America: An Evil Empire. Christians: Frightening. White People: Oppressive and Unqualified to Speak. Literary Quality: Specious. Any questioning of Left Wing Ideology: "Hateful, Irrational, Dishonest." The Consensus of … Christian English Professors???

Source

I recently was beaten up by a gang of Christian English professors.

Okay, I was beaten up verbally. And they beat me up online, not in person.

I slumped away with a tear-streaked face and skinned knees.

Even in its weirdness and smallness, this dustup says much about some big issues in education, current culture, and Christianity.

Will try to make sense of this nasty farce in this blog post.

***

Why Can't Johnny Read?

It's a frequent comment. A crisis in literacy looms in America. Students in advanced grades have trouble with basic reading and writing. There are tragic real life consequences for this failure in education.

According to various websites,

"Across the country, 65 percent of eighth graders do not meet grade level expectations in reading. And according to a report out in March, the average reading level of teens in grades 9-12 is 5.3 -- barely above the fifth grade."

"Two-thirds of students who cannot read proficiently by the end of 4th grade will end up in jail or on welfare. Over 70 percent of America’s inmates cannot read above a 4th grade level."

"1 in 4 children in America grow up without learning how to read."

"As of 2011, America was the only free-market OECD country where the current generation was less well educated than the previous."

"Nearly 85 percent of the juveniles who face trial in the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate, proving that there is a close relationship between illiteracy and crime. More than 60 percent of all inmates are functionally illiterate."

Sources: here and here.

I am a teacher.

I want to give my students the intoxication of staying up all night to read a book under the blankets with a flashlight. I want to give them feeling several feet taller when they've used the right word in a tense stand-off. I want to give them that moment when life has hit them hard and they remember a stupid poem they were forced to memorize in school years before and they suddenly realize that that stupid poem is the one medicine they require to survive that otherwise un-survivable tragedy.

I want to give my students escape on a beach with a big, fat paperback. I want to give them a resume that verbally encapsulates and communicates the very best about themselves. I want them to feel the utter self-assurance of a James Bond, of an Olympic champion, no matter what big words or ideas or lies or insults or promises are thrown at them by what professors or politicians or seducers or websites or door-to-door salesmen. I want to give them words their grandchildren will remember after they are gone.

That's why, on the first day of the semester, I tell my students, I don't care what church you attend, I don't care for whom you vote, I don't care what you buy or what you sell. I care about how you perform.

***

Another commonplace observation: university faculty are disproportionately liberal. English faculty are the most liberal of all.

"72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative…at the most elite schools 87 percent of faculty are liberal and 13 percent are conservative. Academia is 'a very homogenous environment.' … liberals, men and non-regular churchgoers are more likely to be teaching at top schools, while conservatives, women and more religious faculty are more likely to be relegated to lower-tier colleges and universities.

The most left-leaning departments are English literature, philosophy, political science and religious studies, where at least 80 percent of the faculty say they are liberal and no more than 5 percent call themselves conservative." source

And yet another commonplace: all too often university students get the impression from their professors that their advancement to the next grade, and to a degree, and to a positive letter of recommendation from their professors once they begin that job search, depends on their adoption of left-wing ideology, rather than their mastery of subject matter or new skills. As one student puts it, "The class did teach me the most important skill in life: just say what people want to hear at all times, contain all actual feelings and you will be fine. Know your audience." source

Is there a connection? Are Americans having so much trouble with verbal skills because American English faculty are determined, not to improve student reading or writing, but to coerce students into adopting leftwing ideology?

I think there may very well be.

Tatjana Menaker, a former resident of the Soviet Union, describes the shock she experienced when she received grades in English classes, on an American university campus, based, not on performance, but on adoption of leftist ideology.

"After arriving in the United States with a diploma from Leningrad University…I couldn’t believe what I found. Imagine the utter amazement of a refugee from a Communist country, where Marxism was forced on all students, now having to sink in a puddle of socialist propaganda again – but this time in the middle of an American university! Imagine the astonishment of a person who, after fighting the KGB and being a refusenik, finally comes so close to her dream of receiving a real education instead of indoctrination, only to find herself, once again, in the middle of a socialist brainwashing machine." source.

***

About a year ago I joined an online discussion group dedicated to professors discussing Christianity and Literature.

Christianity. Literature. Teaching. Three of my great loves!

