At the 11th hour yesterday, a judge sucked the guts out of a daring new law aimed at illegal immigrants in Arizona.
So today, as Senate Bill 1070 goes into effect, only some minor changes will be seen in the way Arizona law enforcement agencies deal with the vexing problem of undocumented aliens.
You may recall that I do not support SB 1070, even though I agree with its basic premise that illegal immigration needs to be stopped. Only a fool could argue that the federal government hasn’t abdicated its responsibility of securing our borders and enforcing existing immigration laws.
As a major gateway for the flood of illegal people, drugs, and contraband entering our country, Arizona has been drowning in a sea of undocumented workers, births to undocumented women, and violent druglords. All while politicians of both Democratic and Republican stripes have been dithering away, worrying that their position on the issue could cost them their jobs – I mean, their congressional seats.
Can New Laws Enforce Old Ones?
If you read Federal District Court Judge Susan Bolton’s ruling at face value, you can see the validity of her analysis. Judge Bolton may be the pro-Obama hack her detractors claim her to be, but she does take pains to point out some obvious facts: that plenty of laws already exist to confront certain aspects of illegal immigration (page 5), that states and the federal government need to cooperate on these issues (page 6), and that the federal government has ultimate authority as the lead organization in securing the borders (page 9).
For all of the right-wing screaming that hers is a liberal ruling, Bolton actually lobs the ball squarely in Obama’s court by validating one of Arizona’s main points of contention: that as president, he is ultimately responsible for this mess and he's not doing anything about it. It may not sound like a major victory to proponents of SB 1070, but Bolton has actually given them some good ammunition to aim towards Washington.
Further in her ruling, Bolton enumerates legal precedence in support of the idea that Arizona does not have the final say in border affairs (page 10). If we are a nation of laws, and if we’re angry that people are breaking those laws by crossing our borders without permission, then we also need to abide by the laws on our books ourselves. One bad law cannot invalidate another bad law. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
And why is SB 1070 wrong? I believe it is wrong because it basically promotes racial profiling. As a border state, Arizona has a large population of legal Hispanic immigrants and native-born citizens of Hispanic descent. By lumping all Hispanics together under a cloud of suspicion does not protect the inalienable rights of legal and native Hispanics, who could be unfairly maligned by SB 1070. How many conservatives would be howling if the bill was directed towards people of white skin?
I Oppose Illegal Immigration, Not Immigration
Let’s be clear about this: at issue isn’t the vilification of immigration and legal immigrants to the United States. If you’re a white or black American, you can bet your bottom dollar that you’re the product of some form of immigration. Even the “Native” Americans came from someplace else. Immigration is how the world has been settled and developed. No problems there. Rather, the issue is the willful refusal to abide by sovereign laws regarding a person’s ability to legally enter and abide in our nation.
True, decades ago, the borders were more porous than they are now, and people came to America on the flimsiest of legal permissions. I’m not even sure if my own father’s father settled in Brooklyn by following proper channels; the story goes that he was a merchant seaman, and at one port of call in New York, he simply walked off the ship and never re-boarded. Of course, things were far different than they are today; immigration quotas were relatively new and the transition between Ellis Island’s famous screening processes (which my father’s mother endured) and today’s sophisticated population parameters was probably even less structured than Arizona’s borders are today.
What’s the difference? The difference is that today, every nation has laws regulating who can enter it, how many can enter, how long they can stay, and what they have to do if they want to become citizens. Does Mexico just have open border crossings along its sovereign northern edges? When you cross the famous bridges from Texas and California into Mexico, do you not have to stop and receive permission to enter? If somebody from Kansas went down to Mexico City and gave birth, would the Mexican government cover the cost?
SB 1070 is a Symptom, Not the Problem
America is suffering from political impotence. We have developed a system whereby people get elected to represent us not because they want to selflessly vote the conscience of their constituents, but because they relish power and incumbency.
If 70% of Americans oppose illegal immigration, as several polls suggest, then why are we even having this discussion? Why has Arizona felt like they’ve needed to take the law into their own hands? Why haven’t our elected officials taken the steps necessary to secure our borders and enforce the immigration laws already on the books? Why haven’t businesses which hire illegal aliens for cheap (some might say “slave”) labor been significantly penalized? (It's worth noting that the profiling part of SB 1070 is what Bolton ruled against, but she left in place aspects of the bill meant to discourage the employment of illegal immigrants.)
Might it be at least partly because we average voters like low costs for fruits, vegetables, newly-constructed homes, and other things? Do we assume it’s better for business owners to take a greater share of the profits by hiring undocumented workers than paying a capitalistic wage to grunt workers? Do we assume the laws don’t apply to us when we hire lawncare companies which use undocumented workers, and pay cash to illegal Hispanic women to clean our homes on the cheap? When we dine at McDonald’s or Olive Garden, do we ignore the probability that most of the people fixing our meals don’t have legal documentation? Do we really believe that if Americans won’t hire illegal immigrants, they won’t come here?
How much change can we expect if we really don't want to pay for it?
Racial profiling means little to white conservatives, and that’s to our shame. But until we look in the mirror and take a personal stand for what is really right, well-intentioned efforts like SB 1070 will keep missing the mark, politicians will continue to waffle, and illegal immigrants will keep coming.
And it won’t be just Obama’s fault.
_____
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Integrity Today Means Fewer Rules Later
Internal.
Revenue.
Service.
Three words that, together, can immediately conjure up a host of negative emotions.
In a conversation with a secretary at my church, the topic of IRS guidelines for expenditures came up, and how churches have to jump through more and more hoops when documenting every little expense.
I sympathized with my friend, and I agree that churches and other non-profits who want clean books have been burdened by a lot of busy-work by the IRS. However, I wonder how much of the IRS's suffocating accounting requirements may really be our own fault?
Not mine and my friends', of course; but of taxpayers in general.
Being Accountable
Indeed, when it comes to a lot of the encroachments conservatives accuse the government of making into our private lives and freedoms, how much of this government “interference” is the result of Uncle Sam’s thirst for power, and how much of it comes from our own abdication of personal responsibility?
After all, when a parent tries to teach a child personal accountability, and the child repeatedly fails to convince the parent they’re worthy of trust, a good parent will – albeit temporarily – re-assume control over that area from the child and try to teach the lesson again later.
Of course, when the government and the IRS take control of something, they’re loathe to relinquish that control back to us, so my parental analogy only goes so far. But do you see where I’m going?
My friend at church expressed her frustration over what looked like a matter of micro-management from the church's financial office. On the surface, it could have been misconstrued as maybe a subtle power play.
But I’ve worked in the financial office of a large church before. My boss at the time ran a strict set of books. Sometimes my fellow subordinate and I chuckled at how much documentation our boss insisted on having for every little thing. But then she let us read a church accounting newsletter she subscribed to. Its editors described some of the financial shenanigans churches were trying to get away with, and I realized that while the IRS may suffer from a power fetish, it’s gotten a lot of affirmation for its authority from the very organizations that owe it fiduciary integrity.
Of all the tax entities in America, churches should be the ones that strive to be the most above-board in their accounting, but many churches instead try to see how much they can get away with. That doesn’t sound like holy living to me. A lot of church people forget that taxation itself is actually affirmed by Christ when he told His mockers to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. Churches that have abdicated their responsibility for abiding by this command have instead handed our privilege to be presumed above reproach to the IRS on a silver platter.
Handing Freedoms on Silver Platters to Uncle Sam
Indeed, how many other rights and freedoms have we handed to the government on a silver platter through our society’s abdication of personal responsibility? Just recently, conservatives howled at President Barak Obama’s new restrictions and additional layer of bureaucracy to ostensibly oversee Wall Street after its infamous mortgage meltdown. How much of this additional heavy-handedness could have been avoided if banks, mortgage companies, and home buyers hadn’t all been too greedy years ago?
After a spate of whistle-blowers, near-misses, maintenance problems, and other issues put a spotlight on the cozy relationship between the Federal Aviation Administration and big airlines, some politicians have started calling for stricter oversight of our sprawling aviation industry. Safety experts have generally heralded the news, while as expected, conservative business analysts decry further government meddling into our de-regulated skies. But what is the extent to which airlines have pressured the FAA to overlook, or at least squint at, their minimizing costs by minimizing maintenance and other factors? When passengers who have waited hours on tarmacs pressured Congress to come up with a “passengers bill of rights,” was Congress' acquiescence an overextension of government authority or simply an automatic response to a problem airlines weren’t willing to address themselves?
Today marks the 100th day of BP’s oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Since it began, the Obama administration has been pushing for further regulation and moratoriums on offshore oil drilling activity, claiming that BP’s multiple failures regarding this crisis provide enough proof that oil companies can’t be trusted. Many citizens, politicians, and business interests dependant on the complex offshore oil industry have protested the administration’s actions and fought it in court. Several large energy corporations have pitched money into a $1 billion pot to research state-of-the-art spill response mechanisms to try and demonstrate that they don't need further government oversight. However, two incidents within the past several days in Michigan and New Orleans involving oil spills in waterways don't speak well of an industry which by most accounts has had a duplicitous relationship with the Minerals Management Service, supposedly their government overseer.
Exceptions to the Rule
Which, to a certain extent, creates a case study in what should - and shouldn't - incentivize government “meddling” in affairs like these.
Personally, in relation to the Gulf of Mexico spill, I oppose moratoriums that affect any oil company but BP, because as far as we know, the other players in this industry haven’t spurned prudence like BP has. Yes, there have been accidents and spills, and a certain margin for error must be accommodated for with offshore deep water drilling when we're talking about accessing a commodity which fuels our very way of life. But we've never had anything of this magnitude in US waters, and as time goes by, we're learning more and more about how cavalier and careless BP has been regarding the Deepwater Horizon in particular and their corporate culture in general.
But how can I defend accident-free oil operators when I can't deny that the IRS has the right to apply the same strict reporting standards to all non-profits, not just churches which have proven to have unreliable books? I'm assuming that my church has clean, balanced books, so why should it abide by the same reporting standards as non-profits with tainted books? How can I say that ExxonMobile and other operators should be excluded from restrictions devised in response to a mistake of BP's?
Part of this apparent double-standard comes from the fact that far more non-profits exist than major oil companies. Crooked accounting practices are far more easier to hide than an exploding deepwater rig. In addition, while tax cheats can ruin lives, they rarely take them; whereas oil drilling is dangerous. Yes, tax fraud can cause many people problems for years, just as oil spills can, and I'm not implying that the Minerals Management Service doesn't need to be overhauled with new standards and oversight that affect all players. But as we've seen in the Gulf over these past 100 days, if the same practices and attitudes as BP's were being perpetrated on oil platforms across the globe, we'd be having disasters like this far more frequently. From what we know today, the proof simply doesn't support extending drilling moratoriums past the major culprit in the Gulf disaster, BP.
That's not to say that as the focus intensifies on our energy industry, further problems with other companies won't come to light, and further restrictions won't be forthcoming. If the BP explosion caught other offshore players off-guard, and they've been scrambling to fix their processes and fortify their procedures, then maybe this incident in the Gulf has bought some time for other companies, and they owe BP a favor!
Honesty Isn't Expensive; Cheating Is
The basic issue, however, is being responsible from the get-go. Individuals and corporations shouldn't wait until they're caught before embracing principles and enacting procedures to make themselves and their organizations honest, safe, and even profitable. Apparently, BP thought it was saving money for shareholders by running roughshod over best-practices, but look at how much saving money is costing them now.
