Man, I wouldn't walk in Barack Obama's shoes for a million dollars. Oh, he seems like a swell guy. But it must get real old real fast being America's tabula rasa, its blank slate upon which it projects unresolved racial aspirations and fears. If it has been painful watching some conservative white Americans project upon him the latter (Is he too black? Is he Muslim? What about that weird name?), it has been just as painful if not more so watching many black Americans grappling with the former.
Here's Obama's problem: By the simple fact of his existence, he changes the conversation. Last week, MSNBC's Tucker Carlson aired a segment pondering what it means when Obama is asked whether he's black enough. He and two other white pundits pontificated, without apparent irony, upon the meaning of blackness. No blacks joined them. If there's been a plainer, though less intentional, argument for greater media diversity in recent days, I haven't seen it.
--Leonard Pitts
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Michael Vick, Dogfighting, and Animal Mistreatment
by Gregg Easterbrook
The disgusting thing about dogfighting isn't that animals battle and die -- after all, animals fight to the death in nature, tearing each other's flesh with heartless violence. The disgusting thing about dogfighting is that supposedly intelligent members of Homo sapiens add sadism to the natural equation by starving dogs to make them extra aggressive, filing their incisors to make the fights bloodier, and engaging in other acts unbecoming any man or woman of ethics. What Michael Vick confessed to Monday ought to disgust you, regardless of whether you are a dog lover. Include me. The Official Dog of TMQ -- a Chesapeake retriever, noble state dog of Maryland -- slumbers happily near my feet as I write this.
But the punishment expected to be imposed on Vick -- one to two years in federal prison, and perhaps never playing in the NFL again -- seems out of proportion to his actions and his status as a first-time offender. The situation is confusing because the federal crimes to which Vick pleaded guilty turn as much on gambling and racketeering as dogfighting; gambling and racketeering concern federal prosecutors because of their relationship to organized crime. Racketeering can lead to jail terms even for nonviolent first-time offenders not involved with drug sales, such as Vick. The NFL, for its part, has very strong reasons to detest gambling, and elaborately warns players they will be harshly penalized for associating with gamblers. Yet I can't help feeling there is overkill in the social, media and legal reactions to Vick, and that the overkill originates in hypocrisy about animals.
Thousands of animals are mistreated or killed in the United States every day without the killers so much as being criticized, let alone imprisoned. Ranchers and farmers kill stock animals or horses that are sick or injured. Some ranchers kill stock animals as gently as possible, others callously; in either case, prosecution is nearly unheard of. As Derek Jackson pointed out last week in the Boston Globe, greyhound tracks routinely race dogs to exhaustion and injury, then kill the losers, or simply eliminate less-strong pups: "184,604 greyhound puppies judged to be inferior for racing" were killed, legally, in the past 20 years.
Hunters shoot animals for sport. They do so lawfully, while the manner in which Vick harmed his dogs was unlawful. But from the perspective of the animal, there seems little difference between a hunter with a state game license zipped in his vest pocket shooting a deer as part of something the hunter views as really fun sport, and Vick shooting a dog as part of something Vick views as really fun sport. In both cases, animals suffer for human entertainment. The animal-ethics distinction between Vick's actions and lawful game hunting are murky at best. A first-time offender should go to prison over a murky distinction?
Much more troubling is that the overwhelming majority of Americans who eat meat and poultry -- I'm enthusiastically among them -- are complicit in the systematic cruel treatment of huge numbers of animals. Snickering about this, or saying you're tired of hearing about it, doesn't make it go away. Most animals used for meat experience miserable lives under cruel conditions, including confinement for extended periods in pits of excrement. (Michael Pollan, who enthusiastically consumes meat and fowl, describes the mistreatment in his important new book The Omnivore's Dilemma.) Meat animals don't magically stop living when it's time to become a product; they suffer as they die. One of Vick's dogs was shot, another electrocuted. Gunshots and electrocution are federally approved methods of livestock slaughter, sanctioned by the Department of Agriculture for the killing of cows and pigs. Regulations under the Humane Slaughter Act of 1958 give federal sanction to shooting cows or pigs, or running electrical current through their bodies. Shooting and electrocution are viewed by federal law as humane ways to kill animals that will be consumed. Federal rules also allow slaughterhouses to hit cows in the head with a fast-moving piston that stuns them into semiconsciousness before they are sliced up. Being hit in the head with a powerful piston -- does that sound a bit painful, a bit cruel? It's done to tens of thousands of steers per year, lawfully.