I was a member for about a year. It was an eventful year in my life, as posts here show, and I did not give the group my full attention. My impression was, though, that the posts were often more reflective of leftwing ideology than Christianity, literature, or teaching.

One series of posts focused on defining the US as an evil empire.

I questioned this. What about China, I ventured? China is committing a cultural and biological genocide in Tibet. China is exploiting Burmese natural resources, impoverishing the Burmese people, and contributing to the Burmese dictatorship, one of the most oppressive, murderous regimes on earth. Burma refused foreign aid from the US even as tens of thousands of innocents died in the wake of Cyclone Nargis. In order to better understand leftist labeling of America as an evil empire, can we provide context of other contemporary empires, like China?

My post was not responded to with enthusiasm.

Christians were labeled as oppressive.

I mentioned that Christians have been called the most subjected to persecution for their beliefs. The Pew Forum reports that "Over the three-year period studied, incidents of either government or social harassment were reported against Christians in 130 countries" source. Christians are actively persecuted in Nigeria, Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, India, China, and North Korea.

No, I was told by list members. Christians are "everywhere, militant, frightening."

This same professor pooh-poohed the idea that Christians are persecuted for their beliefs. He wrote, "I don't buy the marginalized Christian minority point of view."

After that exchange I realized I was a stranger in a strange land. I tried to remain silent. I thought I'd just lurk and soak up what I could of the group's wisdom on Christianity, literature, and teaching.

I was not successful in that attempt.

Someone mentioned Barbara Kingsolver's writing about life in the Republic of Congo. Barbara Kingsolver is a successful American writer who lived in the Republic of Congo.

A group member, Professor Rovira, wrote "Kingsolver cannot understand those issues the way one of the colonized could."

I had to respond to this.

This denigration of the work of Barbara Kingsolver on the basis of her identity, and accompanying elevation of the worth of others based on their identity – in a word, Kingsolver's work is less valuable because she is white and American, and others' work is better because they are black and not American, is representational of an identity politics worldview that is pervasive among liberals in academia.

This is the leftist mirror image of the ancient association of identity with worth that keeps serfs serfs, no matter how talented they may be, and that keeps those in the palace in the palace, no matter how demented, inbred or corrupt they may be.

The dream of America was to smash all that. To smash the insistence that what you were born was more important than the true measures of worth that determined who you really are: how much you learned. How well you performed.

Marian Anderson, who could sing. 

Think of Marion Anderson singing at the Lincoln Memorial.

Marian Anderson was a celebrated contralto. A great singer. The DAR, a prestigious organization, refused her permission to sing at Constitution Hall. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt invited Anderson to sing at the Lincoln Memorial. Anderson did – she sang to 75,000 people. She was valued because she could sing. The DAR de-valued her because of the color of her skin, the circumstances of her birth.

Left-wing college professors' denigration of Barbra Kingsolver's work because she is white and American is the mirror image of the racist DAR's devaluation of Marian Anderson's singing because she was black.

Marian Anderson could sing.

Barbara Kingsolver can write. 

Talent is a good and real thing. 

I responded to the denigration of Kingsolver, not on the basis of her talent as a writer, but on the basis of her identity.

I posted about my own experience, and the experience of my own people.

I am Polish and Slovak, I said. We are a people who know oppression, I said. We have been colonized. We have been massacred. We have been enslaved.

We have not produced a lot of great literature in America. There is no great Polish American novel. That is because oppressed people often don't have time, resources, or a tradition to produce great, elite literature. We were too busy mining coal, smelting iron, producing steel, farming small plots, manufacturing cars, cleaning others' houses, and refining petroleum.

My grandmother never learned to read or write. She was not going to write the great Polish American novel. After my grandfather was killed, she made and sold bootleg liquor. My father rode the rails seeking work. He joined the army under false papers when he was just sixteen. My mother raised three different families of children as a domestic servant after her coal miner father got emphysema. These lifestyles did not leave us a lot of time to write the Great American Novel.

Others wrote about us, and they were not us. The big authors on Poles in Poland are Norman Davies and Timothy Garton Ash, both English, not Polish.

The big author about the Bohunk immigrant experience was Upton Sinclair, an American-born, Protestant WASP. He wrote "The Jungle," the one indispensable volume on the Bohunk experience.

If I were to teach a class on Poland, I would include Davies, Ash, Sinclair, Thomas Sowell and Booker T. Washington, two African Americans I cite in my dissertation. I would include Amy Chua, Chinese. I would include Edna Bonacich, Jewish.