Maybe some people want to gamble and risk not getting caught.
Unfortunately, it's those kinds of people who end up making officials like the IRS force everybody to jump through hoops. Setting the rules yourself at the start is a lot easier than somebody else setting them for you later on.
_____
Revenue.
Service.
Three words that, together, can immediately conjure up a host of negative emotions.
In a conversation with a secretary at my church, the topic of IRS guidelines for expenditures came up, and how churches have to jump through more and more hoops when documenting every little expense.
I sympathized with my friend, and I agree that churches and other non-profits who want clean books have been burdened by a lot of busy-work by the IRS. However, I wonder how much of the IRS's suffocating accounting requirements may really be our own fault?
Not mine and my friends', of course; but of taxpayers in general.
Being Accountable
Indeed, when it comes to a lot of the encroachments conservatives accuse the government of making into our private lives and freedoms, how much of this government “interference” is the result of Uncle Sam’s thirst for power, and how much of it comes from our own abdication of personal responsibility?
After all, when a parent tries to teach a child personal accountability, and the child repeatedly fails to convince the parent they’re worthy of trust, a good parent will – albeit temporarily – re-assume control over that area from the child and try to teach the lesson again later.
Of course, when the government and the IRS take control of something, they’re loathe to relinquish that control back to us, so my parental analogy only goes so far. But do you see where I’m going?
My friend at church expressed her frustration over what looked like a matter of micro-management from the church's financial office. On the surface, it could have been misconstrued as maybe a subtle power play.
But I’ve worked in the financial office of a large church before. My boss at the time ran a strict set of books. Sometimes my fellow subordinate and I chuckled at how much documentation our boss insisted on having for every little thing. But then she let us read a church accounting newsletter she subscribed to. Its editors described some of the financial shenanigans churches were trying to get away with, and I realized that while the IRS may suffer from a power fetish, it’s gotten a lot of affirmation for its authority from the very organizations that owe it fiduciary integrity.
Of all the tax entities in America, churches should be the ones that strive to be the most above-board in their accounting, but many churches instead try to see how much they can get away with. That doesn’t sound like holy living to me. A lot of church people forget that taxation itself is actually affirmed by Christ when he told His mockers to give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. Churches that have abdicated their responsibility for abiding by this command have instead handed our privilege to be presumed above reproach to the IRS on a silver platter.
Handing Freedoms on Silver Platters to Uncle Sam
Indeed, how many other rights and freedoms have we handed to the government on a silver platter through our society’s abdication of personal responsibility? Just recently, conservatives howled at President Barak Obama’s new restrictions and additional layer of bureaucracy to ostensibly oversee Wall Street after its infamous mortgage meltdown. How much of this additional heavy-handedness could have been avoided if banks, mortgage companies, and home buyers hadn’t all been too greedy years ago?
After a spate of whistle-blowers, near-misses, maintenance problems, and other issues put a spotlight on the cozy relationship between the Federal Aviation Administration and big airlines, some politicians have started calling for stricter oversight of our sprawling aviation industry. Safety experts have generally heralded the news, while as expected, conservative business analysts decry further government meddling into our de-regulated skies. But what is the extent to which airlines have pressured the FAA to overlook, or at least squint at, their minimizing costs by minimizing maintenance and other factors? When passengers who have waited hours on tarmacs pressured Congress to come up with a “passengers bill of rights,” was Congress' acquiescence an overextension of government authority or simply an automatic response to a problem airlines weren’t willing to address themselves?
Today marks the 100th day of BP’s oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Since it began, the Obama administration has been pushing for further regulation and moratoriums on offshore oil drilling activity, claiming that BP’s multiple failures regarding this crisis provide enough proof that oil companies can’t be trusted. Many citizens, politicians, and business interests dependant on the complex offshore oil industry have protested the administration’s actions and fought it in court. Several large energy corporations have pitched money into a $1 billion pot to research state-of-the-art spill response mechanisms to try and demonstrate that they don't need further government oversight. However, two incidents within the past several days in Michigan and New Orleans involving oil spills in waterways don't speak well of an industry which by most accounts has had a duplicitous relationship with the Minerals Management Service, supposedly their government overseer.
Exceptions to the Rule
Which, to a certain extent, creates a case study in what should - and shouldn't - incentivize government “meddling” in affairs like these.
Personally, in relation to the Gulf of Mexico spill, I oppose moratoriums that affect any oil company but BP, because as far as we know, the other players in this industry haven’t spurned prudence like BP has. Yes, there have been accidents and spills, and a certain margin for error must be accommodated for with offshore deep water drilling when we're talking about accessing a commodity which fuels our very way of life. But we've never had anything of this magnitude in US waters, and as time goes by, we're learning more and more about how cavalier and careless BP has been regarding the Deepwater Horizon in particular and their corporate culture in general.
But how can I defend accident-free oil operators when I can't deny that the IRS has the right to apply the same strict reporting standards to all non-profits, not just churches which have proven to have unreliable books? I'm assuming that my church has clean, balanced books, so why should it abide by the same reporting standards as non-profits with tainted books? How can I say that ExxonMobile and other operators should be excluded from restrictions devised in response to a mistake of BP's?
Part of this apparent double-standard comes from the fact that far more non-profits exist than major oil companies. Crooked accounting practices are far more easier to hide than an exploding deepwater rig. In addition, while tax cheats can ruin lives, they rarely take them; whereas oil drilling is dangerous. Yes, tax fraud can cause many people problems for years, just as oil spills can, and I'm not implying that the Minerals Management Service doesn't need to be overhauled with new standards and oversight that affect all players. But as we've seen in the Gulf over these past 100 days, if the same practices and attitudes as BP's were being perpetrated on oil platforms across the globe, we'd be having disasters like this far more frequently. From what we know today, the proof simply doesn't support extending drilling moratoriums past the major culprit in the Gulf disaster, BP.
That's not to say that as the focus intensifies on our energy industry, further problems with other companies won't come to light, and further restrictions won't be forthcoming. If the BP explosion caught other offshore players off-guard, and they've been scrambling to fix their processes and fortify their procedures, then maybe this incident in the Gulf has bought some time for other companies, and they owe BP a favor!
Honesty Isn't Expensive; Cheating Is
The basic issue, however, is being responsible from the get-go. Individuals and corporations shouldn't wait until they're caught before embracing principles and enacting procedures to make themselves and their organizations honest, safe, and even profitable. Apparently, BP thought it was saving money for shareholders by running roughshod over best-practices, but look at how much saving money is costing them now.
Maybe some people want to gamble and risk not getting caught.
Unfortunately, it's those kinds of people who end up making officials like the IRS force everybody to jump through hoops. Setting the rules yourself at the start is a lot easier than somebody else setting them for you later on.
_____
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Quality of Character - Part 2
Faulkner for Congress!
You’ll note that I’ve added an endorsement for Michel Faulker to the top-right hand corner of this blog. Faulkner is an evangelical Baptist pastor from New York City’s Harlem who is running for the congressional seat currently held by Charles Rangel. If that name sounds familiar, maybe it’s because Rangel is the subject of an ethics probe in the House of Representatives for a variety of alleged violations during his many years in Congress.
I’m not making a racial statement with this endorsement, just because Faulkner is black and I’m not. I’m introducing him to you because you need to know who he is. Not just because he stands a good chance of winning Rangel’s seat to represent one of New York’s most iconic neighborhoods, but also because this could very well be the first rung on Faulkner’s ladder to wider national prominence.
It's Michel, Not Michael
Although I've met him, he wouldn’t remember me from Adam. Faulkner served as the youth pastor when I first started attending Calvary Baptist Church in midtown Manhattan back in the 1990’s. He later left to pastor a predominantly black church further uptown, and has raised his family in Harlem. Even during his days at Calvary, I remember him being a modest yet determined man, full of faith and conviction, and living a life of integrity. He worked on the groundbreaking mayoral campaign of Rudy Giulianni and has served on numerous committees in the city. Nobody I know who also knows Faulkner has ever had a bad word to say about him.
In this day and age, it’s rare to come across as focused yet as selfless a political operative as Faulkner. Usually, a person running for office has some ulterior motive, whether it’s a desire for financial gain, power, or prestige. Although as I’ve said, I don’t know Faulkner personally, nor have I seen him in years, he will need to have completely changed his personality and mentality to be the self-aggrandizing congressional candidate one would expect a typical urban political candidate to be.
One of the characteristics I so loved about New York’s Calvary Baptist stemmed from the first time I visited in search of a church home: walking through the heavy wooden doors into its newly-renovated sanctuary, I looked around at the majestic mix of peoples, cultures, and ethnicities, and immediately felt at home. Even though I didn’t know a soul there.
Of course, whenever Faulkner would help lead a worship service or preach, I visibly perceived his skin color, but like everyone else at Calvary, skin color didn’t mean much. When you’re able to worship and serve together with race and culture being insignificant factors, you get a glimpse of what true acceptance and progress can be. For Faulkner to play a part in establishing and perpetuating that type of environment spoke volumes to me. And I have it on good authority by friends from Calvary who keep in touch with Faulkner: he hasn’t changed.
Integrity Still Counts
To me, Faulkner represents a stunning opportunity for not only New York’s 15th Congressional District, but for the country as a whole. If he does get elected, I have no reason to assume Faulkner’s integrity won’t be so counter-cultural that he’ll just fade into the background in Washington. Particularly when juxtaposed to incumbent Rangel’s old-style manipulation of the Democratic machine and personal sense of entitlement, not to mention the indictments against him, I expect Faulkner’s personal humility and transparency will be a breath of fresh air. The fact that he’s also a (relatively) conservative Republican from a historically liberal Democratic district would also affirm the progress some conservatives have been making towards balancing economic imperatives with viable social considerations.
Why do I think Faulkner has a good chance of winning? After all, he’s running against decades of cronyism, racism, and a New York media which loves Rangel’s flamboyance. Just because Faulkner is a born-again evangelical won’t automatically hold him in good stead among fellow church-going blacks, many of whom will be suspicious of his Republican affiliation and, even worse, his strong background in cross-cultural and cross-racial collaboration on a variety of issues. But it’s just that collaborative spirit and his grass-roots experience with real issues that can be the groundwork for a platform of honest-to-goodness reform. Reform in a part of New York City which for too long has been told positive change is too elusive, while its well-coiffed representative buys estates in the Dominican Republic and enjoys multiple rent-controlled apartments in one of Harlem’s nicest high-rises.
I’m sure Faulkner has his faults, but they can’t be any worse that those of his opponent. Actually, word on the street has it that even other Democrats are eager to dethrone Rangel, so anti-incumbent fever may be taking hold in Harlem. Still, I wanted to bring Faulkner to your attention as the person to watch in this pivotal Congressional election which, by virtue of its location and population, could attract national recognition.
It's Not About Race Anymore
Even if Faulkner doesn't win Rangel's seat, hopefully by now, you can see why I’m talking about Sherrod, Obama, and Faulkner in the same essay. Racism isn't just about skin color. It's not only how you view yourself, but how you view other people who are different from you. Precious few of us can claim to be righteous when it comes to our personal engagement with the subject. Even though most people profess a considerable level of racial tolerance, deep down, many of us still struggle with stereotypes and assumptions which, to a certain extent, color how we respond to and interact with people from different races.
