (human or mechanical) would find that suitable grounds for a negligence lawsuit.

But then I realized that such an action could be construed as ageism. According to no less an august authority than the World Health Organization (WHO), ageism is: the stereotypes (how we think), prejudice (how we feel) and discrimination (how we act) towards others or ourselves based on age.

But watching someone of any age continue to put themselves at risk – in fact requiring themselves to put themselves at risk – of serious personal injury or death is hardly a stereotype if that person does indeed demonstrate a repeated cycle of trips and falls. It isn’t prejudicial to note a specific case of someone who has increasing difficulty with walking and climbing stairs and is at risk because of that. And is it discriminatory to think and suggest or even require that such a person take reasonable precautions to prevent (as best possible) further risk of injury?

Instead, is it ageism to assume the President of the United States is better to risk his incapacitation or death rather than resort to a walker or other ambulatory aid? Granted, in my work with people older than myself the idea of relying on such a device is almost universally pushed away and resisted as long as reasonably possible. Until they see the risk they’re putting themselves at as a real and ever-present thing they won’t utilize any kind of assistance. Such devices are seen as indicative of a weakness or failing of some kind, and most people (myself included) don’t like to acknowledge such a weakness or failing, even if it’s completely out of their control.

With Biden planning to run for re-election the question of ageism vs. elder abuse is one that ought to be raised. It’s a non-partisan issue, for the most part. And it’s certainly an issue that has broader implications for other elder statespersons. Broad laws or rules about denying people of a certain age the privilege of serving if elected seem definitely closer to ageism. But addressing specific instances and individuals is more a matter of showing care and love to a person.

Or are such considerations not important if you don’t have a better candidate to represent your organization? Curious. I’m sure lawyers would have a field day with this sort of issue! Funny the press isn’t willing to ask such questions and instead reluctantly reports these continued stumbles without further comment or consideration.

To Sing or Not to Sing

Some interesting articles that caught my eye belatedly regarding an interesting (though I’d say hardly surprising or even new) trend in Christian worship – congregations aren’t singing.

As if often the case (when I remember to check their website) the good folks at GetReligion.org first caught my eye with this story. Which in turn led to this essentially same article, which in turn led me to this list of nine reasons one person thinks congregants are no longer singing in worship, in an ironic reversal of the Protestant tradition of congregational singing contra the previous Roman Catholic tradition of singing relegated to choirs rather than congregations. I think the list is very useful and accurate.

In my times worshiping in other Christian traditions the challenge of congregational singing is evident. Certainly in the more non-denom, big box environments where professional musicians, lighting experts, sound mixers, and special effects artist create a ‘worship’ experience to rival a lot of smaller-scale secular professional performers this is the case. But even in some traditional mainline denominational congregations I’ve experienced difficulty joining in the singing. One notable location plays familiar enough hymns, but the accompanist has the annoying habit of raising the octave with each stanza, so what began as a graspable but slight reach for my aging voice becomes near-impossible to sing by the third verse.

Is congregational singing an important or even necessary part of Christian worship? I posed that question to a small online discussion group this evening. We came up with several reasons why congregational singing ought to be part of Christian worship. Strangely enough, we came up with nine reasons :-)

