In the News . . .

Here are some news stories that have caught my ear in the past month:

1. IHOP buys Applebees

Well now, that's not a good sign for American cuisine. Talk about Hell's Kitchen. Do you suppose Chef Bland has found a way to make food even more ordinary? "Excuse me, sir, would you like mayonnaise on your bologna blintzes?"

2. Chinese Execute State Food and Drug Administration Head, Zheng XiaoyuThe lesson here is that you really shouldn't take bribes in China--especially if the bribes wind up allowing additives into food that kills American pets. Apparently China isn't interested in using their muscle to stop the suffering in North Korea, but if American pets start dying then heads are going to roll.

3. Sunnis Fear American Pullout of Iraq

I should pay more attention to the war in Iraq. The problem has always been, though, who do we believe? The media? The military? The president of Iraq? The president of America? None of these four has a great track record for giving us a full and reliable version of events.

Perhaps the best test of the value of our presence in Iraq, though, is that the minority Sunnis fear our leaving. They fear they would be slaughtered without the protection America provides. At the very least, that means that we aren't slaughtering them right now. Apparently we our using our brute force to cultivate something like peace. If the Sunnis really want peace, maybe they should work harder at figuring out how to cooperate with the new government there.

Sadly, we're discovering too late (although there were plenty of warnings) that Saddam Hussein had to use brute force to keep violence down. He did it for his ends. We're doing it for our ends. I hate it when we become so much like our enemies. I think Jesus warned us of that (well . . . Jesus AND Bono warned us).