The Bleached Mausoleum

My suggestions for the Graphic Images on cigarette packs

2010-11-10T13:01:00.000-08:00

Pics came from here and here.
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How to overwhelm Uncle Sam's entitlement system

2010-05-10T04:48:00.000-07:00

We would use....THE TROJAN PINATA ! ! !

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The Libertarian Five

2009-08-23T22:39:00.001-07:00

LEAVE EVERYONE THE HELL ALONE

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Roy Moore

2009-06-29T21:22:00.000-07:00

....Crazier than a shit-house rat.

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Texas Chapel Choir Volunteers with Mountain Outreach

2009-06-29T19:55:00.000-07:00

Texas Chapel Choir Volunteers with Mountain Outreach

While on tour, Broadway Baptist Chapel Choir scheduled one of their target missions for Williamsburg, KY, helping the construction ministry Mountain Outreach in completion of a new home for an underprivileged family. Traveling from Forthworth, TX, the 40 members, containing 30 youth,has made many other stops including Atlanta, GA where they sang the National Anthem for the Braves vs. Marlins Baseball Game all the way to Corbin, KY where they participated in fellowship with the First Baptist Church of Corbin.
Spending the week of June 27 - July 1, this is the choir's first time working with Mountain Outreach. However, Minister to Youth Fran Patterson reports that this is not the choir's first experience with missionary work, "Sometimes some of the other mission work we do, there's not a final result when we leave, but there will be something tangible when we leave here, and I think that will help the youth have a better appreciation for what they do."
The group has participated in many other missionaries including Vacation Bible Schools across the country, "We do a variety of different things when we are on tour, but to know that we are going to be part of a group that will build an entire house for a family to move into is very exciting," says Patterson.
Patterson says she is hopeful in returning for future Mountain Outreach projects; however she is considering bringing family groups to work in order to promote activity throughout the church.
The Mountain Outreach program started in 1982 when a local Cumberland student decided to show a friend though the mountains of southeastern Kentucky. The friend, who came from a middle-class family, was shocked to see the amount of poverty and lack of running water, electricity and sanitation. Deciding that something needed to be done, the two students started helping others improve their living condition, which formed what we know now as Mountain Outreach.

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First Celebrity Swine Flu Death

2009-05-13T20:26:00.000-07:00

Miss Piggy could not be contacted for comment.

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Local Bloggers Start A Global Conversation, by Aman Batheja

2008-11-03T18:06:00.000-08:00

Local bloggers start a global conversation
By AMAN BATHEJA
abatheja@star-telegram.com

Move over, Bill O’Reilly. Step aside, Keith Olbermann.
This election season has shown that one doesn’t need a TV show to passionately push a point of view.
Whether you call them pundits, political observers or typing heads, political bloggers have ensured that the public discourse this election season has been the most wide-ranging and multifaceted in American history.
Local bloggers, some of whom had shied away from politics before this year, say writing about the elections has attracted more readers while forcing them to do research on the issues and gain a richer understanding of their own beliefs.
"I would have never known what an earmark was before, but now it’s ingrained in my psyche," said blogger Mark Pakulak of Runaway Bay, who writes about the presidential race on his blog, The Idiot Speaketh.
Local but global
Bloggers made a splash on the national political scene in 2004, when they helped break several big stories in the presidential race between George W. Bush and John Kerry. Since then, millions of opinionated people have joined in on the global conversation.
"It’s just really cool to know that there are people in Israel, Australia and London who log on to my mad ravings every day," said Allen Patterson, a shipping manager from Fort Worth who often writes about religion and his libertarian politics on his blog, The Whited Sepulchre.
Many blogs have focused more on politics this year even though they may not have started out that way.
John Rost, a maintenance supervisor from Arlington, launched his blog, A Keyboard and a .45, in 2006 to write about his passion for gun rights. More recently, Rost has explored the presidential candidates’ positions on guns, including conducting an interview via e-mail with California Rep. Duncan Hunter when he was a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination. He has written several posts in recent days urging readers to vote for John McCain.
"Right now it’s real political because we’re in a political season, but most of the time, I try to keep it about guns," Rost said.
Barry Green of Decatur, a former district attorney for Wise and Jack counties, regularly peppers local and national politics into his blog between photos of women in skimpy clothes and random musings.
"It tends to spur a lot of comments if you put up anything political in nature," said Green, who launched his blog, Liberally Lean from the Land of Dairy Queen, about three years ago. "Even those that disagree, I think they tend to come back more than those that agree."
Now that they have a taste for punditry, some find they can’t get enough.
In October, Pakulak said, he tried to take a vacation from posting political news on his blog. He didn’t last three days, he said.
"There was too much stuff bursting to get out," he said.
Pakulak’s blogging initially tended to focus on anything he found funny. That changed in August when McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. The disabled stay-at-home father has since devoted most of his blog posts to the presidential race and mocking Palin in particular.
"My ammunition will go way down if McCain doesn’t win," said Pakulak, who supports Obama.
Hot-button topics
Along with giving millions a voice online, many bloggers say writing about political issues helps them better understand their own beliefs. Some, like the Denton County writer behind the blog Political Virgin, find that blogging anonymously lets them explore their thoughts more freely.
"It allows me to work out my own views without having to defend those views to people in my daily life," the blogger, who asked that her name not be used, wrote in an e-mail.
The constant give-and-take with visitors who post comments often pushes bloggers into debates over their positions. Several bloggers recalled posts about hot-button issues — evolution, healthcare or the economy — that sparked dozens of responses.
"Sometimes it strengthens your view. Sometimes it changes it," said Steve Southwell, of Lewisville, a computer programmer and the lead writer of Whos Playin?, which covers local and national politics. "In the end we disagree, but hopefully we keep it respectful."
Though the elections have provided plenty of fodder, some bloggers will be happy to be done writing about the campaigns.
Jim Carson, a former Keller city councilman, launched Keller City Limits back in 2005 to focus on city issues. Posts about local and national races, most written by another blogger to the site, have attracted plenty of readers, he said. However, he looks forward to the blog regaining its prime function as "a sounding board" for local residents talking about local issues, he said.
"Ideas that would not get heard otherwise get put up regularly on the blog," Carson said. "Even if those ideas get rejected, at least they were considered."

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I am not the president, I just play one on TV

2008-10-30T18:16:00.000-07:00

This is my little sister's editorial published in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Saturday October 25, 2008.

I am not the president, I just play one on TV.
Ah . . . looking presidential in the debate season, or better yet, looking presidential without actually being president.
Personally, I think appearances and images are overrated. Does anyone recall George W. Bush at his best? He struck just the right note days after 9-11. Standing at ground zero, holding a bullhorn in one hand, his arm slung around a crusty firefighter, giving words of encouragement and gratitude to the emergency workers, he created perhaps his best presidential pose — he was the common-man president. He was the one who would guide us through scary times; he would make our shores safe; he would protect our children.
As even his supporters will tell you, it hasn’t worked out so well.
Appearing presidential in peaceful, good times is easy enough. You go to dangerous places, troubled lands. You meet with other presidents, you visit soldiers; you stand in front of flags and wave while climbing into helicopters.
But these are not normal times.
We are embroiled in our first full-scale global financial crisis. Yes, we have had to deal with global weapons, global warming, global villages, but this is our first economic global crisis.
In the 1950s we had to transform our way of seeing the world. Our world shrank with the advent of nuclear weapons. Oceans became ponds once our enemies had nuclear warheads.
In the 1990s we had to alter our way of seeing the environment. Our skies have been reduced to toxic ozones.
The pollution of Asia, of the United States, of Russia changes polar ice caps thousands and thousands of miles away.
Today we are in our first global financial crisis. Wall Street doesn’t merely affect Main Street; it affects Hauptsrasse, Rue Principale, Via Principale — Main streets the world over.
The economy has become the issue of this election. After each debate, pundits declare that they have yet to hear the knockout punch, the defining moment: "You, sir, are no Jack Kennedy"; "There you go again . . ."; Al Gore invading George W. Bush’s personal space. These moments have yet to happen.
Certainly this is not the climate for pithy statements. But, more telling, the crisis, and its possible solution, is too complex for a sound bite. Subprime loans, lack of regulation, esoteric derivatives; this is not the language of the masses.
So the candidates are left in new territory. How to look presidential when the weapons we face are not fueled by plutonium, but by credit-default swaps. Neither candidate has completely mastered the moment. The Straight Talk Express is not fluid in Financial Geek Speak. And the poetry of Obama, "We are the ones we have been waiting for; we are the change we seek," does little to calm voters who are losing their retirement.
Their words will not put liquidity back into the market.
The best they can do, perhaps, is address the two dominate emotions from their electorate: fear and anger. McCain seems at his best when he can express the anger of U.S. citizens, when he can point fingers and lay blame. Conversely, Obama cannot risk being overly angry lest he come across as militant. He seems better equipped to address our fears. In body language, tone and presence, he comes across as the more reassuring choice.
Over the next 10 days, as these two men rehearse their lines, choose their ties, apply their makeup, Americans can only hope each man wants to govern, wants to restore moral authority to our country, wants to be president and not just play one on TV.

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Stanley Kurtz on William Ayers and Barack Obama

