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The overtures, while largely symbolic, are a moment of rare compromise in the Assad family’s 40 years of iron-fisted rule. Security forces monitor and control nearly every aspect of society in Syria, and the feared secret police crush even the smallest rumblings of opposition. But with the protests that erupted in Syria on March 18, thousands of Syrians appear to have broken through a barrier of fear in this tightly controlled nation of 23 million. The protests spread from Daraa in the south to other provinces and the government launched a swift crackdown, killing more than 60 people, according to Human Rights Watch. But the violence has eased in the past few days and some predicted the demonstrations might quickly die out if the president’s promises appear genuine. Syria has long been viewed by the United States as a potentially destabilizing force in the Middle East. An ally of Iran and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, it has also provided a home for some radical Palestinian groups. On Tuesday, Assad accepted the resignation of his Cabinet in a move designed to pacify the anti-government protesters. Still, the resignations will not affect Assad, who holds the lion’s share of power in the authoritarian regime, and there are no real opposition figures or alternatives to the current leadership anyway. Assad does maintain a level of popular support, in no small part because of his anti-Israel policies, which resonate with his countrymen. And unlike leaders in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, and Jordan, Assad is not allied with the United States, so he has been spared the accusation that he caters to American demands. So far, few in Syria have publicly called on Assad to step down. Most are calling for reforms, annulling emergency laws and other stringent security measures and an end to corruption. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Wearing military uniforms over explosives belts, gunmen held a local Iraqi government center hostage Tuesday in a grisly siege that ended with the deaths of at least 56 people, including three councilmen who were executed with gunshots to the head. The five-hour standoff in Tikrit, former dictator Saddam Hussein’s hometown, ended only when the attackers blew themselves up in one of the bloodiest days in Iraqi this year. Iraqi officials were quick to blame al-Qaeda in Iraq for the slaughter, noting that executions and suicide bombers are hallmarks of the extremist group. Tuesday’s attack left 56 victims dead and 98 wounded, including government workers, security forces, and bystanders, said Salahuddin health director Dr. Raied Ibrahim. Many died in the volleys of gunfire and explosions. Among the dead were councilman Abdullah Jebara, a vocal al-Qaeda foe; the council’s health committee chairman, Wathiq al-Samaraie; and Iraqi journalist Sabah al-Bazi, a correspondent for Al-Arabiya satellite TV channel and a freelancer for CNN and Reuters. A car bomb exploded outside the Salahuddin provincial council headquarters around 1 p.m., distracting security officials who rushed to put out the resulting fire. That’s when the uniformed gunmen identified themselves as Iraqi soldiers at a security checkpoint outside the compound. Told they would have to be searched before entering, they opened fire on guards and stormed the building. The provincial council meets at the headquarters every Tuesday, but local lawmakers ended their discussion early because there was little on their agenda, said Ali Abdul Rihman, a spokesman for the governor. As a result, he said, most of the lawmakers had already left the headquarters when the assault began. Al-Asi, the provincial spokesman, said 15 people were taken hostage on the headquarters’ second floor, where the gunmen hurled grenades and fired at security forces below. The hostages, including the three lawmakers, were each shot in the head, al-Asi said. Parliament lawmaker Qutayba al-Jabouri said security forces did not try to negotiate with the gunmen since they were under assault. Gov. Ahmed Abdullah described a fierce shootout between the gunmen and Iraqi security forces who surrounded the building. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Top diplomats from up to 40 countries, the United Nations, NATO, and the Arab League came to that conclusion Tuesday at crisis talks in London on the future of the North African nation. But British Foreign Secretary William Hague told reporters the subject of arming rebels simply did not come up. Hague’s comments suggest that the UN-backed coalition cobbled together to defend civilians from Qaddafi’s onslaught is still hanging back from throwing its entire weight behind the ill-organized rebels, whose exact makeup and motives remain unclear. But Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad Bin Jabr al-Thani seemed to leave the door open to arms sales when he suggested that the issue might be revisited if the aerial campaign fell short of its stated goal of protecting Libyan civilians. Qatar also plans to help them sell crude on the international market. Yet while there has been talk of using Qatar to market Libya’s oil for days, details have remained thin on the ground. Libya’s production relies on joint ventures with foreign companies, like Italy’s Eni SpA, that have evacuated employees from the country, and it’s unclear how or when Qatar could help restart the country’s now-paralyzed energy industry. While diplomats repeated their appeals for Qaddafi to leave Libya, there were few signs that the international community planned to apply any additional pressure on the Libyan ruler. Diplomats are considering more sanctions on Qaddafi associates to send a clear message to Qaddafi that he cannot attack civilians with impunity, Hague said. In his speech opening the conference, Prime Minister David Cameron said Britain had received reports that Qaddafi was pounding Misrata, the main rebel holdout in the west, with attacks from land and sea, and relentlessly targeting civilians. