Can We Sing "Amazing Grace" Anymore?

In today's environment, "Amazing Grace" points two ways:

1. On the one hand, it was written by a man who actively participated in enslaving and transporting enslaved people from Africa to the Americas.  (I knew this, but until I looked him up today I didn't know that he himself had been enslaved, although only for months, not a lifetime.) 
2. On the other hand, its message is one of forgiveness and redemption of sins.

IMHO the way to reconcile is to believe that humans are prone to error (my Calvinist forebears would say "original sin"), but change and redemption can happen, whether by God's grace or otherwise, and we must accept all humans as human.

A Haircut and Morality: Vietnam and Daily Life

Got my hair cut today.  Two old self-proclaimed Nam vets were bloviating (I've a strong memory of sitting around the tent and talking about the old f--ts who talked big at the VFW or Legion post; we agreed we'd never do that.)  One was boasting about the number of water buffaloes "they'd" shot.

Then I read this great post at The Best Defense. Mr. Ricks has a quotation from a contributor to a book on My Lai: Evil doesn't come like Darth Vader dressed in black, hissing. Evil comes as a little bird whispering in your ear: 'Think about your career. I'm not sure what's going on. We'll muddle through for the next couple of hours. We'll get over the hill, and we'll go on. I mean, after all, I can't call people in and admit that I can't control, I can't do some other thing.' In my judgment, the evil comes from that point of view.

After hearing the vets, I might just quarrel with the quote: evil really comes as a narrower and narrower focus on the nearby, so there's no awareness of a moral issue at all.  As in, was it right to kill someone's property and means of livelihood; did it advance the idea of winning the" hearts and minds." 

Fraud Follows Program--Biomass Problems

The Biomass program, fresh from a Wash Post article, now has a notice out warning about scams and abuse.

This is all part of the bureaucratic learning curve. Of course, it's a little embarassing when the FSA state director is featured in a story that starts: "Forget gold—the biomass rush is on in California."

And never underestimate the evil that lurks in the hearts of men--here's a Snopes post on a scam on aid to Haiti.