They would be on the syllabus before any Polish names. I would insist on this because their writing has value. The quality of their writing and their scholarship is what matters, not their ethnic identity.

***

Prof. Rovira immediately denounced what I wrote as "hateful," "dishonest" and "irrational."

A Prof. Pearson directed a lengthy lecture at me. Prof. Pearson addressed nothing that I had said.

Rather, once again, as so often in this group of professors, Prof. Pearson wrote as if there were only two kinds of people in the world: rich, privileged, oppressive, hateful, evil white Americans and oppressed "people of color." Again, and again – the black and white division of the world. No poor whites. None. No "people of color" who ever oppress anyone. No Chinese occupation of Tibet. No rich, black dictators like Mobutu Sese Seko or Haitian Duvalier family or House of Saud. No. Just, the entire universe, divided up into rich, evil, oppressive whites and poor, virtuous, people of color. No room for Polaks or Slovaks in this reality. No room for Okies or Appalachian Hillbillies or those French Canadians who were sterilized by American eugenicists. Nope. Because no whites are poor. No whites have ever suffered oppression.

Prof. Pearson wrote about "who can best represent the experiences of an oppressed people without falling into orientalist traps" and "who has the right to speak for a people." "The problem with focusing on literary worth/talent is that it fails to acknowledge the unevenness of the playing field." He said. "On the specious grounds of 'literary quality', the white folks will almost always win." "Reading literature simply on grounds of 'literary worth and talent' always works at a disadvantage to people of color" "Meanwhile, and let's be honest, white people have often done a terrible, TERRIBLE job of representing people of color, much less of representing non-Western cultures"

Prof Pearson ended his little lecture with the patronizing sign off, "I hope this explanation helps."

No discussion ensued.

There was nothing to discuss. A working class Polak woman, me, had dared to say that there is such a thing as literary worth and talent and that identity does not dictate value. I had dared to say that dividing up the world into rich, evil, oppressive whites and virtuous and oppressed "people of color" was a limited paradigm. I was put in my place by the powers that be. After Prof. Pearson put me in my place, one of the professors suggested changing the topic to Shakespeare, and that occurred immediately.

***

Professors Rovira and Pearson were arguing that identity as someone who has experienced oppression makes one's words worth listening to. Professors Rovira and Pearson were arguing that elites don't have the right to speak for those who have suffered.

I have suffered. I spoke.

They, the elites, the English professors, immediately slapped me down.

Hypocrisy.

Do I have to present my resume here? What do I know about oppression? One of my family members was lynched. When my father was born his country did not exist as a political entity – it was a colony of Russia, who kept Polish peasants so oppressed that Booker T Washington, an ex-American slave seeking "the man furthest down" went to Poland to study us.

My family came to America where mine bosses solicited us for labor by calling out, "Get me a Hunky; I need a donkey." My parents were of ethnicities deemed racially inferior by the US congress. My mother, a brilliant writer, one of the most brilliant women I will ever hope to know, spent her life cleaning rich women's houses. My father mined coal as a child, worked blue collar as an adult, after leading American troops as a sergeant liberating the Pacific.

I grew up in poverty. This kind of poverty – where if you can't stomach the foul surplus macaroni and margarine that is for dinner, you do not eat. Barefoot. Because the special shoes you need are too expensive. I started working before I was legally qualified to do so. I forged papers to make this happen. I worked full time as a nurse's aide while getting my BA. I was homeless for a while in college, still got straight As.

I joined Peace Corps and lived and worked in tiny villages in Africa and Asia. I watched children starve to death because of vicious local customs like the caste system. I saw human beings enslaved, in literal, not metaphorical, chains. I fed starving children and taught a slave girl to read.

I lived in Poland during the overthrow of communism. I participated in anti-Soviet riots. I come back to the US and entered grad school and was attacked by a professor. I was told she was allowed to abuse her employees because she was black and female and everyone was afraid of being called racist or sexist so they did not challenge her. Result – unbeknownst to me, my inner ear burst and I spent the next several years vomiting and paralyzed. I wrote my dissertation anyway, about stereotyping of Poles as the world's worst haters. My book is so controversial, for eight years, it traveled from publisher to publisher, who at first said "Love it!" and then said, "Too scared!" Academia is publish perish. I find only part time work.

When I am told I have cancer, I am also told I cannot get surgery because I have no health insurance. I live in Section eight housing in a slum. My students are largely, like me, minority and poor.