Don't say "eew, gross" about how meat animals are butchered, then return to denouncing Vick. If you're eating a cheeseburger or BLT or steak or pot roast today, there's a good chance you are dining on an animal that was shot or electrocuted. You are complicit. You freely bought the meat, you did not demand Congress strengthen the Humane Slaughter Act. Livestock can be calmed and drugged before being slain. A few slaughterhouses do this, but most don't because it raises costs, and you, the consumer, demand the lowest possible price for your meal. Now about your turkey sub or coq au vin. Federal slaughter regulations apply mainly to large animals, leaving considerable freedom in the killing of fowl. Many poultry slaughterhouses kill chickens by slashing their throats rather than snapping their necks. Snapping the neck kills the bird quickly, ending suffering, but then the heart dies quickly, too. Slashing the throat causes the bird to live in agony for several minutes, heart still beating and pumping blood out of the slash -- and consumers prefer bloodless chicken meat.
Further, the Humane Slaughter Act exempts kosher and halal slaughter. In both traditions, the cow or lamb must be conscious when killed by having its carotid artery, or esophagus and trachea, slashed. The animal bleeds to death, convulsing in agony, as its heart pumps blood, which is viewed as unclean, out of the slashed openings. The delicious pastrami we consumed at a kosher deli, or the wonderfully good beef we could buy at a halal butcher, comes from an animal that suffered as it died.
Yes, Vick broke the law; yes, he arrogantly lied and refused to apologize when first caught; and yes, his actions before and after the dog killings indicate he is one stupid, stupid man. But Vick's lawbreaking was relatively minor compared to animal mistreatment that happens continuously, within the law, at nearly all levels of the meat production industry, and with which all but vegetarians are complicit. There is some kind of mass neurosis at work in the rush to denounce Vick, wag fingers and say he deserved even worse. Society wants to scapegoat Vick to avoid contemplating its own routine, systematic killing of animals. We couldn't all become vegetarians tomorrow: that is not practical. But American society is not even attempting to make the handling of meat animals less brutal, let alone working to transition away from a food-production order in which huge numbers of animals are systematically mistreated, then killed in ways that inflict terror and pain. We won't lift a finger to change the way animals die for us. But we will demand Michael Vick serve prison time to atone for our sins.
The disgusting thing about dogfighting isn't that animals battle and die -- after all, animals fight to the death in nature, tearing each other's flesh with heartless violence. The disgusting thing about dogfighting is that supposedly intelligent members of Homo sapiens add sadism to the natural equation by starving dogs to make them extra aggressive, filing their incisors to make the fights bloodier, and engaging in other acts unbecoming any man or woman of ethics. What Michael Vick confessed to Monday ought to disgust you, regardless of whether you are a dog lover. Include me. The Official Dog of TMQ -- a Chesapeake retriever, noble state dog of Maryland -- slumbers happily near my feet as I write this.
But the punishment expected to be imposed on Vick -- one to two years in federal prison, and perhaps never playing in the NFL again -- seems out of proportion to his actions and his status as a first-time offender. The situation is confusing because the federal crimes to which Vick pleaded guilty turn as much on gambling and racketeering as dogfighting; gambling and racketeering concern federal prosecutors because of their relationship to organized crime. Racketeering can lead to jail terms even for nonviolent first-time offenders not involved with drug sales, such as Vick. The NFL, for its part, has very strong reasons to detest gambling, and elaborately warns players they will be harshly penalized for associating with gamblers. Yet I can't help feeling there is overkill in the social, media and legal reactions to Vick, and that the overkill originates in hypocrisy about animals.
