The Eastvolds

Childhood obesity, nutrition, and the Christian

2011-08-14T05:12:00.002-04:00

This article on the Christianity Today blog Her.meneutics really got to me. Caryn Rivadineira is rightly concerned about children's body image, specifically that the current campaign against childhood obesity is making overweight children feel unloved and worthless. She rightly calls on Christians to make sure we are loving all children, no matter their body type, unconditionally, rather than haranguing overweight children about their appearance and diet.

Point taken.

But what left me aghast was her opening. Her seven-year-old daughter, looking at a package of cookies, inquires about how many calories they have, and the mother's reaction is: "I told her that she didn’t need to pay any attention to calories, that they were good things, that we needed them for energy to run and play." Then, angry, Ms. Rivadineira tries to identify "whoever had introduced this calorie nonsense into my home and had made my healthy, vibrant 7-year-old worry about counting calories." Her conclusion is that Michelle Obama and her Let's Move campaign are to blame, but let's back up to the cookie episode. I agree that most seven-year-olds should not be dieting (i.e., following a rigid diet for the purpose of losing weight). Nor should they be obsessively "counting calories." But I can't imagine what's wrong with noticing how many calories a cookies has and maybe deciding not to eat one - at any age. No, not all calories are created equal; they are not all "good things." There's no reason for healthy children not to have the occasional cookie, but the sooner they learn that cookies and other sweet or fattening foods are not great nutritionally and are best reserved for occasional treats, the better. That's not depriving your child of childhood; that's making sure she feels at her best while playing and doing all the things children are supposed to do. (Not to mention getting a head start on long-term health.)

The Let's Move campaign did get its start with a concern over high rates of childhood obesity in this country. But the campaign's message is that ALL children need to have access to healthy food and safe opportunities to exercise. Far from being the scold in the White House wagging her finger at families and telling them to take personal responsibility and go eat some carrots, Mrs. Obama has done more than perhaps any high-profile figure to identify systemic causes of poor nutrition, causes that are outside of many families' control: bad school lunches, the lack of availability (or prohibitive expense) of fresh produce in many neighborhoods, and the lack of safe places to exercise, especially in the inner city. I have interpreted her as challenging the message that overweight people are just bad and lazy, not confirming it. She has emphasized that good nutrition is for everybody, not just "fat children."

If Mrs. Rivadineira is looking for a culprit to blame for making overweight children feel unloved, she'd be much better off going after the advertising, fashion, and television industries than the First Lady. Inasmuch as the author identifies a real problem in our society's approach to weight loss and nutrition for children, it's that too often efforts to encourage better nutrition and more exercise have been aimed only at children who are overweight or at risk of becoming so. We have a tendency to believe that skinny is healthy and fat is unhealthy, whereas it is possible to be overweight (due to genetics) yet healthy, and plenty of thin people are at risk for heart disease or other health problems due to a variety of lifestyle factors. Weight is not an exact proxy for health, and you don't get a pass from eating well and exercising just because your weight is normal. Unfortunately, this is what we hear and see in advertisements, not to mention movies and TV generally - skinny, gorgeous people eating whatever they want. That's where kids are getting the message that if you're thin, you've got it made, and if you're fat, you don't even get screen time, except maybe for some comic relief.

For Christians, I think the message we want to project is that God loves all of us unconditionally, AND He wants all of us to take care of our bodies. Except in cases of imminent medical danger, we don't need to target obese kids. We need to target ALL kids with a positive message of feeling better, getting active, and eating great (and delicious) food. Which, if I'm not mistaken, is what Let's Move is doing. Meanwhile, if Ms. Rivadineira wants her daughter to get plenty of calories so she has energy to move and play, cookies aren't the best choice; children on sugar crashes tend to feel yucky and none too energetic - no matter their weight.

- KPE

On to the next chapter

2011-08-12T03:54:00.002-04:00

As I sit here at 2:55am feeding Cheerios to a remarkably cheery toddler who seems less interested in food than in keeping everyone awake for the fun of it, I am four days away from doing something I haven't done since college: going to work, full-time, for pay. I will be an intern with the Illinois Senate Democrats through the Illinois Legislative Staff Intern Program. Jonathan and the children and I have moved to Springfield, Illinois, where we live very near Jonathan's parents and brother's family, and after all of the massive chaos of moving we are finally beginning to settle into our duplex on a beautiful tree-lined street west of downtown. Although we'd like to stay in Springfield, we only know we'll be here for a year - the length of my internship and also of Jonathan's visiting professorship at Illinois College, a small liberal arts school with a great history (heard of William Jennings Bryan? He was an alumnus) in nearby Jacksonville, Illinois.

So, it'll be a hectic year. The children will be getting used to not being with us during weekdays (although Jonathan's schedule has some flexibility, and he'll be dropping some children off late and picking up others early on some days), and we'll be getting used to not being with them, and coordinating their care. Charlie and Kristianna started first grade and kindergarten, respectively, last month at Graham Elementary. Kate will be attending preschool full-time three days a week. Juliana will be staying with a good friend who has an in-home daycare. We are excited about their opportunities and ours, but with excitement comes uncertainty and a very different schedule.

All that to say, I probably won't be blogging much this year (not that I blogged enough last year), for two reasons: first, our demanding schedule and my need to spend as much non-work time as possible with my family, and second, my need to avoid commenting independently on many political issues, certainly anything having to do with pending Illinois legislation, for a while. I will still hopefully be chiming in from time to time on this blog (I'll be shutting down my South Carolina blog on Wordpress since I no longer live there), but the posts will likely be on broader social and Christian-life-related topics rather than particular policies or political news. It's all politics, of course - thinking about how we relate to each other in our communities, churches, institutions, and nation.

Thank you for your patience as our family moves in a new direction. I look forward to hearing about where your year takes you, too.

- KPE

What I Gave Up for Lent

2011-04-09T06:26:00.002-04:00

I've tried giving things up for Lent before. As it seems to be for most people, it's most often been a food item. The problem with that (for me - I know it works for many Christians) is that Lent gets confused with dieting. When I start feeling proud of myself for cutting out whatever it is, not on the basis of being excited about my relationship with God, but on the basis that I'm weighing less and looking better, that's great but has little to do with Lent or getting closer to God. Nothing wrong with giving up midnight ice cream snacks, but I've realized I need to separate that from beginning a Lenten discipline.