And I need Prof. Pearson, an English Professor, to lecture me on oppression?

Uh … no.

How Professors Rovira and Pearson responded to me is how all too many professors respond to their students. Elitist contempt disguised in liberalism.

***

Prof. Pearson wrote that African American writing is less mature, less advanced; their works "aren't as polished from a literary style."

If I were black, I would be insulted by Prof. Pearson's post. African Americans do not need a liberal English professor to rescue them or their writing. There is excellent African American writing. It can be judged by the same standards used to judge white-as-typewriter paper American writing.

If an English professor said to me, "Hey, we are going to include some Polak writing on our syllabus, and we know y'all are not as mature, not as advanced, not as polished as our writing is, but we're gonna include your stuff in order to be multiculti and diverse," I would punch that son of a gun in the face. One shot. Right in the jaw. BAM!

Shelby Steele, in his excellent book "White Guilt," talks about the subtle racism and condescension inherent in the approach described above. He calls ethnic literature courses "humiliating stuff. A shuffle and a bow for a tossed coin" "easy dissociation for whites and crumbs for blacks" "a deal made of what is low and cowardly in both races"

"My belief was that minority writers should be included in our mainstream classes by merit." "They would be respected for their talent rather than endured for their color. They would be read by all our students on a regular basis. An ethnic literature class would only create a literary ghetto of mediocre writers, an Affirmative Action class where even great writers would be diminished…Universities could no longer afford to devote themselves singularly to excellence. Excellence and merit became 'oppressive' terms within the academy."

There's another problem with the kind of "inclusion" practiced by English professors.

Only some "people of color" need apply.

Marxist "people of color" are welcome.

Non-whites who are not ideologically pure are not welcome.

I know liberal, inclusive English professors who would not teach work by Jamaica Kincaid, V.S. Naipaul, or Salman Rushdie, because these authors' work is deemed not ideologically pure enough. Shelby Steele and John McWhorter would never appear on their syllabi. African American Thomas Sowell, a scholar I cite in my work on Poles, is anathema to them. There is no chance, zero, none, that they would ever include a Deneen Borelli.

***

None of this is news. What shocked me about this group was that they identify as Christian.

Moore, Oklahoma Tornadoes: Why Did So Many Die?

Moore Oklahoma before and after photos are here at heavy.com

I'm having a hard time understanding why so many people died in the May 20, 2013 tornadoes in Moore, Oklahoma. The death toll has been revised downward but still it is too high.

This part of the US is called Tornado Alley. The 2013 tornadoes followed the path of 1999 tornadoes. The 2013 tornadoes were large and there was advance warning. I wonder why more people did not seek underground shelter.

A Facebook friend from Oklahoma pooh-poohed the idea of storm shelters as unfeasible because too difficult to build. I question that. I grew up in a house with a sturdy cellar that was dug out largely by my father and my brothers. My father was a Polish peasant. Peasants build and use cellars for vegetable storage and smoking meat. In other words, cellars are not high tech, not recent innovations, not prohibitively expensive. The school I went to, in a low income area, had a sturdy cellar.

The UK Telegraph reports:

"Moore has no designated public storm shelters, nor does Oklahoma City itself. Edmond also has no public shelters, but Norman has two and Midwest City has three. Residents in Oklahoma are offered the opportunity to receive a federal grant as part of a safe room rebate program, which gives them $2,500 upon installation of a shelter. In Moore, the city was expecting to apply for around $2 million to assist 800 home owners to build shelters. However, the programme was placed 'on hold' as they waited for 'wrinkles' to be ironed out of the grant application process."

Source

Just Another Pack Animal that Collapses under a Weight: "The Silent Tragedy of Child Marriage"

An eight year old Afghan girl bled to death after an mullah, over fifty, attempted to have sexual relations with her. 

Robert Spencer remembers this girl and the countless other victims of gender apartheid in his article, "The Silent Tragedy of Child Marriage"at PJ media here. 

I have "liberal" friends who support gender apartheid. I wonder when they will have an ethical awakening. 

Shopping for a Rosary; Scandalized by Prices, Kitsch, and Fashion

Oh, Lord, no.

Oh, come on! Is it THAT hard being married to a Spice girl?

That does it. I'm converting. 

Back when I was a grad student at IU, really poor and owned almost nothing, I used to pray the rosary on my hands.