Thousands of animals are mistreated or killed in the United States every day without the killers so much as being criticized, let alone imprisoned. Ranchers and farmers kill stock animals or horses that are sick or injured. Some ranchers kill stock animals as gently as possible, others callously; in either case, prosecution is nearly unheard of. As Derek Jackson pointed out last week in the Boston Globe, greyhound tracks routinely race dogs to exhaustion and injury, then kill the losers, or simply eliminate less-strong pups: "184,604 greyhound puppies judged to be inferior for racing" were killed, legally, in the past 20 years.
Hunters shoot animals for sport. They do so lawfully, while the manner in which Vick harmed his dogs was unlawful. But from the perspective of the animal, there seems little difference between a hunter with a state game license zipped in his vest pocket shooting a deer as part of something the hunter views as really fun sport, and Vick shooting a dog as part of something Vick views as really fun sport. In both cases, animals suffer for human entertainment. The animal-ethics distinction between Vick's actions and lawful game hunting are murky at best. A first-time offender should go to prison over a murky distinction?
Much more troubling is that the overwhelming majority of Americans who eat meat and poultry -- I'm enthusiastically among them -- are complicit in the systematic cruel treatment of huge numbers of animals. Snickering about this, or saying you're tired of hearing about it, doesn't make it go away. Most animals used for meat experience miserable lives under cruel conditions, including confinement for extended periods in pits of excrement. (Michael Pollan, who enthusiastically consumes meat and fowl, describes the mistreatment in his important new book The Omnivore's Dilemma.) Meat animals don't magically stop living when it's time to become a product; they suffer as they die. One of Vick's dogs was shot, another electrocuted. Gunshots and electrocution are federally approved methods of livestock slaughter, sanctioned by the Department of Agriculture for the killing of cows and pigs. Regulations under the Humane Slaughter Act of 1958 give federal sanction to shooting cows or pigs, or running electrical current through their bodies. Shooting and electrocution are viewed by federal law as humane ways to kill animals that will be consumed. Federal rules also allow slaughterhouses to hit cows in the head with a fast-moving piston that stuns them into semiconsciousness before they are sliced up. Being hit in the head with a powerful piston -- does that sound a bit painful, a bit cruel? It's done to tens of thousands of steers per year, lawfully.
Don't say "eew, gross" about how meat animals are butchered, then return to denouncing Vick. If you're eating a cheeseburger or BLT or steak or pot roast today, there's a good chance you are dining on an animal that was shot or electrocuted. You are complicit. You freely bought the meat, you did not demand Congress strengthen the Humane Slaughter Act. Livestock can be calmed and drugged before being slain. A few slaughterhouses do this, but most don't because it raises costs, and you, the consumer, demand the lowest possible price for your meal. Now about your turkey sub or coq au vin. Federal slaughter regulations apply mainly to large animals, leaving considerable freedom in the killing of fowl. Many poultry slaughterhouses kill chickens by slashing their throats rather than snapping their necks. Snapping the neck kills the bird quickly, ending suffering, but then the heart dies quickly, too. Slashing the throat causes the bird to live in agony for several minutes, heart still beating and pumping blood out of the slash -- and consumers prefer bloodless chicken meat.
Further, the Humane Slaughter Act exempts kosher and halal slaughter. In both traditions, the cow or lamb must be conscious when killed by having its carotid artery, or esophagus and trachea, slashed. The animal bleeds to death, convulsing in agony, as its heart pumps blood, which is viewed as unclean, out of the slashed openings. The delicious pastrami we consumed at a kosher deli, or the wonderfully good beef we could buy at a halal butcher, comes from an animal that suffered as it died.