From what I know about Michel Faulkner and what I've heard from Shirley Sherrod, these are two people who have, to varying degrees of success, moved on from mere skin color to a level of social integration where their spheres of influence have become significant. Before her unwarranted lynching by Andrew Brietbart, yes, Sherrod was what conservatives would consider a liberal Democrat, but she had parlayed a comprehensive command of the USDA system into a recognized platform of civil service. Faulkner, while never the consummate liberal like Sherrod, has risen through the community service ranks in North America's most contentious city and established a reputation based on faith and integrity first, with skin color often only coming into play when people see him on TV.
In the meantime, few people can argue that Barak Obama hasn't banked on his blackness to get into Harvard, crack Chicago's political machine, and assume the presidency. Of these three individuals, Obama has gained the most from being black, but he seems to be the most uncomfortable in his dark skin. Why is that? Is it still too early in his presidency to assume that he prickles too easy when racial subjects surface? Are we blasting his acquiescence to his gaggle of vanilla advisors too soon? Are we reviewing George W. Bush's highly integrated cabinet with too much perplexity at Obama's comparatively white one?
My Blog's First Endorsement
I had heard a while ago that Faulkner was going to run for Rangel's seat in the House. When I saw a friend post Faulkner's campaign fan page on FaceBook, I genuinely got excited. And you regular readers of this blog know I don't get excited about much.
I told my FaceBook friend that not only do I wholeheartedly support Faulkner for his Manhattan district, I'd vote for him for president.
Please visit his website, donate financially to his campaign if you can, volunteer for his campaign if you live in New York City, and follow his progress.
Faulkner definitely stands for change we can believe in! Black, white, everybody.
_____
You’ll note that I’ve added an endorsement for Michel Faulker to the top-right hand corner of this blog. Faulkner is an evangelical Baptist pastor from New York City’s Harlem who is running for the congressional seat currently held by Charles Rangel. If that name sounds familiar, maybe it’s because Rangel is the subject of an ethics probe in the House of Representatives for a variety of alleged violations during his many years in Congress.
I’m not making a racial statement with this endorsement, just because Faulkner is black and I’m not. I’m introducing him to you because you need to know who he is. Not just because he stands a good chance of winning Rangel’s seat to represent one of New York’s most iconic neighborhoods, but also because this could very well be the first rung on Faulkner’s ladder to wider national prominence.
It's Michel, Not Michael
Although I've met him, he wouldn’t remember me from Adam. Faulkner served as the youth pastor when I first started attending Calvary Baptist Church in midtown Manhattan back in the 1990’s. He later left to pastor a predominantly black church further uptown, and has raised his family in Harlem. Even during his days at Calvary, I remember him being a modest yet determined man, full of faith and conviction, and living a life of integrity. He worked on the groundbreaking mayoral campaign of Rudy Giulianni and has served on numerous committees in the city. Nobody I know who also knows Faulkner has ever had a bad word to say about him.
In this day and age, it’s rare to come across as focused yet as selfless a political operative as Faulkner. Usually, a person running for office has some ulterior motive, whether it’s a desire for financial gain, power, or prestige. Although as I’ve said, I don’t know Faulkner personally, nor have I seen him in years, he will need to have completely changed his personality and mentality to be the self-aggrandizing congressional candidate one would expect a typical urban political candidate to be.
One of the characteristics I so loved about New York’s Calvary Baptist stemmed from the first time I visited in search of a church home: walking through the heavy wooden doors into its newly-renovated sanctuary, I looked around at the majestic mix of peoples, cultures, and ethnicities, and immediately felt at home. Even though I didn’t know a soul there.
Of course, whenever Faulkner would help lead a worship service or preach, I visibly perceived his skin color, but like everyone else at Calvary, skin color didn’t mean much. When you’re able to worship and serve together with race and culture being insignificant factors, you get a glimpse of what true acceptance and progress can be. For Faulkner to play a part in establishing and perpetuating that type of environment spoke volumes to me. And I have it on good authority by friends from Calvary who keep in touch with Faulkner: he hasn’t changed.
Integrity Still Counts
To me, Faulkner represents a stunning opportunity for not only New York’s 15th Congressional District, but for the country as a whole. If he does get elected, I have no reason to assume Faulkner’s integrity won’t be so counter-cultural that he’ll just fade into the background in Washington. Particularly when juxtaposed to incumbent Rangel’s old-style manipulation of the Democratic machine and personal sense of entitlement, not to mention the indictments against him, I expect Faulkner’s personal humility and transparency will be a breath of fresh air. The fact that he’s also a (relatively) conservative Republican from a historically liberal Democratic district would also affirm the progress some conservatives have been making towards balancing economic imperatives with viable social considerations.
Why do I think Faulkner has a good chance of winning? After all, he’s running against decades of cronyism, racism, and a New York media which loves Rangel’s flamboyance. Just because Faulkner is a born-again evangelical won’t automatically hold him in good stead among fellow church-going blacks, many of whom will be suspicious of his Republican affiliation and, even worse, his strong background in cross-cultural and cross-racial collaboration on a variety of issues. But it’s just that collaborative spirit and his grass-roots experience with real issues that can be the groundwork for a platform of honest-to-goodness reform. Reform in a part of New York City which for too long has been told positive change is too elusive, while its well-coiffed representative buys estates in the Dominican Republic and enjoys multiple rent-controlled apartments in one of Harlem’s nicest high-rises.
I’m sure Faulkner has his faults, but they can’t be any worse that those of his opponent. Actually, word on the street has it that even other Democrats are eager to dethrone Rangel, so anti-incumbent fever may be taking hold in Harlem. Still, I wanted to bring Faulkner to your attention as the person to watch in this pivotal Congressional election which, by virtue of its location and population, could attract national recognition.
It's Not About Race Anymore
Even if Faulkner doesn't win Rangel's seat, hopefully by now, you can see why I’m talking about Sherrod, Obama, and Faulkner in the same essay. Racism isn't just about skin color. It's not only how you view yourself, but how you view other people who are different from you. Precious few of us can claim to be righteous when it comes to our personal engagement with the subject. Even though most people profess a considerable level of racial tolerance, deep down, many of us still struggle with stereotypes and assumptions which, to a certain extent, color how we respond to and interact with people from different races.
From what I know about Michel Faulkner and what I've heard from Shirley Sherrod, these are two people who have, to varying degrees of success, moved on from mere skin color to a level of social integration where their spheres of influence have become significant. Before her unwarranted lynching by Andrew Brietbart, yes, Sherrod was what conservatives would consider a liberal Democrat, but she had parlayed a comprehensive command of the USDA system into a recognized platform of civil service. Faulkner, while never the consummate liberal like Sherrod, has risen through the community service ranks in North America's most contentious city and established a reputation based on faith and integrity first, with skin color often only coming into play when people see him on TV.
In the meantime, few people can argue that Barak Obama hasn't banked on his blackness to get into Harvard, crack Chicago's political machine, and assume the presidency. Of these three individuals, Obama has gained the most from being black, but he seems to be the most uncomfortable in his dark skin. Why is that? Is it still too early in his presidency to assume that he prickles too easy when racial subjects surface? Are we blasting his acquiescence to his gaggle of vanilla advisors too soon? Are we reviewing George W. Bush's highly integrated cabinet with too much perplexity at Obama's comparatively white one?
My Blog's First Endorsement
I had heard a while ago that Faulkner was going to run for Rangel's seat in the House. When I saw a friend post Faulkner's campaign fan page on FaceBook, I genuinely got excited. And you regular readers of this blog know I don't get excited about much.
I told my FaceBook friend that not only do I wholeheartedly support Faulkner for his Manhattan district, I'd vote for him for president.
Please visit his website, donate financially to his campaign if you can, volunteer for his campaign if you live in New York City, and follow his progress.
Faulkner definitely stands for change we can believe in! Black, white, everybody.
_____
Monday, July 26, 2010
Quality of Character - Part 1
One week ago today, you and I were just beginning to hear about some NAACP banquet where a black government bureaucrat was videotaped spewing racist vitriol to an appreciative audience.
Today, the instant fury of the Shirley Sherrod saga continues its paradoxical course through our national press, the blogosphere, and private conversations between people who either wish the story would just go away or hope it jump-starts a new dialog on race relations.
Because now, just as fingers are pointing to the reprehensible racism of Andrew Breitbart for first posted the incriminating video clip on his website, they’re also pointing to President Barak Obama, who appears to be inept at the very issue he claimed his election helped resolve: post-segregationist inter-racial strife.
Whether you voted for him or not, on inauguration day, you probably shared a common amazement that the United States of America had finally elected a black person to be president. Sure, many conservatives chaffed at his acquiescence towards Muslims, his former pastor’s hatred of whites, and his privileged education greased by affirmative action quotas. Some could look across the political landscape and easily identify other blacks who would have been better candidates if we were playing the race card. But nevertheless, Obama was the candidate, and Obama was the winner. And whether that made you happy or not, the historical power of his win seemed undeniable.
But it didn’t take long for even liberal blacks to realize that for all of his rhetoric, Obama isn’t the racially-sensitive leader he claimed to be. In fact, he appears to take great pains to mollify right-wing conservatives at the expense of cross-culturalism.
Our first major inkling came when his friend, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., pitched a hissy fit when a neighbor of his called 911 on him, and the responding cops wanted an ID. Instead of telling his black friend to chill out and let the white cops do their job, Obama invited Gates and the cop he accused of racial profiling to the White House for a “beer summit.” The stunt didn’t to diddley for improving race relations; Obama came across as impotent and Gates as petulant. Only the cop emerged unscathed.
Rounding Out Your Inner Circle
Of course, every president buffers themselves with advisers to help provide perspective and background for both national policy and daily issues. With dismay, some blacks acknowledge that conservative Republican George W. Bush had far more black advisers – not to mention cabinet officials – than the liberal Democratic Obama.
I criticize 43 a lot, but one area where he set a great example was his colorblindness. Critics first assumed Bush was trying to ingratiate himself with blacks by having General Colin Powell and then Dr. Condoleeza Rice as secretaries of state – arguably the most visible cabinet post apart from the presidency. However, even liberal blacks who had watched Bush as governor in Texas had to admit that of all his faults, racism isn’t one of them. He picks the best person for the job, regardless of skin color.
Can the same be said of Obama? Virtually all of his top advisers are white. Not that white people can’t provide unbiased analysis of events and issues, and not that blacks are the only people who can validate the black experience. But just as you have business executives advise you on economic matters, doesn’t it make sense that, on average, black people might have a more intrinsic understanding of black society and culture?
For example, most whites had never heard the name “Sherrod” before last week, but within the black civil rights lexicon, Sherrod is a name that at least rings a bell, because Shirley’s husband was a leader in the non-violent student protest movement during the 1960’s. While it doesn’t take a black person to know that, what are the chances a black person with a pedigree good enough to advise the president would at least recognize the name quicker than a white person with a similar historic pedigree? And obviously, none of the whites serving Obama knew this detail from the civil rights era at all. They didn’t even have the presence of mind to Google it – like many ordinary Americans did.
Communicator in Chief?
Which brings us to the second point. Remember when Obama protested being deprived of his Blackberry? Oh, we were going to have our first technology-savvy Executive-in Chief, and communication was going to be state-of-the art.
Well, that ain’t happening, is it? Some media wonks have been blasting the White House and its feeble attempts at contacting Sherrod during the early hours and days of last week’s fiasco. Even though Sherrod was courted by every cable news show, a spokesman for the USDA complained they couldn’t contact her.