I don't like doing that because, with no beads to guide me, I have to focus on which prayer I'm saying. With the beads to guide me, I can lose myself in the prayer.

I found someone's lost rosary and began to pray with beads, again, and never looked back to the old days of praying on my hands.

I pray when I walk. I've got rosary, handkerchief, sunglasses, and walkman in my pockets. All of these get lost eventually.

I inevitably lost the rosary I had found. I discovered a website that gives away free rosaries. I lost that one, too. Finally I stepped up and bought a rosary at St. Patrick's cathedral gift shop.

I gave that one to my niece the other day, and now I need a new rosary. I'm shopping online.

I was hoping to find a sturdy, durable rosary. I pray the rosary every day. The beads, and the material that strings them together, has got to be tough to take that daily handling.

I want a rosary with a good drop. The beads have to be heavy enough, and the stringing material has to be flexible enough, that the beads easily drop down. Otherwise, the stringing material becomes entangled in itself.

I would like a rosary that isn't an eyesore. Blue is my favorite color. Was hoping for blue beads.

Thought I could have all this for about twenty dollars.

Oh, oh, oh. I was so naïve!

There are millions of rosaries for sale on the web. A cursory glance reveals that 99% of them are merely decorative. They exist to be pretty. They don't exist to be prayed on. If you prayed on most of these rosaries daily, they would begin to disintegrate in about a week.

There are sturdy looking rosaries.

These cost an arm and a leg.

Think, four, five hundred dollars.

Really.

Some rosaries are identified as "men's rosaries." Others are identified as "women's rosaries." This bugs me. Men's prayers and women's prayers?

And then there are the kitsch rosaries: Basketball rosaries, Skull rosaries, Panda bear rosaries, Jewish rosaries.

I'm fighting with the urge to be judgmental.

I'm judgmental of everybody. Justin Bieber and David Beckham wearing rosaries as fashion statements? Arrest them!

But I'm also judgmental of the folks buying these very pretty, very expensive rosaries that are obviously never meant to be prayed with.

And then I argue with my judgmental side. If owning a pretty rosary that costs five hundred dollars makes someone feel good, who am I to judge?

The plethora of novelty rosaries tells me this: Commentators constantly predict the end of the Catholic Church. But our many imitators want us to keep on keeping on, so they can have something to imitate.

Basketball rosary.

Skull rosary

Panda bear rosary

Jewish rosaries

Praying for a Miracle for My Sister and New Atheist Falsehoods about Prayer

Please say a prayer for my sister Antoinette, the one with the glasses. 

I am praying for a miracle for my sister.

You can read part one of this story here and part two here.

I invite you to offer up a prayer for my sister Antoinette if you care to. Thank you.

***

New Atheists refer to prayer as "Talking to your imaginary sky friend." Here's one random New Atheist comment about prayer from the web, "Talking to your imaginary sky fairy is the next best thing to doing nothing at all."

That's the second clueless thing New Atheists say, that prayer is tantamount to "doing nothing at all."

When I ask people to pray for me or for my sister, I know I am asking them to do something. I am asking them for something precious. I feel grateful to those who have prayed for me.

***

When I was a grad student at Indiana University, I was attacked by a crazy professor. I didn't know it at the time, but my inner ear burst. I was horribly ill for years afterward, at least partly because medicine doesn't offer any ironclad treatments for those with vestibular – inner ear – disorders. Unable to stop vomiting and often paralyzed, I trekked through three states, from one experimental surgery to another, till a compassionate surgeon broke his Hippocratic oath and "did harm" – he killed my ear, making me deaf that in that ear, but ending the vomiting and paralysis.

Those years were a forced march through hell. My thoughts became as dark as thoughts get. I know what it is to feel so frustrated, hopeless, and betrayed that killing someone else seems to make sense. Believe me, I know.

People I have never met prayed for me. They let me know through the internet.

I *felt* their prayers. I was sure that it was their prayers that kept me going.

And of course the New Atheists would say that I imagined those feelings.

I know the inside of my own head better than the New Atheists do.

So, yes, I am grateful when others pray for me, and I tend to believe in prayer.

***

On the other hand.

Years ago I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal.

Back in the US, my brother Mike had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

I prayed long distance.

I was living in the Himalaya, far from roads, electricity, running water, even outhouses. My dwelling was made of boards and clay; I was being eaten alive by fleas. And I would hunker down at night, trying to conserve warmth (I was always cold in Nepal) and I would pray for a miracle for my brother Mike. And I was confident that a miracle would occur.