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the international community must support calls for democracy sweeping Libya and its neighbors, but warned that change would not be easily won. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Rockets and tank fire sent Libya’s rebel volunteers in a panicked scramble away from the front lines before the opposition was able to bring up truck mounted rocket launchers of their own and return fire. The latest rebel setback emphasizes the see-saw nature of this conflict and how the opposition is still no match for the superior firepower and organization of Qaddafi’s forces, despite an international campaign of deadly airstrikes. The two sides traded salvos over the small hamlet of Bin Jawwad amid the thunderous crash of rockets and artillery shells as plumes of smoke erupted in the town. The steady drum of heavy machine gun fire and the pop of small arms could also be heard above the din. A UN-mandated no-fly zone and campaign of strikes by the United States and its allies helped rebel forces regain territory lost over the past week, when they were on the brink of defeat by government forces. In London, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Arab League, the African Union, and around 40 foreign ministers were scheduled to join talks over the future of Libya and to ratchet up pressure on Qaddafi. NATO has insisted that it was seeking only to protect civilians and not to give air cover to an opposition march. But that line looked set to become even more blurred. The airstrikes are clearly the only way the rebels bent on overthrowing Qaddafi are going to continue their push to the capital. There was growing criticism from Russia and other countries that the international air campaign is overstepping the bounds of the UN resolution that authorized it. That threatens to hamper the transition from a U.S. to a NATO command, as some of the 28 NATO member nations plan to limit their participation to air patrols, rather than attacks on ground targets. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Good morning! Random question of the day: What signs of spring have you been seeing? This is our daily (except for Sundays) open thread, where you can 1) answer my question, 2) talk about something else, or 3) say something truly encouraging to the commenter before you. That’s because the White House has described the United States’ involvement in Libya as “kinetic military action,” not war. Monday night Obama tried to clarify the mission in Libya and his policy for when the United States should intervene militarily—a broader standard than his former self as an anti-war senator might have embraced. “When our interests and values are at stake, we have a responsibility to act,” the president said. “We were faced with the prospect of violence on a horrific scale. . . . Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.” . . . MORE >> Democrats proposed cutting $20 billion from this year’s budget, a party official said, but haven’t yet sent it to House Republicans because it’s unclear whether the House will settle for reductions totaling about that much when $10 billion or so in already enacted cuts are added in. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor accused Democrats of “negotiating off of the status quo and refusing to offer any sort of serious plan for how to cut spending.” That prompted Democrats to accuse House Republicans of insisting on using House-passed legislation slashing more than $60 billion from the current-year budget as the starting point for talks, pulling back from an agreement with House Speaker John Boehner’s office to work off a baseline essentially set at last year’s levels. The GOP promised that it would ratchet spending down to 2008 levels and force President Obama to backtrack on generous budget increases made on his watch. To meet the promise, GOP leaders initially pressed for about $35 billion in cuts in a proposal that took account of the fact that the budget year was almost halfway over. That idea didn’t sell with Tea Party loyalists, who pushed Boehner to almost double the size of the cuts, driving away any potential Democratic support. But that meant the halfway point between the House-passed measure and a proposal advanced by Democrats controlling the Senate was roughly where Boehner started out in the first place. Last month, House Republicans passed a measure cutting more than $60 billion in domestic programs and foreign aid from the $1.1 trillion budgeted for such programs last year. Democrats in the Senate killed the measure as too extreme, citing cuts to education, health research, and other programs and services. Next week, House Republicans will unveil a blueprint to attack the broader budget mess and a must-do measure to maintain the government’s ability to borrow money to meet its responsibilities. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Consumer spending jumped 0.7 percent last month and personal incomes rose 0.3 percent, the Commerce Department said. Still, high gas prices soaked up much of the spending increase. Once inflation was removed, the rise was a more moderate 0.3 percent. Economists are concerned that if energy costs keep going up, that will leave consumers with less disposable income and that would lead to slower economic growth. Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of economic growth. Separately, the National Association of Realtors said more people signed contracts to purchase homes in February. But the gains weren’t enough to signal a rebound in the housing market. Higher gas prices and the persistently weak housing market are two of the biggest challenges facing an economy that is trying to gain momentum nearly two years after the recession officially ended. Paul Dales, senior U.S. economist at Capital Economics, said it was likely that consumer spending will grow only 2 percent to 2.5 percent in the current January-March quarter. That would be down sharply from the 4 percent increase in consumer spending in the October-December period, the fastest pace in four years. Higher oil prices are threatening to sap that momentum this year. In February, spending on durable goods rose 1.7 percent. Much of that strength came from the purchase of new cars. Still, spending on nondurable goods rose 1.5 percent, reflecting higher prices for gasoline. The big rise in spending and smaller increase in incomes pushed the household saving rate down to 5.8 percent of after-tax incomes last month. That compared to 6.1 percent in January. An inflation measure tied to consumer spending rose 0.4 percent in February, the biggest one-month gain in nearly three years. But excluding food and energy, this inflation gauge was up a more moderate 0.2 percent. Over the past 12 months, core inflation, which excludes food and energy, is up a modest 0.9 percent. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Officials believe the contaminated water has sent radioactivity levels soaring at the coastal complex, and caused more radiation to seep into soil and seawater. The Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant, 140 miles northeast of Tokyo, was crippled March 11 when a tsunami spawned by a powerful earthquake slammed into Japan’s northeastern coast. The huge wave engulfed much of the complex, and destroyed the crucial power systems needed to cool the complex’s nuclear fuel rods. Since then, three of the complex’s six units are believed to have partially melted down, and emergency crews have struggled with everything from malfunctioning pumps to dangerous spikes in radiation that have forced temporary evacuations. While parts of the Japanese plant has been reconnected to the power grid, the contaminated water—which has now been found in numerous places around the complex, including the basements of several buildings—must be pumped out before electricity can be restored to the cooling system. That has left officials struggling with two sometimes-contradictory efforts: pumping in water to keep the fuel rods cool and pumping out—and then safely storing—contaminated water. The buildup of radioactive water first became a problem last week when it splashed over the boots of two workers, burning them and prompting a temporary suspension of work. Then on Monday, officials with Tokyo Electric Power Co., which owns and runs the complex, said that workers had found more radioactive water in deep trenches used for pipes and electrical wiring outside three units. The contaminated water has been emitting radiation exposures more than four times the amount that the government considers safe for workers. Exactly where the water is coming from remains unclear, though many suspect it is cooling water that has leaked from one of the disabled reactors. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Assad was expected to address the nation as early as Tuesday to try to ease the crisis by lifting a nearly 50-year state of emergency and moving to annul other harsh restrictions on civil liberties and political freedoms. Syria has been rocked by more than a week of demonstrations that began in the drought-parched agricultural city of Daraa and exploded nationwide on Friday, with security forces opening fire on demonstrators in at least six locations. The death toll was at least 61 since March 18, according to Human Rights Watch. An eyewitness in Daraa said up to 4,000 people were protesting there Monday, calling for more political freedoms. He said security forces fired tear gas at the crowd and live ammunition in the air to disperse them. The eyewitness said security forces who had scaled back their presence in the past few days were back in full force, with tanks and army vehicles were surrounding the city. Monday’s protest was near the judicial palace just over a mile away from the old city center, where up to 1,200 people are still holding a sit-in the al-Omari mosque—the epicenter of the protests in Daraa. Elsewhere in Syria, armed groups appeared to be facing off and threatening an escalation in violence in the country’s main port city of Latakia. Residents were taking up weapons and manning their own checkpoints to guard against what they say are unknown gunmen roaming the streets carrying sticks and hunting rifles, witnesses said Monday. The government has accused armed, foreign elements of working to sow sectarian strife and destabilize the country. The unrest in Syria is a new and highly unpredictable element in the wave of unrest in the Arab world as Syria has a close relationship with Iran and allows the Shiite powerhouse to extend its influence into neighboring Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, where it provides money and weapons to militants. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Consider: One of the hot topics on Twitter last week was coming up with a clever way to use the president’s newspeak formulation of “time-limited, scope-limited military action” as a substitute for the word “war”— such as Time-Limited, Scope-Limited Military Action and the Absence Thereof (otherwise known as the novel War and Peace). One gets the impression from watching this administration conduct foreign policy that what’s going on behind closed doors resembles a brainstorming session in an undergraduate public relations class or a mock United Nations club. But this is no time for Starbucks and scones foreign policy. In a constitutional republic, the tools of foreign relations—military, diplomatic, and economic resources—are to be employed to preserve the way of life embodied in its founding documents. George Washington’s “Farewell Address” remains the clearest statement of American principle and policy: “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. . . . Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance . . . when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.” Unfortunately, the absurdity of the Obama administration’s euphemisms threatens to obscure each part of Washington’s advice. If the endgame merely amounted to comparing the aesthetic quality of presidential speeches, little would be lost. But what is erroneous and ultimately regime-threatening in President Obama’s approach to international relations is most clearly demonstrated in his studied deference to the dictates of the UN Security Council. Four times in his address to the nation Monday night, the president invoked the Security Council’s resolution on Libya—he mentioned consultations with Congress only once. In explaining America’s interest in entering the conflict, he argued that, absent American action, the “writ of the UN Security Council would have been shown to be little more than empty words, crippling its future credibility to uphold global peace and security.” One would wish he would show such concern for the credibility of the constitutional writ of the American people. For President Washington, success in foreign policy meant securing the independence necessary to protect our regime—to choose peace or war on our terms, rather than another’s. For President Obama, success in foreign policy means subordinating our independence to the agenda of 21st century transnational elites—choosing peace or war as the “international community” dictates. But the America’s Founding Fathers placed the control of the military in civilian hands—those of the U.S. president, not the UN Security Council. In the post-Cold War era, it has become common for presidents to look to the United Nations for the moral sanction necessary to justify their military actions. But President Obama’s deference to the Security Council is the most virulent strain of this disease yet to emerge. When America’s Founders sought to justify the Revolutionary War, they appealed to “the laws of nature and of Nature’s God.” The justice of their actions had to be found in the reason of the thing, not a trumped-up “consensus” of 15 international bureaucrats (five of whom might choose to abstain). If they were wrong, they would willingly bear the responsibility, as leaders of their new nation, before both God and their fellow citizens. Have the Security Council members made the same pledge? Have the American people placed the security of their rights in their hands? Can they hold the Security Council responsible for its failures? Until the answer to each of these questions is “yes,” there is no substitute for careful and thoughtful foreign policy deliberation by the elected leaders of the American people—deliberation that must be guided and limited by the charge they have been given (in the words of the presidential oath) to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” David Corbin is the dean of the School of Politics, Philosophy, and Economics and Matthew Parks the assistant provost at The King’s College in New York City. They are the authors of Keeping Our Republic: Principles for a Political Reformation (Resource Publications, 2011). “Tell my people to make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them. Make this tabernacle and all its furnishings exactly like the pattern I will show you. Have them make an ark of acacia wood.” Ahhh . . . acacia might be a problem. These trees are the natural habitat for some rare fungi. I am so sorry but it says so in the Endangered Species Act. Perhaps we can use recycled cardboard, very eco-friendly, and we can cover it with these Chinese acacia imitation porcelain tiles? “Make two cherubim out of hammered gold.” Cherubim? Hmmm, don’t you think that it may offend the ACLU? The last thing we need is another lawsuit insisting on the expunction of religious symbols from the public square. How about if we make you a brass calf? (I don’t know if we have any gold bars left. Beijing said they have enough of our IOUs so they insisted that we pay in something more scarce.) “Then make its seven lamps and set them up on it so that they light the space in front of it.” I don’t want to dampen your enthusiasm but those lamps would never pass the fire safety inspections around here. Let’s use some of those compact fluorescent light bulbs? They are very energy efficient, you know. Here, look at this catalog. It just arrived from China. “Make the tabernacle with ten curtains of finely twisted linen and blue, purple and scarlet yarn.” That’s not going to work, I’m afraid—we have to pick a color that complies with our city’s aesthetics regulations. What do you think of lavender blush? It’s so avant-garde. The wife wanted to repaint our house in this color but I told her, “Why bother, our lease expires in less than two years?” Anyway, my Chinese associates tell me that the paints are certified lead-free. “Make curtains of goat hair for the tent over the tabernacle.” Now you are asking for real trouble, Mister. Have you not heard of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals? No offense, but we’ll have to use something vegan. I got these in the last shipment from Shanghai. It says “polyurethane and polyamide micro-fiber.” Trust me, it will look absolutely awesome in your tabernacle. . . . “Barack, I think it is time for me to give up on you guys. I’ll go and see if the Chinese want to be my people. Good-bye.” What group would that be? Why, the Muslim Brotherhood, of course. We have been repeatedly assured by certain pundits and members of the Obama administration that the Brotherhood are a small minority with no major influence in Egypt and