So, what else to do? I've tried wearing only black during Lent (that was back when I had more black - and more clothes - in my wardrobe), resolving to do Morning Prayer every morning before breakfast, and taking on some sort of Christian education project with my children. As for the latter two (and the "faux dieting" Lenten disciplines), they're good things, but they're probably things I ought to be doing all year, not just during Lent. It's hard to find something that I can take on that I shouldn't be doing anyway, or something I can give up that I shouldn't have given up for good long ago. (Yes, I know there's also routine fasting, but I am sufficiently weak spiritually that I've never been able to make that work. When I'm hungry, I don't think about God... I think about food.)

So this year I gave up my watch for Lent.

It wasn't intentional, actually. My watch broke. Or maybe the battery the jewelry store just put in for me a couple of weeks ago wasn't any good. Either way, it doesn't tell time anymore. My first thought was, "I need a watch." We don't have a lot of spare cash, but I figured I'd buy something pretty cheap, and I have to confess I'm pretty high on anyone's list of people who really should have watches. That is to say, I'm late almost everywhere. So my temptation was to go out the first chance I got and buy the cheapest working watch I could find. (Either that or go back and fuss at the jewelry store that sold me the battery and see what they could do with it.)

Then I came up with a rather ludicrous idea for a chronic late-runner: why not give up my watch for Lent? After all, I do own a cell phone with a clock, and I have clocks in my home and in my car, so I wouldn't actually be ignorant of the time. I still wouldn't have an excuse to be late. And it wasn't as though my watch was doing much to help me be on time; the fact that I have four children is usually to blame for that, and no amount of watching the watch will keep the two-year-old from needing a diaper change just as we're walking out the door. What made me convinced that this was the right thing to do was realizing, after I took the non-functioning watch off my wrist, just how often I look at my watch. I don't just look at it when I'm trying to get somewhere or wondering if it's time to get the kids home to bed. I look at it all the time. I look at it when I'm bored, when I'm wondering what's next, while I'm nursing the baby. I rely on it not just to get me places on time, but to mark out the parts of my life. To pass the time, not just tell the time.

I've always found it spiritually invigorating not to have the things I expect to have. It's hard to imagine until you have your purse stolen how much one relies on the simple fact of having one's keys, one's credit card, cell phone, driver's license, lip balm, Advil, whatever else is in the purse. It's not just the use value of those things, it's the security of having them. Not wearing a watch has been a much simpler (and less potentially ruinous to my credit) way of achieving the same effect; every time I look at my wrist and the watch isn't there, I have this jolt of minor panic and then realization. As a Christian, I shouldn't gain my security from stuff, however useful and even necessary. I shouldn't be just marking my time on earth. It's that slight jolt out of my comfort zone that I've found valuable.

And yes, I probably will buy another watch or get mine fixed after Lent. It's easier than digging out my cell phone to find the time. But I hope I'll look at it less often.

- KPE

Government shutdown avoided; now what for social conservatives?

2011-04-09T05:55:00.002-04:00

A shutdown of the federal government was averted at the eleventh hour last night, as House Speaker John Boehner, Pres. Obama, and Senate Democrats reached an agreement to cut $38 billion from the budget after realizing that their numbers were only a couple of billion apart anyway. The big story (since the culture wars have always sold more papers than number-crunching fights, even in the era of the anti-spending Tea Party) was the fight over cutting funding for Planned Parenthood. The New York Times reported that Democrats won that one, with a largely symbolic (since it will be defeated by Senate Dems) separate vote on the measure scheduled for sometime next week.

The Times seems to think social conservatives ought to be elated that they figured so prominently in this budget fight in the first place, and relieved to see that they have Speaker Boehner's ear. Yet in the end they didn't. "Even veteran anti-abortion Republicans, like Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, indicated a willingness to compromise, not wanting the party to be accused of shutting down the government over divisive social policy and diluting its new emphasis on cutting spending," the Times reported. In a press conference yesterday, after much tough-talking about Planned Parenthood, the speaker told reporters there was "only one reason we do not have an agreement yet, and that is spending." Ultimately, he refused to make the impasse about abortion or abortion spending; rather, he played to the average Tea Partier, concerned only with "spending" in the aggregate.

Which leads me to what I think is the crux of the issue: the absurdity of narrating the whole show-down in terms of numbers. $38 billion in cuts, $61 billion in cuts, $36 billion in cuts... in the absence of much real information about what is being cut and the probable consequences, office-holders have consistently talked about the amount rather than the substance of the cuts. The cuts to Planned Parenthood and NPR funding were almost the only specifics discussed, and in the end, the issue was "spending," again in general, as though government were one big fatty hamburger, and all we need to do to lose weight is eat a smaller portion of it. Unfortunately, that has been the main message of the Tea Party all along - we don't care how you do it, just cut it.

The problem is that social conservatives do care - or should care. In this show-down pro-lifers cared about one particular cut - Planned Parenthood funding. (I have my disagreements with that particular fixation, but that's not the point here.) Here in South Carolina, though, pro-lifers (both Republicans and Democrats) have objected to cuts to disabilities funding. Not all cuts are created equal. Some government spending helps families afford to care for children that have been carried to term rather than aborted. Some government spending gives women hope that they can raise their special needs children to have some hope of a dignified life, with care and (if applicable) job training in adulthood. Some government spending helps families navigate the tricky waters and high cost of adopting an otherwise-unwanted baby. Some government spending helps create an environment in which life - beyond conception and beyond birth - can be valued.

Obviously, Republicans and Democrats (even those who are deeply pro-life and have a social conscience about such things) disagree vehemently about the government's role in reducing the rate of abortion - what is can and should do. But even pro-life Republicans skeptical of the ability of government to effect change (although isn't that what efforts to make abortion illegal are all about? But I digress...) ought to acknowledge that there are different kinds and targets of government spending, and some may help and others hurt their cause. It's not just about the numbers.