Mike died within months. Me, too, a little bit. Mike died just a few short years after my brother Phil was killed on my birthday.

I spent a long time estranged from God. I have never been able to be an atheist. Believing that God loved other people, and not my family, was easier.

***

I am praying now for a miracle for my sister.

New Atheists really don't get what prayer is.

Prayer has nothing to do with the New Atheists' "imaginary sky friend." Prayer has nothing to do with "doing nothing while pretending you are doing something."

Prayer is work. Prayer transforms the body. Prayer is palpable. Prayer is investment.

Praying for a miracle for my sister is one of the hardest things I can do.

After what happened with Mike. And Phil. After feeling so crushed, betrayed, and lost.

Why bother?

Because I do believe in miracles.

And I want one for my sister.

I ask myself, am I guilty of arrogance? Is it wrong to ask that God do this? Wouldn't it be more Christian to accept whatever fate God decrees?

But, I see Jesus performing miracles, and instructing his disciples to do so.

So, then, why not just pray for a miracle and accept whatever turns out to be God's will?

You try it. You try losing your siblings repeatedly to early death and then exercising hope and prayer and then assuming peace in the face of whatever happens.

I dread crashing that hard again.

"Exercising hope": it really is an exercise.

I change physically when I pray. I don't attempt to make these changes happen; they just do, and they surprise me. I can feel changes in my breathing, in how my organs bump up against each other. I can feel changes in my relationship to surrounding reality. I can feel changes in what part of my brain is working, and how it's working.

I just did a google search of "physical effects of prayer" and found an article about research by Dr. Herbert Benson at Harvard:

"Benson has documented on MRI brain scans the physical changes that take place in the body when someone meditates. When combined with recent research from the University of Pennsylvania, what emerges is a picture of complex brain activity:

As an individual goes deeper and deeper into concentration, intense activity begins taking place in the brain's parietal lobe circuits -- those that control a person's orientation in space and establish distinctions between self and the world. Benson has documented a 'quietude' that then envelops the entire brain.

At the same time, frontal and temporal lobe circuits -- which track time and create self-awareness -- become disengaged. The mind-body connection dissolves, Benson says. And the limbic system, which is responsible for putting 'emotional tags' on that which we consider special, also becomes activated. The limbic system also regulates relaxation, ultimately controlling the autonomic nervous system, heart rate, blood pressure, metabolism, etc., says Benson.

The result: Everything registers as emotionally significant, perhaps responsible for the sense of awe and quiet that many feel. The body becomes more relaxed and physiological activity becomes more evenly regulated."

***

I have to wrestle with myself before I pray for a miracle for my sister. I have to give ear to my despair and my sense of catastrophe. And then I have to allow for hope. And then I confront Jesus, and remind him of his promises. And then I ask to be made worthy even to pray. Then I surrender to prayer, and everything changes. I do experience that peace that surpasses understanding.

"The Odd Couple" 1968. How America, and American Manhood, Has Changed

I was at a small local library looking over DVDs. 1968's "The Odd Couple" looked like the best bet in a batch of slim pickings. It's about middle-aged, divorced men. I'm not a man; I'm not divorced. The film's famous running gag about one clean roommate and one dirty roommate struck me as shopworn. Bleh. I took it out anyway and thought I'd give it a try.

Within minutes, I was floored by how excellent "The Odd Couple" is.

I remembered something that Roger Ebert said in an interview with Martin Scorcese. Ebert said that "Raging Bull" was a great movie. People would protest that they didn't want to see it because they didn't want to see a film about boxers. No, Ebert insisted. The subject matter of a film is not the heart of the film. Rather, it's how well a film is made that matters. An expertly made film about boxers is better than a badly made film about a topic you may be interested in. So, no, I'm not a man; I'm not divorced. But "The Odd Couple" was so well made that I fell in love with it. I surprised myself by laughing out loud throughout the film.

"The Odd Couple," of course, is the story of news writer Felix Unger leaving his wife and children and moving in with his friend, sports writer Oscar Madison, who is himself a divorcee. Oscar lives in an eight-room Manhattan apartment, which he used to share with his wife and their kids. Felix is neat; Oscar is messy. Sounds pretty trite.