How could all of these cable news shows get ahold of Sherrod, when the Executive Branch could not? Do Obama’s people have this much trouble getting ahold of world leaders? And Sherrod wasn’t exactly in hiding. How eager was the White House to actually contact Sherrod and get her side of the story? Was Sherrod refusing to take their calls? Why did it take so long for the White House and the USDA to get on the same page, when even Fox News was proclaiming Sherrod’s innocence? Why did the Obama administration – and the NAACP, for that matter – immediately take the side of a far-right-wing blogger with a Tea Party axe to grind? Obama's people obviously over-reacted by under-reacting: they didn't research the issue, they didn't establish contact with Sherrod for her side of the story, and they didn't contact Brietbart for the video's provenance. With a civil rights issue in the balance.
By the way, these are not my original questions. Sherrod, civil rights leaders, the media, and others are asking these same questions.
Tomorrow: Part Two (related to the Faulkner endorsement you see on this blog)
_____
Today, the instant fury of the Shirley Sherrod saga continues its paradoxical course through our national press, the blogosphere, and private conversations between people who either wish the story would just go away or hope it jump-starts a new dialog on race relations.
Because now, just as fingers are pointing to the reprehensible racism of Andrew Breitbart for first posted the incriminating video clip on his website, they’re also pointing to President Barak Obama, who appears to be inept at the very issue he claimed his election helped resolve: post-segregationist inter-racial strife.
Whether you voted for him or not, on inauguration day, you probably shared a common amazement that the United States of America had finally elected a black person to be president. Sure, many conservatives chaffed at his acquiescence towards Muslims, his former pastor’s hatred of whites, and his privileged education greased by affirmative action quotas. Some could look across the political landscape and easily identify other blacks who would have been better candidates if we were playing the race card. But nevertheless, Obama was the candidate, and Obama was the winner. And whether that made you happy or not, the historical power of his win seemed undeniable.
But it didn’t take long for even liberal blacks to realize that for all of his rhetoric, Obama isn’t the racially-sensitive leader he claimed to be. In fact, he appears to take great pains to mollify right-wing conservatives at the expense of cross-culturalism.
Our first major inkling came when his friend, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., pitched a hissy fit when a neighbor of his called 911 on him, and the responding cops wanted an ID. Instead of telling his black friend to chill out and let the white cops do their job, Obama invited Gates and the cop he accused of racial profiling to the White House for a “beer summit.” The stunt didn’t to diddley for improving race relations; Obama came across as impotent and Gates as petulant. Only the cop emerged unscathed.
Rounding Out Your Inner Circle
Of course, every president buffers themselves with advisers to help provide perspective and background for both national policy and daily issues. With dismay, some blacks acknowledge that conservative Republican George W. Bush had far more black advisers – not to mention cabinet officials – than the liberal Democratic Obama.
I criticize 43 a lot, but one area where he set a great example was his colorblindness. Critics first assumed Bush was trying to ingratiate himself with blacks by having General Colin Powell and then Dr. Condoleeza Rice as secretaries of state – arguably the most visible cabinet post apart from the presidency. However, even liberal blacks who had watched Bush as governor in Texas had to admit that of all his faults, racism isn’t one of them. He picks the best person for the job, regardless of skin color.
Can the same be said of Obama? Virtually all of his top advisers are white. Not that white people can’t provide unbiased analysis of events and issues, and not that blacks are the only people who can validate the black experience. But just as you have business executives advise you on economic matters, doesn’t it make sense that, on average, black people might have a more intrinsic understanding of black society and culture?
For example, most whites had never heard the name “Sherrod” before last week, but within the black civil rights lexicon, Sherrod is a name that at least rings a bell, because Shirley’s husband was a leader in the non-violent student protest movement during the 1960’s. While it doesn’t take a black person to know that, what are the chances a black person with a pedigree good enough to advise the president would at least recognize the name quicker than a white person with a similar historic pedigree? And obviously, none of the whites serving Obama knew this detail from the civil rights era at all. They didn’t even have the presence of mind to Google it – like many ordinary Americans did.
Communicator in Chief?
Which brings us to the second point. Remember when Obama protested being deprived of his Blackberry? Oh, we were going to have our first technology-savvy Executive-in Chief, and communication was going to be state-of-the art.
Well, that ain’t happening, is it? Some media wonks have been blasting the White House and its feeble attempts at contacting Sherrod during the early hours and days of last week’s fiasco. Even though Sherrod was courted by every cable news show, a spokesman for the USDA complained they couldn’t contact her.
How could all of these cable news shows get ahold of Sherrod, when the Executive Branch could not? Do Obama’s people have this much trouble getting ahold of world leaders? And Sherrod wasn’t exactly in hiding. How eager was the White House to actually contact Sherrod and get her side of the story? Was Sherrod refusing to take their calls? Why did it take so long for the White House and the USDA to get on the same page, when even Fox News was proclaiming Sherrod’s innocence? Why did the Obama administration – and the NAACP, for that matter – immediately take the side of a far-right-wing blogger with a Tea Party axe to grind? Obama's people obviously over-reacted by under-reacting: they didn't research the issue, they didn't establish contact with Sherrod for her side of the story, and they didn't contact Brietbart for the video's provenance. With a civil rights issue in the balance.
By the way, these are not my original questions. Sherrod, civil rights leaders, the media, and others are asking these same questions.
Tomorrow: Part Two (related to the Faulkner endorsement you see on this blog)
_____
Friday, July 23, 2010
Kissing the Son
Have right-wing politics begun to crawl into the backseat of America's evangelical church as we speed down our cultural highway?
All the big talking heads from those earnest Moral Majority days have either passed away or faded into obscurity. Although they had valid concerns about our country, they tended to rely more on political parties than the Sovereign One Who laughs at them. Even as they preached the evils of legalism, they insisted they could legislate morality.
Despite the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy Hillary Clinton was convinced the Jerry Falwells of America had amassed, we still got AIDS, high divorce rates, high drug abuse rates, high teenage pregnancy rates, 9/11, and everything else with which they claimed God would plague America. Whether these were legitimate plagues or simply the inevitable fallout from decades of sin by people both inside and outside the church, it's hard to say, because for many leaders of the right, rhetoric often trumped discipline.
Partly as an extension of myopic Moral Majority activism, the evangelical church fragmented as idealistic seeker “paradigms” perpetrated pop culture on congregations nationwide. Eventually, the Republican Party was vilified by even some of its own members for bowing to right-wing special interests and marginalizing its appeal to independents.
We got Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, the biggest government bureaucracy we’ve ever had, and eventually simultaneous wars in the Middle East, along with ownership of GM and a ludicrous Wall Street bailout. Not to mention Rush Limbaugh.
Indeed, looking at our country today, could you guess the Moral Majority ever existed?
Tea and Pie
Not that all has been lost. Despite its kitschy media presence and illogical blowhards like Andrew Breitbart, our underdog Tea Party movement has been a grass-roots coup of sorts. Disenchanted voters of all stripes have emerged to showcase frustrations about over-lobbied legislators and reckless government spending. Although some Republican stalwarts worry Tea Partiers could actually dilute the conservative agenda, Republicans ignore the fact that they've had plenty of opportunities to right our fiscal ship, yet haven't.
Once the envy of pastors everywhere, Willow Creek Community Church’s now-tarnished seeker-sensitive overhaul of Christianity has inadvertently contributed to a backlash towards a more reformed theology, although some neo-Calvinists insist on dragging their electric keyboards along. The evangelical church has also been invaded by an Internet-fueled explosion in trendy preachers and hip ministries each clamoring for an ever-shrinking piece of the Christianity pie.
Which brings us to that part of the Christianity pie that still harbors lingering angst over how we’re supposed to be changing the world for Christ. Despite being accused of colluding with Catholics, respected activist Chuck Colson has launched manhattandeclaration.org in an effort to rally conservatives from multiple faiths around core faith values of heterosexual marriage, the sanctity of life, and religious liberty. Renowned PCA pastor Tim Keller helped found The Gospel Coalition in an effort to differentiate socially-progressive, theologically-conservative churches from more liberal mainline ones. And the granddaddy of them all, Focus on the Family, has seen the passing of the political-activist torch from founder James Dobson to… nobody seems certain.
Churches Reconsidering Their Political Roles
If any mortal knows the new political role our evangelical community is supposed to be playing these days, they’re keeping it a well-guarded secret. Indeed, opinions seem to be all over the map when it comes to how conservative religious leaders think we should be responding to issues like illegal immigration and nationalized healthcare.
Down at Florida’s famous Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, the death of founding pastor D. James Kennedy, who in his later years turned his pulpit into a hawkish political platform, made way for the comparatively dispassionate Tullian Tchividjian. As successor to Kennedy's staunchly conservative mantle, Tchividjian's reluctance to wear it came as an insult to some in the congregation. They perceived him as waffling on core social principles, a complaint which contributed to a church split which saw 400 people leave last year. How accurate are the frustrations and disappointments of these disaffected members who think Tchividjian is too soft on controversial topics? It’s hard to tell, since Tchividjian's supporters actually barred six rabblerousers from church property, a petulant move which was later castigated by a denominational committee.
Then there’s Keller, who also founded his own church, but on the liberal bastion of Manhattan Island. In multiple sermons, Keller has espoused what sounds to alarmed right-wing hawks like wealth redistribution, where rich church-goers contribute to the needs of less-wealthy congregants to help prevent poverty from disrupting their faith community. Keller, one of the celebrity pastors in the patriarchal Presbyterian Church in America, has also allowed women to serve Holy Communion, which he excuses as an olive branch to liberal urban females. That and other issues seem to have limited Keller's influence outside of reformed circles.
Media darling Rick Warren, pastor of uber-chic Saddleback Church in - where else? - California, has emerged from the seeker crisis he championed alongside Willow Creek with a far more pronounced public image. Warren has tried to play the political field, confounding some conservatives by hosting an election year summit of presidential candidates, despite being accused of playing in to the hands of Democratic political operatives. Some right-wingers have particularly vilified Warren as being too cozy with liberals on environmental issues like global warming.
Not to be outdone in confounding the conservative movement, the Southern Baptist Convention, that historic bastion of conservative ideology, has come out in support of what amounts to amnesty for illegal immigrants from Central America. Their reasoning is based on passages like Exodus 22 and Deuteronomy 10, which basically say Israel should not discriminate against foreigners in her land.
And then there’s Willow Creek’s own Bill Hybels, who not only has curried favor with Democratic politicians in the past, much to the consternation of conservatives, but has now sided with the Southern Baptists in lobbying Congress for illegal immigrant amnesty. Hybels and Leith Anderson, a pastor from suburban Minneapolis and president of the National Association of Evangelicals, claim to be forging new political alliances with Hispanics, many of whom would probably fit the general profile of conservative voters if... well, they were legal and could vote.
Faith Still Matters
Of course, none of these changes means that evangelical Christians no longer matter as voters. In some respects, it may be beneficial. Having people of faith wrestling over these issues rather than just accepting planks of a political party's platform could even result in believers reading their Bibles themselves to see what God really says - or doesn't say - about legislation we think is important.
The recent support by evangelical organizations for what is considered liberal policy - most particularly seen in the debate over illegal immigration, but also over nationalized healthcare and the environment - represents a marked departure for some people of faith who might have previously been expected to vote along the Republican party line. Having this dependable block of voters now segmented by the issues scares some conservatives who anticipate bigger battles over bigger issues and who think they need bigger numbers of voters to sway influence and policy.