In that case, I think social conservatives, as well as Democrats, have a duty to criticize the way this budget fight has proceeded and ask that officials be forthcoming about what's behind the numbers, and that voters do a little digging themselves and not just evaluate their representatives on the basis of how many billions of dollars they voted to cut. The Times quoted Rep. Steve Chabot of Ohio, a pro-life Republican, as saying that "for some, people... abortion is more important. For some people, spending is more important. For me, it would be hard to say one over the other.” Since when did our politics become "abortion versus spending"? That's a ludicrous, superficial, and sad dichotomy, and to the extent that the Republicans are selling that choice to social conservatives, they might as well sell them some beach-front property in Arizona while they're at it.

- KPE

What's Next? Fake Meat!

2011-02-07T10:50:00.002-05:00

"Fake meat" isn't new. For years it's been made from soy products, other legumes, grains, and veggies, with additional colors and flavorings. Many people prefer not to partake, and I'm one of them. If I want soy, I'll take some edamame steamed in the pod, thank you. It doesn't need to look like a hot dog. But that's just an aesthetic preference; if you want to eat tofurkey for Thanksgiving, more power to you.

Some researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina are cooking up something entirely different in their lab: engineered or "cultured" meat. I'm too ignorant in matter scientific to give you a cogent explanation of how it all works, but suffice it to say, it starts with some cells from a biopsy of a live animal, sits around in a petri dish, and eventually becomes a hamburger. (Flavors and colors are added along the way.) The research is being funded by PETA - you know, the animal rights people who typically employ tactics like releasing test animals from labs, demonstrating at fur-laden celebrity events, and putting egg-selling monks out of business. Apparently they've decided that convincing people, one or two at a time, to go vegan isn't working well enough. Quietly, they've made peace with the fact that most people enjoy meat and aren't willing to give it up.

From where I sit now, there's no way I'm putting any lab-cultured meat in my mouth. Although a large-scale switch to engineered meat would save countless animals from the horrors of life on a factory farm, not to mention freeing up land once used for livestock farming to be used for growing food or replanting forests, there's just something viscerally repulsive to me about the idea of meat that's actually meat but was (except for the first few original cells) never part of an actual animal. But I'm open to changing my mind someday. Since I'm only 28, if I enjoy an average life expectancy, I can bet on seeing all kinds of unbelievable technologies and cultural shifts become reality during my lifetime. Get back to me in 20 or 30 years; I may be using "Charlem" (they really are going to have to come up with a more appetizing name for their product) in my lasagna.

Obviously, there are many hurdles to be jumped before cultured meat can go on the market. A taste test is scheduled for August - in Sweden (insert whatever joke you like about Swedish cuisine) - but the FDA approval process has not yet begun and could take up to ten years, even if all goes well. As a potential consumer, I have so many questions: is "Charlem" nutritionally identical to meat from an animal? Are there health risks? The researchers claim it's "spiked with vitamins and other nutrients." Why? Is it nutritionally deficient? Or did they just figure they'd improve on meat while they were at it? And what about the flavorings they add? Are they artificial? How safe are they? What about the long-term effects of cultured meat consumption?

It's not as though "real meat" is always safe or nutritious, of course, as I'm sure PETA would be happy to point out. Savvy consumers are well aware that "factory farmed" livestock are often fed antibiotics, animal by-products, and other things diners prefer not to think about. Meat you buy in the store can contain fillers and excess salt and water. And hey, maybe these researchers can make red meat less dangerous to your arteries, while they're fooling around with it anyway. (They claim they can already adjust the fat content of the meat.) So there's no point in waxing nostalgic about "real meat," unless the golden time you're remembering involves going out back to slaughter an animal that's grazing in your pasture.

Ultimately, what bothers me about this cultured meat project (if it goes anywhere) is how symptomatic it is of our approach to most problems of scarce resources. Rather than cutting back on consumption, we try to develop a way to continue consuming much more of something than we need, but without the ill effects. We try to have our cake and eat it, too. That, of course, has always been the basis of Yankee ingenuity, and in many cases it has served us well. But I think we also need to ask ourselves why. Why do we leap for the far-fetched, expensive, potentially risky solution, when the solution in front of our noses is to simply eat/buy/burn/drive/make/consume/build less?

On Friday, I listened to On Point on NPR, and one of the guests was culinary historian Jessica Harris, who has just written a book, called High on the Hog, about the African origins of many American foods. Because she believes the influence of African foods and cooking methods extends far beyond the African-American community, Harris isn't fond of the term "soul food." But the conversation inevitably turned to the question, isn't soul food really, really bad for you? Ms. Harris pointed out two things in defense of the cuisine that evolved from what slaves ate in the American South. First, the people who originally ate it were slaves who did back-breaking work for twelve or more hours a day. They needed high-calorie, high-protein food, and they weren't getting fat off it. But the amount of meat used in today's soul food is also much greater than what the slaves ate, said Ms. Harris. Then, meat (which was of course hard to come by) was used as a seasoning, not as a main dish. Whereas today we might throw a whole ham hock in a pot of greens, the creators of soul food might have used a tiny piece of bacon fat to flavor the collards.

The advent of cultured meat isn't going to affect most vegetarians. Even those who have given up meat because of ethical objections to the way animals are raised and killed for their meat are probably used to going without and may be just as unappetized as I am by the thought of eating an animal product grown in a laboratory. But I think it would be a worthwhile exercise for meat-eaters to consider our consumption. Is it all necessary? Is it socially and ecologically responsible? Are we using meat as a flavoring and source of protein, or eating huge hunks of it without thought to where it came from? If lab meat becomes cheap and popular, many of us will be side-stepping these questions, once again. We can only hope that our new meat source won't turn out to have unhealthy side effects. What degree of risk are we willing to take in exchange for the right to consume at will, in virtually unlimited quantities?

- KPE

The freedom to assemble

2011-01-09T00:40:00.002-05:00

Less than an hour after yesterday's shooting at Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' constituent meeting, the internet was buzzing not only with rumors about the number and condition of victims and the identity of the suspect, but with interpretations of the event. Much of the early punditry consisted of liberals blaming conservatives, particularly the Tea Party, for sparking the violence with their incendiary election-year rhetoric and frequent gun-related metaphors; and conservatives using scraps of information from the suspect's My Space and You Tube accounts to insist that he wasn't one of them (he might even have been - gasp - a socialist!) and that the attack therefore had nothing to do with the Tea Party or the Republican takeover of the House or anything of current political significance.