But the movie is a revelation. The script reveals surprising depth about love, hate, and human relationships. The Walter-Matthau-Jack-Lemmon team is like a well-oiled machine – they seem to have perfected their shtick together through several lifetimes.

Jack Lemmon plays the entire movie completely straight. He gives the exact same kind of performance as he did when he was acting in "The Days of Wine and Roses," a hyper serious film about alcoholism. When Lemmon, as Felix, is upset about his meatloaf burning, he shows as much agony as he showed in the previous film about a drunk ruining his own life. It's hysterically funny to watch this poor schmuck wrestle with his petty obsessions and compulsions, oblivious to how he affects others. Even as you laugh at him, you realize he can't help himself. Felix Unger has Asperger's.

What has changed in America, and American film, that this film from 1968 feels like a time capsule from a lost moment in America? Oscar lives in a spacious, eight-room Manhattan apartment. Manhattan real estate has become more expensive, of course. But it's more than that.

The words that kept going through my head as I was watching the movie were "grown-up" and "intelligent."

Oscar, Felix, and their poker buddies are six white guys. They meet and play poker. There are no scenes where these adult, white men are revealed to be inept in comparison to women, blacks, or homosexuals. There are no scenes where the sassy gay man instructs the straight men on how to dress or create romance. There are no scenes where the "magical negro" shows the men that they can't dance. There are no scenes where a woman puts the men down for not knowing how to take care of children or shows the men up as being blinded by lust. There are no scenes where these straight, white men are made to apologize for being straight, white men.

The men are grownups. They have jobs. They wear adult clothing. They wear white shirts and ties, slacks, belts, and shiny shoes. Oscar does wear a backwards baseball cap, but he is the clown of the group. And he does not wear it throughout the film. When he goes out, he dresses properly.

They speak of their marriages as if marriage were something important. They speak of their children as if they love them.

They go on dates. They ask women out, dress up for the occasion, and make witty banter with subtle double entendres.

While watching "The Odd Couple," I thought of recent Judd Apatow comedies starring men like Jason Segel, Paul Rudd and Jonah Hill. These current male stars all play children; they all play losers. They play failed men. The humor in these films is built around what pathetic creatures they are. In "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," Jason Segel, who is fat and prematurely saggy, is shown fully naked. The nakedness highlights his humiliation when his girlfriend, Sarah Marshall, dumps him. These films all use the F word over and over in a manner that feels desperate and limited.

There is one very sly, very funny reference to the f word in "The Odd Couple." Oscar complains to Felix Unger that he is tired of getting little notes from Felix like "We are all out of cornflakes. Signed, FU." Oscar says it took him hours to figure out what "FU" meant. A funny joke. Delivered deliciously. The only time "The Odd Couple" has to refer to the F word to get a laugh.

I've never felt, while watching a Judd Apatow comedy, that I was gaining any insight into the human condition. There are so many payoff moments of absurd comedy in "The Odd Couple," as when Oscar steps on a vacuum cleaner cord and then takes his foot off the cord at just the right moment to send Felix reeling. But there were so many moments that made me say, "Gosh, yes, that's what human relationships are like. That's what it's like to love/hate another human being."

I can't imagine a film like "The Odd Couple" being made today. A genuinely funny, intelligent, rich, grownup comedy about men that shines light on the human condition and that need never speak the F word to get a laugh. And I can't imagine anyone other than a Trump being able to afford that eight-room apartment in Manhattan.

"Heaven Is for Real" by Todd Burpo. Book Review.

"Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back" is a deeply moving book with a page-turner plot that addresses big, big issues in a reader-friendly way. It is surprisingly well-written. Before I was even finished reading this book I ordered a copy for loved ones. It's *that* good.

"Heaven Is for Real" is a four-year-old boy's account of his near death experience during emergency surgery for peritonitis from untreated appendicitis. Colton Burpo left his body, encountered Jesus, the Holy Spirit, God, Mary, and his own deceased family members. Atheists and Christophobes desperately want his account to be proven false. Their hopes – or their anti-hopes – are in vein. "Heaven Is for Real" is a credible near death account.

In 2003, Todd Burpo was a thirty-something, small-town Nebraska pastor and agricultural combine garage door salesman. His wife, Sonja, was a schoolteacher. They had two children: Cassie and Colton.

One day, then three-year-old Colton had a fever, stomach pain, and he vomited. His parents wrote it off as a stomach virus. Colton's fever went away, he appeared to get better, and the family left for a trip.