that those Cairo protesters clamoring for “democracy” that led to the downfall of President Hosni Mubarak would be the ones to chart the country’s future. Each time another myth is busted, the deniers of what is happening throughout the region simply create a new myth, one they desperately cling to against all evidence to the contrary. It would be well for the willfully blind to memorize the motto of the Muslim Brotherhood: “Allah is our objective, the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” Got that? The Daily Telegraph of London interviewed Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, leader of the rebellion in Libya. He admitted some of the rebels have ties to al-Qaeda, but not to worry. Hasidi claimed that even members of al-Qaeda “are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists.” Sure they are. We should take them at their word, even though they have been known to lie. At what point do we begin to wake up to this nonsense? Is anyone at the State Department paying attention? How about the White House? President Obama has been forced by growing criticism to better explain his non-policy in Libya and his reasoning behind bombing the country without deposing Muammar Qaddafi. The president went to the United Nations Security Council for a resolution, not Congress for constitutional approval to launch air strikes on Libya. Perhaps this is an extension of his stated belief that America is no more exceptional than any other country. “While regime change in Libya is the U.S. policy,” reports ABC News, “Qaddafi’s removal is not the goal of the operation.” No, President Obama tells us the United States is in Libya “to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe.” Huh? What about Syria, where security forces are shooting civilians in the streets on the apparent orders of President Bashar al-Assad? Under the new “humanitarian” rules of engagement, shouldn’t president Obama send bombers to Syria? Will the United States seek authorization from the UN for military air strikes there? And then there is Bahrain where thousands of protesters spilled into the streets last week after Friday prayers and were confronted by security forces firing tear gas and pellets. Can live ammunition be far behind? If humanitarianism is the new standard for U.S. military intervention, what about bombing North Korea, liberating Tibet, strafing The Congo, Darfur, and scores of other countries where authoritarian regimes deny basic human rights to their people? In last Saturday’s Wall Street Journal, Senate Foreign Relations Committee ChairmanJohn Kerry, D-Mass. wrote that what is taking place in the Middle East “could be the most important geostrategic shift since the fall of the Berlin Wall.” That’s the wrong analogy. When the Berlin Wall fell, people were liberated. What is happening in the Middle East could be the most important geostrategic shift since communists came to power in Russia and China, oppressing and killing millions. This is just the beginning. Saudi Arabia is next, and already the fault lines in that creaking monarchy are visible. The hand of Iran is behind much of this turmoil and behind Iran is al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden’s vision for the toppling of every regime in the region, each to be replaced by the most religiously fundamentalist and politically repressive of leaders. While President Obama fiddles, the Middle East burns. At a private dinner last week in Washington, attended by a group of conservative journalists, someone said if a Democrat must be president, he would rather it be Hillary Clinton than Barack Obama. There was general head nodding. Mine was among them. © 2011 Tribune Media Services Inc. To be sure, the heathen media don’t mean a word of it. It’s OK for them to talk about the “Apocalypse” as long as they know that you know they just mean it metaphorically; they were winking when they wrote it. What Newsweek’s editors meant to say is that if they ever did believe in God, this sure would look like what the Bible says to expect. But they are educated, so they know there are reasonable explanations for why the world is going so crazy. Right? Now we Christians, on the other hand, do believe in God. We are principally committed to the idea of an Apocalypse. (By the way, Wikipedia, while not my only source of theological truth, defines “Apocalypse” as follows: “a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception.” That’s not bad.) But we got pretty tired of centuries of Nostradamus types who thought they figured out the exact date of the Second Coming. So nowadays we obviate embarrassment by not talking about the Apocalypse at all. This leaves the job to Newsweek. They somehow managed to devote an entire double issue to the crazy gyrations of geological and political mayhem without giving a passing thought to the God of the Apocalypse. That’s not exactly all-things-considered. But something tells me that somewhere in the bowels of the magazine’s headquarters, a few overeducated writers are shaking in their Rockports and whistling in the dark. I don’t want to say that I am personally responsible for Walden Media’s recently revealed decision to adapt The Magician’s Nephew as the next Chronicles of Narniamovie. But I will say that when I interviewed Walden president Michael Flaherty last year, I told him back to the beginning was the way to go. OK, so Flaherty and his team at Walden probably took their advice from someone much more important and industry-savvy than me, but whoever made the case forMagician’s Nephew, I applaud them, and not just because it happens to be my favorite of C.S. Lewis’ classic children’s series. After The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’s stunning box office performance in 2005, audiences turned tepid on the Chronicles. Thanks to foreign