2008-08-21T17:56:00.000-07:00

Chicago Annenberg Challenge Shutdown? A cover-up in the making?
By Stanley Kurtz
The problem of Barack Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers will not go away. Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn were terrorists for the notorious Weather Underground during the turbulent 1960s, turning fugitive when a bomb — designed to kill army officers in New Jersey — accidentally exploded in a New York townhouse. Prior to that, Ayers and his cohorts succeeded in bombing the Pentagon. Ayers and Dohrn remain unrepentant for their terrorist past. Ayers was pictured in a 2001 article for Chicago magazine, stomping on an American flag, and told the New York Times just before 9/11 that the notion of the United States as a just and fair and decent place “makes me want to puke.” Although Obama actually launched his political career at an event at Ayers’s and Dohrn’s home, Obama has dismissed Ayers as just “a guy who lives in my neighborhood,” and “not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.” For his part, Ayers refuses to discuss his relationship with Obama.Although the press has been notably lax about pursuing the matter, the full story of the Obama-Ayers relationship calls the truth of Obama’s account seriously into question. When Obama made his first run for political office, articles in both the Chicago Defender and the Hyde Park Herald featured among his qualifications his position as chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a foundation where Ayers was a founder and guiding force. Obama assumed the Annenberg board chairmanship only months before his first run for office, and almost certainly received the job at the behest of Bill Ayers. During Obama’s time as Annenberg board chairman, Ayers’s own education projects received substantial funding. Indeed, during its first year, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge struggled with significant concerns about possible conflicts of interest. With a writ to aid Chicago’s public schools, the Annenberg challenge played a deeply political role in Chicago’s education wars, and as Annenberg board chairman, Obama clearly aligned himself with Ayers’s radical views on education issues. With Obama heading up the board and Ayers heading up the other key operating body of the Annenberg Challenge, the two would necessarily have had a close working relationship for years (therefore “exchanging ideas on a regular basis”). So when Ayers and Dorhn hosted that kickoff for the first Obama campaign, it was not a random happenstance, but merely further evidence of a close and ongoing political partnership. Of course, all of this clearly contradicts Obama’s dismissal of the significance of his relationship with Ayers.This much we know from the public record, but a large cache of documents housed in the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), is likely to flesh out the story. That document cache contains the internal files of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. The records in question are extensive, consisting of 132 boxes, containing 947 file folders, a total of about 70 linear feet of material. Not only would these files illuminate the working relationship between Obama and Bill Ayers, they would also provide significant insight into a web of ties linking Obama to various radical organizations, including Obama-approved foundation gifts to political allies. Obama’s leadership style and abilities are also sure to be illuminated by the documents in question.Cover-Up?Unfortunately, I don’t yet have access to the documents. The Special Collections section of the Richard J. Daley Library agreed to let me read them, but just before I boarded my flight to Chicago, the top library officials mysteriously intervened to bar access. Circumstances strongly suggest the likelihood that Bill Ayers himself may have played a pivotal role in this denial. Ayers has long taught at UIC, where the Chicago Annenberg Challenge offices were housed, rent-free. Ayers likely arranged for the files of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge to be housed in the UIC library, and may well have been consulted during my unsuccessful struggle to gain access to the documents. Let me, then, explain in greater detail what the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) records are, and how I have been blocked from seeing them.Initially, as I said, library officials said that I could examine the CAC records. I received this permission both over the phone and in writing. The subsequent denial of access came with a series of evolving explanations. Is this a politically motivated cover-up? Although at this stage it is impossible to know, it is hard to avoid the suspicion. I also have some concerns for the security of the documents, although I have no specific evidence that their security is endangered. In any case, given the relative dearth of information about Barack Obama’s political past, there is a powerful public interest in the swift release of these documents.Access Approved When I learned that the CAC records were housed at UIC Library, I phoned and was assured by a reference librarian that, although I have no UIC affiliation, I would be permitted to examine the records. He suggested I phone the Special Collections section of the library and set up an appointment with a special collections librarian. This reference librarian also ran a search for me and discovered that, in addition to the CAC records, one file folder in the UIC Chancellor’s Office of Community Relations archive contains information on CAC from 1995.I then spoke with a special-collections librarian and was again assured that I would have access to the CAC records. I was told that, while I could not personally make copies of the material, I could identify documents of interest and have copies made by the library, for a fee. I set up an appointment to meet with the special-collections librarian, and she suggested that I e-mail her the information on the CAC-related chancellor’s documents the reference librarian had discovered, and confirm my appointment time. After I did so, this special-collections librarian forwarded my message to a graduate assistant.The graduate assistant then e-mailed to let me know that, while the CAC collection had been “processed,” the “finding aid” had not yet been put online. (The “finding aid” is a detailed document of over 60 pages specifying the topics covered by each of the 947 folders in the collection, and showing which boxes hold which folders.) Because the finding aid was not yet online, the graduate assistant attached a copy to her e-mail, inviting me to browse it and identify documents of particular interest, so that the library could have some of the CAC material out and ready for me immediately upon my arrival. I wrote back indicating that I would like to see the single CAC-related folder from the chancellor’s archive, and further identifying 14 boxes from the main body of CAC records containing folders of special interest. Having received clear and repeated representations from the UIC library staff that I would be granted access to the CAC records, I arranged a trip to Chicago.Access DeniedWhat follows is more detail than some readers may want to know, but it seems important to get it on record. If a body of material potentially damaging to Barack Obama is being improperly embargoed by a library, the details matter.Just before my plane took off, I received an e-mail from the special-collections librarian informing me that she had “checked our collection file” and determined that “access to the collection is closed.” I would be permitted to view the single CAC-related file from the Office of the Chancellor records, but nothing from the CAC records proper. I quickly wrote back, expressing surprise and disappointment. I noted that I had arranged my trip based on the library’s assurances of access, and followed up with questions about whether access was being denied because I was unaffiliated with UIC. I also asked who had authority over access to the collection, suggesting that I might be able to contact them and request permission to view it.After arriving in Chicago, I found a message, not from the special-collections librarian, but from Ann C. Weller, professor and head, Special Collections Department. In answer to my question of who had authority over access to the collection, Weller said, that “the decision was made by me” in consultation with the library director. Weller stated that no one currently has access to the collection and added that: “The Collection is closed because it has come to our attention that there is restricted material in the collection. Once the collection has been processed it will be open to any patron interested in viewing it.”I responded to Weller by recounting the clear and repeated representations I had received from library staff that I would be granted access to the collection, adding that I had arranged my trip in large part because of these assurances. I then noted that I had studied the CAC finding aid with considerable care. It was clear from that finding aid, I said, that only five out of the 947 folders were in any way restricted. Four folders, containing auditor’s reports, where clearly marked, in bold type, “THESE FOLDERS ARE RESTRICTED VIA ANNENBERG CHALLENGE until further notice.” A fifth folder, containing records of eight CAC Board of Directors meetings in 1995, when CAC was first set up, had a notation nearby with the word, “Consent.” It would be a simple matter, I said, to pull these five folders, allow me access to the remaining 942 folders, and contact the relevant authority for consent to view the records of the 1995 board meetings. After all, I added, Weller herself had said that, other than the restricted folders, the collection ought to be open to all patrons. I also pointed out to Weller that she had not quite entirely answered my earlier question about who has authority over access to the collection. So I asked who, precisely, holds the authority to bar or permit access to the restricted folders. I added the following thought: “Libraries, of course, exist, not to restrict information, but to make it available to the public. I would hate to think that UIC library was doing anything less than all it could to permit public access to these important materials.”Weller replied to this message by dropping the restricted documents issue and saying instead that the donor of the CAC records “has alerted us to the fact that we do not have a signed deed of gift.” According to Weller, this means that UIC’s library has no legal right to make the material available. The donor, said Weller, is now working with UIC library to resolve the problem, and “we hope to be able to provide access within the next few weeks.”Replying to Weller, I briefly noted some elements of her account that I found puzzling. I added that Weller had still not answered my question about who the donor is, and/or who holds controlling authority over the collection. I closed by alerting the library to my intention to come in that day to examine the single CAC-related folder from the chancellor’s records that I did have permission to see. Later that day, I examined that one folder, took notes, and asked for the entire folder’s contents to be copied and mailed to me. I have received no further reply to my reiterated question about the identity of the donor.Shifting Story There are a number of disturbing elements to this story. Recall that, according to the graduate assistant, the collection had, in fact, already been “processed.” Yet Weller’s initial message to me used the unprocessed state of the collection as a reason for restricting access. And when I pointed out how easy it would be to remove the restricted files, Weller quickly came up with yet another reason to block access. At the moment, I have no way of verifying Weller’s claim that the library has no signed deed of gift, but how likely is it that a collection of such size and importance would have been housed in the library, and listed in publicly accessible international library catalogues, without this very basic detail having been attended to? It’s also puzzling that UIC now raises the absence of any formal agreement with the donor — and thus the absence of any formal restrictions by the donor — as a reason to deny access to a collection placed in library custody precisely to facilitate public access.The question of who the donor is and/or who holds formal authority over access to the collection, is also critical. It’s notable that after trying to ascertain this information several times, I have still not received a proper reply. One obvious question is whether Bill Ayers and perhaps even Barack Obama himself may be connected to the donor. Obama began his CAC board chairmanship in early 1995, and stepped down from the chairmanship in late 1999, though he remained on the board until CAC phased itself out of existence in 2001. At that time, CAC handed over its remaining assets to a permanent new institution, the Chicago Public Education Fund. Obama served on this Fund’s “Leadership Council,” from 2001 through 2004, overlapping with council service by Bill Ayers’s father, Thomas, and Ayers’s brother, John. Bill Ayers, as noted, was a CAC founder, its guiding force, and co-chaired CAC’s powerful “collaborative.” CAC appears to have been housed at UIC because of Ayers’s connection to the school. So informally, and perhaps formally, it would appear that both Ayers and Obama may be closely connected to the donor of the CAC records. In fact, Ayers himself may be the donor. In raising her belated point about the absence of a signed deed of gift, Ann Weller indicated that she had been alerted to the fact by the donor, and would henceforth be working with the donor to provide access “within the next few weeks.” One can at least speculate that Weller might have been in touch with her UIC colleague, Bill Ayers, either because he actually holds formal authority as donor, or because he is granted de facto authority over the papers by whatever entity has formal control. One can also speculate that, as former CAC board chair, board member, and as an official of CAC’s successor organization, Barack Obama himself might have had, or may still have, some sort of formal or informal role in this process. Could this help explain why I have never received a clear answer to my question about the identity of the donor?Obama and AnnenbergI expect to follow up this piece with an examination of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and what it suggests about Obama’s personal, financial, and ideological ties with Bill Ayers. I will also discuss what Obama’s CAC connection might suggest about Obama’s links to various radical groups, about the political character of his service at various foundations, and about his leadership record. I treated some of these issues in “Inside Obama’s Acorn,” and have just explored them, using new material, in an article in the current issue of National Review, entitled “Senator Stealth.” Further information on the Obama-Ayers connection can be found in “Barack Obama’s Lost Years.” Of course there is no substitute for access to the CAC records, but at over 60 pages, the extremely detailed “finding aid” to the CAC records by itself provides important new information that helps extend our understanding of Obama’s political past. I will shortly have more to say about what the finding aid reveals. And while there were no major revelations in it, the contents of the folder from the chancellor’s archive are also of some interest. We already know a good deal about Obama’s service at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. That information paints a disturbing picture, and one sharply at odds with Obama’s claim that Bill Ayers was just “a guy who lives in my neighborhood.” A number of bloggers, including, for example, Tom Maguire, at Just One Minute, have done excellent work on the CAC issue. (See here and here.) But the key reporting on the Obama-Ayers connection via the Chicago Annenberg Challenge has been done by Steve Diamond, at Global Labor and Politics. (See especially this important post of June 18, 2008.) Sad to say, the mainstream media has almost entirely ignored the issues so powerfully raised by Diamond, and discussed at length by various bloggers, even though Obama’s service at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge raises serious questions about the veracity of his account of his relationship with Ayers. Access to the CAC records promises to provide a treasure trove of documentary evidence fronting on this and many other critically important issues, from Obama’s policy views, to his political-ideological alliances, to his leadership abilities.Access and Security There will be time for substantive discussion later. The immediate concern is to swiftly gain public access to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge records, and to ensure the security of these documents in the meantime. Despite UIC library’s claim that it hopes to be able to provide access within the next few weeks, the apparently shifting and contradictory character of their reasons for denying access have left me with a low level of confidence in these assurances.I intend to continue my efforts to examine the Chicago Annenberg Challenge records, to take notes, and to order extensive photocopies, to be mailed to me and/or received personally by me, in a timely fashion. I call on the UIC library to take extraordinary steps to secure the documents until such time as this issue is resolved. The public needs clear assurances that none of the CAC records have been, or will be, damaged or removed. I call on UIC library to reveal the name of the donor of the CAC records and/or to specify the person, persons, or body that currently hold authority over these records. I also call on Barack Obama to voice support for the swift release of these records.Libraries are designed, not to unduly restrict information, but to make it available to an interested public. This country is now mere months away from a momentous presidential election in which a central issue is the political background and character of a relatively young and unknown senator. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge records almost surely contain important information on Senator Obama’s political associations, policy views, ideological leanings, and leadership ability. His role as board chairman of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge is the most important executive experience Obama has held to date. Given this, the public has an urgent right to know what is in the Chicago Annenberg Challenge records.If you agree, then please write to the president of the University of Illinois system, B. Joseph White. Ask him to take immediate public steps to insure the safety of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge records, to release the identity of the Collection’s donor, and above all to swiftly make the Collection available to me, and to the public at large. You can find an email link for White here. Telephone, fax, and mailing addresses for White’s offices can be found here. — Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.— Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

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The only other nation state that could do something comparable to the Beijing 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony

2008-08-09T06:03:00.000-07:00

The Vatican.
Yes, The Vatican.

1. They know how to put on a show.
2. Plenty of money.
3. And if the Pope says to make it happen....

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Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Ressurection

2008-07-05T21:28:00.000-07:00

Here's the entire NYT article on the stone tablet that may have predicted the resurrection of a Messiah....

Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection

By ETHAN BRONNER
Published: July 6, 2008
JERUSALEM — A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days.