Yes, Vick broke the law; yes, he arrogantly lied and refused to apologize when first caught; and yes, his actions before and after the dog killings indicate he is one stupid, stupid man. But Vick's lawbreaking was relatively minor compared to animal mistreatment that happens continuously, within the law, at nearly all levels of the meat production industry, and with which all but vegetarians are complicit. There is some kind of mass neurosis at work in the rush to denounce Vick, wag fingers and say he deserved even worse. Society wants to scapegoat Vick to avoid contemplating its own routine, systematic killing of animals. We couldn't all become vegetarians tomorrow: that is not practical. But American society is not even attempting to make the handling of meat animals less brutal, let alone working to transition away from a food-production order in which huge numbers of animals are systematically mistreated, then killed in ways that inflict terror and pain. We won't lift a finger to change the way animals die for us. But we will demand Michael Vick serve prison time to atone for our sins.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Art
Art addresses us in the fullness of our being--simultaneously speaking to our intellect, emotions, intuition, imagination, memory, and physical senses. There are some truths about life that can be expressed only as stories or songs or images.
--Dana Gioia
--Dana Gioia
Arts Education
What would happen if theologically conservative Christians were noted for their commitment to improving arts education in public schools more than for their opposition to the teaching of evolution? Is it possible that a commitment to a well-trained imagination is a necessary asset in properly apprehending the kind of thing Creation is?
--Ken Myers
--Ken Myers
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Infastructure
Everywhere one looks, the results of decades of public neglect and underinvestment are clear: not only collapsing bridges and exploding steam pipes but traffic-choked streets, clogged ports, corroded drinking-water systems and power brownouts. From 1950 to 1970 the government spent more than 3 percent of GDP on infrastructure. After 1980, that figure dropped by more than a third.
Two years ago, following the catastrophic collapse of the levees in New Orleans, which cost more than 1,000 lives, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) issued a report cataloguing the myriad deficiencies in our nation's infrastructure. That report was followed by a number of other worrying findings. The Transportation Department, for example, estimated that freight bottlenecks were costing the economy $200 billion a year. The Environmental Protection Agency warned of antiquated drinking-water and waste-water systems that would require more than $541 billion a year to rebuild over the next twenty years. And the Federal Highway Administration has calculated that some $141 billion will be needed every year for the next twenty years to repair deficient roads and bridges. All told, the ASCE estimated, the government would need to spend $1.6 trillion over the next five years to repair infrastructure. And that estimate did not address our lagging deployment of high-speed broadband or the major expenditures needed to reduce carbon emissions to stave off climate change.
--Editors of The Nation
Two years ago, following the catastrophic collapse of the levees in New Orleans, which cost more than 1,000 lives, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) issued a report cataloguing the myriad deficiencies in our nation's infrastructure. That report was followed by a number of other worrying findings. The Transportation Department, for example, estimated that freight bottlenecks were costing the economy $200 billion a year. The Environmental Protection Agency warned of antiquated drinking-water and waste-water systems that would require more than $541 billion a year to rebuild over the next twenty years. And the Federal Highway Administration has calculated that some $141 billion will be needed every year for the next twenty years to repair deficient roads and bridges. All told, the ASCE estimated, the government would need to spend $1.6 trillion over the next five years to repair infrastructure. And that estimate did not address our lagging deployment of high-speed broadband or the major expenditures needed to reduce carbon emissions to stave off climate change.
--Editors of The Nation
Farm Bill
The 2007 farm bill, as approved by the House on the eve of the August recess, is as shambolic a piece of legislation as will ever be OK'd by a chamber that frequently endorses the incomprehensible and the indefensible. But what is truly frustrating about the House's version of the five-year, $286 billion blueprint for everything from agriculture and food policy to trade and energy development is that this complicated mess of a measure cannot be easily hailed or condemned. On the plus side, it makes significant new commitments to encourage sustainable farming practices, fund the conversion to organic farming, strengthen food-safety protections and expand nutrition initiatives that are the essential food-policy components of this omnibus legislation. On the negative side, the House bill proposes to open gaping loopholes that would allow environmentally destructive factory farms to qualify for funding intended to help family farmers conserve the land; maintains corrupt practices that stifle competition in the livestock industry; and fails to endorse basic health-and-safety moves like banning the practice of blasting spoiled beef with carbon monoxide to make it appear wholesome.