The pundits on the right might have a point. If the FBI has the right guy in custody (and if he acted alone, a premise which has been thrown into some doubt now), then the culprit seems to be an extremely unstable individual, possibly schizophrenic. His writing is paranoid at best but mostly incoherent, and the few political issues that came up in a search of his online footprint were not the hot issues of the day that usually provoke threatening language. There's no mention of the health care bill or abortion, the bank bailout or immigration reform (except for references - pretty ironic given the suspect's own writing - to large numbers of illiterate people and some sort of government conspiracy to restructure English grammar). His one intelligible political concern seems to be with currency and the gold standard, a question that to my knowledge hasn't come close to inspiring violence since the turn of the last century. The suspect was rejected when he tried to enlist in the military and was recently suspended from the community college he attended, on condition that he undergo a mental examination after complaints surfaced about disturbing You Tube videos and disruptive outbursts during class. In The Atlantic, James Fallows gave us a survey of the probable motivations behind assassinations and attempted assassinations of U.S. political figures and concludes that mental illness and personal grievance are usually the primary factors. It's hard to link most assassinations in this country to the policies the targeted politicians espoused.

It's way too early, then, for Democrats to say that Republicans (or even their extreme right wing) are to blame for yesterday's outrageous attack. Even if Tea Partiers and their allies have spawned the latest iteration of a volatile, mean-spirited, polarized, anti-intellectual, intolerant, and gun-glorifying political climate (and I think they have), it will be very difficult to prove that their rhetoric inspired Jared Lee Loughner in particular to commit this act. We have no idea what influence figures like Glenn Back, Sarah Palin, Bill O'Reily, Michelle Bachmann, or other fear-mongers may have had on him. For all we know, he might be a socialist. Or nothing at all - just unbalanced. Further investigation may turn up connections between Loughner and Congresswoman Giffords' political enemies. But what if it doesn't? What if in the end we're left with no one to blame?

What upsets me most about yesterday's attack (other than, of course, the loss of life and the suffering of the wounded) is that, regardless of the actual motivations of the shooter, it was functionally an act of terrorism - not attempted assassination. Loughner may have been gunning for Congresswoman Giffords, but he shot eighteen other people in the process. This wasn't an assassination attempt in which only staffers and bodyguards standing very close to the official were hurt. The shooter, according to eyewitness reports, continued firing into the crowd surrounding the Congresswoman.

America is a nation that has not experienced significant levels of political violence in a long time; while we fear gang-related shootings, armed robberies, drive-bys, serial killers, drug deals gone bad, road rage, and the like, for the most part we aren't afraid to vote. We aren't afraid to attend rallies or marches or County Council meetings or debates or informational meetings with our representatives. When Americans fail to participate in our democracy, the fault lies with apathy, overwhelming work and family schedules, and lack of education - not usually with fear of participating.

We read about how elections are conducted in other countries - Afghanistan, Iraq, Kenya, the Ivory Coast, Haiti, Sri Lanka, and the list goes on - and consider ourselves lucky that we do not take our lives into our hands when we associate and assemble with others for political purposes, or when we go to the polls. Sure, there are exceptions even here; violence has recently interrupted courtroom proceedings and school board meetings. But these episodes have, by God's grace, been isolated and have resulted in little loss of life. Now, we have a glaring example of ordinary citizens - just constituents there to meet their representative, not even marching for a particular party or cause - being gunned down in the parking lot of a grocery store. I am profoundly worried that there will be a chilling effect on political speech and association as Americans start to consider it risky to stand around in a public place, participating in politics. Thus, the attack was an example of domestic terrorism, in that (regardless of the motivation) it had the effect of creating fear through targeting seemingly random individuals.

Nor do I know what to do about this. Our typical response to terrorism is to greatly increase security. I foresee that those Senators and members of Congress who do not currently have security personnel will get them, that metal detectors will be placed at entrances to town hall meetings and polling places, and that people will have to submit to searches and pat-downs to attend a political event or even just to vote. But that approach could put even more of a damper on political involvement, making an exercise of our freedom of assembly much more time-consuming, unpleasant, and intimidating. And yet, that could be better than letting such gatherings become bloodbaths. I don't see a good solution.

I do think, though, that it would behoove both Republicans and Democrats, as they issue all their obligatory statements of condolence and shock, not just to condemn violence, but to affirm that we Americans will refuse to sink gently into a polity of fear and intimidation. That we will not let voters and constituents feel as though they are taking their lives into their hands as they participate in the system we rightly cherish. Fear of participation breeds corruption and sometimes even totalitarianism - ends abhorred on both sides of the aisle. We need the pundits, on the left and the right, to stop blaming and start talking about what a precious, ephemeral blessing it is to be able to petition our public officials, get together with like-minded people, and involve ourselves in peaceful though heated debates. Maybe then they could do their duty and inspire us instead of inciting anger and fear.

- KPE

The magic of Christmas

2010-12-24T06:19:00.002-05:00

I've had a few dust-ups this year with folks who object to my family's decision not to "do Santa." Don't get me wrong; we don't see a problem with pretending about Santa and talking about the Santa story (as long as the story of the original St. Nick is included!) But we tell our children the truth, and when they ask questions, we answer them. To put it bluntly, how can we ask them to believe in God if we've lied to them about believing in Santa?

One of the major objections to not encouraging children to believe in an actual Santa Claus with supernatural gift-delivering powers is that (to paraphrase) "children ought to be able to enjoy the magic of Christmas." I'm told it's part of a normal, imaginative childhood - this magic of looking anxiously up the chimney, trying hard to sleep on Christmas Eve so Santa will come, wondering if reindeer really do know how to fly, writing letters to Santa, leaving out the milk and cookies that inevitably disappear during the night, and so on.

This year it occurred to me, though - what could be more magical (in the sense of awesome, unexpected, inspiring, and supernatural) than the birth of Jesus, Son of God, as a baby? Doesn't the Christmas story itself have all the magic a child craves? Angels singing to shepherds. A sudden supernova of a star marking the place of Christ's birth. A desperate journey by donkey to a town where there's no room in any inn, and then a successful delivery and the placement of the child in a feeding trough, as He is warmed and looked after by farm animals. Joseph's dream, which tells him to behave in a way no normal Jewish man of the time would have behaved. An escape from an evil king. The foreign sages following a star across the desert on their camels, bearing expensive gifts. God - in the body of a newborn baby.