When David Jeselsohn bought an ancient tablet, above, he was unaware of its significance.
If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus, since it suggests that the story of his death and resurrection was not unique but part of a recognized Jewish tradition at the time.
The tablet, probably found near the Dead Sea in Jordan according to some scholars who have studied it, is a rare example of a stone with ink writings from that era — in essence, a Dead Sea Scroll on stone.
It is written, not engraved, across two neat columns, similar to columns in a Torah. But the stone is broken, and some of the text is faded, meaning that much of what it says is open to debate.
Still, its authenticity has so far faced no challenge, so its role in helping to understand the roots of Christianity in the devastating political crisis faced by the Jews of the time seems likely to increase.
Daniel Boyarin, a professor of Talmudic culture at the University of California at Berkeley, said that the stone was part of a growing body of evidence suggesting that Jesus could be best understood through a close reading of the Jewish history of his day.
“Some Christians will find it shocking — a challenge to the uniqueness of their theology — while others will be comforted by the idea of it being a traditional part of Judaism,” Mr. Boyarin said.
Given the highly charged atmosphere surrounding all Jesus-era artifacts and writings, both in the general public and in the fractured and fiercely competitive scholarly community, as well as the concern over forgery and charlatanism, it will probably be some time before the tablet’s contribution is fully assessed. It has been around 60 years since the Dead Sea Scrolls were uncovered, and they continue to generate enormous controversy regarding their authors and meaning.
The scrolls, documents found in the Qumran caves of the West Bank, contain some of the only known surviving copies of biblical writings from before the first century A.D. In addition to quoting from key books of the Bible, the scrolls describe a variety of practices and beliefs of a Jewish sect at the time of Jesus.
How representative the descriptions are and what they tell us about the era are still strongly debated. For example, a question that arises is whether the authors of the scrolls were members of a monastic sect or in fact mainstream. A conference marking 60 years since the discovery of the scrolls will begin on Sunday at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, where the stone, and the debate over whether it speaks of a resurrected messiah, as one iconoclastic scholar believes, also will be discussed.
Oddly, the stone is not really a new discovery. It was found about a decade ago and bought from a Jordanian antiquities dealer by an Israeli-Swiss collector who kept it in his Zurich home. When an Israeli scholar examined it closely a few years ago and wrote a paper on it last year, interest began to rise. There is now a spate of scholarly articles on the stone, with several due to be published in the coming months.
“I couldn’t make much out of it when I got it,” said David Jeselsohn, the owner, who is himself an expert in antiquities. “I didn’t realize how significant it was until I showed it to Ada Yardeni, who specializes in Hebrew writing, a few years ago. She was overwhelmed. ‘You have got a Dead Sea Scroll on stone,’ she told me.”
Much of the text, a vision of the apocalypse transmitted by the angel Gabriel, draws on the Old Testament, especially the prophets Daniel, Zechariah and Haggai.
Ms. Yardeni, who analyzed the stone along with Binyamin Elitzur, is an expert on Hebrew script, especially of the era of King Herod, who died in 4 B.C. The two of them published a long analysis of the stone more than a year ago in Cathedra, a Hebrew-language quarterly devoted to the history and archaeology of Israel, and said that, based on the shape of the script and the language, the text dated from the late first century B.C.
A chemical examination by Yuval Goren, a professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University who specializes in the verification of ancient artifacts, has been submitted to a peer-review journal. He declined to give details of his analysis until publication, but he said that he knew of no reason to doubt the stone’s authenticity.
It was in Cathedra that Israel Knohl, an iconoclastic professor of Bible studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, first heard of the stone, which Ms. Yardeni and Mr. Elitzur dubbed “Gabriel’s Revelation,” also the title of their article. Mr. Knohl posited in a book published in 2000 the idea of a suffering messiah before Jesus, using a variety of rabbinic and early apocalyptic literature as well as the Dead Sea Scrolls. But his theory did not shake the world of Christology as he had hoped, partly because he had no textual evidence from before Jesus.
When he read “Gabriel’s Revelation,” he said, he believed he saw what he needed to solidify his thesis, and he has published his argument in the latest issue of The Journal of Religion.
Mr. Knohl is part of a larger scholarly movement that focuses on the political atmosphere in Jesus’ day as an important explanation of that era’s messianic spirit. As he notes, after the death of Herod, Jewish rebels sought to throw off the yoke of the Rome-supported monarchy, so the rise of a major Jewish independence fighter could take on messianic overtones.
In Mr. Knohl’s interpretation, the specific messianic figure embodied on the stone could be a man named Simon who was slain by a commander in the Herodian army, according to the first-century historian Josephus. The writers of the stone’s passages were probably Simon’s followers, Mr. Knohl contends.
The slaying of Simon, or any case of the suffering messiah, is seen as a necessary step toward national salvation, he says, pointing to lines 19 through 21 of the tablet — “In three days you will know that evil will be defeated by justice” — and other lines that speak of blood and slaughter as pathways to justice.
To make his case about the importance of the stone, Mr. Knohl focuses especially on line 80, which begins clearly with the words “L’shloshet yamin,” meaning “in three days.” The next word of the line was deemed partially illegible by Ms. Yardeni and Mr. Elitzur, but Mr. Knohl, who is an expert on the language of the Bible and Talmud, says the word is “hayeh,” or “live” in the imperative. It has an unusual spelling, but it is one in keeping with the era.
Two more hard-to-read words come later, and Mr. Knohl said he believed that he had deciphered them as well, so that the line reads, “In three days you shall live, I, Gabriel, command you.”
To whom is the archangel speaking? The next line says “Sar hasarin,” or prince of princes. Since the Book of Daniel, one of the primary sources for the Gabriel text, speaks of Gabriel and of “a prince of princes,” Mr. Knohl contends that the stone’s writings are about the death of a leader of the Jews who will be resurrected in three days.
He says further that such a suffering messiah is very different from the traditional Jewish image of the messiah as a triumphal, powerful descendant of King David.
“This should shake our basic view of Christianity,” he said as he sat in his office of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem where he is a senior fellow in addition to being the Yehezkel Kaufman Professor of Biblical Studies at Hebrew University. “Resurrection after three days becomes a motif developed before Jesus, which runs contrary to nearly all scholarship. What happens in the New Testament was adopted by Jesus and his followers based on an earlier messiah story.”
Ms. Yardeni said she was impressed with the reading and considered it indeed likely that the key illegible word was “hayeh,” or “live.” Whether that means Simon is the messiah under discussion, she is less sure.
Moshe Bar-Asher, president of the Israeli Academy of Hebrew Language and emeritus professor of Hebrew and Aramaic at the Hebrew University, said he spent a long time studying the text and considered it authentic, dating from no later than the first century B.C. His 25-page paper on the stone will be published in the coming months.
Regarding Mr. Knohl’s thesis, Mr. Bar-Asher is also respectful but cautious. “There is one problem,” he said. “In crucial places of the text there is lack of text. I understand Knohl’s tendency to find there keys to the pre-Christian period, but in two to three crucial lines of text there are a lot of missing words.”
Moshe Idel, a professor of Jewish thought at Hebrew University, said that given the way every tiny fragment from that era yielded scores of articles and books, “Gabriel’s Revelation” and Mr. Knohl’s analysis deserved serious attention. “Here we have a real stone with a real text,” he said. “This is truly significant.”
Mr. Knohl said that it was less important whether Simon was the messiah of the stone than the fact that it strongly suggested that a savior who died and rose after three days was an established concept at the time of Jesus. He notes that in the Gospels, Jesus makes numerous predictions of his suffering and New Testament scholars say such predictions must have been written in by later followers because there was no such idea present in his day.
But there was, he said, and “Gabriel’s Revelation” shows it.
“His mission is that he has to be put to death by the Romans to suffer so his blood will be the sign for redemption to come,” Mr. Knohl said. “This is the sign of the son of Joseph. This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This gives the Last Supper an absolutely different meaning. To shed blood is not for the sins of people but to bring redemption to Israel.”

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Barack Obama's "Call To Renewal" keynote address

2008-06-23T19:42:00.000-07:00

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'Call to Renewal' Keynote Address
Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Washington, DC
Good morning. I appreciate the opportunity to speak here at the Call to Renewal's Building a Covenant for a New America conference. I've had the opportunity to take a look at your Covenant for a New America. It is filled with outstanding policies and prescriptions for much of what ails this country. So I'd like to congratulate you all on the thoughtful presentations you've given so far about poverty and justice in America, and for putting fire under the feet of the political leadership here in Washington.

But today I'd like to talk about the connection between religion and politics and perhaps offer some thoughts about how we can sort through some of the often bitter arguments that we've been seeing over the last several years.

I do so because, as you all know, we can affirm the importance of poverty in the Bible; and we can raise up and pass out this Covenant for a New America. We can talk to the press, and we can discuss the religious call to address poverty and environmental stewardship all we want, but it won't have an impact unless we tackle head-on the mutual suspicion that sometimes exists between religious America and secular America.

I want to give you an example that I think illustrates this fact. As some of you know, during the 2004 U.S. Senate General Election I ran against a gentleman named Alan Keyes. Mr. Keyes is well-versed in the Jerry Falwell-Pat Robertson style of rhetoric that often labels progressives as both immoral and godless.

Indeed, Mr. Keyes announced towards the end of the campaign that, "Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama. Christ would not vote for Barack Obama because Barack Obama has behaved in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved." Jesus Christ would not vote for Barack Obama.Now, I was urged by some of my liberal supporters not to take this statement seriously, to essentially ignore it. To them, Mr. Keyes was an extremist, and his arguments not worth entertaining.

And since at the time, I was up 40 points in the polls, it probably wasn't a bad piece of strategic advice.But what they didn't understand, however, was that I had to take Mr. Keyes seriously, for he claimed to speak for my religion, and my God. He claimed knowledge of certain truths. Mr. Obama says he's a Christian, he was saying, and yet he supports a lifestyle that the Bible calls an abomination.

Mr. Obama says he's a Christian, but supports the destruction of innocent and sacred life.And so what would my supporters have me say? How should I respond? Should I say that a literalist reading of the Bible was folly? Should I say that Mr. Keyes, who is a Roman Catholic, should ignore the teachings of the Pope? Unwilling to go there, I answered with what has come to be the typically liberal response in such debates - namely, I said that we live in a pluralistic society, that I can't impose my own religious views on another, that I was running to be the U.S. Senator of Illinois and not the Minister of Illinois. But Mr. Keyes's implicit accusation that I was not a true Christian nagged at me, and I was also aware that my answer did not adequately address the role my faith has in guiding my own values and my own beliefs.

Now, my dilemma was by no means unique. In a way, it reflected the broader debate we've been having in this country for the last thirty years over the role of religion in politics. For some time now, there has been plenty of talk among pundits and pollsters that the political divide in this country has fallen sharply along religious lines. Indeed, the single biggest "gap" in party affiliation among white Americans today is not between men and women, or those who reside in so-called Red States and those who reside in Blue, but between those who attend church regularly and those who don't.

Conservative leaders have been all too happy to exploit this gap, consistently reminding evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their Church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage; school prayer and intelligent design. Democrats, for the most part, have taken the bait. At best, we may try to avoid the conversation about religious values altogether, fearful of offending anyone and claiming that - regardless of our personal beliefs - constitutional principles tie our hands.

At worst, there are some liberals who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant, insisting on a caricature of religious Americans that paints them as fanatical, or thinking that the very word "Christian" describes one's political opponents, not people of faith. Now, such strategies of avoidance may work for progressives when our opponent is Alan Keyes. But over the long haul, I think we make a mistake when we fail to acknowledge the power of faith in people's lives -- in the lives of the American people -- and I think it's time that we join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy.

And if we're going to do that then we first need to understand that Americans are a religious people. 90 percent of us believe in God, 70 percent affiliate themselves with an organized religion, 38 percent call themselves committed Christians, and substantially more people in America believe in angels than they do in evolution.