Hovering above all the good bits and nasty pieces of the measure is that it would do little to change our corrupt system of paying subsidies to some of the wealthiest nonfarmers in the world. Nor does the House address the fact that the bulk of the money intended to maintain diverse and competitive family farms would go to a handful of Southern states that overproduce crops like rice and cotton.
The best that can be hoped for now is intervention by the Senate, where Agriculture Committee chair Tom Harkin says, "We can't afford to settle for an extension of the status quo--not in terms of budget, and not in terms of policy." But for that to happen, we need to broaden the public discussion at a time when, as Representative Rosa DeLauro says, "too many Americans know too little about the farm bill and its impact on our lives."
--John Nichols
Hovering above all the good bits and nasty pieces of the measure is that it would do little to change our corrupt system of paying subsidies to some of the wealthiest nonfarmers in the world. Nor does the House address the fact that the bulk of the money intended to maintain diverse and competitive family farms would go to a handful of Southern states that overproduce crops like rice and cotton.
The best that can be hoped for now is intervention by the Senate, where Agriculture Committee chair Tom Harkin says, "We can't afford to settle for an extension of the status quo--not in terms of budget, and not in terms of policy." But for that to happen, we need to broaden the public discussion at a time when, as Representative Rosa DeLauro says, "too many Americans know too little about the farm bill and its impact on our lives."
--John Nichols
Cockburn on Obama
Just as the Democrats work tirelessly to demonstrate to the voters that it makes zero difference which party controls Congress, the political establishment forces all candidates for the presidential nomination to sever any compromising ties to sanity and common sense.
Right now they're hosing down Barack Obama because he said in the YouTube debate in South Carolina that he would be prepared to meet with Kim Jong Il, Hugo Chávez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Fidel Castro to hash over problems face to face. The pundits whacked him for demonstrating "inexperience." Experienced leaders order the CIA to murder such men.
Then Obama drew even fiercer fire by saying he would take nukes off the table in the war on terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan. "I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance," Obama told the AP on August 2, adding, after a pause, "involving civilians." Then he quickly said, "Let me scratch that. There's been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That's not on the table."
I'm beginning to respect this man. He displays sagacity well beyond the norm for candidates seeking the Oval Office. He comprehends, if only in mid-sentence, that when you drop a nuclear bomb, it will kill civilians. He also realizes that strafing Waziristan with thermonuclear devices in the hopes of nailing Osama bin Laden is a foolish way to proceed.
--Alexander Cockburn
Right now they're hosing down Barack Obama because he said in the YouTube debate in South Carolina that he would be prepared to meet with Kim Jong Il, Hugo Chávez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Fidel Castro to hash over problems face to face. The pundits whacked him for demonstrating "inexperience." Experienced leaders order the CIA to murder such men.
Then Obama drew even fiercer fire by saying he would take nukes off the table in the war on terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan. "I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance," Obama told the AP on August 2, adding, after a pause, "involving civilians." Then he quickly said, "Let me scratch that. There's been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That's not on the table."
I'm beginning to respect this man. He displays sagacity well beyond the norm for candidates seeking the Oval Office. He comprehends, if only in mid-sentence, that when you drop a nuclear bomb, it will kill civilians. He also realizes that strafing Waziristan with thermonuclear devices in the hopes of nailing Osama bin Laden is a foolish way to proceed.
--Alexander Cockburn
The Democrats
Led by Democrats since the start of this year, Congress now has a "confidence" rating of 14 percent, the lowest since Gallup started asking the question in 1973 and five points lower than Republicans scored last year.