Trump THAT, flying reindeer.

- KPE

Thoughts on St. Nicholas

2010-12-24T05:43:00.002-05:00

Santa doesn't need one more person to speak for him. He's everywhere - live and cartoon form, in all hues and ethnicities, in malls and schools and homes and movies and parades and toy stores and billboards. He may have started as a Christian figure, but he's all things to almost all people. He's exactly what we're told God isn't - a cosmic, omniscient vending machine who, despite the song's admonishment that he knows when you've been bad or good, seems to give everyone whatever they want (or can afford to buy, in any case), regardless of good behavior. Somewhere along the line he must have entered into a contract with the business community, and when you crack down on disobedience or lying or staying up past one's bedtime, you don't sell as much stuff. Rewarding children according to their deeds was really only helping the coal companies, and only marginally, since each stocking holds very little coal.

No, I want to talk about St. Nicholas, often cited as the historical inspiration for Santa. St. Nicholas was the Bishop of Myra (located in modern-day Turkey) sometime during the fourth century and was known as Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker because of the many miracles attributed to him. He was revered by both the Eastern and Western Churches. There are many versions of the legend that would eventually inspire the creation of Sinterklaas, Father Christmas, and the like, but the basic gist is that there was a poor man in Myra who had three daughters and could not afford dowries for them (meaning that they could never marry, that he would have to continue to support them in his own house, and possibly that they would be forced into slavery and/or prostitution). St. Nicholas disguised himself and came to the poor man's house by night (maybe just in one night, or maybe on several occasions, as each of the girls came of age), where he left a bag or bags of gold coins to be used as dowries. In some versions, the man finally discovers the identity of his benefactor and thanks him; the bishop tells him to thank God instead. Sometimes Nicholas chastises the man for planning to sell his daughters into slavery and not simply trusting God. The common denominator of these stories seems to be the desperate need of the recipient and the anonymity of the giver.

What a far cry from Christmas gift-giving in America today. Sure, many of us give to the poor around Christmastime, but we consider a shoebox of cheap toys or a gently used pair of shoes to be a sufficient Christmas present for a poor child, while we pile the gift high for our own children and then continue to be anxious about whether each child has an equal quantity and quality of gifts, whether we got our children exactly what they wanted, and so on.

The ritual of Black Friday seems to have replaced many older Christmas rituals, as Americans barely finished with their Thanksgiving dinners spend hours in line, mostly for a shot at a great price on a big ticket item - a big-screen TV, video gaming platform, computer, or camera, for instance. This year, the article run by the New York Times about Black Friday shopping featured multiple interviews with shoppers who were buying big-ticket items only for themselves, not for friends or family members. "[R]etailers and analysts said they saw a surge in traffic at stores and malls over last year, and also were noticing that shoppers snapped up discretionary items for themselves rather than gifts or necessities," the newspaper reported.

So, as if the excess in gift-giving weren't enough, we have now reached a point at which for many people gift-giving is secondary, and the Christmas season is about treating ourselves to something new and different and luxurious. The retailers are jumping on it, too, using slogans that appeal to the notion that I deserve to do something for myself this Christmas.

My husband suggested that we tell our children that Santa doesn't come to our house, because we're not poor enough. In fact, he went on, perhaps the secret of Santa's ability to do all his work in one night is that he only delivers to the very neediest families. After all, that's what Saint Nicholas would have done.

- KPE

Are children's picture books a dying art?

2010-10-17T23:04:00.002-04:00

As someone who spends a lot of time reading children's books to children, browsing the children's section of the library, and updating my kindergartener's "reading journal" that he is supposed to keep this year, I was fascinated to read this article in the New York Times Review of Books. Apparently, children's picture books are selling very poorly nowadays, and it's not just the economy's fault. According to publishers, parents are shunning picture books and preferring to introduce their preschoolers to chapter books at earlier and earlier ages, perhaps hoping to give them an edge in school.

The first thought that occurred to me was, if that's the reason parents aren't buying picture books, they obviously haven't read any picture books recently. Some books in the "Juvenile Easy" section of the library have few or no words, but many are far more sophisticated than "chapter books" for beginning readers. Think "The Story of Ping," "Make Way for Ducklings," or "Miss Rumphius." Books like these employ much higher-level vocabulary and more complex sentence structures than many books with fewer pictures. In fact, many picture books aren't at all appropriate for beginning readers; they're designed to be read TO children, not BY children. The pictures are there not just to be pretty and interesting, but to help the non-reading (or just beginning to read) child figure out new vocabulary from context.

That thought led me to the conclusion that the publishers the New York Times talked to were on the wrong track. It can't be that parents actually think chapter books (at least on an early reading level) are more challenging than picture books; it must be that parents aren't reading to their children as much, and therefore they need to buy their children books they can read themselves, with minimal help.

But then one person who commented on this link when I posted it on my Facebook page reminded me that ideas about what are the proper books to read at a particular age don't just come from parents; they also come from schools and teachers. I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that "I Can Read"-type books, with fewer (and lower-quality) pictures and more, larger-typeface words, make it easier for teachers to evaluate their students' progress because they are clearly marked as to reading level. They introduce a carefully controlled vocabulary. It could also be the case (in fact, I'm almost sure it is the case) that some parents are misinterpreting assignments like the reading journal I'm supposed to be keeping for my child who is in kindergarten. My son's teacher (only meaning, I'm sure, to encourage the children to read more) occasionally includes in her weekly letter to the parents a list of which children have read 100 books, 125 books, or 150 books so far this year. I'm pretty certain, though, that the effect on some parents is to throw them into a panic (in fact, I had to fight that impulse myself) - "Oh, no, twelve children in the class have already read 100 books, and my child has only read 50! Maybe I need to do something to help him read faster. Or maybe I need to get him shorter, easier books. Maybe I shouldn't read to him so much; maybe he should be reading more on his own." And so it goes.