This religious tendency is not simply the result of successful marketing by skilled preachers or the draw of popular mega-churches. In fact, it speaks to a hunger that's deeper than that - a hunger that goes beyond any particular issue or cause. Each day, it seems, thousands of Americans are going about their daily rounds - dropping off the kids at school, driving to the office, flying to a business meeting, shopping at the mall, trying to stay on their diets - and they're coming to the realization that something is missing. They are deciding that their work, their possessions, their diversions, their sheer busyness, is not enough. They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives. They're looking to relieve a chronic loneliness, a feeling supported by a recent study that shows Americans have fewer close friends and confidants than ever before.

And so they need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them - that they are not just destined to travel down that long highway towards nothingness. And I speak with some experience on this matter. I was not raised in a particularly religious household, as undoubtedly many in the audience were. My father, who returned to Kenya when I was just two, was born Muslim but as an adult became an atheist. My mother, whose parents were non-practicing Baptists and Methodists, was probably one of the most spiritual and kindest people I've ever known, but grew up with a healthy skepticism of organized religion herself. As a consequence, so did I.

It wasn't until after college, when I went to Chicago to work as a community organizer for a group of Christian churches, that I confronted my own spiritual dilemma. I was working with churches, and the Christians who I worked with recognized themselves in me. They saw that I knew their Book and that I shared their values and sang their songs. But they sensed that a part of me that remained removed, detached, that I was an observer in their midst.

And in time, I came to realize that something was missing as well -- that without a vessel for my beliefs, without a commitment to a particular community of faith, at some level I would always remain apart, and alone. And if it weren't for the particular attributes of the historically black church, I may have accepted this fate. But as the months passed in Chicago, I found myself drawn - not just to work with the church, but to be in the church. For one thing, I believed and still believe in the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change, a power made real by some of the leaders here today.

Because of its past, the black church understands in an intimate way the Biblical call to feed the hungry and cloth the naked and challenge powers and principalities. And in its historical struggles for freedom and the rights of man, I was able to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world. As a source of hope. And perhaps it was out of this intimate knowledge of hardship -- the grounding of faith in struggle -- that the church offered me a second insight, one that I think is important to emphasize today.

Faith doesn't mean that you don't have doubts. You need to come to church in the first place precisely because you are first of this world, not apart from it. You need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away - because you are human and need an ally in this difficult journey.

It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street in the Southside of Chicago one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice, and not an epiphany. I didn't fall out in church. The questions I had didn't magically disappear. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt that I heard God's spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.

That's a path that has been shared by millions upon millions of Americans - evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims alike; some since birth, others at certain turning points in their lives. It is not something they set apart from the rest of their beliefs and values. In fact, it is often what drives their beliefs and their values. And that is why that, if we truly hope to speak to people where they're at - to communicate our hopes and values in a way that's relevant to their own - then as progressives, we cannot abandon the field of religious discourse.

Because when we ignore the debate about what it means to be a good Christian or Muslim or Jew; when we discuss religion only in the negative sense of where or how it should not be practiced, rather than in the positive sense of what it tells us about our obligations towards one another; when we shy away from religious venues and religious broadcasts because we assume that we will be unwelcome - others will fill the vacuum, those with the most insular views of faith, or those who cynically use religion to justify partisan ends.

In other words, if we don't reach out to evangelical Christians and other religious Americans and tell them what we stand for, then the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons and Alan Keyeses will continue to hold sway.More fundamentally, the discomfort of some progressives with any hint of religion has often prevented us from effectively addressing issues in moral terms. Some of the problem here is rhetorical - if we scrub language of all religious content, we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice.

Imagine Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address without reference to "the judgments of the Lord." Or King's I Have a Dream speech without references to "all of God's children." Their summoning of a higher truth helped inspire what had seemed impossible, and move the nation to embrace a common destiny. Our failure as progressives to tap into the moral underpinnings of the nation is not just rhetorical, though. Our fear of getting "preachy" may also lead us to discount the role that values and culture play in some of our most urgent social problems.After all, the problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten point plan.

They are rooted in both societal indifference and individual callousness - in the imperfections of man.Solving these problems will require changes in government policy, but it will also require changes in hearts and a change in minds. I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manufacturers' lobby - but I also believe that when a gang-banger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels somebody disrespected him, we've got a moral problem. There's a hole in that young man's heart - a hole that the government alone cannot fix.I believe in vigorous enforcement of our non-discrimination laws.

But I also believe that a transformation of conscience and a genuine commitment to diversity on the part of the nation's CEOs could bring about quicker results than a battalion of lawyers. They have more lawyers than us anyway.I think that we should put more of our tax dollars into educating poor girls and boys. I think that the work that Marian Wright Edelman has done all her life is absolutely how we should prioritize our resources in the wealthiest nation on earth.

I also think that we should give them the information about contraception that can prevent unwanted pregnancies, lower abortion rates, and help assure that that every child is loved and cherished. But, you know, my Bible tells me that if we train a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not turn from it. So I think faith and guidance can help fortify a young woman's sense of self, a young man's sense of responsibility, and a sense of reverence that all young people should have for the act of sexual intimacy.

I am not suggesting that every progressive suddenly latch on to religious terminology - that can be dangerous. Nothing is more transparent than inauthentic expressions of faith. As Jim has mentioned, some politicians come and clap -- off rhythm -- to the choir. We don't need that. In fact, because I do not believe that religious people have a monopoly on morality, I would rather have someone who is grounded in morality and ethics, and who is also secular, affirm their morality and ethics and values without pretending that they're something they're not. They don't need to do that.

None of us need to do that.

But what I am suggesting is this - secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglas, Abraham Lincoln, Williams Jennings Bryant, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King - indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history - were not only motivated by faith, but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. So to say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality" into public policy debates is a practical absurdity.

Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.Moreover, if we progressives shed some of these biases, we might recognize some overlapping values that both religious and secular people share when it comes to the moral and material direction of our country. We might recognize that the call to sacrifice on behalf of the next generation, the need to think in terms of "thou" and not just "I," resonates in religious congregations all across the country.

And we might realize that we have the ability to reach out to the evangelical community and engage millions of religious Americans in the larger project of American renewal.Some of this is already beginning to happen. Pastors, friends of mine like Rick Warren and T.D. Jakes are wielding their enormous influences to confront AIDS, Third World debt relief, and the genocide in Darfur. Religious thinkers and activists like our good friend Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo are lifting up the Biblical injunction to help the poor as a means of mobilizing Christians against budget cuts to social programs and growing inequality.

And by the way, we need Christians on Capitol Hill, Jews on Capitol Hill and Muslims on Capitol Hill talking about the estate tax. When you've got an estate tax debate that proposes a trillion dollars being taken out of social programs to go to a handful of folks who don't need and weren't even asking for it, you know that we need an injection of morality in our political debate.Across the country, individual churches like my own and your own are sponsoring day care programs, building senior centers, helping ex-offenders reclaim their lives, and rebuilding our gulf coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

So the question is, how do we build on these still-tentative partnerships between religious and secular people of good will? It's going to take more work, a lot more work than we've done so far. The tensions and the suspicions on each side of the religious divide will have to be squarely addressed. And each side will need to accept some ground rules for collaboration.While I've already laid out some of the work that progressive leaders need to do, I want to talk a little bit about what conservative leaders need to do -- some truths they need to acknowledge.

For one, they need to understand the critical role that the separation of church and state has played in preserving not only our democracy, but the robustness of our religious practice. Folks tend to forget that during our founding, it wasn't the atheists or the civil libertarians who were the most effective champions of the First Amendment. It was the persecuted minorities, it was Baptists like John Leland who didn't want the established churches to impose their views on folks who were getting happy out in the fields and teaching the scripture to slaves. It was the forbearers of the evangelicals who were the most adamant about not mingling government with religious, because they did not want state-sponsored religion hindering their ability to practice their faith as they understood it.

Moreover, given the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.And even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go with James Dobson's, or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount - a passage that is so radical that it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would survive its application? So before we get carried away, let's read our bibles. Folks haven't been reading their bibles. This brings me to my second point.

Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all. Now this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, as many evangelicals do. But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality.

It involves the compromise, the art of what's possible. At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It's the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime, but to base our policy making on such commitments would be a dangerous thing. And if you doubt that, let me give you an example.

We all know the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham is ordered by God to offer up his only son, and without argument, he takes Isaac to the mountaintop, binds him to an altar, and raises his knife, prepared to act as God has commanded.Of course, in the end God sends down an angel to intercede at the very last minute, and Abraham passes God's test of devotion. But it's fair to say that if any of us leaving this church saw Abraham on a roof of a building raising his knife, we would, at the very least, call the police and expect the Department of Children and Family Services to take Isaac away from Abraham.

We would do so because we do not hear what Abraham hears, do not see what Abraham sees, true as those experiences may be. So the best we can do is act in accordance with those things that we all see, and that we all hear, be it common laws or basic reason. Finally, any reconciliation between faith and democratic pluralism requires some sense of proportion.This goes for both sides. Even those who claim the Bible's inerrancy make distinctions between Scriptural edicts, sensing that some passages - the Ten Commandments, say, or a belief in Christ's divinity - are central to Christian faith, while others are more culturally specific and may be modified to accommodate modern life.

The American people intuitively understand this, which is why the majority of Catholics practice birth control and some of those opposed to gay marriage nevertheless are opposed to a Constitutional amendment to ban it. Religious leadership need not accept such wisdom in counseling their flocks, but they should recognize this wisdom in their politics.But a sense of proportion should also guide those who police the boundaries between church and state. Not every mention of God in public is a breach to the wall of separation - context matters. It is doubtful that children reciting the Pledge of Allegiance feel oppressed or brainwashed as a consequence of muttering the phrase "under God." I didn't.

Having voluntary student prayer groups use school property to meet should not be a threat, any more than its use by the High School Republicans should threaten Democrats. And one can envision certain faith-based programs - targeting ex-offenders or substance abusers - that offer a uniquely powerful way of solving problems.So we all have some work to do here. But I am hopeful that we can bridge the gaps that exist and overcome the prejudices each of us bring to this debate. And I have faith that millions of believing Americans want that to happen. No matter how religious they may or may not be, people are tired of seeing faith used as a tool of attack. They don't want faith used to belittle or to divide. They're tired of hearing folks deliver more screed than sermon.

Because in the end, that's not how they think about faith in their own lives. So let me end with just one other interaction I had during my campaign. A few days after I won the Democratic nomination in my U.S. Senate race, I received an email from a doctor at the University of Chicago Medical School that said the following:"Congratulations on your overwhelming and inspiring primary win. I was happy to vote for you, and I will tell you that I am seriously considering voting for you in the general election. I write to express my concerns that may, in the end, prevent me from supporting you."The doctor described himself as a Christian who understood his commitments to be "totalizing."

His faith led him to a strong opposition to abortion and gay marriage, although he said that his faith also led him to question the idolatry of the free market and quick resort to militarism that seemed to characterize much of the Republican agenda.But the reason the doctor was considering not voting for me was not simply my position on abortion. Rather, he had read an entry that my campaign had posted on my website, which suggested that I would fight "right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman's right to choose."

The doctor went on to write:"I sense that you have a strong sense of justice...and I also sense that you are a fair minded person with a high regard for reason...Whatever your convictions, if you truly believe that those who oppose abortion are all ideologues driven by perverse desires to inflict suffering on women, then you, in my judgment, are not fair-minded....You know that we enter times that are fraught with possibilities for good and for harm, times when we are struggling to make sense of a common polity in the context of plurality, when we are unsure of what grounds we have for making any claims that involve others...I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words."Fair-minded words.So I looked at my website and found the offending words. In fairness to them, my staff had written them using standard Democratic boilerplate language to summarize my pro-choice position during the Democratic primary, at a time when some of my opponents were questioning my commitment to protect Roe v. Wade. Re-reading the doctor's letter, though, I felt a pang of shame. It is people like him who are looking for a deeper, fuller conversation about religion in this country.