1. Music is beautiful!
2. As such music is a near-universal part of the human experience whether on the large scale or individual scale. If we listen to music for simple enjoyment, and if we sing along in the shower or during our daily commute to the office, why wouldn’t we also sing in worship?
3. Congregational singing is very Biblical. Think of Moses and Mirian leading the people of God in communal worship after having been delivered from the Egyptians in Exodus 15. Think also of Revelation and the continual chorus of praise raised to God by angels and the saints.
4. Because of this, much historic liturgy and music is drawn directly from Scripture. As we sing together in worship we are joining with the communion of the saints who are doing the same thing, and practicing what we will be doing in eternity.
5. Congregational music is a way of teaching.
6. Music is often a good mnemonic device to assist people in remembering.
7. As an extension of this, I’ve had numerous parishioners over the years suffering from severe illnesses who reported that while they weren’t able to think or communicate much, they had hymns playing in their heads as they lay in ICU and these familiar tunes provided extraordinary comfort and peace in an otherwise terrifying situation.
8. Group singing is an encouraging experience – we grow in our willingness and even ability to sing praise to God as we join in with our brothers and sisters who are doing the same thing. This is true even in small groups (albeit a bit more timidly!) as it is in arenas.
9. Music is a part of liturgy and even when other aspects of the liturgy are somewhat lackluster, congregational singing can still deliver God’s Word and promises to people in an important way. As a pastor I take comfort that not all of my sermons will be good, but choosing some solid hymns is a way of ensuring congregants are still fed!

In my narrow Lutheran circles the argument is more often stylistic, with some preferring traditional (though no less arbitrary, just with a longer pedigree) forms of hymnody and instrumentation while others feeling more updated music and lyrics are necessary (particularly for “the young people”). Perhaps the focus needs to be more on how to engage communicants in singing than worrying about the instruments or tempos they’re singing to/with. And I’d argue it’s another good reason to reconsider building a stage and putting the praise team on it to “lead” worship. While this can work, I suspect it more often than not leads to less congregational participation in singing for the reasons articulated in the article above.

Artistic Slavery

I’ll say it. It ought to be obvious.

Slavery is wrong.

And if it’s wrong, then justifications for it are wrong, including retaliatory enslavement. Or enslavement for a greater good. I’d argue that most cultures that engaged in enslaving others (and contrary to popular depiction, this includes a stunningly broad cross-section of cultures across human history and geography and includes cultures with no qualms about enslaving others of their own ethnicity) would have and continue to argue that the slavery is necessary for some greater good. This might be an economic advantage. It might be an effort to enlighten or raise up a less advanced culture through education and the sharing of new values.

Or it might be argued that slavery is necessary and proper in order to elevate an underrepresented or historically marginalized group.

Which is what is happening with Hollywood. Hollywood is being enslaved towards an ostensibly higher purpose. Not everyone is handling the enslavement as quietly as their enslavers would like.

Hollywood is being enslaved to tell certain stories and utilize certain actors and actresses to tell those stories. New rules by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences set to go into effect in 2025 are the means of enslavement. Failure to do so automatically disqualifies a film for consideration of an Academy Award for best picture. No matter how good a movie might be, if it doesn’t have a minority lead character or a cast comprised of at least 30% of a pre-defined minority group making up the general cast, the movie won’t be considered for the coveted award.

Ostensibly this is to reflect the fact that movies are global merchandise now. Or, if you want to use fancy, artistic-speak, “The aperture must widen to reflect our diverse global population in both the creation of motion pictures and the audiences who connect with them.”

Are any other global studios being placed under such slavery? Are Bollywood Awards now mandated to include non-ethnic Indians under threat of disqualifications? British-made movies? In other words, is this a universally recognized, necessary slavery, or simply the arbitrary enslavement of US-made movies?

On the flip side, arguably what makes American films popular around the world is that they are American films. This means that oftentimes the characters will be overwhelmingly American-looking, which historically has meant Caucasian. Certainly the demographics have shifted a lot in the US in the last 100 years so that to have non-Caucasian American characters is appropriate. But to mandate it? Hmmm. And at what point, when whites are minorities in the United States, will they be included in the list of approved minority groups?

I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting on that update.

Some argue these new rules really won’t have much impact on best picture contenders because already such films typically utilize minority actors and actresses or tell minority stories. Either that means Hollywood is voluntarily shifting towards a shared set of values, or it is succumbing to less formalized media pressure. Given that Hollywood is motivated increasingly by profit rather than artistic aesthetics, if these values truly are real with real dollar implications, Hollywood shouldn’t need to be enslaved. It will run after those dollars full tilt.