The NYT article also makes a good point that publishers have been inviting the obsolescence of picture books by charging so much for them. A hard cover, dust-jacketed, full-color children's picture book is a real luxury, often costing $20 or more when it's first released. "I Can Read" books and simple chapter books, by contrast, are usually paperback and can often by had for $5 or less. What illustrations they contain are usually the one-or-two-color variety, and so printing costs less. But this isn't just a story about beautiful, high-quality books that cost more, versus lower-quality books that cost less. At least judging from my browsing the "JE" section of the library (I hardly ever visit Barnes & Noble, Borders, or their ilk), not all picture books are equal. For every Caldecott winner, there seem to be five or ten books with obnoxious and poorly written stories, cartoonish drawings, and little overall merit. When we parents think of picture books, Goodnight Moon and Richard Scarry's Busytown may come to mind, but when we go to the library or the bookstore we're often disappointed in the selection.

In thinking about this question, though, I have to come back to the idea that picture books, at their best, are really an art form. A good picture book, while written for children, can be appreciated by anyone. The illustrations in some picture books could just as well be sold in an art gallery or hung in a museum; the prose, while written with children in mind and devoid of any objectionable content, can be poignant and speak beyond childish comprehension. One of my favorite author/illustrators is Jerry Pinckney, responsible for retellings of The Little Red Hen, Sam and the Tigers, and Three Little Kittens, among others. His illustrations are vivid, sunbathed, and gorgeous; his sense of texture is amazing. Another of my favorites is Carolina Shout! - a book that certainly is poignant, well-researched, and informative for adults as well as children.

I would hate to see this art form left by the wayside simply because we parents don't have time to read to our children or because, in our ambition to further our children's education, we are rushing them on to "more grown-up" books that actually aren't. Ideally, I'd like to see children coming back to the better picture books when they're old enough to read them for themselves, but before they've grown up and had their own children. I know that's probably not going to happen, because we have compartmentalized our children's education and development so thoroughly. I can only hope that the downturn in the picture book market weeds out the less worthwhile specimens but doesn't kill the genre altogether.

- KPE

A new backlash against consumerism?

2010-08-19T00:38:00.002-04:00

I urge you to take a listen to this fascinating conversation that was broadcast yesterday on NPR's On Point, about Americans' spending and saving habits during the current recession. http://www.onpointradio.org/2010/08/how-we-save

One of the points the guests (mostly professors at business schools) kept making is that we may be seeing a more long-term adjustment to greater frugality and less extravagant spending - a trend that may outlast the current downturn and become a "new normal" for the average consumer. It was also suggested that today's consumer cares more than ever about corporate and environmental responsibility, and that companies that want to get ahead will market products as "fair trade," "all-natural," "sustainable," and so on.

The most interesting observation, though, was made by John Quelch, a professor of business administration at Harvard. He said there has been a trend recently, not just toward buying less because of financial need, but toward spending less than one's income level would allow (and less than that income level would have, in the past, predicted). Most importantly, this trend started to appear, not when the housing market took a nose-dive or when people started to lose their jobs, but in 2005, when the economy looked great to most people. Is there a quiet anti-consumerism backlash afoot? Might people's decisions about consumption and how much "stuff" (whether cheap or expensive, affordable or not) to buy actually be part of a real sea change in the American outlook? If so, it wouldn't just be an economic change or even a social change. It would be a spiritual transformation.

- KPE

Introducing the newest Eastvold

2010-06-28T18:36:00.003-04:00

Jonathan and I are pleased to announce the birth of our fourth child: Juliana Charis Pinckney Eastvold, born at 3:40am on Saturday, June 26. Her name is Juliana in honor of her late great-grandfather (Jonathan's father's father), Julius Eastvold. I did not have the privilege of meeting her namesake; he died a couple of years before I met Jonathan and his family. From what I've heard, though (and there are a lot of Julius Eastvold stories in circulation!), he was a good man, well-known and well-liked in his community and active in his Lutheran church. He spent most of his adult life farming land outside the town of Rake, Iowa, a hair south of the Minnesota border, and, along with his wife Bessie, raising his four sons. One of his grandsons now farms that land and raises his own children there, and Jonathan does some pretty good gardening in our little yard, so the Eastvold farming tradition lives on. Anyway, we're proud to be able to name one of our children after Julius Eastvold.

"Charis" is the Greek word most often translated "grace" in English versions of the Bible. It communicates the idea of God's unwarranted, overflowing, overwhelming mercy, loving-kindness, and blessing.

"Pinckney" is my middle name, as well as that of my father, who has been called Pinckney for most of his life. It's a fairly common middle name and last name in South Carolina. My father's family traces its connection to the Carolina Pinckneys to Thomas Pinckney, originally of Durham, England, who moved from the West Indies to Charleston in 1692 and started a family there. Notable members of the family have included Eliza Lucas Pinckney (known for her successful introduction of indigo to the Carolina plantation), Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Thomas Pinckney, and Charles Pinckney, who helped draft the U.S. Constitution and served four terms as governor of South Carolina. (Incidentally, a close runner-up in the baby-naming discussion was Eliza Lucas Pinckney Eastvold.) We also seek to honor my father with this choice of a middle name.

While announcing Juliana's birth, I also can't pass up the opportunity to recommend a free-standing birth center, or at least a midwife-assisted birth, as an alternative to a traditional hospital birth for women with low-risk pregnancies. I had my first three babies in traditional hospital settings (although I did hire a doula to be present when my first was born, and she was very helpful). I'm not at all opposed to hospitals; I'm extremely glad they exist, and I know there are many very good, very dedicated, and very compassionate obstetricians and labor/delivery nurses out there. Hospitals, however, are primarily designed for people who are sick. They're great places to go if you need a c-section or induction, if there have been complications during the pregnancy, if labor begins prematurely, if an ultrasound or other test has indicated an anticipated abnormality in the baby, etc. Our neighbor's daughter just brought her baby home from the NICU at the Medical University of South Carolina's hospital, after over two months and surgery to repair two holes in her heart. That family is extremely grateful for the resources MUSC was able to provide to save that baby's life and help her grow and thrive.