They may not change their positions, but they are willing to listen and learn from those who are willing to speak in fair-minded words. Those who know of the central and awesome place that God holds in the lives of so many, and who refuse to treat faith as simply another political issue with which to score points.So I wrote back to the doctor, and I thanked him for his advice.

The next day, I circulated the email to my staff and changed the language on my website to state in clear but simple terms my pro-choice position. And that night, before I went to bed, I said a prayer of my own - a prayer that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me.

And that night, before I went to bed I said a prayer of my own. It's a prayer I think I share with a lot of Americans. A hope that we can live with one another in a way that reconciles the beliefs of each with the good of all. It's a prayer worth praying, and a conversation worth having in this country in the months and years to come.

Thank you.

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The Associated Press to Set Guidelines for Using Its Articles in Blogs

2008-06-16T21:01:00.000-07:00

The Associated Press to Set Guidelines for Using Its Articles in Blogs

The A.P.’s effort to impose some guidelines on the free-wheeling blogosphere, where extensive quoting and even copying of entire news articles is common, may offer a prominent definition of the important but vague doctrine of “fair use,” which holds that copyright owners cannot ban others from using small bits of their works under some circumstances. For example, a book reviewer is allowed to quote passages from the work without permission from the publisher.
Fair use has become an essential concept to many bloggers, who often quote portions of articles before discussing them. The A.P., a cooperative owned by 1,500 daily newspapers, including The New York Times, provides written articles and broadcast material to thousands of news organizations and Web sites that pay to use them.
Last week, The A.P. took an unusually strict position against quotation of its work, sending a letter to the Drudge Retort asking it to remove seven items that contained quotations from A.P. articles ranging from 39 to 79 words.
On Saturday, The A.P. retreated. Jim Kennedy, vice president and strategy director of The A.P., said in an interview that the news organization had decided that its letter to the Drudge Retort was “heavy-handed” and that The A.P. was going to rethink its policies toward bloggers.
The quick about-face came, he said, because a number of well-known bloggers started criticizing its policy, claiming it would undercut the active discussion of the news that rages on sites, big and small, across the Internet.
The Drudge Retort was initially started as a left-leaning parody of the much larger Drudge Report, run by the conservative muckraker Matt Drudge. In recent years, the Drudge Retort has become more of a social news site, similar to sites like Digg, in which members post links to news articles for others to comment on.
But Rogers Cadenhead, the owner of the Drudge Retort and several other Web sites, said the issue goes far beyond one site. “There are millions of people sharing links to news articles on blogs, message boards and sites like Digg. If The A.P. has concerns that go all the way down to one or two sentences of quoting, they need to tell people what they think is legal and where the boundaries are.”
On Friday, The A.P. issued a statement defending its action, saying it was going to challenge blog postings containing excerpts of A.P. articles “when we feel the use is more reproduction than reference, or when others are encouraged to cut and paste.” An A.P. spokesman declined Friday to further explain the association’s position.
After that, however, the news association convened a meeting of its executives at which it decided to suspend its efforts to challenge blogs until it creates a more thoughtful standard.
“We don’t want to cast a pall over the blogosphere by being heavy-handed, so we have to figure out a better and more positive way to do this,” Mr. Kennedy said.
Mr. Kennedy said the company was going to meet with representatives of the Media Bloggers Association, a trade group, and others. He said he hopes that these discussions can all occur this week so that guidelines can be released soon.
Still, Mr. Kennedy said that the organization has not withdrawn its request that Drudge Retort remove the seven items. And he said that he still believes that it is more appropriate for blogs to use short summaries of A.P. articles rather than direct quotations, even short ones.
“Cutting and pasting a lot of content into a blog is not what we want to see,” he said. “It is more consistent with the spirit of the Internet to link to content so people can read the whole thing in context.”
Even if The A.P. sets standards, bloggers could choose to use more content than its standards permit, and then The A.P. would have to decide whether to take legal action against them. One important legal test of whether an excerpt exceeds fair use is if it causes financial harm to the copyright owner.
“The principal question is whether the excerpt is a substitute for the story, or some established adaptation of the story,” said Timothy Wu, a professor at the Columbia Law School. Mr. Wu said that the case is not clear-cut, but he believes that The A.P. is likely to lose a court case to assert a claim on that issue.
“It’s hard to see how the Drudge Retort ‘first few lines’ is a substitute for the story,” Mr. Wu said.
Mr. Kennedy argued, however, that The Associated Press believes that in some cases, the essence of an article can be encapsulated in very few words.
“As content creators, we firmly believe that everything we create, from video footage all the way down to a structured headline, is creative content that has value,” he said.
But he also said that the association hopes that it will not have to test this theory in court.
“We are not trying to sue bloggers,” Mr. Kennedy said. “That would be the rough equivalent of suing grandma and the kids for stealing music. That is not what we are trying to do.”

I hope I did this correctly.
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Dear Daughter, by Leonard Pitts

2008-06-05T22:18:00.000-07:00

Leonard Pitts Tribune Media Services
June 2, 2008

Dear daughter:I have loved you from the moment I met you.
You were still wet from the birth canal, hair matted to your scalp, eyes squeezed shut. They dried you off, cut the cord, placed you in a bassinet under a warming light. I went over to you. My hand covered your torso.
And I loved you.
That was 17 years ago, 17 years that have moved as cheetahs move.
The infant is a toddler, the toddler is a little girl, the little girl is an adolescent, the adolescent is you, a girl on the verge of womanhood, graduating high school -- with honors! -- this spring, going to college in the fall.
You are facing the future. I am facing the past, sitting here looking at old pictures of you and listening to songs whose lyrics make me sad.
There you are with a plastic pig snout from some restaurant strapped over your nose, looking up with crossed eyes. And the Temptations are singing about sunshine on a cloudy day.
My Girl.
There you are walking with your arms folded and your lips poked out, pouting because that bad old ground had the nerve to skin your knee. And Paul Simon is singing ``there could never be a father who loved his daughter more than I love you.''There you are in your senior picture, your hair glossy and long, wearing a white cap and gown, facing the camera, smiling your confidence. Stevie Wonder is singing, ''isn't she lovely?''
And she is.
There's this other song that really gets me, though. It's called If I Could.A meditative keyboard and guitar frame the melody, and Peabo Bryson sings of watching his little girl playing in the leaves, of kneeling by her side to say bedtime prayers, of snapping pictures, trying to ``hold on to the memory before the whole things slips away.''He sings:``I wish I could save these moments and put 'em in a jar.I wish I could stop the world from turning, keep things just the way they are.
I wish I could shelter you from everything not pure and sweet and good.
I know I can't. I know I can't.
But I wish I could.
''Honey, you know your dad. Your dad doesn't cry unless there's a death in the family or a loss in the playoffs. But I swear, that song brings me too close for comfort every time. Every doggone time.
You know why?
Well, in the last 17 years, I have used a Nerf gun to chase off the monsters under your bed, given you my shoulders as a throne from which to look down on the world, waited outside with other parents while you sat in the arena cheering some pop star who had stolen your heart away from me.
I have endured your rolling eyes, your heavy sighs and your indifference (hated your indifference most of all).
But what comes now is harder than all that. Because what comes now is the beginning of goodbye.
Yes, I know.
You're not going anywhere.
You still live in that landfill down the hall you call a bedroom.
But see, I am losing my little girl. She is waving her last farewells to me here and now.
And some woman is about to take her place. Giggly, excitable and gawky on high heels, but a woman, all the same.
There is much I want for this woman. I want success for her. I want adventure and travel, dancing and laughter, discovery and joy. I want challenges, but I want contentment, too, that peace that comes from knowing you are exactly where you are meant to be in life, doing exactly what you are meant to do.
I want her to be happy.
You see, I haven't met her yet, but already, I love this woman.And yet, I'd give anything to make her go away, to cast her back beyond the horizon.
I would trade her without a second thought for just one more chance to take out a Nerf gun and slay any monsters that dare trouble my little girl.
Oh, I know I can't.
But I wish I could.

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The Biofuels Backlash

2008-05-10T16:55:00.000-07:00

I have no idea what use I'm going to make of this editorial, but it's here for safekeeping until I decide.

The Biofuels Backlash May 7, 2008; Page A18
From The Wall Street Journal
St. Jude is the patron saint of lost causes, and for 30 years we invoked his name as we opposed ethanol subsidies. So imagine our great, pleasant surprise to see that the world is suddenly awakening to the folly of subsidized biofuels.
All it took was a mere global "food crisis." Last week chief economist Joseph Glauber of the USDA, which has been among Big Ethanol's best friends in Washington, blamed biofuels for increasing prices on corn and soybeans. Mr. Glauber also predicted that corn prices will continue their historic rise because of demand from "expanding use for ethanol."
Even the environmental left, which pushed ethanol for decades as an alternative to gasoline, is coming clean. Lester Brown, one of the original eco-Apostles, wrote in the Washington Post that "it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that food-to-fuel mandates have failed." We knew for sure the tide had turned when Time magazine's recent cover story, "The Clean Energy Myth," described how turning crops into fuel increases both food prices and atmospheric CO2. No one captures elite green wisdom better than Time's Manhattan editors. Can Vanity Fair be far behind?
All we can say is, welcome aboard. Corn ethanol can now join the scare over silicone breast implants and the pesticide Alar as among the greatest scams of the age. But before we move on to the next green miracle cure, it's worth recounting how much damage this ethanol political machine is doing.
To create just one gallon of fuel, ethanol slurps up 1,700 gallons of water, according to Cornell's David Pimentel, and 51 cents of tax credits. And it still can't compete against oil without a protective 54-cents-per-gallon tariff on imports and a federal mandate that forces it into our gas tanks. The record 30 million acres the U.S. will devote to ethanol production this year will consume almost a third of America's corn crop while yielding fuel amounting to less than 3% of petroleum consumption.
In December the Congressional Research Service warned that even devoting every last ear of American-grown corn to ethanol would not create enough "renewable fuel" to meet federal mandates. According to a 2007 OECD report, fossil-fuel production is up to 10,000 times as efficient as biofuel, measured by energy produced per unit of land.
Now scientists are showing that ethanol will exacerbate greenhouse gas emissions. A February report in the journal Science found that "corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years . . . Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%." Princeton's Timothy Searchinger and colleagues at Iowa State, of all places, found that markets for biofuel encourage farmers to level forests and convert wilderness into cropland. This is to replace the land diverted from food to fuel.
As usual, Congress is the last to know, but maybe even it is catching on. Credit goes to John McCain, the first presidential candidate in recent memory who has refused to bow before King Ethanol. Onetime ethanol opponent Hillary Clinton announced her support in 2006, as the Iowa caucuses beckoned. In 2006 Barack Obama proposed mandating a staggering 65 billion gallons a year of alternative fuel by 2025, but by this Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" he was suggesting that maybe helping "people get something to eat" was a higher priority than biofuels.
Mr. McCain and 24 other Senators are now urging EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson to consider using his broad waiver authority to eliminate looming biofuel mandates. Otherwise, the law will force us to consume roughly four times the current requirement by 2022. In fact, with some concerned state governments submitting helpful petitions, Mr. Johnson could largely knock out the ethanol mandate regime, at least temporarily.
Over the longer term, however, this shouldn't be entrusted to unelected bureaucrats. The best policy would repeal the biofuel mandates and subsidies enacted in the 2005 and 2007 energy bills. We say repeal because there will be intense lobbying to keep the subsidies, or transfer them from projects that have failed to those that have not yet failed.
Like Suzanne Somers in "American Graffiti," the perfect biofuel is always just out of reach, only a few more billion dollars in subsidies away from commercial viability. But sometimes even massive government aid can't turn science projects into products. The industry's hope continues for cellulosic ethanol, but there's no getting around the fact that biofuels require vegetation to make fuel. Even cellulosic ethanol, while more efficient than corn, will require countless acres of fuel if it is ever going to replace oil. Perhaps some future technology will efficiently extract energy from useless corn stalks and fallen trees. But until that day, Congress's ethanol subsidies are merely force-feeding an industry that is doing far more harm than good.
The results include distorted investment decisions, higher carbon emissions, higher food prices for Americans, and an emerging humanitarian crisis in the developing world. The last thing the poor of Africa and the taxpayers of America need is another scheme to conjure gasoline out of corn and tax credits.