Logically, Hollywood won’t be the only slave.

How long until writers are told their stories will not be considered for Pulitzer Prizes unless they meet a particular ethnic or minority group count? At least 30,000 lines have to deal with a minority group or character? What about painters and sculptors? No National Endowment for the Arts awards unless their images are of minority groups or individuals or stories? And let’s not leave out music. Since we can’t see, either on film or in the descriptions of an author, whether there is minority representation, do we simply say conductors and lyricists have to be from minority groups in order for the work to be considered for a Grammy or an Oscar?

Slavery is wrong. Justifying slavery towards a greater cause is hardly novel and, in the lens of history, will be judged just as harshly as physical enslavement was in the past.

Well You Can Rock Me To Sleep Tonight…

If someone had told me 40 years ago that the lead singers of Kiss and Twisted Sister would be some of the lone voices of sanity in a sea of incredulous goofiness, I would have called you looney.

I’d have been wrong.

Holes in the Walls

I play pool in a lot of different places. Not all of them merit being mentioned here for posterity because they aren’t good enough. I mean, I don’t mind talking about a place that was a real dump. It happens. It’s worth remembering if only for comparison. But a lot of other places really have nothing to do with pool other than having a table. I may play on it but here I really wanna focus on the places that appear to legitimately be striving, at one level or another, to be known as a place to shoot pool.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t fun times had at some of the unmentionable locales.

For instance I’m in Hanoi in the Quang An area after dinner. I’m walking down a dirt road and I see a place advertising whiskey. That’s worth a peek inside as my usual haunts don’t have much in the whiskey respect. But then I come around a corner and see they also have a pool table!

This place doesn’t show up on Google maps and even if it did based on my criteria above it wouldn’t be worth mentioning. But I had a great time shooting here for several hours with a group of guys. We couldn’t understand each other but we knew how to play pool and were willing to forego the niceties of conversation in order to do so. It wouldn’t be worth going back to this place. The bathroom alone is one of the strongest memories of the evening and not in a good way. Which is saying a lot because I’ve seen some pretty atrocious latrines in a lifetime of shooting pool.

Still, I appreciated the opportunity to spend time not alone, shooting pool, having a drink, and remembering that even when the table isn’t great and the cues aren’t straight I still enjoy a game of pool a lot. So just because I don’t mention a place doesn’t mean it isn’t possible to have a good time there. I just wouldn’t recommend a shooter go looking for it solely on the basis of the quality of the pool table and experience.

Pool Hall – Newworld Billiard, Hanoi, Vietnam

Google Maps is a huge help in finding places to shoot pool around the world. However it’s not perfect. If nobody reports a place or registers it, Google can’t tell me about it. Sometimes I find things just by walking around. Newworld Billiard is one example. I was actually looking for a different pool hall but it was closed and this happened to be across from it on Pham Dinh Ho street. Serendipitous!

When I stopped in on a Sunday afternoon this place was hopping. Located on the second floor it has good signage to guide you there. Close to a dozen 8-foot tables in good condition and clean felt. Not sure if they serve food and drink but it’s a good enough place that doesn’t matter. Aircon works remarkably good but it can still get warm with a full house. Definitely would recommend this as a great option for gathering with friends. Didn’t see a lot of serious shooters there but I think there was one table towards the front with a group that seemed more focused than the average novice.

Elephants & Science

Two interesting articles this week that at least I see a connection with. Then again, I’m no scientist.

One is the first public study I’ve heard of linking (at least potentially) the growing trend of self-violence, self-medication and suicide with a decline in religious belief. I originally saw the reference on a Roman Catholic web site, but then saw it picked up by the Daily Mail. Although I’m sure it won’t result in any measurable change in public, academic or political policies, at least someone has pointed out that these two trends – falling levels of religious behavior and rising levels of deaths of despair – might be related.