While I personally oppose any form of amnesty for people who have intentionally broken laws to enter our country and contribute to the distortion of pay scales for menial labor, I can understand where the Southern Baptists and pastors Hybels and Anderson are coming from when it comes to respecting the dignity of life, even if you are illegal. However, since all three of these espouse the church growth movement, I suspect ulterior motives are at play in addition to their professed concern over human rights.
Other issues complicate our illegal immigration issue here in the United States which don't negate the validity of scripture referencing foreigners in Israel, but could mean those scriptures don't fully apply, either. These issues include Americans who don't want to pay for the real value of labor, immigration policies which can seem to reward the practice of illegal immigration, the responsibility of sovereign nations south of the Mexican border to curtail their endorsement of their countrymen violating our laws, and the rights of the United States to honor the path to legal residency people from other countries dutifully abide by.
Thanks be to God that we can bring these issues to His throne! To the extent that people of faith whittle away their personal agendas and focus on what glorifies Christ, perhaps the freedom from political partisanship can be one step towards a greater testimony from our lives and churches of His sovereignty and rule over all affairs of men:
1 Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, 3 "Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us."
4 He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. 5 Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, 6 "As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill."
7 I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, "You are my Son; today I have begotten you. 8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. 9 You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel."
10 Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. 11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. 12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. - Psalm 2 (ESV)
_____
All the big talking heads from those earnest Moral Majority days have either passed away or faded into obscurity. Although they had valid concerns about our country, they tended to rely more on political parties than the Sovereign One Who laughs at them. Even as they preached the evils of legalism, they insisted they could legislate morality.
Despite the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy Hillary Clinton was convinced the Jerry Falwells of America had amassed, we still got AIDS, high divorce rates, high drug abuse rates, high teenage pregnancy rates, 9/11, and everything else with which they claimed God would plague America. Whether these were legitimate plagues or simply the inevitable fallout from decades of sin by people both inside and outside the church, it's hard to say, because for many leaders of the right, rhetoric often trumped discipline.
Partly as an extension of myopic Moral Majority activism, the evangelical church fragmented as idealistic seeker “paradigms” perpetrated pop culture on congregations nationwide. Eventually, the Republican Party was vilified by even some of its own members for bowing to right-wing special interests and marginalizing its appeal to independents.
We got Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, the biggest government bureaucracy we’ve ever had, and eventually simultaneous wars in the Middle East, along with ownership of GM and a ludicrous Wall Street bailout. Not to mention Rush Limbaugh.
Indeed, looking at our country today, could you guess the Moral Majority ever existed?
Tea and Pie
Not that all has been lost. Despite its kitschy media presence and illogical blowhards like Andrew Breitbart, our underdog Tea Party movement has been a grass-roots coup of sorts. Disenchanted voters of all stripes have emerged to showcase frustrations about over-lobbied legislators and reckless government spending. Although some Republican stalwarts worry Tea Partiers could actually dilute the conservative agenda, Republicans ignore the fact that they've had plenty of opportunities to right our fiscal ship, yet haven't.
Once the envy of pastors everywhere, Willow Creek Community Church’s now-tarnished seeker-sensitive overhaul of Christianity has inadvertently contributed to a backlash towards a more reformed theology, although some neo-Calvinists insist on dragging their electric keyboards along. The evangelical church has also been invaded by an Internet-fueled explosion in trendy preachers and hip ministries each clamoring for an ever-shrinking piece of the Christianity pie.
Which brings us to that part of the Christianity pie that still harbors lingering angst over how we’re supposed to be changing the world for Christ. Despite being accused of colluding with Catholics, respected activist Chuck Colson has launched manhattandeclaration.org in an effort to rally conservatives from multiple faiths around core faith values of heterosexual marriage, the sanctity of life, and religious liberty. Renowned PCA pastor Tim Keller helped found The Gospel Coalition in an effort to differentiate socially-progressive, theologically-conservative churches from more liberal mainline ones. And the granddaddy of them all, Focus on the Family, has seen the passing of the political-activist torch from founder James Dobson to… nobody seems certain.
Churches Reconsidering Their Political Roles
If any mortal knows the new political role our evangelical community is supposed to be playing these days, they’re keeping it a well-guarded secret. Indeed, opinions seem to be all over the map when it comes to how conservative religious leaders think we should be responding to issues like illegal immigration and nationalized healthcare.
Down at Florida’s famous Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, the death of founding pastor D. James Kennedy, who in his later years turned his pulpit into a hawkish political platform, made way for the comparatively dispassionate Tullian Tchividjian. As successor to Kennedy's staunchly conservative mantle, Tchividjian's reluctance to wear it came as an insult to some in the congregation. They perceived him as waffling on core social principles, a complaint which contributed to a church split which saw 400 people leave last year. How accurate are the frustrations and disappointments of these disaffected members who think Tchividjian is too soft on controversial topics? It’s hard to tell, since Tchividjian's supporters actually barred six rabblerousers from church property, a petulant move which was later castigated by a denominational committee.
Then there’s Keller, who also founded his own church, but on the liberal bastion of Manhattan Island. In multiple sermons, Keller has espoused what sounds to alarmed right-wing hawks like wealth redistribution, where rich church-goers contribute to the needs of less-wealthy congregants to help prevent poverty from disrupting their faith community. Keller, one of the celebrity pastors in the patriarchal Presbyterian Church in America, has also allowed women to serve Holy Communion, which he excuses as an olive branch to liberal urban females. That and other issues seem to have limited Keller's influence outside of reformed circles.
Media darling Rick Warren, pastor of uber-chic Saddleback Church in - where else? - California, has emerged from the seeker crisis he championed alongside Willow Creek with a far more pronounced public image. Warren has tried to play the political field, confounding some conservatives by hosting an election year summit of presidential candidates, despite being accused of playing in to the hands of Democratic political operatives. Some right-wingers have particularly vilified Warren as being too cozy with liberals on environmental issues like global warming.
Not to be outdone in confounding the conservative movement, the Southern Baptist Convention, that historic bastion of conservative ideology, has come out in support of what amounts to amnesty for illegal immigrants from Central America. Their reasoning is based on passages like Exodus 22 and Deuteronomy 10, which basically say Israel should not discriminate against foreigners in her land.
And then there’s Willow Creek’s own Bill Hybels, who not only has curried favor with Democratic politicians in the past, much to the consternation of conservatives, but has now sided with the Southern Baptists in lobbying Congress for illegal immigrant amnesty. Hybels and Leith Anderson, a pastor from suburban Minneapolis and president of the National Association of Evangelicals, claim to be forging new political alliances with Hispanics, many of whom would probably fit the general profile of conservative voters if... well, they were legal and could vote.
Faith Still Matters
Of course, none of these changes means that evangelical Christians no longer matter as voters. In some respects, it may be beneficial. Having people of faith wrestling over these issues rather than just accepting planks of a political party's platform could even result in believers reading their Bibles themselves to see what God really says - or doesn't say - about legislation we think is important.
The recent support by evangelical organizations for what is considered liberal policy - most particularly seen in the debate over illegal immigration, but also over nationalized healthcare and the environment - represents a marked departure for some people of faith who might have previously been expected to vote along the Republican party line. Having this dependable block of voters now segmented by the issues scares some conservatives who anticipate bigger battles over bigger issues and who think they need bigger numbers of voters to sway influence and policy.
While I personally oppose any form of amnesty for people who have intentionally broken laws to enter our country and contribute to the distortion of pay scales for menial labor, I can understand where the Southern Baptists and pastors Hybels and Anderson are coming from when it comes to respecting the dignity of life, even if you are illegal. However, since all three of these espouse the church growth movement, I suspect ulterior motives are at play in addition to their professed concern over human rights.
Other issues complicate our illegal immigration issue here in the United States which don't negate the validity of scripture referencing foreigners in Israel, but could mean those scriptures don't fully apply, either. These issues include Americans who don't want to pay for the real value of labor, immigration policies which can seem to reward the practice of illegal immigration, the responsibility of sovereign nations south of the Mexican border to curtail their endorsement of their countrymen violating our laws, and the rights of the United States to honor the path to legal residency people from other countries dutifully abide by.
Thanks be to God that we can bring these issues to His throne! To the extent that people of faith whittle away their personal agendas and focus on what glorifies Christ, perhaps the freedom from political partisanship can be one step towards a greater testimony from our lives and churches of His sovereignty and rule over all affairs of men:
1 Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, 3 "Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us."
4 He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. 5 Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying, 6 "As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill."
7 I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, "You are my Son; today I have begotten you. 8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. 9 You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel."
10 Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. 11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. 12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. - Psalm 2 (ESV)
_____
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Tape Shows Who's Really Racist
Shirley Sherrod is opinionated. She’s also blunt, bold, and black.
She’s the daughter of a murder victim, a self-avowed tax-and-spend Democrat, and a proud supporter of President Barak Obama.
But one thing she’s not is a racist. At least, not the racist she's accused of being.
Let's Go to the Videotape
Sherrod, who burst onto the national stage this past Monday, has been accused of being a bigoted, self-serving government employee emblematic of all the sinister machinations the NAACP has perpetrated in the name of civil rights.
Back in March of this year, Sherrod, who until Monday was the USDA director for rural development in Georgia, was videotaped giving a speech to a local NAACP meeting in which she appears to brag about not wanting to help a white farmer because of his race.
Apparently, somebody intending to cause mischief whittled down the tape from a 43-minute-long video which kept Sherrod’s comments in proper context to a brief clip of this one statement. The edited video ended up first on conservative http://www.breitbart.com/, and then on http://www.foxnews.com/, purportedly as an accurate portrayal of Sherrod’s racist mentality.
However, if you watch the entire 43-minute speech of Sherrod’s, you quickly understand that not only has Sherrod’s story been taken woefully out of context, but Sherrod takes considerable time to explain to her audience her viewpoint that the struggles of rural farmers isn’t about race but about class.
Sure, she pits “us” against “them” and employs a black/white dichotomy in her terminology, but how many white people do the same thing and never get accused of racism? It's not pretty, and it's not ideal, but considering where our country is along the racial harmony continuum, Sherrod's language is hardly incriminating.
Actually, one might find her opinion on class struggles more provocative. Sherrod uses her farmer story to depict her conviction that poor blacks and poor whites need to share their struggle against the richer ruling class. Some conservatives might protest a US government official espousing basic Communist theory, but her analysis of the growing economic inequities in our country isn’t completely without merit, is it?
And yes, she says that back in the late 1980’s, she intentionally only wanted to provide the minimal amount of help to the farmer in question, because he was white. Let him go to his own kind for help, she reasoned. But after she saw that the white lawyer hired by the farmer wasn’t doing anything to help, and with a deadline looming for the farmer to save his livelihood, Sherrod credits God with helping her to see that she needed to go the extra mile for this family despite their – and her – race. So she did, and even the farmer and his wife, who are still alive and remember her with grateful fondness, have come to her defense.
Nobody Checked the Facts
Meanwhile, as the tainted video made its rounds on the Internet, the USDA’s agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, took what he saw at face value and summarily fired Sherrod. Well, actually, he insisted she resign. The White House, eager to suppress the story for fear of a racial backlash, supported Vilsack. The NAACP, desperate to staunch yet another PR fiasco after its botched assertion that the Tea Party is racist, also quickly castigated Sherrod for her remarks.