Amy Cooper - It's Not How Well They Bowl Or Drink

2008-05-03T20:20:00.000-07:00

It's not how well they bowl or drink
By Amy Cooper
Special to the Star-Telegram
"Could we please take the Obama sign out of the yard now?" my spouse asks as he walks around Obama 08.
"But he's my guy," I explain.
"Come on. Our neighbors will think we're anti-American," he says. "Could you at least take it down before Shelly's soccer car pool comes?"
"Maybe, but don't think of me as a 'soccer mom' anymore. Call me an 'Obama Mama.'"
"I didn't know you knew his mama."
"Not personally," I reply, "but close enough. He's got a white grandmother who would save rubber bands by hanging them around the doorknob."
"That makes him presidential?"
"Don't you remember?" I ask. "I had a white grandmother who reused aluminum foil. She'd iron it out and recycle it for casseroles. We have a connection."
"But aren't all of your grandmothers white?"
"You are missing the point -- this is the post-racial candidate," I explain.
"Tell that to his pastor."
The luster is off. No matter which candidate you chose, you are apologizing for that choice a few months later. Worse still, I am at the crossroads of inane and absurd, choosing a presidential candidate based on nostalgia for reused tinfoil. I'll claim my absurdity but would argue that I've had help arriving here.
If campaigns are measured in dog years -- and this one surely is -- we're well into the seventh year. Comprehensive healthcare and foreign policy have been traded in for faux sniper fire and bitter gun-toters, traded in for bowling and shot drinking. In the candidates' attempts to connect to voters, policy has been slighted.
Give me a candidate who will admit that the old categories have broken down. Give me a candidate who will recognize that foreign policy and our own economy aren't separate entities.
In a globalized economy, it matters that iron ore from Brazil and Australia experienced a 65 percent price increase this year. These countries control more than 70 percent of the global supply; their major client is not the U.S. but China.
When we pay double for our Ford vehicles in four months, it will have had little to do with what has gone on within our borders. We are a debtor nation that can no longer claim unilateral superiority.
How long will other nations want to finance U.S. consumption? Not long, especially when there is a new, growing middle class (read: China) just as eager to consume as we are. Which candidate is willing to say that while executive power has increased in the Bush administration, presidential power outside our own borders has weakened?
Who is strong enough to admit we are vulnerable?
I must admit, though, that it's more fun to analyze campaign tactics than global economics.
As I remove Obama from the yard, I explain to my husband, "It's like they all want to date me."
Sighing, he remarks, "If you are dating Hillary, we will have to move."
Ignoring him, I press on with my analogy.
"Remember back when we were dating and I went to four hockey games in a week? Have I been to a single hockey game since we married? You think Obama will ever bowl again?"
"Remember the time I ate shrimp tails to help you close a deal?" he asks. "You think Hillary will ever down another shot?"
"You were guilty, too," I insist, "feigning an interest in Ryan-Hanks chick flicks while we were dating. Now we watch things blow up together."
"Well, my guy is McCain. Is he dating us?" my spouse asks as Obama is hidden away in the garage.
"All he has to do is say 'Hanoi Hilton' and we all swoon," I argue. "But I will concede moral authority to him."
I pause to let the depth of my presidential campaign analysis sink in. "You know what my mama says, though, about choosing a husband, don't you?
"She always told me that it's different than dating: It's not how well they dance or tell a joke -- it's how they feel about God, money and a sick baby crying in the middle of the night."
Wake up, candidates. There's a sick baby crying in the night, and there's no affordable gas to take her to the doctor, no affordable healthcare to pay for the visit, no affordable formula to get her through the night.

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America's Safety Catch

2008-04-26T20:44:00.000-07:00

America's 'safety catch'
By Justin Webb BBC North America editor, Missouri
Despite the fact there are more than 200 million guns in circulation, there is a certain tranquility and civility about American life.
Deepwater, Missouri has a motto: "A great lil' town nestled in the heartland."

Since April 2007 the US Congress has passed major gun legislation
Deepwater considers itself to be an exemplar of the best of American life. A place where outsiders - if they ever penetrated this far - would find home-cooked apple pie and friendly, warm, hard-working folk.
Among those folk, I have no doubt, is Ronald Long.
Last month Mr Long decided to install a satellite television system in his Deepwater home. His efforts to make a hole in the outside wall came to nothing because Mr Long did not possess a drill.
But he did have a .22 calibre gun.
He fired two shots from the inside of the bedroom.
The second killed his wife who was standing outside.
He will face no charges. The police accept it was an accident.
Gun control
To many foreigners - and to some Americans - the tolerance of guns in everyday American life is simply inexplicable.
In Montana, we like our guns... most of us own two or three
Brian Schweitzer, Governor of Montana
As a New York Times columnist put it recently:
"The nation is saturated with violence. Thousands upon thousands of murders are committed each year. There are more than 200 million guns in circulation."
Someone suggested a few days ago that the Democrats' presidential candidates might like to take up the issue of gun control.
Forget about it.
They were warned off - in colourful style - by a fellow Democrat, the Governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer.
"In Montana, we like our guns", he said.
"Most of us own two or three guns. 'Gun control' is hitting what you shoot at. So I'd be a little careful about blowing smoke up our skirts."
Democrats would like to win in the Mountain West this November. Enough said.
Washington weapons ban
On the anniversary of the Virginia Tech shooting, all this will feel to some like a rather depressing, if predictable, American story. A story of an inability to get to grips with violence.

A ceremony marking the Virginia Tech shootings
At the moment, there is an effort being made to overturn a ban on some types of weapon in Washington DC.
Among those dead against this plan - those who claim it would turn the nation's capital into the Wild West - is a lanky black man (he looks like a basketball player) called Anwan Glover.
Anwan peeled off articles of clothing for our cameras and revealed that he had been shot nine times.
One bullet is still lodged in an elbow.
His younger brother was shot and killed a few months ago.
Anwan was speaking to us in a back alley in north-east Washington. If you heard a gun shot in this neighbourhood you would not feel surprised.
'Gentler environment'
Why is it then that so many Americans - and foreigners who come here - feel that the place is so, well, safe?

I have met incredulous British tourists who have been shocked to the core by the peacefulness of the place
A British man I met in Colorado recently told me he used to live in Kent but he moved to the American state of New Jersey and will not go home because it is, as he put it, "a gentler environment for bringing the kids up."
This is New Jersey. Home of the Sopranos.
Brits arriving in New York, hoping to avoid being slaughtered on day one of their shopping mission to Manhattan are, by day two, beginning to wonder what all the fuss was about. By day three they have had had the scales lifted from their eyes.
I have met incredulous British tourists who have been shocked to the core by the peacefulness of the place, the lack of the violent undercurrent so ubiquitous in British cities, even British market towns.
"It seems so nice here," they quaver.
Well, it is!
Violent paradox
Ten or 20 years ago, it was a different story, but things have changed.
And this is Manhattan.
Wait till you get to London Texas, or Glasgow Montana, or Oxford Mississippi or Virgin Utah, for that matter, where every household is required by local ordinance to possess a gun.
Folks will have guns in all of these places and if you break into their homes they will probably kill you.
They will occasionally kill each other in anger or by mistake, but you never feel as unsafe as you can feel in south London.
It is a paradox. Along with the guns there is a tranquillity and civility about American life of which most British people can only dream.
Peace and serenity
What surprises the British tourists is that, in areas of the US that look and feel like suburban Britain, there is simply less crime and much less violent crime.
Doors are left unlocked, public telephones unbroken.
One reason - perhaps the overriding reason - is that there is no public drunkenness in polite America, simply none.
I have never seen a group of drunk young people in the entire six years I have lived here. I travel a lot and not always to the better parts of town.
It is an odd fact that a nation we associate - quite properly - with violence is also so serene, so unscarred by petty crime, so innocent of brawling.
Virginia Tech had the headlines in the last few days and reminded us of the violence for which the US is well known.
But most American lives were as peaceful on this anniversary as they are every day

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Rice Shortage Caused by Rising Cost of Biofuel

2008-04-23T20:26:00.000-07:00

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-rice-shortage-080423-ht,0,89750.story

Rice shortage caused by rising cost of biofuel

SINGAPORE - Developed nations should stop paying agricultural subsidies to encourage biofuel production because the payments are making staple foods more expensive, the Asian Development Bank said Monday.Biofuels should also be re-examined by governments around the world as it is increasingly unclear how environmentally friendly they are, ADB Managing Director General Rajat Nag said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The production of biofuel leads to forests being destroyed and reduced land area for growing crops for food, he said."We feel that the developed countries should seriously rethink the whole issue of biofuel, particularly the biofuel subsidies," Nag said. "Giving subsidies for biofuels ... basically acts as an implicit tax on staple foods."Paying farmers to grow oilseed and other crops to produce biofuels means they grow fewer food crops, resulting in higher prices for such staples as palm oil and corn.

Nag did not give examples, but countries that subsidize biofuel include the U.S., the world's largest producer of ethanol, which is made mostly from corn and other grain crops. The country's farm subsidy programs include payments for ethanol production."We believe it is more important to let the developed country farmers decide on what they will plant, based on the relative prices, based on the international prices, but not subsidized prices," he said.

Surging food prices, stoked by rising fuel costs that have increased production and transport costs, have triggered protests around the world in recent weeks. Riots have erupted over food shortages in the Caribbean and Africa and hunger is approaching crisis stage in parts of Asia.Nag said rising food prices will be top on the agenda of the ADB's annual board of governors meeting in Madrid next week.He urged governments faced with rising food prices not to impose price caps or export bans, as the measures could prove counterproductive.

Price controls are disincentives for farmers amid the rising costs, he said."The cost of production is going up, so the obvious, rational reaction (to price caps) of the farmer is to reduce planting, which is exactly the opposite of what we want. We want production to increase, not decrease," he said.Nag said governments should instead consider targeted cash income transfers to the poor. The Manila-based bank was ready to provide loans to governments to help ease the situation, he said, but added that no country has made any specific requests yet.

"If the governments go for the targeted income support, obviously this will add to the fiscal burden of the governments, so ADB will be very responsive and willing to consider budget support for the government, and providing program loans," he said.In Asia, Nag said, the supply of rice to the region remained adequate even though stocks have slipped to their lowest in decades."We want to get the focus away from being dramatized or an overreaction to the supply situation. It is tight, no doubt about it," he said.

"But it is not a situation when rice is not available in the region as a whole."Nag said, however, that the rapid increase in the price of rice had a "very serious impact" on the region's poor, who spend a large proportion of their income on food."The prices have increased very dramatically, almost three times in the last one year and almost twice in the last three months," he said.

Nag said the hardest hit by rising food prices in the Asia Pacific include 600 million people who survive on a dollar a day or less, and about the same number who live on just above a dollar -- making up a group of about 1.2 billion who are vulnerable.The region's poor usually spend about half of their budgets on food, but recent increases have pushed that proportion to about 80 percent in some parts of South Asia, he said.