The voters put the Democrats in to end the war, and it's escalating. The Democrats voted the money for the surge and the money for the next $459.6 billion military budget. Their latest achievement was to provide enough votes in support of Bush to legalize warrantless wiretapping for "foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States." Enough Democrats joined Republicans to make this a 227-183 victory for Bush. The Democrats control the House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi could have stopped the bill in its tracks if she'd wanted to. But she didn't. The Democrats' game is to go along with the White House agenda while stirring up dust storms to blind the base to their failure to bring the troops home or restore constitutional government.
--Alexander Cockburn
The voters put the Democrats in to end the war, and it's escalating. The Democrats voted the money for the surge and the money for the next $459.6 billion military budget. Their latest achievement was to provide enough votes in support of Bush to legalize warrantless wiretapping for "foreign suspects whose communications pass through the United States." Enough Democrats joined Republicans to make this a 227-183 victory for Bush. The Democrats control the House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi could have stopped the bill in its tracks if she'd wanted to. But she didn't. The Democrats' game is to go along with the White House agenda while stirring up dust storms to blind the base to their failure to bring the troops home or restore constitutional government.
--Alexander Cockburn
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Are Your Cell Phone and Laptop Bad for Your Health?
In the wee hours of July 14, a 45-year-old Australian named John Patterson climbed into a tank and drove it through the streets of Sydney, knocking down six cell-phone towers and an electrical substation along the way. Patterson, a former telecommunications worker, reportedly had mapped out the locations of the towers, which he claimed were harming his health.
In recent years, protesters in England and Northern Ireland have brought down cell towers by sawing, removing bolts, and pulling with tow trucks and ropes. In one such case, locals bought the structure and sold off pieces of it as souvenirs to help with funding of future protests. In attempts to fend off objections to towers in Germany, some churches have taken to disguising them as giant crucifixes.
Opposition to towers usually finds more socially acceptable outlets, and protests are being heard more often than ever in meetings of city councils, planning commissions, and other government bodies. This summer alone, citizen efforts to block cell towers have sprouted in, among a host of other places, including California, New Jersey, Maryland, Illinois, North Dakota and north of the border in Ontario and British Columbia. Transmitters are already banned from the roofs of schools in many districts.
For years, towers have been even less welcome in the United Kingdom, where this summer has seen disputes across the country.
Most opponents cite not only aesthetics but also concerns over potential health effects of electromagnetic (EM) fields generated by the towers. Once ridiculed as crackpots and Luddites, they're starting to get backup from the scientific community.
It's not just cell phones they're worried about. The Tottenham area of London is considering the suspension of all wireless technology in its schools. Last year, Fred Gilbert, a respected scientist and president of Lakehead University in Ontario, banned wireless internet on his campus. And resident groups in San Francisco are currently battling Earthlink and Google over a proposed city-wide Wi-Fi system.
--Stan Cox
In recent years, protesters in England and Northern Ireland have brought down cell towers by sawing, removing bolts, and pulling with tow trucks and ropes. In one such case, locals bought the structure and sold off pieces of it as souvenirs to help with funding of future protests. In attempts to fend off objections to towers in Germany, some churches have taken to disguising them as giant crucifixes.
Opposition to towers usually finds more socially acceptable outlets, and protests are being heard more often than ever in meetings of city councils, planning commissions, and other government bodies. This summer alone, citizen efforts to block cell towers have sprouted in, among a host of other places, including California, New Jersey, Maryland, Illinois, North Dakota and north of the border in Ontario and British Columbia. Transmitters are already banned from the roofs of schools in many districts.
For years, towers have been even less welcome in the United Kingdom, where this summer has seen disputes across the country.
Most opponents cite not only aesthetics but also concerns over potential health effects of electromagnetic (EM) fields generated by the towers. Once ridiculed as crackpots and Luddites, they're starting to get backup from the scientific community.
It's not just cell phones they're worried about. The Tottenham area of London is considering the suspension of all wireless technology in its schools. Last year, Fred Gilbert, a respected scientist and president of Lakehead University in Ontario, banned wireless internet on his campus. And resident groups in San Francisco are currently battling Earthlink and Google over a proposed city-wide Wi-Fi system.