At this point on Wednesday afternoon, things have begun to look much better for Sherrod. The White House has backed off of its hard line, the NAACP has apologized to Sherrod and posted a copy of the full speech on its website, and Sherrod has received an apology - and the offer of another job - from the USDA.
In Context
Now, it’s obvious from the videotape that Sherrod is not a poster child for racial harmony. Most of us aren’t. But you have to give credit where credit is due: Sherrod admonishes her audience multiple times about their responsibilities in getting along with people from other races. Her story about the farmer was intended to showcase her changing attitudes about whites and how despite suffering some horrendous experiences as a young adult because of white racists, she should hold no grudges.
As a speech, Sherrod’s presentation held a mix of poignancy, history, maturing morality, and motherly advice, along with some political rhetoric one might expect from any liberal Democrat. But overall, the video shows an unremarkable address by a government bureaucrat in a small town in the middle of nowhere.
Indeed, the video languished in obscurity until conservative blowhard Andrew Breitbart posted it on his website. Breitbart tells CNN that a source he’s keeping anonymous advised him in March of the existence of a blatantly racist speech at a NAACP banquet. However, the video Breitbart obtained was only the short segment of the farmer story taken out of context. Obviously, Breitbard considered this video explosive, and apparently he never bothered to check its authenticity.
Instead, Breitbart claims to have initially taken the high road and withheld the video from public viewing because he didn’t think it necessarily fit any narrative taking place in the United States during this time. However, he found his moment as a controversy between the NAACP and the grassroots Tea Party organization flamed out.
Last week, the NAACP accused Tea Party activists of being racist, an assertion from which even some prominent blacks distanced themselves. Tea Partiers tried to fan the publicity flames of this claim, but the media quickly lost interest. So Breitbart took his cue and posted the video clip featuring Sherrod’s farmer story. And he got the attention he was seeking.
Where's the Accountability?
Is this what politics has come to in the United States? Has the Internet enabled both left-wing and right-wing zealots to parody reality and foment the national conversation into a froth based solely on unsubstantiated, exaggerated, and irresponsible sensationalism?
Breitbart claims that his motivation was not to harm Sherrod but to spotlight rampant racism within the NAACP. When challenged about his lack of due diligence, his reluctance to post the full video, his refusal to apologize to Sherrod, and his suggestion that Sherrod and the media have made up the whole thing, Breitbart inexplicably contends that “it’s not about Sherrod.”
Well, he's right about that. It's not about Sherrod any more; it's about him.
Who's the Bigger Bigot?
For Breitbart to be the consummate American patriot he claims to be, when word of the incriminating video reached his ears, he should have asked a lot of questions. Had the video been legit, it indeed could have lit a tinderbox full of racial tensions.
He should have tracked down the people that recorded it and appeared in it. Any webmaster with any integrity doesn’t just slap videos of this nature online. In addition, the NAACP and the USDA should have vetted the video themselves before publicly overreacting as they did. And the White House should have kept mum and professional until the veracity of all that had transpired was corroborated.
But of all the mistakes made in this episode, the ultimate blame falls on Breitbart. His appalling disregard for Sherrod's civil rights, his woefully unprofessional conduct as a media operative, and his amazing refusal to apologize paint him as a caricature of conservative truculence.
Very few white Americans hold up the NAACP as a model organization of racial tolerance. But if Breitbart was looking for some smoking gun in the video he perpetrated onto the Internet, all he did was shoot buckshot through his balloon of an inflated, spiteful ego. Through his calloused disregard for truth, honesty, integrity, and validity, he sucker-punched a woman who’s more of a Yankee Democrat than a black bigot. And then he challenges CNN to prove the farmer who claims to have been assisted by Sherrod isn’t a fake.
According to his biography* on the Internet, Breitbart fancies himself as a leader of the Tea Party movement.
I’m glad I drink coffee.
_____
*This is a Wikipedia entry, which again, I don't necessarily endorse.
She’s the daughter of a murder victim, a self-avowed tax-and-spend Democrat, and a proud supporter of President Barak Obama.
But one thing she’s not is a racist. At least, not the racist she's accused of being.
Let's Go to the Videotape
Sherrod, who burst onto the national stage this past Monday, has been accused of being a bigoted, self-serving government employee emblematic of all the sinister machinations the NAACP has perpetrated in the name of civil rights.
Back in March of this year, Sherrod, who until Monday was the USDA director for rural development in Georgia, was videotaped giving a speech to a local NAACP meeting in which she appears to brag about not wanting to help a white farmer because of his race.
Apparently, somebody intending to cause mischief whittled down the tape from a 43-minute-long video which kept Sherrod’s comments in proper context to a brief clip of this one statement. The edited video ended up first on conservative http://www.breitbart.com/, and then on http://www.foxnews.com/, purportedly as an accurate portrayal of Sherrod’s racist mentality.
However, if you watch the entire 43-minute speech of Sherrod’s, you quickly understand that not only has Sherrod’s story been taken woefully out of context, but Sherrod takes considerable time to explain to her audience her viewpoint that the struggles of rural farmers isn’t about race but about class.
Sure, she pits “us” against “them” and employs a black/white dichotomy in her terminology, but how many white people do the same thing and never get accused of racism? It's not pretty, and it's not ideal, but considering where our country is along the racial harmony continuum, Sherrod's language is hardly incriminating.
Actually, one might find her opinion on class struggles more provocative. Sherrod uses her farmer story to depict her conviction that poor blacks and poor whites need to share their struggle against the richer ruling class. Some conservatives might protest a US government official espousing basic Communist theory, but her analysis of the growing economic inequities in our country isn’t completely without merit, is it?
And yes, she says that back in the late 1980’s, she intentionally only wanted to provide the minimal amount of help to the farmer in question, because he was white. Let him go to his own kind for help, she reasoned. But after she saw that the white lawyer hired by the farmer wasn’t doing anything to help, and with a deadline looming for the farmer to save his livelihood, Sherrod credits God with helping her to see that she needed to go the extra mile for this family despite their – and her – race. So she did, and even the farmer and his wife, who are still alive and remember her with grateful fondness, have come to her defense.
Nobody Checked the Facts
Meanwhile, as the tainted video made its rounds on the Internet, the USDA’s agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, took what he saw at face value and summarily fired Sherrod. Well, actually, he insisted she resign. The White House, eager to suppress the story for fear of a racial backlash, supported Vilsack. The NAACP, desperate to staunch yet another PR fiasco after its botched assertion that the Tea Party is racist, also quickly castigated Sherrod for her remarks.
At this point on Wednesday afternoon, things have begun to look much better for Sherrod. The White House has backed off of its hard line, the NAACP has apologized to Sherrod and posted a copy of the full speech on its website, and Sherrod has received an apology - and the offer of another job - from the USDA.
In Context
Now, it’s obvious from the videotape that Sherrod is not a poster child for racial harmony. Most of us aren’t. But you have to give credit where credit is due: Sherrod admonishes her audience multiple times about their responsibilities in getting along with people from other races. Her story about the farmer was intended to showcase her changing attitudes about whites and how despite suffering some horrendous experiences as a young adult because of white racists, she should hold no grudges.
As a speech, Sherrod’s presentation held a mix of poignancy, history, maturing morality, and motherly advice, along with some political rhetoric one might expect from any liberal Democrat. But overall, the video shows an unremarkable address by a government bureaucrat in a small town in the middle of nowhere.
Indeed, the video languished in obscurity until conservative blowhard Andrew Breitbart posted it on his website. Breitbart tells CNN that a source he’s keeping anonymous advised him in March of the existence of a blatantly racist speech at a NAACP banquet. However, the video Breitbart obtained was only the short segment of the farmer story taken out of context. Obviously, Breitbard considered this video explosive, and apparently he never bothered to check its authenticity.
Instead, Breitbart claims to have initially taken the high road and withheld the video from public viewing because he didn’t think it necessarily fit any narrative taking place in the United States during this time. However, he found his moment as a controversy between the NAACP and the grassroots Tea Party organization flamed out.
Last week, the NAACP accused Tea Party activists of being racist, an assertion from which even some prominent blacks distanced themselves. Tea Partiers tried to fan the publicity flames of this claim, but the media quickly lost interest. So Breitbart took his cue and posted the video clip featuring Sherrod’s farmer story. And he got the attention he was seeking.
Where's the Accountability?
Is this what politics has come to in the United States? Has the Internet enabled both left-wing and right-wing zealots to parody reality and foment the national conversation into a froth based solely on unsubstantiated, exaggerated, and irresponsible sensationalism?
Breitbart claims that his motivation was not to harm Sherrod but to spotlight rampant racism within the NAACP. When challenged about his lack of due diligence, his reluctance to post the full video, his refusal to apologize to Sherrod, and his suggestion that Sherrod and the media have made up the whole thing, Breitbart inexplicably contends that “it’s not about Sherrod.”
Well, he's right about that. It's not about Sherrod any more; it's about him.
Who's the Bigger Bigot?
For Breitbart to be the consummate American patriot he claims to be, when word of the incriminating video reached his ears, he should have asked a lot of questions. Had the video been legit, it indeed could have lit a tinderbox full of racial tensions.
He should have tracked down the people that recorded it and appeared in it. Any webmaster with any integrity doesn’t just slap videos of this nature online. In addition, the NAACP and the USDA should have vetted the video themselves before publicly overreacting as they did. And the White House should have kept mum and professional until the veracity of all that had transpired was corroborated.
But of all the mistakes made in this episode, the ultimate blame falls on Breitbart. His appalling disregard for Sherrod's civil rights, his woefully unprofessional conduct as a media operative, and his amazing refusal to apologize paint him as a caricature of conservative truculence.
Very few white Americans hold up the NAACP as a model organization of racial tolerance. But if Breitbart was looking for some smoking gun in the video he perpetrated onto the Internet, all he did was shoot buckshot through his balloon of an inflated, spiteful ego. Through his calloused disregard for truth, honesty, integrity, and validity, he sucker-punched a woman who’s more of a Yankee Democrat than a black bigot. And then he challenges CNN to prove the farmer who claims to have been assisted by Sherrod isn’t a fake.
According to his biography* on the Internet, Breitbart fancies himself as a leader of the Tea Party movement.
I’m glad I drink coffee.
_____
*This is a Wikipedia entry, which again, I don't necessarily endorse.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Obamas Ruining Maine Weekend
Do you think Michelle Obama reads my blog?
After all, they’re going to coastal Maine this weekend for a quickie vacation, and don’t moms usually plan out family trips?
In this case, however, whoever planned this jaunt to the seaside has royally screwed things up.
First of all, plans were finalized only earlier this week. For the president to travel to a small island. In Maine. In the summer.
There is only one bridge linking Mount Desert Island, the First Family’s destination, to the mainland. There is no airport on Mount Desert Island, so the presidential motorcade will be tying up traffic for miles. Traffic that is already pretty challenging on a normal summer weekend.
Maine’s state motto is “vacationland” because, as I’ve raved myself in this blog, it’s a wonderful place to visit. Nobody is blaming the Obamas for wanting to enjoy some time there; indeed, the Bush family owns an entire island compound further down Maine’s coast in Kennebunkport.