receipts, Prince Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader both made money but not at the eye-popping level of the first film. What’s more they failed to generate the kind of buzz and fervor studios count on with fantasy franchises. In some ways, the drop off was unavoidable. The Chronicles’ storyline has always faced a certain cinematic drawback that movies like Harry Potter and The Lord of the Ringsdo not. Throughout Harry Potter, we watch Harry learn the lessons and form the alliances he will need in the ultimate battle against Voldemort. The same goes for Bilbo’s dear nephew Frodo, whose journey is a long and arduous one, the outcome by no means clear until the final chapters of The Return of the King. But the Chronicles begin with Aslan defeating the White Witch. The way for salvation is made for those who choose it, the great battle already fought and won. There is certainly suspense to be had from watching characters like Eustace and Jill learn to walk in the path of the Lion, but it lacks an ongoing epic quality. Heck, The Horse and His Boy concerns Narnia only in the most ancillary fashion with all the action taking place in the countries of Calormen and Archenland. It doesn’t even have any Sons of Adam or Daughters of Eve as protagonists. So from an adaptation perspective, even though they’re wonderful stories, the books’ storylines don’t leave moviegoers unfamiliar with Lewis’ world wondering what happens next. And the best thing you can do when you can’t give audiences “what happens next”? Give them “how did it start.” Returning to The Magician’s Nephew brings those who came out for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe back into the fold. If they want to see how Jadis the White Witch got into Narnia, where the magical wardrobe came from, or who the Pevensies’ mysterious professor uncle really is, they’ll have to buy a ticket (or pick up a book, and it’s worth noting that Magician’s Nephew ranks as the second best-read of the series). Lewis’ prequel promises to answer all the questions the masses who are only familiar with the first book might have. Then, with any luck, their renewed enthusiasm will reinvigorate the series and allow Walden to satisfy all of us die-hards with movie versions of The Silver Chair, The Horse and His Boy, and The Last Battle. His speculation about Barack Obama’s birthplace generated the most reaction, but “the beauty of me” fetched them as well. Who but the Donald would say such a thing? As self-absorbed a culture as we are, comments so boldly solipsistic are still considered bad form: Public figures are to at least take a stab at self-effacement, whether or not they mean it. But Trump says: Here I am, take it or leave it. Brash, artless, and uncomplicated. A Trump presidency would be agonizing—the office tends to gobble up personality, rather than vice-versa—but a Trump candidacy might be interesting. Whatever happens, the statement bears a second look. Namely, look at what he considers beautiful. It might have been a throwaway comment, not to be taken apart and examined, but I suspect that on a fundamental level he does see his wealth as a source of beauty. And in popular sentiment, he’s absolutely right. That beauty is marred by resentment, but who wouldn’t be in Trump’s thousand-dollar loafers as opposed to Joe Blow’s? What’s interesting is that he located the beauty outside himself. Personal assets like aggressiveness and vision were vital factors in acquiring all that wealth, but he’s pointing to the effect rather than the cause. In that sense, he’s as American as apple pie. Our opportunity ethic and lack of hereditary caste has encouraged us to rank ourselves according to achievement. We locate our beauty in books sold or points scored or degrees earned or offices achieved—all owing a lot to talent or skill, but also (more than we’d like to admit) to luck and timing. Even Donald Trump, in a moment of candor, would attribute some of his “beauty” to being in the right place at the right time. He’s a blow-dried blowhard in the opinion of some, but in one respect he’s far too modest. For his beauty, and ours, is lodged in our souls through no effort of our own: It’s the stamp of God’s image. Our ugliness consists in forgetting that—either by seeing no beauty or worth in an individual, or assessing their attractiveness (or our own) from the outside. “Did you feel like Jesus? Did you realize that you were a champion in their eyes?” So go the lyrics of Steely Dan’s 1976 hit “Kid Charlemagne,” which is about “Acid King” Owsley Stanley, who died in a car crash a few weeks ago. Stanley, a benefactor of the Grateful Dead, supplied the late 1960s music scene with highly refined LSD. He reportedly dispensed a million hits (doses) or more. Although I never took acid, I have tripped on searching for spiritual meaning in the lyrics of rock ’n’ roll’s psychedelic age. What a long, strange trip it was. On warm summer nights, with a poster of psychologist and acid enthusiast Timothy Leary hanging on the ceiling for inspiration, my buddies and I spent countless hours in a garage loft listening to the likes of the Beatles, the Doors, Neil Young, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, and the Moody Blues. We discussed veiled lyrics like those in “Kid Charlemagne,” hoping see them clearly and even find meaning in them. Lacking Christian faith, a coherent worldview, and being a product of the first generation of a Godless public school system, I didn’t understand my purpose or place in the world. Rock ’n’ roll lyrics, especially those of the psychedelic genre, filled this void. Not understanding that God is the source of truth and knowledge, I was on a vicarious acid trip looking for meaning in the atheistic-existentialist lyrics that Owsley Stanley’s acid helped to inspire. Certainly, I thought, there must be meaning for life in those musical sermons. Of