--Stan Cox
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Pro-Life
Many Christians consider themselves “pro-life” (i.e. anti-abortion), but how many of us ever consider what being truly pro-life implies? To be wholly pro-life means to be willing to advocate for and minister to all vulnerable members of society—not just the unborn but also the women who fear bringing new life into the world; not just the physically and cognitively handicapped but also the ill and the elderly; and what about the poor, the neglected, the abused, and even those souls who are so despairing of existence that they desire to end it?
As Christians who worship the Creator God, we serve the ultimate Pro-Lifer, the Lover and Giver of life itself. We have an opportunity to show the world what being completely pro-life means: loving our neighbor as ourselves. Let’s encourage each other to see every member of society as our neighbor. And let’s remember that, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus didn’t answer the young lawyer’s question about who his neighbor was—instead, he turned the question around and essentially asked what kind of neighbor the young man himself was. Let us invite Christ to search our hearts, too, so that we may discover what kind of neighbor we are, and how we can become the kind that God wants us to be.
--Kristyn Komarnicki
As Christians who worship the Creator God, we serve the ultimate Pro-Lifer, the Lover and Giver of life itself. We have an opportunity to show the world what being completely pro-life means: loving our neighbor as ourselves. Let’s encourage each other to see every member of society as our neighbor. And let’s remember that, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus didn’t answer the young lawyer’s question about who his neighbor was—instead, he turned the question around and essentially asked what kind of neighbor the young man himself was. Let us invite Christ to search our hearts, too, so that we may discover what kind of neighbor we are, and how we can become the kind that God wants us to be.
--Kristyn Komarnicki
Media Coverage
Why has so much of the media coverage of the mine collapse focused on folksy Bob Murray, the stalwart and kindly mine owner, instead of mining mogul Robert Murray, whose company has 19 mines in five states which have incurred millions of dollar in fines for safety violations over the last 18 months, and who may have been at least partly responsible for decisions that led to the disaster?
--Arianna Huffington
--Arianna Huffington
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Emergent Church
[The "emergent church"] probably mean[s] something different to everyone you would ask, but from my perspective, the “emergent church” is an ongoing conversation about how new times call for new churches, and that the mortar-happy church of the last half of the 20th century is ill-poised to face the promises and perils of the future. In fact, attempting to define the “emergent church” betrays the essence of the movement because the emergent consciousness questions the notion that there is such a thing. Rather, there are only individual emerging churches that are missional in orientation that grow out of the indigenous soils in which they are planted. In other words, no two emerging churches are alike.
Pews are now antiques. Since the focus of emerging churches is on community, their worship space is flexible. Some have tables and chairs. Others have a more living room look and feel. But emerging churches are proving to be very surprising. For example, hymns are now back. And the church’s liturgy and Eucharist are being rediscovered in creative and compelling ways. A lot of emerging churches are very “smells and bells” in their worship. Whatever the diversity of spiritual practices, the key words for emerging churches are incarnational, missional, and relational.
--Len Sweet
Pews are now antiques. Since the focus of emerging churches is on community, their worship space is flexible. Some have tables and chairs. Others have a more living room look and feel. But emerging churches are proving to be very surprising. For example, hymns are now back. And the church’s liturgy and Eucharist are being rediscovered in creative and compelling ways. A lot of emerging churches are very “smells and bells” in their worship. Whatever the diversity of spiritual practices, the key words for emerging churches are incarnational, missional, and relational.
--Len Sweet
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Not About Vick
I'm not here to talk about Vick but, rather, about why certain of my readers so dearly want me to talk about him. I get these e-mails, you see. Anybody who's been a black columnist longer than 15 minutes knows the kind I'm talking about. They arrive reliably as the tides any time some African American gets in trouble. Inevitably, some Caucasian gentlemen will dare you to lay into this individual the way you ''always'' do white guys.