Of particular interest is the correlation not between religious belief and despairing actions, but the correlation between religious behavior (weekly worship attendance) and deaths of despair. What you say isn’t nearly as important as what you do. And whether you think you have a deep spiritual life or not, spirituality and privatized beliefs are not the same as active participation in religious life.

How could such an obvious (at least to me) correlation have escaped study for so long? Perhaps it’s because there is an overall trend for scientific research and studies to be less challenging than they used to be. In other words, disruptive science has seen a marked decline since the mid-20th century. This could of course mean we’ve reached a plateau and we aren’t able at this time to make more disruptive discoveries.

But it could also mean science as a whole is less interested in looking for disruptions.

As such, elephants in the room such as a decline in religious life and a rise in self-harm (as well as harm to others, which the study didn’t cover but which I think is also directly related) are simply not seen. People don’t want to see them, perhaps. Or they’re simply so inculcated in a particular line of thought as to not even conceive of such possibilities.

I also think there are deeper spiritual powers at work here. It wouldn’t surprise me at all to think of Satan and his powers being particularly interested in prompting lines of thought and inquiry that appear to render religious understandings of creation invalid. And that having accomplished this (or convincing enough people that it was accomplished) there’s no further diabolical interest in sparking scientific inquiry in such directions. After all, a diabolical misdirect might be discovered if science was truly as objective as it claims to be. Since people are inherently non-objective, the idea that science is not either shouldn’t be a shocker to anyone, peer reviews and other mechanisms aside.

It could also be that science has reached a certain level of institutionalization, financially and otherwise, where bold ideas are suppressed as unhelpful to the larger edifice. Scientists nurtured from primary school through their doctoral work might be so inculcated in an acceptance of the status quo that outside thought seems, well, blasphemous. As well as directly threatening to their livelihood. We witness the vitriol and professional bans applied against those who dare disagree with an established line of scientific thought, and it’s obvious that even the best-intentioned of scientists or academics would be loathe to challenge such a juggernaut. Watching your funding disappear and facing the wrath of school administrators is terrible. Being blacklisted on social media for simply asking questions is the same sort of terrorism those now in control (apparently) of our culture levied against the cultural movers and shakers of just a few generations ago.

I’m all for science in it’s proper contexts. But it’s no shock to me that those contexts have been warped and exceeded wildly on the one hand, and curtailed perhaps unprofitably on the other hand. Science as a monolithic institution of sorts may find itself caught in the very same difficulties it so glibly derided the Church for (and not entirely unfairly, to be sure). Either reason or faith when misapplied or misdirected can be terribly damaging, and Satan has proven himself adept at using whichever extreme is most advantageous at the moment.

Nary A Peep

As I blogged about earlier this year, the continued media hypocrisy about older men and younger women (and not older women and younger men) continues. Cher is out with someone over half a century younger than her and the Internet thinks this is just juicy and peachy. No hint of accusations against some sort of matriarchal scheme. Granted, the article specifically states the nature of the relationship between Cher and AE is not clear, but it also goes to lengths to clear the way for the possibility of something romantic, ending on the subject of AE’s singleness.

I’m not trying to argue this sort of age difference is ideal (if it is romantic in nature), just highlighting the very different response from people at large when it’s the woman who is older and the man who is younger. Maybe people need to just chill out a bit.

Beauty into Ashes

It’s been quite a week or two for museums, climate warriors, and art. Once again eco-warriors have attempted to deface or destroy a work of art because they don’t feel people are doing enough to save the environment. The first thing that came to mind when viewing this and recent similar headlines is the short story The Smile by Ray Bradbury. In that story civilization is already destroyed and lost when art is being defaced. I guess the folks who have been busy in the past few weeks are just starting the artistic destruction early.

First off, I’d argue that a trip to a museum to see renderings of natural beauty is probably a good step towards climate awareness and a keener interest in whether or not there actually is anything we can do individually and collectively to prevent greater loss.