course, I found no meaning. I was searching for something outside of my own being that made sense, but acid-inspired lyricists presupposed that listeners would find truth via a personal, drug-induced experience. Several years later, God changed my heart and mind. The elusive truth I was searching for was now mine. Several years after that, I became reacquainted with lectures I had heard in college in the form of a two-volume set of books developed by Grove City College professors titled “Building A Christian World View.” Suddenly life came into focus and I finally understood the long, strange trip I had been on. It was navigated, in part, by Kid Charlemagne. I thank God my trip is over. 1 Peter 3 is the gold standard of beauty—all those attributes of submissiveness, reverence, chaste conduct, gentleness, a quiet spirit, and fear of the Lord. What I would like to emphasize here is that we don’t have to go around merely wishing that we were like that woman. We are not to think that there is nothing we can do about this until and unless the Lord sees fit to change us. That is a prevalent misunderstanding about how the grace of Christ operates. God’s will is that we “put on” those spiritual qualities that we desire (SeeColossians 3:8-16) and “put off” the ones we hate. This is obedience by which we lay hold of our inheritance in Christ. He conforms us to His image (and to beauty) as we press into it. Do you wish to be kind? “Put on” acts of kindness, in a very deliberate way, in concrete situations. Do you wish to become discrete? Then “put on” discretion, being careful with your tongue. Do you wish to be lovely? Then consciously “put on” all the attributes in 1 Peter 3. Write them on a 3-by-5 index card and keep them in your pocketbook if you need to refer to them. Elizabeth Taylor’s death made front-page color-photo news in The Philadelphia Inquirer. Jane Russell, who also died this month, did not. But it was Russell who became a Christian and held Bible studies in Hollywood. That, to me, was when she finally came into true beauty. The shocking events had commentators wondering how many other Middle Eastern dominoes would fall to “Revolution 2.0.” It was rich fodder for the cyber-utopianists, defenders of the “Google Doctrine,” and true believers in the inevitably liberating power of technology. Not so fast, says Evgeny Morozov in The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom. In a remarkable bit of timing, the book was released in January, just before the protests erupted in Egypt. “Opening up closed societies and flushing them with democracy juice until they shed their authoritarian skin is just one of the high expectations placed on the Internet these days,” Morozov writes. While social media and other web technologies are useful to pro-democracy activists, he explains, whether or not revolutions succeed depends mostly on various internal cultural, economic, and political factors. Before Tunisia, Morozov points out, these social media outbursts, such as the Green Revolution in Iran in 2009, haven’t produced much lasting freedom. Worse, oppressive regimes around the world have co-opted the internet to a remarkable degree to strengthen their holds over their populations. One egregious example: For the 2009 elections in the former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan, the government installed 500 webcams at polling stations. “It made for good PR, but it didn’t make the elections any more democratic,” Morozov writes, “for most manipulations have occurred before the election campaign even started.” In any case, voters got the point: Somebody was watching. Similarly, while Facebook pages are great for organizing democratic activism, despotic regimes like Iran also find them handy for tracking down activists for arrest and imprisonment. Countries in some Gulf states and elsewhere are hiring their own pro-government bloggers to counter pro-democracy rhetoric. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez is taking on the job himself. In April 2010, he embraced tweeting (to go along with his TV show) and within a month had 500,000 followers. Holding up his Blackberry, he told his TV audience, “The internet can’t just be for the bourgeoisie; it’s for the ideological battle as well.” Even though countries like China are working on techniques for custom search engine censorship, Morozov argues that the real firewalls to democratic reform are social and cultural. Getting people online won’t bring about a revolution in critical thinking or the motivation to make changes. Moreover, social media won’t keep desperate, cornered tyrants from blasting rebels with jet-launched rockets, as the civil war in Libya has showed us. Wired Magazine ran a series in February called “Evgeny Morozov Tweets Libya.” One article referred to a well-known quote from a cyberutopianist, which read: “@netfreedom ‘Killing innocent civilians and propaganda not possible today thanks to web 2.0′ -> have you been reading the news?” Morozov wrote his book because he cares, deeply, about promoting democracy around the world. It is in many ways a reaction, as he explains, to a simplistic presumption he himself once held—cyber-utopianism rooted in Enlightenment optimism—that political freedom is the automatic result of more networks, more connections, and the free flow of knowledge and ideas. But the internet has also enabled violent nationalists, religiously motivated terrorists, organized criminals, and pedophiles to make more connections and form their own Jeffersonian “associations.” This echoes the history of many new technologies. Boosters of the telegraph promised it would be “the nerve of international life, transmitting knowledge of events, removing causes of misunderstanding, and promoting peace and harmony throughout the world.” People thought the airplane would promote democracy. Radio