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Me and The Boss

2008-04-17T18:51:00.000-07:00

by Brett Younger, Senior Pastor, Broadway Baptist Church

I was fourteen years old when Bruce Springsteen released the Born to Run album—though for me it was the Born to Run 8-track. The player in my 1969 Chevy Impala eventually required a Popsicle stick to adjust the tracking, because I wore it out listening to those eight songs over and over. I sang duets with the Boss in the car and never in the house, because I knew that the requisite volume as well as the lyrics would not go over big. I couldn’t see my mother singing along to: Someday girl I don't know when we're gonna’ get to that place were we really want to go and we'll walk in the sun, but till then tramps like us baby we were born to run.

When Bruce and the E Street Band came to Cleveland a friend said, "A bunch of us are going to hear Springsteen. Do you want to go?"

Most aficionados would have immediately, enthusiastically shouted, "Yes!" but most aficionados weren’t conservative-leaning-to-fundamentalist-Southern-Baptists. I ended up saying "No," because I was secretly afraid of the people who would be there. The friend who invited me wasn’t one of my church friends. I pictured a crowd drinking beer and smoking dope. My religious upbringing made it clear that I shouldn’t be part of a mob of criminals, reprobates, and good for nothings. (I was also taught to stay away from black people, poor people, and loose women.) But I’ve kept listening and singing along. The lullaby to which I put my children to sleep began In the day we sweat it out in the streets of a runaway American dream and ended Baby we were born to run.

On Sunday night when Bruce came to Dallas I decided with some trepidation to join the mob.

When we got in line, I started scribbling a few ideas.

A grandmother in a bandana asked, "What are your writing?"

I answered, "I’m a pastor taking notes for a church newsletter column."

She insightfully replied, "You have a very cool church."

When we got to our seats—which were "backstage" but not in a good way—the balding man to my right, who ended up knowing more of the words than I did, looked at me and said, "Some of this crowd would fit right in at a Perry Como concert."

The could-have-been-a-vice-principal woman next to Carol asked, "Do you think we’ll have to stand through this?"

A quick glance at the gray hair around us made Carol confident in saying, "I’m sure we’ll get to sit."
Some stood for the whole two and half hours. Some danced in the aisles. We clapped and raised our hands. We shouted and sang as a congregation. It felt like a Pentecostal revival.

Bruce led us in a hymn about people who might not make it to church, but keep believing.

In a whitewash shotgun shack an old man passes away
Take his body to the graveyard and over him they pray
Lord won’t you tell us, tell us what does it mean
Still at the end of every hard earned day people find some reason to believe.

The Boss thinks we’re all in this together—criminals, reprobates and church people:

Everybody needs a place to rest
Everybody wants to have a home
Don’t make no difference what nobody says
Ain’t nobody like to be alone.
Everybody’s got a hungry heart.

I looked at the people who were singing with such joy and was embarrassed for myself and for the part of the church that keeps pushing people away. The choir included drinkers and teetotalers, the promiscuous and the chaste, black and white, old and young, bikers and Baptists preachers. Where in the Gospels do any of us get the idea that church people should feel superior to anyone else in the crowd?

One of the reasons I love Broadway is that our church works so much harder than most not to be afraid of outsiders. I was 33 years late to the concert, but I’m beginning to understand that God loves us all—even the tramps like us that were born to run.

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The East Side Comes Out Swinging