Secondly, what would these two young people rather the people in the museum be doing? What specifically are they demanding? How do they know what these people have or have not done towards climate change mitigation? The assumption seems to be people who have the ability to be in a museum instead of a workplace are likely to be more to blame for climate change? Is this a protest against climate indifference or wealth? Could these misguided protestors separate the two? Should they?

Fourth, their righteous indignation is incredibly arrogant. That’s not their fault, but the fault of their teachers and everyone else who has espoused or mouthed the mantra that the climate is changing, it’s entirely our fault, and it is therefore entirely preventable by us. Anyone who questions this mantra at all is harangued for denying the first part about the climate changing, and hardly ever is there any serious examination of the other two portions. Given even my rudimentary knowledge of geology and earth science, I’m aware the earth has gone through repeated cycles of comparative heating and cooling. Ice masses have advanced and retreated before, and we certainly either weren’t around (allegedly) or were not industrialized to the point we could possibly be blamed. Yet I never hear this discussed, either in semi-scientific articles for the masses, or in the destruction by young ideologues like these two.

Should we manage to alter the climate change, the world will still be significantly poorer for the loss of great art weaponized in an attempt to galvanize the general public to an unspecified goal via undetermined means. I don’t consider myself much of an art connoisseur, but it seems a great shame regardless of the outcome of the climate situation to sacrifice these valuable interpretations and reflections on the climate we are apparently losing.

Revisionist History In One Lifetime

I’m sure all of you have heard the news by now. How could you not have?!

Velma is gay.

At least, Velma of 2000-2022 is gay. The article gushes about how this has been a long time in coming, citing Scooby Doo “creatives” who wanted to make her sexual orientation obvious as far back as 20 years ago.

Wow. Twenty whole years ago. That’s a long time. But not hardly as long a time as Velma has existed. Scooby Doo, Where Are You? ran as an animated series from 1969-1970 (and in other iterations through 1973) and has lived on in syndication ever after. And there’s not a word in this article from any of Scooby Doo’s original creatives about Velma’s sexual orientation. Or any of the other characters for that matter. Strange, huh?

Not too strange. First of all, the original creators are all dead.

Secondly it’s not strange because truly, the Scooby Doo of the 21st century bears little resemblance to the original series. Some 30-years on, the characters are reimagined through modern sensibilities. Obviously there must be sexual tension between the characters, right? That’s what every teenager is most obsessed with, right? Daphne and Fred with their good looks surely must be an item, or an item in the making? And no teenage boy eats a lot naturally, Shaggy must really be a stoner. Velma all nerdy and awkward? Surely she’s lesbian. Frankly I’m surprised there isn’t speculation about Scooby’s orientation. Or that awful additional character, Scrappy Doo.

While the creators of the series are all dead, many of the voice actors are not. I’d be curious what Nicole Jaffe, the primary voice actress for Velma, would have to say about her character’s orientation, or if there was any thought given to that at all.

I grew up watching this show and loved it deeply. At 22-minutes a pop it’s certainly not Sherlock Holmes quality mystery, but it was great fun. And sexuality and sexual orientations never entered into the equation. Understandably, since it was a show aimed at kids and we still as a culture believed at that point in time that sexuality and sexual themes were inappropriate in children’s programming.

My, how much has changed.

Of course there’s no need to talk to these people for clarification of original intents and purposes. Such information is irrelevant today. What matters now is what we choose to make of something, how we opt to interpret it. And while history is always undergoing revisionism of one sort or another, it’s hard to believe it could occur so quickly and with so little regard or attention to the primary source materials.

It’s a shame that a teenager can no longer just be nerdy and awkward, or even not obsessed with the opposite sex. Or the same sex. And while I’ll admit that some interpretations may sound plausible given the timeframe the series was created, it’s a shame that those interpretation eclipse the actual original reality of a silly series about a talking dog and crime-fighting friends that transcend typical teen cliques.

It’s a shame that such an ‘inclusive’ idea isn’t radical enough any more.