I'm not talking about the polite requests (''What's your take on this?''), but about the sneering demands. The "reasoning'' seems to be that black malefactors get a pass from black pundits who'll tear a white guy a creative new orifice when he misbehaves. So the black pundit must prove himself to the white guy by tearing some black embarrassment to humanity a hole exactly equal in size and shape. That reasoning is long on smugness, long on entitlement, long on everything except, you know, fact.
Frankly, I doubt Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, Whitney Houston, Tim Hardaway, Isaiah Washington, New Orleans DA Eddie Jordan, Ray Nagin, the NAACP, Ice Cube, 50 Cent, Ludacris, the family of Martin Luther King, Jr. and other black folk who have been ripped and ridiculed in this space would agree that I give black folks a free ride. But again, we're not talking about facts here. For that matter, we're not talking about me, nor even about journalism.
No, what we're talking about is that some white people -- emphasize: some -- seem to feel they have a perfect right to demand, overtly and repeatedly, that a black professional prove himself to them. We're talking about the realization, as a black professional, that for them, you will forever be on probation, your mastery of your profession, your right to be there, constantly subject to demands for verification.
We're talking about the black lawyer second-guessed by the client who never spent a day in law school. About the black money manager whose clients won't accept her advice until it is seconded by her white partner. About the black cardiologist whose diagnoses are rejected by patients unwilling to accept them from a doctor of her gender and race.
And yes, I know some people would argue that this is only to be expected, that the very existence of affirmative action entitles white people to question the competence of black ones. That's a cop-out. I've said it before, I'll say it again: If affirmative action is defined as giving preferential treatment on the basis of gender or race, then no one in this country has received more than white men.
Still, though the rationalization is lame, it serves a purpose: It deflects us from thinking too hard how it must feel to learn that, even after years of education and apprenticeship, after the hard slog of working your way up and waiting your turn, some people will still find it problematic to accept you as a professional. Will still raise a hoop and regard you with an expectant stare.
--Leonard Pitts
I'm not talking about the polite requests (''What's your take on this?''), but about the sneering demands. The "reasoning'' seems to be that black malefactors get a pass from black pundits who'll tear a white guy a creative new orifice when he misbehaves. So the black pundit must prove himself to the white guy by tearing some black embarrassment to humanity a hole exactly equal in size and shape. That reasoning is long on smugness, long on entitlement, long on everything except, you know, fact.
Frankly, I doubt Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, Whitney Houston, Tim Hardaway, Isaiah Washington, New Orleans DA Eddie Jordan, Ray Nagin, the NAACP, Ice Cube, 50 Cent, Ludacris, the family of Martin Luther King, Jr. and other black folk who have been ripped and ridiculed in this space would agree that I give black folks a free ride. But again, we're not talking about facts here. For that matter, we're not talking about me, nor even about journalism.
No, what we're talking about is that some white people -- emphasize: some -- seem to feel they have a perfect right to demand, overtly and repeatedly, that a black professional prove himself to them. We're talking about the realization, as a black professional, that for them, you will forever be on probation, your mastery of your profession, your right to be there, constantly subject to demands for verification.
We're talking about the black lawyer second-guessed by the client who never spent a day in law school. About the black money manager whose clients won't accept her advice until it is seconded by her white partner. About the black cardiologist whose diagnoses are rejected by patients unwilling to accept them from a doctor of her gender and race.
And yes, I know some people would argue that this is only to be expected, that the very existence of affirmative action entitles white people to question the competence of black ones. That's a cop-out. I've said it before, I'll say it again: If affirmative action is defined as giving preferential treatment on the basis of gender or race, then no one in this country has received more than white men.
Still, though the rationalization is lame, it serves a purpose: It deflects us from thinking too hard how it must feel to learn that, even after years of education and apprenticeship, after the hard slog of working your way up and waiting your turn, some people will still find it problematic to accept you as a professional. Will still raise a hoop and regard you with an expectant stare.
--Leonard Pitts
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