2008-04-16T04:00:00.001-07:00

The East Side Comes Out Swingin’
This group of activists fights city hall on everyone’s behalf.
By JEFF PRINCE
Towering trees are among the many things that attracted Wanda Conlin to the Meadowbrook neighborhood in East Fort Worth five decades ago. She adores them, particularly those on Oakland Boulevard, a popular north-south route where years ago a developer lined both sides of the street with saplings that turned majestic with time.
“When the leaves are on the trees it just frames everything, and it’s so pretty,” she said, anticipating how spring will transform the sparse branches into a green canopy over the street, creating a natural car tunnel.
She drives less than a mile north across the I-30 bridge, and her bubble bursts. Looming near the intersection of Oakland and First Street is a recent industrial site plopped down near two parks and a residential community (and a landfill). Chesapeake Energy has set up shop on a large piece of land formerly known as Arc Park, where teams competed on six softball fields for 25 years. Where the boys and girls of summer once played, there now are drilling rigs, machinery, stacks of pipes, heavy equipment, a constant coming-and-going of truck traffic, and the city’s only injection well, where drillers dump tainted backwash into the earth.
“They’ve got compressor stations, all kinds of stuff,” Conlin said with disgust. By her estimation, Chesapeake’s activity clearly violates zoning requirements, but city officials don’t agree.
Anyone who thinks a little bureaucratic stumbling block can stop Conlin is underestimating this 78-year-old sparkplug, who owns her own community newspaper, volunteers tirelessly, and has earned respect from her neighbors. In a way, she’s the Alpha in a pack of underdog activists who, through sheer will and a growing reliance on technical savvy, are managing to change, if ever so slightly, the city’s direction. She and other Eastsiders are making an art of activism, developing into a force that badgers city hall, affects elections, files lawsuits when needed, and is both courted and despised by city leaders, sometimes in the same breath. In addition to the grand dame of resistance, there’s Conlin’s husband, Don Boren, and Norm Bermes, Don Young, Tony Crews, Pete Fletcher, Louis McBee, Peggy Terrell, Jenny Conn, Rita Vinson, Mike Phipps, and others.
Racial diversity is alive and well on the East Side, but you couldn’t tell it by looking at the area’s activists. They are mostly white, over 50, financially stable — and yet feeling the sting of discrimination. Asked why they create a fuss about so many issues, they describe being shortchanged, slighted, duped, and dumped upon by the city at every turn.
They are often outsmarted and beaten — there’s some truth in the old line, “You can’t fight city hall.” Anyone will lose more than they win against a stacked deck. When the city decided to bunch up its homeless shelters on East Lancaster Avenue, for instance, activists such as Conlin complained at city council meetings and were branded as malcontents (or racists) for their trouble.
But they’ve had successes, such as getting the dilapidated Cowtown Inn torn down, squeezing gas drillers for more money, pushing for the city’s first tree-protection ordinance, rezoning two sprawling neighborhoods to clock a land-grabbing developer, and winning approval of a sign ordinance to clean up blight along city streets.
They don’t own a monopoly on hell-raising. Activists sprinkled throughout the city are motivated by similar feelings. You see them in the largely African-American sections of town in the southeast and in the Hispanic neighborhoods on the North Side. Even tony West Side neighborhoods have their dissenters. But nobody bucks the system as loudly and consistently as the East Side, an area spelled out in the city’s comprehensive plan as east of I-35 and roughly bordered by the Trinity River on the north and Lancaster Avenue on the south. Inside those imaginary lines, the activists, advocates, revolutionaries, rabble-rousers — whatever you want to call them — approach resistance like a sweet science, and their cohesion and effectiveness continue to grow.
A persecution complex has permeated the East Side for a long time.
“I’ve been out here 20 years and noticed how we were always, to quote the farmers, sucking the hind teat,” Woodhaven resident Norm Bermes said.
Understanding why Eastsiders feel mistreated requires going back to when Fort Worth was called Cowtown for practical rather than marketing purposes. After the Civil War, beef was fetching top dollar up north, and cattle drives created a boon for the city’s Northside stockyards. Millions of head of cattle, sheep, and pigs took their final steps up a ramp at those slaughterhouses, and the resulting mix of odors — blood, guts, and poop — was staggering. Prevailing winds pushed them eastward. Residents looking to settle down and buy a home often looked any direction but east. The richest among them went in the opposite direction even though the city’s West Side was mostly flat and tree-challenged.
The odor from the Stockyards wasn’t the only thing moving in an easterly direction. The Trinity River flows that way as well. In the city’s early days, an informal trash dump was established near the riverbank on the east side of town — it wasn’t an environmentally sound location, but at least if anything harmful got into the water it flowed away from Fort Worth (and toward Dallas, which seemed fitting to some locals). The city’s first sewage treatment plant was established east of town for the same reason. East became synonymous with a dumping ground — ironic since, topographically, no other part of the city can compete with the beauty of the East Side’s rolling hills, trees, and vistas.
Morris Matson was living in southwest Fort Worth when he started working as an assistant city manager in 1971. He quickly discovered that the most impassioned activists hailed from the east, and they began bending his ear almost immediately.
“When I first went to work for the city, I asked the same question — why does the East Side have such an attitude?” he said.
Back then, co-workers in the city manager’s office explained how the persecution complex started decades earlier, when the East Side was downstream, downwind, disregarded, and under-represented at city hall. Even millionaire newspaper publisher Amon Carter, who made a career of bragging on Fort Worth, was cold toward the East Side, Matson was told. In Carter’s vernacular, “east” was seldom used as anything but a criticism.
“The power in Fort Worth was all on the West Side,” Matson said. “When you got past downtown Fort Worth [heading east], it didn’t matter.”
From 1957 to 1977, the Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike, later to become I-30, drew motorists away from East Lancaster Avenue, which at the time was part of U.S. 80 and a thriving boulevard of restaurants, department stores, motels, and mom-and-pop businesses. Many of those businesses died off, and the resulting blight still exists there today. A glut of factories, foundries, and warehouses clustered along East 4th and East 5th, and other streets east of downtown, along with a maze of railroad tracks. The wastewater treatment plant built in Riverside closed in 1980, replaced by the larger Village Creek Wastewater Plant, also on the East Side.
“They moved the odor problem further east,” Matson said.
After moving to Woodhaven in 1977, Matson got to know many Eastsiders and was struck by their tenacity as well as by their ingrained feelings of being from “the wrong side of the tracks,” he said.
“The people knew they had to keep organized to get anything from Fort Worth, and that practice continues today,” he said. “They feel like they’re looked down upon.”
Still, organization has been slow to come. For years, activists concerned themselves with issues in their own backyard. And even today, activists from different neighborhoods don’t necessarily socialize all that much; one street’s problems don’t always interest folks from around the block, and some activists just don’t like each other (many can be intense, Type-A, and, let’s be honest, annoying at times).
More recently, however, they’ve taken the age-old concept of strength in numbers to a new level.
Norm Bermes is a gentle guy with a ready smile who leads volunteers on various do-gooder missions in his Woodhaven neighborhood, from cleaning up litter along riverbanks to providing computers to poor children in nearby apartments. His white hair frames piercing eyes, and he carries himself with a sense of calm and reason that’s often missing from folks who get riled up about real or imagined injustices. So he’s a bit of a Pied Piper, attracting others with his restrained and gentlemanly rebellion.
A handful of them get together weekly at local restaurants to hash out the latest news and gossip. Luby’s on Bridge Street is a favorite spot, but the group spreads the love among a number of eateries, which pleases restaurateurs — well, most of the time. Folks who are willing to stand in front of the city council to voice a suggestion or complaint while Mayor Mike Moncrief peers down at them over the top of his spectacles also don’t think twice about informing a cafeteria manager when a baked potato is overdone or the service is underwhelming.
Woodhaven residents Pete Fletcher and Tony Crews are regulars at these luncheons; Bermes inspired both to get involved in neighborhood issues.
“To me, he’s a positive influence and not a rabble-rouser at all,” Crews said.
Perhaps, but city officials and politicians don’t often enjoy people showing up to point out problems with the latest, greatest plan being charged to the taxpayers’ bill. Some treat residents like irritants rather than constituents, Crews said. Activists spend hours of time and energy — and their own money — working within the democratic system to fight for what they feel is right, yet to many city officials “you’re just a nut,” Crews said.
Fletcher, another gray-haired guy willing to tangle when his sense of fairness is upset, put it as simply as possible.
“I don’t like wrongs, and this makes me an activist,” he said.
Fletcher and Crews are energetic, talkative, sometimes over the top, and certainly more excitable than Bermes. Not everyone mirrors the calmness under fire displayed by Bermes and Conlin, but each has his or her own style. This Eastside lineage includes U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, the highest ranking Republican woman in the House of Representatives, whose political career traces back to the 1980s, when she lived near Woodhaven. Upset by an industrial plant seeking a city permit to operate near her home, she rebelled, was appointed to the city’s zoning commission, became a city council member in 1989, and eventually served as mayor for five years before heading to Washington, D.C.
Granger’s aide back in the 1980s was another particularly persuasive person, Becky Haskin. The pretty blonde woman was a force of nature, seemingly everywhere, fiercely protective of her neighborhood, and adept at swinging popular opinion her way. She was elected to the city council in 1992 and served six terms.
At first, Conlin and Haskin were a mutual admiration society. Haskin appointed Conlin to the Planning Commission, then nine years later to the Zoning Commission, both influential positions for controlling development on one’s home turf. They mostly agreed on quality-of-life issues such as billboard restrictions, landscape ordinances, and code compliance.
After several years in office, however, Haskin began treating activists like a nuisance. She coined the phrase “CAVE” people — “citizens against virtually everything” — to describe them or anyone else who disagreed with her often- polarizing plans to shut down apartments, run poor people out of her neighborhood, and block the construction of a recreation center for fear it would attract black kids to basketball courts. Her elitist attitude ran her afoul of Conlin, Bermes, and others, and it’s no coincidence that her political career crashed and burned not long afterward.
The final break between Haskin and Conlin occurred in 2004, when the city was seeking support for a $273 million bond package. To Haskin’s dismay, Conlin not only withdrew her support, she sent out a strongly worded e-mail declaring she would vote against the bond package because the city’s priorities were skewed and the East Side was again being shortchanged. An irreverent stone had been cast. Didn’t matter, though — the bond package passed.
Haskin retaliated by yanking Conlin from the Zoning Commission. But she hadn’t counted on Conlin’s popularity. The veteran activist’s rational approach and years of public service had earned her plenty of friends, and many of them turned on Haskin. In 2006, the former political wunderkind and Granger protégé couldn’t even win a justice of the peace election against political neophyte Ralph Swearingen. She has hardly been seen or heard from since.
At Conlin’s side throughout the 2004 bond election uprising was Louis McBee, whose attempt that same year to replace Haskin on the city council was proof the incumbent’s support was crumbling. McBee, a small-time businessman and political unknown, almost beat the longtime incumbent. He was well known and almost roundly disliked by the Fort Worth City Council for his assortment of protests, such as trying to prevent funding for the Fort Worth Crime Control and Prevention District after questioning the manner in which the police department was spending the money. But he really created a stir when he accused Moncrief and a couple of city council members of acting unethically before granting $30 million in tax breaks to the outdoor store Cabela’s.
McBee blasted the corporate giveaway as “welfare for the rich” and, as a member of Citizens for Responsible Government, demanded a ruling from state court as to whether the deal was legal. A county district court ruled in favor of the city and upheld the city’s request that the group post a $300,000 bond before appealing the ruling. The dispute fizzled, and Cabela’s got its money.
“We didn’t have $300,000 to post a bond,” McBee said.
He later ran against Danny Scarth to fill Haskin’s vacated city council seat in 2006 and again lost in a close election. McBee had almost no financial support, while Scarth’s campaign was financed by the oil and gas industry and the downtown elite and propped up by endorsements from Granger, Moncrief, and others who quaked at the thought of the independent and outspoken McBee holding a position of power.
“I’ve never been funded by the Fort Worth big money and probably never will be, and the elections in Fort Worth are about money,” he said. “It’s amazing — he [Scarth] had all the money and endorsements in the campaign, and he could only win by 54 votes. If they had left that election alone, I would be councilman today.”
And then along came the biggest business phenomenon and neighborhood impact of the new millennium — natural gas drilling in urban areas. The East Side, with its open land, floodplains, and industrial sites, drew drillers like a magnet. Woodhaven was one of the first neighborhoods to sign over its mineral rights and, as a result, agreed to much smaller bonuses and royalties than many neighborhoods are demanding and getting nowadays. Likewise, the city’s first permit for an injection well for gas drillers was granted at the former Arc Park. The proliferation spurred more organization, and, earlier this year, five neighborhood associations that had previously not paid much attention to one another joined forces. They formed the Greater Meadowbrook Mineral Leasing Task Force, representing owners of about 5,400 residential lots, and then notified Barnett Shale drillers that the industry standard — about $5,000 to $10,000 bonus payment per acre and 25 percent royalties — was no longer acceptable. They demanded $30,000 per acre and 30 percent royalties.
After weeks of negotiations with gas companies, the task force is on the verge of sealing a historic deal this week.
“We have a deal pending for $25,000 an acre and 26.5 percent,” McBee said. “It’s going to be a record-setting deal. Nobody’s gotten that much. In addition, should this deal go through, there will be no drilling in Meadowbrook at all.”
Don Young, yet another gray-haired white dude on a mission, surfaced several years ago when the proliferation of urban gas wells hit close to his home. Tandy Hills Park, a nature preserve close to Beach Street and I-30, is near and dear to his heart and his house. He was alarmed when the city began talking about drilling underneath the park in 2004. Young had never been a “naysayer,” the word city types use to describe anyone who questions their decisions. But Young decided a line had been crossed, and he began an odyssey of protest that led to the creation of Fort Worth Citizens Against Neighborhood Drilling Ordinance (FWCanDo).
“We started out as our neighborhood in West Meadowbrook, interested in protecting out own backyard,” he said. “Then we went citywide, then statewide, and now we’re national to some extent. We were the first organized group to fight gas drilling in Texas.”
Young’s willingness to use multiple media to spread his message has helped his protest. He’s printed about 2,000 “Just Say No To Urban Gas Drilling” placards; they’re now in front yards across the city. In 2005 he recruited college film students to make “Dirty Ol’ Town,” a video designed to counteract the city’s Pollyanna presentation of drilling. He’s had at least 200 duplicates made and mailed to other protest groups. The project was given additional credibility by the inclusion of Tarrant County Commissioner J.D. Johnson, who described woes with drillers near his home north of Fort Worth.
“I get requests for that video from all over the country,” Young said.
In 2006, he hosted the first Fort Worth Prairie Fest to expose residents to Tandy Hills’ beauty and to warn them of the threat from gas drillers. He’s now preparing for the third annual event, and attendance has grown each year.
In December 2007, he solicited local artists to create works inspired by urban gas drilling. The resulting exhibit, Buzzworms in the Backyard, at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center, drew about two dozen entries.
“I gave away out of my own pocket a thousand dollars in prize money to the top three winners,” he said. “Opening night we had at least 100 people crammed in a room to look at the art. I’m planning to do it again next year.”
Then, there’s Young’s steady stream of e-mails sent to people citywide, including to the various city officials he often butts heads with. Moncrief in particular is a frequent target of Young’s cyber-grenades.
And Young is considering new ways to spread his message.
“We haven’t published a book yet,” he said.
Technology helps get the word out on activists’ causes these days, but it doesn’t guarantee a response, he said. Passion and persistence are still the keys to bringing about change.
“It’s going to take a lot more than technology, it’s going to take people to wake up,” he said. “Technology is just another hammer to hit them over the head with.”
Taking a stand against the city’s drilling policies, not to mention bucking neighbors who are quite willing to overlook environmental and safety concerns in exchange for a royalty check, isn’t exactly a sound business plan for a small entrepreneur. Some see Young as heroic. Others see him as a royal pain in the ass or, worse, a nut job. He has owned an art glass business for years, and at first he worried his activism would hurt sales. It hasn’t. He is just as likely to earn new clients who appreciate his community efforts.
Along the way, Young’s personal style of protest has evolved. He’s a mild wallflower by nature, so it caught some people by surprise, including Young himself, when he attended the city’s first gas drilling task force meeting a few years ago and found himself yelling from the peanut gallery, angry that the group was stacked with oil and gas representatives. His outbursts frazzled and angered the committee members, and the chairperson threatened to evict the spectators. His temper still flares once in a while, but not often.
“I’ve moderated,” he said. “I have friends who tell me when I need to tone it down. I realized there were other ways to get my message across without disrupting meetings. I learned the rules as I went along. I’d never done anything like this before.”
He’s also learned about the downside of activism. While he hasn’t been assaulted, he reported being intimidated and threatened by oil and gas landmen at a protest a couple of years ago.
“I started looking behind me more often after that,” he said. “My wife was scared and I was scared too, to tell you the truth. Those guys are beefy, and they don’t have a lot of brains.”
Young is a slight, wiry guy who probably wouldn’t last long in a fistfight with a roughneck. But, like other Eastside activists, he focuses on his passion and tends to ignore the personal costs.
“I have firm convictions,” he said. “My wife has begged me to stop because it’s so stressful and it costs a lot of money and eats up so much of my time. But I’m not going to stop.”
Alliances are changing the dynamics of activism and could likewise alter the political landscape. Controversial issues such as public spending on the Trinity Uptown project could face more obstacles than ever with a more unified voting bloc.
Recently, the East Side Sector Alliance, made up of about a dozen neighborhoods — and an estimated 1,000 votes on election day — sent a letter to the city council saying they won’t support the 2008 bond proposal if the $10.2 million for bridges related to the Trinity River Uptown project isn’t removed.
“We’re going to actively oppose it, print yard signs and everything,” McBee said.
And, they are thinking citywide rather than focusing solely on their own backyards — just like the East Side did when its leaders drove the efforts against Cabela’s, located miles away on the city’s North Side.
“Our interest is global,” Conlin said. “We drove down Rosedale Avenue [in the Southeast], and it looked like a war zone, with trashy signs everywhere, and we drove down Lancaster Avenue and it looked nearly as bad, so we just started raising hell until we finally put together a sign committee.”
The committee won city approval of a revised and toughened ordinance, but the group hasn’t exactly declared victory. Ugly signs remain.
“We haven’t gotten rid of all the signs yet because the city isn’t enforcing it like they need to,” she said.
And so they’ll keep stomping through the corridors of city hall and developing new methods of uniting and organizing that provide more clout. That’s a nice thought for the activists and surely a scary one to the people in town who are used to pulling the strings.
“The benefit to the future will be huge,” McBee said. “Now we all know each other, and we have the ability to reach out overnight with e-mails. We have a unity we’ve never had before.”
You can reach Jeff Prince at jeff.prince@fwweekly.com.

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Two Faced

2008-04-09T18:59:00.000-07:00

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This is my overflow blog

2008-04-09T17:59:00.000-07:00

A few times in the past, I've wanted to copy a complete article so it'll be preserved in case the newspaper or magazine site that I've ripped off decides to charge for access to their archives.

To accomplish this, I've had to go back to week one of my site, save the stuff there as a new post, and link to it there. This screws up the Libertarian Aggregator sites that link to everything I post as a new entry.

The Blogspot hosting system doesn't support any kind of non-dated archive for bloggers who want to link to copies of long texts, linked punchlines to jokes, any other documentation that's too lengthy for the main site.

So this site, The Bleached Mausoleum, will do all of the above.

I wanted to call it "The Brood of Vipers", since it's another great phrase from Jesus's "Whited Sepulchre" rant. But that name was already taken. Nobody's posted anything on it for two years, but it's taken.

Second choice was "The Outer Darkness". Taken, dang it.

But The Bleached Mausoleum name works well, since, like a real mausoleum: 1) it's basically intended to store things for sentimental reasons, 2) people will only visit once or twice a year, and 3) it's a synonym for Whited Sepulchre.

I've turned the comment fields off. If you want to comment on something, go to the link that brought you here.

I might also do a few experiments here, like writing a post that brilliantly includes all 100 phrases from the Google Trends site, and then sitting back to see how many jillion hits it gets.

Nah, probably not.