would raise the level of political discourse, until the “age of radio” included not only Roosevelt and Churchill but also Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin. The correct approach, Morozov writes, is not to abandon the internet because of this overblown optimism, but to think critically and specifically about its effects regarding foreign policy. There is no silver bullet for authoritarianism, and to continue the search for an antidote wastes attention that could be focused on smaller, specific, manageable problems. While vague as to exactly what he means by “manageable problems,” Morozov has a bigger problem: He forgets that religious freedom and political freedom are so intertwined as to be inseparable. The drive for free speech and free presses in the West had its roots in the desire for free worship. It’s no coincidence that the First Amendment bundles together freedoms of religion, free speech, freedom of assembly, and the right to petition government. More importantly, a people that would be free must value freedom for all members of society. Although it is politically incorrect to say so, only Christianity provides that basis. Christianity and freedom go together both historically and doctrinally. God gave men free will and free minds to accept or reject Christ, to follow His commands or to go their own way. A society can only be free insofar as it values the individual. As Dinesh D’Souza, author of What’s So Great About Christianity, has pointed out, concepts such as the right to dissent, the personal dignity of the individual, the equality of all humans (including the equal dignity of men and women), and antipathy to oppression and slavery all have Christian origins. To presume that it is possible to promote political freedom (i.e. democracy) in the absence of religious freedom is to misunderstand the nature of freedom itself. The unofficial pastor for the Indiana General Assembly and state government may be in a minority these days. Who else loves politicians? Yet Barnes claims divine sanction. “God loves people,” he explained. “Politicians are people. God loves politicians. So I do too.” For some members of the Indiana Legislature, Barnes has become an informal pastor, leading Bible studies and providing a trusted ear in pastoral matters. To churches throughout Indiana, Barnes has become an advocate of prayer for government. As he preaches or teaches as a guest, he reminds congregations of the apostle Paul’s admonition to pray for all who are in authority: “Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence” (1 Timothy 2:1-2). Sometimes he has some fun training pastors in how to love lawmakers. Arranging for a large group of pastors to hand out Bibles to members of the General Assembly last year, he led them in a unison chant: “I love politicians.” Working to his advantage in his growing personal ministry in government is the fact that he has no political ax to grind. “He stays away from political issues and focuses on the personal needs of each legislator,” said state Sen. Scott Schneider, an Indianapolis Republican. “He’s not a lobbyist or a public policy advocate.” Freshman Sen. Jim Banks, a northeast Indiana Republican, noted a rare trait in Barnes: “In politics there are always walls. You don’t know who to trust. You’re cautious about what you talk about. Matt’s taken politics out of it. He brings a non-threatening approach because he is genuine.” Barnes has no official office or government appointment. The son of a southern Indiana pastor, he was working at Home Depot in 2004 when he was 27 while he assisted his father in pastoral ministry. He and his wife, Miriam, have three young children. He volunteered to lead a ministry of prayer for state government, and State Sen. Dennis Kruse and former Indiana Secretary of State Ed Simcox, who led an informal Bible study for legislators, realized that Barnes could boost their part-time efforts. “People used to come to me and ask me to pray for them,” Kruse recalled. “He now has churches and people helping him. He can activate 100 people to pray.” When he first met Barnes, Simcox wondered if he was too good to be true. “I was a bit suspicious—what’s Matt’s deal? Who sent him?” Simcox said. “Matt showed himself to be very authentic. What he said was what he turned out to be. He didn’t come in with any political agenda. He came in wanting to be a servant.” Barnes looks beyond party labels. “He’s very genuine,” says Rep. Peggy Welch, a Democrat from Bloomington. “He keeps confidences. He’s not asking for anything. The Lord has opened doors for him because of his humble spirit.” His ministry is part of Capitol Commission, a national organization of ministers active in state legislatures, and Barnes’ financial support comes from churches and individuals, not the state government. He stays out of church-state controversy partly because no one objects to a spiritual Good Samaritan. He also doesn’t want government financial support because Christians should pray for government in response to divine command, not for financial reward. Barnes also sets a good biblical example of church-state cooperation for larger public purposes, in the spirit of Jeremiah 29:7, when Jeremiah instructed the Israelites in exile to seek the welfare of a pagan land. Church-state conflicts tend to attract more headlines, but the church and state can help each other when they follow their biblical assignments and respect their distinct yet not necessarily separate purposes and spheres. And citizens don’t have to love their politicians, but they should pray for them. Some love and an occasional word of encouragement would be welcome as well, following the pastoral example of Matt Barnes. The Last Generation Network News Report Syria offers concession amid waves of unrest
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The Lord said to him