Colton worsened during the trip. Todd decided to drive home rather than visit a hospital on their trip route. This was a mistake. Colton worsened. Todd realized his son was losing his grip on life. The first doctor they saw was so unhelpful I wonder if he was not eventually sued for malpractice. Todd and Sonja eventually drove their son to another hospital. As Todd would learn later, the physicians there decided that there was little chance that Colton would survive, and they instructed the nurses to prepare the family for the worst.

To everyone's surprise, Colton did survive his lengthy hospital stay, during which his open abdominal wound had to be regularly drained of pus.

Some months later, this and other crises behind them, the family departed for a fun-filled vacation. As they passed the hospital that treated Colton, Colton casually mentioned having met Jesus and angels during his surgery. Todd and Sonja froze. They didn't know what to make of their son's announcement. We don't talk much about angels, he realized. Where did Colton get this idea of angels?

Todd did exactly the right thing. He monitored his own speech, making sure that he was not feeding Colton information. He also behaved as casually and as neutrally as he could, in order to get the whole story from Colton without changing it with any kind of feedback reward or feedback punishment that would alter what Colton said. Colton contradicted Todd when Todd attempted to test him by feeding him false information. Todd, as a pastor, was very familiar with the Christian curriculum Colton had been exposed to. He recognized that Colton was reporting data that he had not been exposed to. Of the course of several years, Todd got the story down.

Colton Burpo's near death experience is similar to hundreds of other such stories. He left his body. He could see his father praying in one room and his mother talking on the telephone in another. He entered a heavenly realm and encountered deceased relatives. He also encountered Jesus, God, Mary, and the Holy Spirit. This all occurred during a brief amount of time as it is measured on earth: three minutes.

Todd Burpo was especially impressed by Colton's reporting things that he had no way of knowing. Colton mentioned that his mother had had a previous miscarriage. His parents had not mentioned it. He said that he had met this sibling in heaven. Colton said that he met his great grandfather. Todd showed him a photo of this man later in his life. Colton said, no, that's not what the man I met looked like. Todd asked his mother to send a photo of the great grandfather when he was younger. She did so. Without being told who the man was, Colton identified this photo as one of his great grandfather. Colton told Todd about things that Todd and his grandfather had done together. Todd had never told Colton any of this.

Colton said that Jesus had "markers." I am Catholic, and I immediately knew what Colton was referring to. Todd, a Protestant, did not. Through further conversation, Todd realized that Colton was referring to Jesus' stigmata. Todd explains that, as Protestants, his household and his church do not emphasize images of Jesus' crucifixion wounds. He felt that this was something that Colton, a four-year-old Protestant in a tiny Nebraska town, would not have invented.

"Heaven Is for Real" is surprisingly well-written. Burpo wrote with Lynn Vincent, and Vincent, an author of several books, really knows how to put a story together. Many body-mind-spirit books are execrably written. Not so with "Heaven Is for Real." It has a real plot, real suspense, and real characters.

The inevitable question is, is Colton Burpo's account reliable? I found it convincing. Colton Burpo is very much not the first person to have a near death experience. There are hundreds of them recorded online. Todd's protestations that Colton was reporting things he almost certainly did not pick up at home in his short life as a Midwestern Protestant are convincing. Colton reported stigmata, very much not a Protestant thing, and he reported Mary, also not a Protestant thing. Colton insisted on the many vivid colors in Heaven, colors not found on Earth. This meshes with many other near death accounts. Colton reported that Jesus has a rainbow colored horse. He didn't get that from Sunday school.

Todd and Sonja Burpo are employed, stable, law abiding people. They have no history of farfetched schemes. They are modest people who have done nothing to be in the limelight. Their few appearances on Christian TV are understated and cautious. It strains credulity that they would make up this outlandish tale.

If Todd and Sonja had manufactured this story for fame and fortune, they would not have included ugly, self-incriminating material in the book. Todd and Sonja did not respond adequately to their son's onset of appendicitis. It was their hesitance that almost killed their son. They include this self-incriminating material in detail.

Some are willing to accept that Colton Burpo had a near death experience, but they are troubled by his meeting Jesus. Many want to believe in an afterlife, just not a Christian afterlife. They say that Colton met Jesus, and not, say, Vishnu, Buddha, or Allah, not because Jesus really is divine, but because Colton had been raised a Christian, and Heaven takes on the form of the tradition the person who experiences it has been raised in. That's a whole 'nother debate.