The difference, however, is that the Bush’s compound, being an island, means that they could make presidential visits whenever they wanted and the town’s daily life didn’t grind to a halt. In Bar Harbor, the signature village on Mount Desert Island, this weekend’s sudden appearance by the First Family has turned life upside down.
So Much for Economic Stimulus
Some friends of mine piece together a meager Maine existence by creating and selling handcrafted Maine-themed birds, lamps, and souvenirs. They’re members of the Penobscot Valley Craft Association that had already scheduled a show at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor for this weekend. However, when the Obamas made their last-minute booking at the next-door hotel, suddenly everything was cancelled. Roads were closed. Businesses forced to shutter. Late Wednesday, the College of the Atlantic evicted the craft show.
Of course, having a neighboring hotel hosting the president was something the College of the Atlantic couldn’t control, so they’ve refused to grant refunds to the Penobscot Valley Craft Association and its vendors. Along with the forfeited application fees paid by vendors, my friends are losing revenue by missing what could have been a lucrative summer weekend selling to Bar Harbor tourists in the middle of the season. Plus, because of the Obamas poor timing, none of these vendors have been able to schedule anything else at this late date to replace what they’re now losing. It’s one big economic mess in one of the country’s most economically-starved states.
Way to go, O!
Chump Change You Can Believe In
And you know what, it’s all the fault of the Obama family. You can’t blame anybody else.
You can’t blame the hotel for not passing on the chance to host a sitting president. You can’t blame the village of Bar Harbor for letting the Secret Service shut down streets and businesses for security purposes. You can’t blame the tourists who are already leaving Mount Desert because they know a presidential visit will wreak havoc on the island. You can’t blame the College of the Atlantic for being caught between a greedy hotel and its own budget concerns.
If the Obamas had planned their schedule better, and inquired about staying in a seaside Maine hotel earlier in the year, officials and businesses on Mount Desert Island would have had plenty of time for contingency planning - or suggesting that September is also a nice time to visit.
If the Obamas had realized how important tourism is to Maine’s struggling economy, they would have been more mindful of how their presence would disrupt an already hectic summer weekend there.
And if the Obamas were serious about participating in the president’s plea for Americans to vacation along the Gulf of Mexico because of the oil disaster there, then what are they doing halfway across the continent in pristine Maine?
Besides, doesn’t he have a lot of millionaire Democrat friends on the island they can stay with? It’s not like Mount Desert is bereft of wealthy liberals owning seaside estates. If the family is this disorganized and ineffectual, at least some of their political friends could have helped them out to minimize some of the bad PR coming their way. Staying on the island at all will be a monumental headache for everyone, but at least private oceanfront estates remove the presidential entourage from the close quarters of village life in Bar Harbor.
So enjoy your family’s stay in Maine this weekend, Mr. President. You’ll be the only ones.
_____
After all, they’re going to coastal Maine this weekend for a quickie vacation, and don’t moms usually plan out family trips?
In this case, however, whoever planned this jaunt to the seaside has royally screwed things up.
First of all, plans were finalized only earlier this week. For the president to travel to a small island. In Maine. In the summer.
There is only one bridge linking Mount Desert Island, the First Family’s destination, to the mainland. There is no airport on Mount Desert Island, so the presidential motorcade will be tying up traffic for miles. Traffic that is already pretty challenging on a normal summer weekend.
Maine’s state motto is “vacationland” because, as I’ve raved myself in this blog, it’s a wonderful place to visit. Nobody is blaming the Obamas for wanting to enjoy some time there; indeed, the Bush family owns an entire island compound further down Maine’s coast in Kennebunkport.
The difference, however, is that the Bush’s compound, being an island, means that they could make presidential visits whenever they wanted and the town’s daily life didn’t grind to a halt. In Bar Harbor, the signature village on Mount Desert Island, this weekend’s sudden appearance by the First Family has turned life upside down.
So Much for Economic Stimulus
Some friends of mine piece together a meager Maine existence by creating and selling handcrafted Maine-themed birds, lamps, and souvenirs. They’re members of the Penobscot Valley Craft Association that had already scheduled a show at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor for this weekend. However, when the Obamas made their last-minute booking at the next-door hotel, suddenly everything was cancelled. Roads were closed. Businesses forced to shutter. Late Wednesday, the College of the Atlantic evicted the craft show.
Of course, having a neighboring hotel hosting the president was something the College of the Atlantic couldn’t control, so they’ve refused to grant refunds to the Penobscot Valley Craft Association and its vendors. Along with the forfeited application fees paid by vendors, my friends are losing revenue by missing what could have been a lucrative summer weekend selling to Bar Harbor tourists in the middle of the season. Plus, because of the Obamas poor timing, none of these vendors have been able to schedule anything else at this late date to replace what they’re now losing. It’s one big economic mess in one of the country’s most economically-starved states.
Way to go, O!
Chump Change You Can Believe In
And you know what, it’s all the fault of the Obama family. You can’t blame anybody else.
You can’t blame the hotel for not passing on the chance to host a sitting president. You can’t blame the village of Bar Harbor for letting the Secret Service shut down streets and businesses for security purposes. You can’t blame the tourists who are already leaving Mount Desert because they know a presidential visit will wreak havoc on the island. You can’t blame the College of the Atlantic for being caught between a greedy hotel and its own budget concerns.
If the Obamas had planned their schedule better, and inquired about staying in a seaside Maine hotel earlier in the year, officials and businesses on Mount Desert Island would have had plenty of time for contingency planning - or suggesting that September is also a nice time to visit.
If the Obamas had realized how important tourism is to Maine’s struggling economy, they would have been more mindful of how their presence would disrupt an already hectic summer weekend there.
And if the Obamas were serious about participating in the president’s plea for Americans to vacation along the Gulf of Mexico because of the oil disaster there, then what are they doing halfway across the continent in pristine Maine?
Besides, doesn’t he have a lot of millionaire Democrat friends on the island they can stay with? It’s not like Mount Desert is bereft of wealthy liberals owning seaside estates. If the family is this disorganized and ineffectual, at least some of their political friends could have helped them out to minimize some of the bad PR coming their way. Staying on the island at all will be a monumental headache for everyone, but at least private oceanfront estates remove the presidential entourage from the close quarters of village life in Bar Harbor.
So enjoy your family’s stay in Maine this weekend, Mr. President. You’ll be the only ones.
_____
Friday, July 9, 2010
Good Sports?
Since I’m not a sports nut, it’s easy for me to forget about how important the rest of my fellow humans consider athletics to be.
And not just Americans. With the World Cup taking place these past few weeks in South Africa, Germany estimated that their economy could forfeit up to $8 billion - yes, with a "B" - in lost productivity as workers watched televised coverage of the matches. Vuvuzelas became the hot new international sensation we all hope doesn’t catch on here in North America. Even insular North Korea sent a team to South Africa, along with lackeys actually paid to cheer them on.
- "The towels were so thick there I could hardly close my suitcase." - all quotes today by Yogi Berra
In the United States this past week, sports has held the top headlines, from LeBron James humiliating his own hometown on national TV to an over-eager fan plunging 30 feet over a railing at our ballpark here in Arlington. Mark Davis, a talk radio host, also blasted Texas Rangers baseball star Michael Young for saying he is embarrassed over the illegal immigration law in Arizona. Oh yeah – and Tiger Woods’ divorce papers were signed this week, giving jilted wife Elin a reputed $75 million from his rapidly-dwindling portfolio.
- "If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else."
Part of the intrigue within the wide world of sports is the fact that there are winners and losers. It remains to be seen if “King” James will still be a winner in Florida. True, he apparently decided playing with his friends was worth more than the $30 million he left on the table in Cleveland, and maybe in today's warped "sports is a business" mentality that makes him some sort of hero. However, he burned all his bridges in spectacular fashion by the childish and unsportsmanlike way he announced his defection from Ohio. Nobody faults him for wanting to join another team, but to intentionally dis your homies on live television after all their pleading for you to stay? Dat ain't right, bro.
As it turned out, Michael Young unwittingly appeased the blustering Davis by not being voted an All-Star, but why can't a baseball player hold an opinion that may not be embraced by his hometown fans? Young's employer, the Texas Rangers, didn't seem to have a problem with it.
And the only people winning in the miserable Woods fiasco are the lawyers. Tiger and Elin's kids are the biggest losers, mostly because they have big losers as parents too narcissistic to resolve their problems and pursue reconciliation for the good of their family. While most people have taken Elin's side in this spectacle for obvious reasons, they forget that Elin could take the high road: not the high road out of their marriage, but the high road of "better or worse" that comes with most wedding vows.
- "If the world were perfect, it wouldn't be."
- "We made too many wrong mistakes."
- "Shut up and talk."
On the flip side, perhaps the biggest winner this week has been Tyler Morris, the guy who shocked the entire ballpark here Tuesday – both players and fans – with his gut-wrenching fall over the second-tier railing. Although he landed on his head, Morris emerged from the hospital yesterday, smiling, walking, waving, and expected to make a complete recovery. He even made a point of telling a reporter that what happened was “an accident,” which must mean he has no plans for suing the Texas Rangers or the City of Arlington because of faulty railings at the stadium (they're already higher than building codes specify).
Wow – somebody who takes responsibility for his actions! Not that Morris could be faulted too much for getting so focused on the game that he didn’t maintain his balance. I imagine Major League Baseball would like to have more fans who love the game so much. Just as long as they sit a couple of rows back from the railings.
Trying to sum up this week of sports news, I researched some of the famous quotes from New York Yankees great Yogi Berra. However – and I’m sure you can understand this - I couldn’t possibly choose just one. Of all the opinionated people who have been immortalized by their words, Berra probably remains one of the most unique, sincere, and even eloquent.
Here now, for your laughing pleasure, are more inimitable gems from Yogi Berra:
- "You can observe a lot just by watching."
- "If you don't set goals, you can't regret not reaching them."
- "The only reason I need these gloves is 'cause of my hands."
- "I knew I was going to take the wrong train, so I left early."
- "Why buy good luggage? You only use it when you travel."
- "We're lost, but we're making great time!"
_____
Monday, July 5, 2010
Indiscreet in Borough Park
Don't believe me about my mafia story from Friday, do ya?
Too goofy for your reality?
Well, here's another, shorter one to either feed your skepticism - or whet your imagination:
My aunt's best friends in Brooklyn moved out of their co-op building in Sunset Park to a spacious (well, spacious for Brooklyn) 2-story home in the nearby neighborhood of Borough Park. Their sturdy, brick row house was semi-detached, meaning it shared one wall with another, similar house next door. Our friends remodeled their house extensively, and put in a new backyard with shrubs, trees, and a brick patio. Just the right ambiance for their many backyard barbeques!
Being a city back yard, it was about the size of a suburban living room, and although it had masonry walls all around it, being so closely surrounded by other 2-story homes meant privacy wasn't abundant. Still, on those balmy summer evenings when we'd all get together, it was easy to forget how gritty Brooklyn can be.
There used to be a wonderful German deli nearby called Karl Ehmer's, and our friends used to buy the most succulent sausages from them! Along with the decadent pasta their daughter-in-law would bring, and the pastries their daughter would buy from Your Baker or Jean Danet in Bay Ridge, we had some pretty delicious parties in that backyard.
Did I mention it was open-air?
And by now, you know I tend to talk too much.
Well, with all of that wonderful food and in the company of good friends, one evening early in my New York City life, I made the mistake of telling a mafia joke.
And the conversation utterly ground to an awkward halt.
People stopped eating.