But women with low-risk pregnancies aren't sick. Pregnancy, labor, and delivery are normal (if painful) bodily functions. Most hospitals, as wonderful as they are when problems arise, simply aren't set up to allow a woman to labor and give birth in the most advantageous ways. At the birth center (in my case, The Charleston Birth Place), I was able to walk around and assume whatever position I wanted for laboring and giving birth. I wasn't made to stay in bed on my back, hooked up to a monitor and/or IV. I had the option of a water birth (although Juliana came too quickly for that to work out!) My midwife stayed with me the entire time, because she was not responsible for any other patients. I was allowed to bring my own food and drinks, wear my own clothes, and (after four hours) decide when I wanted to go home. The room was furnished more like a room in a bed-and-breakfast than a hospital room - a queen-sized, four-poster bed with a comfortable mattress (big enough for the whole family to take a nap in after the birth!), low lights, candles, a nice sofa, etc. The whole birth experience was very quiet and low-key - no beeping monitors or doctors and nurses running around out in the hallway. I also had my pre-natal care at the birth center, and I was impressed by both the individualized attention paid to my family and the importance the midwives placed on patient education. Every week there was a video to watch about pregnancy or childbirth or new baby care, and while I did know most of the information since I was on my fourth pregnancy, I still learned some things, and I really wish I'd had that "crash course" when I was pregnant with my first!

Amazingly enough, for all the individualized care and amenities, going the birth center route was considerably cheaper than giving birth in a hospital would have been. Hospitals have all kinds of costs they have to cover, from stocking and staffing a cafeteria, to having expensive equipment available, to the costs of the building and grounds. I would really encourage any of you who are pregnant or thinking of having a baby to look into the option of a birth center and see if there's one in your area. Ours was located pretty much right next to a hospital, so we had the added peace of mind of knowing that if an emergency arose, we'd be able to get to a place with physicians and operating rooms and all of that in less than five minutes. I want to spread the word that birth centers and midwives aren't some luxury for yuppies; they're actually cheaper than hospitals and a great option for people of all income levels. Our insurance did cover most of the expense, and I'd love to see more insurance plans cover birth centers at higher levels. I think they're a great way to lower the overall cost of maternal care in this country - and improve outcomes. Without going into great detail, I can testify that I have experienced less soreness, less fatigue, less pain, and more satisfaction with the birth and post-partum processes this time around than for any previous birth. And Juliana seems to be doing just fine, too; we took her to the pediatrician today, and she has already regained her birth weight and is healthy in other respects as well.

Having put in that plug... again, I'll remind you that I do most of my blogging now on my Wordpress blog (http://katharinepinckneyeastvold.wordpress.com), which is devoted to issues in local and state politics. When I blog on something (like this) not related to those topics, I still post it over here.

- KPE

Is God "Green"?

2010-04-23T06:42:00.005-04:00

Liberal and mainline churches have for some time been a comfortable part of the environmental and conservation movements, hosting congregational trash pick-ups, selling sustainable and fair-trade coffee in the fellowship hall, and even advocating on behalf of environmental causes. I was given my first reusable canvas shopping bag by the pastor's wife at a Presbyterian (USA) church.

For the most part, though, theologically conservative churches haven't jumped on the bandwagon with such fervor. The most charitable explanation is that they're busier than more liberal churches with enterprises such as evangelism, support for overseas missions, and discipleship. And yet it's also undeniable that many conservative evangelicals are wary of environmental protection movements and causes, associating them with New Age spirituality, animal rights activists who deny the uniqueness of humankind, evolutionists, population control advocates, "The Day After Tomorrow"-style alarmism, and (of course) Democrats. A fair number of conservative Christians, distrusting secular science (especially when it starts generating doomsday scenarios), don't believe global warming is happening, or believe that it's a natural process not caused by humans, or think that whither goes the Earth is up to God and therefore none of our business. Others are concerned that aggressively countering climate change by limiting carbon emissions will endanger freedom by empowering government regulatory bodies vis-a-vis private enterprise, or that policies that increase energy costs will exacerbate global poverty.

Into this veritable soup of reasons and excuses wades Jonathan Merritt. Merritt is young, single, unapologetically Southern Baptist - and "green." While in seminary, a professor's remark and his own subsequent research into the subject of "creation care" turned him from a litterbug into a crusader for environmentalism in his own denomination. With the help of some older church leaders, he drafted a statement on stewardship of the environment that was subsequently signed by forty-six leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention and sparked a heated conversation in that denomination and the wider evangelical world. A prolific writer whose articles on religion have been published in a variety of Christian and secular magazines and newspapers, Merritt has just come out with his first book: Green Like God.

Green Like God is different from any other environmentalist book or article I've read in that it saves the dire statistics, facts and figures, and "tips on living green" (such as they are) for the end. The first half of the book is theology. Rather than try to convince theologically conservative Christians that they should tolerate and work with New Age, Gaia-worshiping far-left environmentalists, Merritt argues that conservative evangelicals - precisely because of their commitment to theological orthodoxy - ought to be not reluctant followers but bold leaders of the conservation movement.

Merritt himself became a believer in the need to care for God's creation when one of his seminary professors made the following connection: "There are two forms of divine revelation: the special revelation in Scripture that is able to lead us to salvation and the general revelation we receive through nature. Both are from God... So when we destroy creation, which is God's revelation, it's similar to tearing a page out of the Bible."

In other words, neglecting and actively destroying the natural environment isn't bad primarily because it kills spotted owls or because it upsets the natural balance of ecosystems or even because it causes respiratory illnesses and makes it dangerous to eat fish; ultimately, it's wrong because it sabotages one of the main ways God reveals Himself to man and communicates truths about His nature. Furthermore, as Merritt goes on to explain, it's an incredible act of hubris on our part, given that God alone is the Creator (and, therefore, the rightful owner) of all the earth. Who are we to say that it doesn't matter if a species of fly goes extinct or if a remote icefield is sullied by oil and gas exploration? Didn't God create those things, too? Did He tell us they were less valuable than, say, kittens and puppies and bubbling mountain brooks?

Merritt's approach is an extremely welcome one, I think, because it shows convincingly, from the Bible, that a God-centered, Christ-centered environmental stewardship is uniquely Christian and commanded by God for us. The participation of Christians in environmental conservation and advocacy isn't just a matter of adding secular environmentalism to some patchwork portfolio of social justice or good works, and in some cases Christian environmental action will look very different from the secular variety. For instance, Merritt affirms that humans are, in fact, made in the imago dei and therefore different from and higher than animals. He isn't a vegetarian and (although I think there is a Christian case that can be made for vegetarianism) he's clear that his searching of God's Word reveals no reason that Christians shouldn't eat meat or use animals in other ways as long as the animals are not abused or killed needlessly. (On this basis he does support cutting down on one's consumption of meat and doing one's best to eat meats from animals not raised on "factory farms.") He stands unequivocally against environmentalists who support limiting human population growth through abortion or who believe that humans ought to die off and leave the earth to other living things who don't exploit it as we do. Merritt certainly thinks we can work together with non-Christians to conserve the environment, but also that we need our own strongly Biblical vision for this work.