The lady of the house, who was sitting next to me, leaned over cautiously and whispered, "we don't talk about that outdoors."
After more awkward silence, people began eating and chatting again. Everyone knew how naive I was, this silly suburban guy from Texas. Before long, my faux pas was forgotten.
Except it wasn't. As we walked home later, my aunt explained to me that in Brooklyn, such topics are never discussed when other people can hear you. It's just not wise. Not that any harm might come to you by being indiscreet when it came to the subject of La Cosa Nostra, but Brooklyn being Brooklyn, you never know who might misinterpret what you're talking about.
She said she should have told me before, especially since you-know-who owns the building at the end of the block. The one with the glass climate-controlled garage housing a silver Rolls Royce.
I got the message. I couldn't refuse.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Mrs. Skagan's Landlord
 |
| Me, Edith Skagan, and my aunt, Helena, at my grandmother's grave in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery, probably in 1986. |
It wasn't until a woman tossed a firecracker under the baby carriage that I exploded.
You see, she'd lit the illegal pyrotechnic before she'd tossed it.
Okay, so: Let me explain. Back when France had a conscience, it gave us the Statue of Liberty to grace New York Harbor, and Lady Liberty's centennial was in the summer of 1986. Along with my aunt in Brooklyn and some friends of hers, I found myself that July in Sunset Park, overlooking New York Bay with a front-and-center view of the Statue of Liberty and all of the anniversary festivities.
Chrysler Corporation's much-admired chairman, Lee Iacocca, had led a committee which developed a stunning panoply to commemorate the statue's 100 years. My aunt and I had already been to Lower Manhattan and visited the enormous street fair celebrating the centennial in the canyons of the Financial District. That evening, a fireworks show to outclass all fireworks shows had been scheduled, and Sunset Park, located along Brooklyn's high western flanks, provided one of the best vantage points anywhere.
Back then, that section of Brooklyn was still considered too dangerous and crime-ridden for normal white folk from Manhattan or the suburbs. So, they pretty much stayed away. Instead, the park filled up with some die-hard whites from Bay Ridge, a middle-class neighborhood nearby, and a lot of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans from the 'hood surrounding the park. And my aunt and me, plus Edith Skagan, a retired Irish widow who lived on my aunt's block. Plus a cute little Lebanese boy who couldn't have been more than four years old. He was the son of the Lebanese mafia don who owned the building where Edith lived.
Yeah, I'll get to him in a minute.
Edith and the Lebanese Mafia Don
Edith was a plain, thin woman with stringy, shoulder-length gray hair, who mostly wore simple dresses that used to be typical of the city's immigrant cleaning ladies. For decades, she had lived in the four-floor walk-up at the end of the block before a Lebanese, um, businessman bought the building.
And built a glass, climate-controlled one-car garage in the alley for his silver Rolls Royce.
To appreciate the absurdity it was to see a glass-ceilinged garage housing a mint-condition Rolls in dumpy, graffiti-smeared Sunset Park, try to imagine the best-looking house in your city with a smelly Dumpster permanently placed in its driveway. What we saw in that Sunset Park alley was the direct opposite of the Dumpster image in your mind.
And how did that certify his mafia status? In a neighborhood rampant with vandalism, nobody ever dared break any of the glass panes out of which his garage was made.
At any rate, this guy feigned a series of businesses in his building's ground-floor storefront, but none of them were legit. For example, his real estate office featured blurred photocopies of genuine Realtors' homes for sale taped to the window. Another time, he claimed to run a restaurant there, but with no kitchen or staff, the menu he pasted onto the window didn't fool anybody. One evening, as my aunt came home from work, the Lebanese guy was standing on the sidewalk outside his "restaurant." He called out my aunt by name, and proceeded to cajole her into the restaurant for dinner.
"We all know you don't have a restaurant here," my aunt protested, laughing. "Why are you telling me you can serve me dinner?"
"Hey, I've been tipped that the health inspector is coming here this evening, so I've gotta make this look respectable," he hastily explained. Apparently, he had hired a caterer and really did have some gourmet food waiting inside.
My aunt turned down his invitation.
Sound wild and wacky? That was Brooklyn not too long ago. And the father of the kid I was pushing in the stroller that night back in 1986 when a Puerto Rican woman tossed a lit firework underneath it.
Bombs Bursting Everywhere
There were amateur fireworks everywhere. All illegal, of course, but cops didn't tend to stick around Sunset Park after dark back then. Besides, there were thousands of people with fireworks; the noise deafening, the smoke gagging, the brazen defiance of law and order mind-bending. My aunt, Edith, and I were frustrated - but not surprised - that so many people could hold the law with so little regard. It almost made the Lebanese mafia don seem quaint in his desire to appease the health inspector.
And here was his kid - Edith was baby-sitting that night, but she had given up trying to navigate the stroller amongst the throngs of people, so I had taken over - with a lit firecracker within inches of his little posterior.
I yelled at the woman who had thrown it. In 1986, I still remembered most of my high school Spanish, and I communicated to her my displeasure at her actions. I stretched my foot under the stroller and stomped out the firecracker, the woman who had thrown it looking at me in disgust.
When Iacocca's massive fireworks spectacle erupted over the bay, on Liberty Island, and on Manhattan Island, people throwing their cheap personal fireworks in Sunset Park soon realized how outclassed theirs were. Fortunately, we were able to watch the splendor unfolding across the water in relative sanity. It seemed as though rockets were being launched from every square inch of land around the Statue of Liberty and the tip of Manhattan, with barges in the water also adding to the dazzling display. I have never seen another fireworks show like it, and actually became a fireworks snob after that evening, since nothing else can compare to it.
Eventually, the fireworks ended, and many of us in Sunset Park decided to head home. I'm sure there was a sizable crowd that stayed on in the park until who knows when, doing who knows what. But Edith had to return her charge, so we made our way past the park's derelict bath house (since remodeled, after years of vandalism and decay) and the park's eastern gateway, to our block, which mercifully, provided a distinct respite from the cacophony.
Moving On
My aunt hasn't seen their Lebanese friend for a number of years now. Neighborhood scuttlebutt said he lost his influence in Brooklyn's Arab community and returned to Beirut, where he had sent his son to live not long after our adventure in Sunset Park. The glass garage is only climate-controlled now by virtue of cracks in the glass and seals that have lost their weatherproofing, and the silver Rolls Royce disappeared even before its owner did. (Update: recent images from Google Maps appear to show that the garage is now entirely gone.)
A couple of years after the Statue of Liberty's centennial, however, after an exquisite crystal chandelier and a grand piano were placed in full view of the street from his apartment, the Lebanese don phoned my aunt to say that he hadn't seen Edith for several days, and he suspected the worst. Both he and my aunt knew Edith hadn't been well. He had a master key to her apartment, but for feminine propriety's sake, would my aunt come up with him to check on her?
He unlocked her door and they both went into Edith's apartment, only to find her corpse, fully clothed, and her sparsely-furnished rooms immaculate. EMS workers believed she had probably passed away quietly, suddenly, and without pain.
Her Lebanese landlord graciously took care of all the arrangements, and personally paid to fly her body back to Ireland.
To appreciate the absurdity it was to see a glass-ceilinged garage housing a mint-condition Rolls in dumpy, graffiti-smeared Sunset Park, try to imagine the best-looking house in your city with a smelly Dumpster permanently placed in its driveway. What we saw in that Sunset Park alley was the direct opposite of the Dumpster image in your mind.
And how did that certify his mafia status? In a neighborhood rampant with vandalism, nobody ever dared break any of the glass panes out of which his garage was made.
At any rate, this guy feigned a series of businesses in his building's ground-floor storefront, but none of them were legit. For example, his real estate office featured blurred photocopies of genuine Realtors' homes for sale taped to the window. Another time, he claimed to run a restaurant there, but with no kitchen or staff, the menu he pasted onto the window didn't fool anybody. One evening, as my aunt came home from work, the Lebanese guy was standing on the sidewalk outside his "restaurant." He called out my aunt by name, and proceeded to cajole her into the restaurant for dinner.
"We all know you don't have a restaurant here," my aunt protested, laughing. "Why are you telling me you can serve me dinner?"
"Hey, I've been tipped that the health inspector is coming here this evening, so I've gotta make this look respectable," he hastily explained. Apparently, he had hired a caterer and really did have some gourmet food waiting inside.
My aunt turned down his invitation.
Sound wild and wacky? That was Brooklyn not too long ago. And the father of the kid I was pushing in the stroller that night back in 1986 when a Puerto Rican woman tossed a lit firework underneath it.
Bombs Bursting Everywhere
There were amateur fireworks everywhere. All illegal, of course, but cops didn't tend to stick around Sunset Park after dark back then. Besides, there were thousands of people with fireworks; the noise deafening, the smoke gagging, the brazen defiance of law and order mind-bending. My aunt, Edith, and I were frustrated - but not surprised - that so many people could hold the law with so little regard. It almost made the Lebanese mafia don seem quaint in his desire to appease the health inspector.
And here was his kid - Edith was baby-sitting that night, but she had given up trying to navigate the stroller amongst the throngs of people, so I had taken over - with a lit firecracker within inches of his little posterior.
I yelled at the woman who had thrown it. In 1986, I still remembered most of my high school Spanish, and I communicated to her my displeasure at her actions. I stretched my foot under the stroller and stomped out the firecracker, the woman who had thrown it looking at me in disgust.
When Iacocca's massive fireworks spectacle erupted over the bay, on Liberty Island, and on Manhattan Island, people throwing their cheap personal fireworks in Sunset Park soon realized how outclassed theirs were. Fortunately, we were able to watch the splendor unfolding across the water in relative sanity. It seemed as though rockets were being launched from every square inch of land around the Statue of Liberty and the tip of Manhattan, with barges in the water also adding to the dazzling display. I have never seen another fireworks show like it, and actually became a fireworks snob after that evening, since nothing else can compare to it.
Eventually, the fireworks ended, and many of us in Sunset Park decided to head home. I'm sure there was a sizable crowd that stayed on in the park until who knows when, doing who knows what. But Edith had to return her charge, so we made our way past the park's derelict bath house (since remodeled, after years of vandalism and decay) and the park's eastern gateway, to our block, which mercifully, provided a distinct respite from the cacophony.
Moving On
My aunt hasn't seen their Lebanese friend for a number of years now. Neighborhood scuttlebutt said he lost his influence in Brooklyn's Arab community and returned to Beirut, where he had sent his son to live not long after our adventure in Sunset Park. The glass garage is only climate-controlled now by virtue of cracks in the glass and seals that have lost their weatherproofing, and the silver Rolls Royce disappeared even before its owner did. (Update: recent images from Google Maps appear to show that the garage is now entirely gone.)
A couple of years after the Statue of Liberty's centennial, however, after an exquisite crystal chandelier and a grand piano were placed in full view of the street from his apartment, the Lebanese don phoned my aunt to say that he hadn't seen Edith for several days, and he suspected the worst. Both he and my aunt knew Edith hadn't been well. He had a master key to her apartment, but for feminine propriety's sake, would my aunt come up with him to check on her?
He unlocked her door and they both went into Edith's apartment, only to find her corpse, fully clothed, and her sparsely-furnished rooms immaculate. EMS workers believed she had probably passed away quietly, suddenly, and without pain.
Her Lebanese landlord graciously took care of all the arrangements, and personally paid to fly her body back to Ireland.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)