Green Like God may surprise many readers in that Merritt quotes, in support of his position, a number of thinkers and writers usually thought of as politically as well as theologically conservative, from John Calvin to Francis Schaeffer to Albert Mohler - even "father of conservatism" Edmund Burke. He makes fun of celebrity-authored guides to green living (and worries that "going green" is becoming just another materialistic fad more about "keeping up with the Joneses" than stewarding the planet), and while he admires some of Al Gore's work, he's not just repackaging An Inconvenient Truth for evangelicals.

I was also surprised and pleased to find that, when Merritt finally does get down to the specifics of what poor stewardship is doing to the earth, he seamlessly brings together the impact on plants, animals, habitats, the poor, public health, and our own souls. For Merritt, environmental degradation isn't just something we do to the spotted owl or the rainforest; it's something we do to ourselves as God's creatures and chosen stewards, and it's inextricably linked with greed and consumerism. Merritt doesn't mince words in condemning "the American way" when that means producing many times the amount of garbage produced by citizens of other countries, fighting terrorism while guzzling oil sold to us by likely supporters of terrorism, and doing violence to each other in the name of getting a good deal. (As I do also, Merritt considers hearing about the trampling to death of a Wal-Mart employee on "Black Friday" 2008 a watershed moment in his understanding of the monstrous consequences of the consumerist mindset.) According to Merritt, these shouldn't be separate issues for Christians. Our own commitment to environmentalism ultimately must be spiritual; it comes back to depending on God rather than the "stuff" we can buy with "our" money. This is another way Christian environmentalism, as laid out by Merritt, differs from secular environmentalism; it's less about buying fancy recycled and eco-sensitive products and more about just buying less. (One of the resources he mentions in the back of the book is the Advent Conspiracy, an online project dedicated to convincing Christians to give fewer pointless, unappreciated, expensive, and earth-trashing Christmas gifts and instead focus on worship, spending quality time with loved ones, and helping those in need. I've been a fan of the Advent Conspiracy for a few years but never thought of it as an environmentalist cause.)

This is a slim, easy-to-read book, and there's a lot it doesn't do. Its approach to theology is informal and conversational; don't look for much Greek or Hebrew here. Merritt spends only a few pages (in an appendix) on the question of global warming and its causes (although I do agree with his reasoning that it's a highly contentious issue that need not hijack the Christian creation care movement because even if it's not actually happening, it still can't be good for planet or people to be pumping so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and to have become so dependent on non-renewable energy sources. Merritt does give, I think, some cogent reasons for believing that human-caused climate change is in fact occurring, but he doesn't go into much detail.) The book's biggest deficiency, in my opinion, is that while Merritt demonstrates a great concern for the world's poor and for social and economic justice in general, he doesn't do much to address what I consider anti-environmentalism's strongest argument: that policies designed to decrease carbon emissions and preserve habitats will end up disproportionately hurting the poor, who can't afford alternative energy sources or green products. Hopefully he'll write another book soon.

But I have to applaud Merritt for staying on-task and not getting distracted by the myriad ethical and political questions raised by environmentalism. His mission is to convince all Christians that caring for creation is our business, that destroying God's general revelation through nature is not just sloppy or uncool but sinful, and that environmental stewardship doesn't supplant outreach or discipleship as a goal of the church but goes hand in hand with them. His writing is a call to action but also to humility and worship.

- KPE

P.S. To learn more about Jonathan Merritt and the book, see www.jonathanmerritt.com.

Addendum: Rep. Stupak retires

2010-04-10T01:49:00.003-04:00

It is with great disappointment that I must note that Rep. Stupak announced his retirement yesterday. I am appalled at how he was relentlessly bullied - by the left, even though he voted for the health care bill and may have been responsible for its passage in its current form; and by the right, even though he rallied pro-life Democrats to stand up for their beliefs and secured an executive order that will prevent federal funding from being used to pay for abortions under the new health care law. His enemies on both sides should be ashamed of themselves for hounding out of office someone who was at least willing to talk with them. I fear that the vacuum left by his retirement will be battled over by extremists of both (or various) stripes.

Republicans ought to be ashamed of themselves for branding Rep. Stupak as a sell-out. How could he sell out Republicans or even conservatives? He is unabashedly a Democrat and, as far as I know, hasn't claimed to be anything else. He is, however, someone who was at least a potential ally for Republicans on social issues.

Democrats ought to be ashamed of themselves for refusing to be a big tent party when it comes to abortion and failing to grant even minimal respect to the consciences of its pro-life members. Michael Moore and his allies want to replace Stupak with a far-left progressive willing to blow the trumpet for reproductive rights. What they very well may get is a Tea Bagger who isn't just pro-life but also in favor of letting wealthy individuals and corporations escape paying their fair share, then claiming the government doesn't have enough money to provide basic services.

A pox on both your houses, I say, for your childish behavior. And thank you, Rep. Stupak, for your service to Michigan and the nation.

- KPE

"Pro-life" politics these days

2010-04-09T02:06:00.004-04:00

For some reason, I haven't ever unsubscribed from the Family Research Council's weekday e-mail updates. I subscribed in the first place, back in 2004, because I admired their uncompromising pro-life stance. As angry as their updates often make me, I think I stay on the list because of their occasional flashes of independence from the Republican Party line in the name of saving unborn lives. By the time the most recent Bush left office, FRC had become one of the administration's harshest critics on the right. Even recently, FRC president Tony Perkins has been making the news/talk rounds, urging conservatives to give to individual candidates rather than the RNC. I can respect that.

If only they'd follow their own advice.

The FRC may be talking the talk, but ultimately they're just carrying water for a party whose true commitment to pro-life principles is ever more in doubt. I usually read their e-mail updates, grimace a little, and move on with my day, but this time I thought I needed to write something, because yesterday's update was so illustrative of how pro-life politics on the right have gone wrong. (That, and the fact that Jonathan, without my permission, bragged on Facebook about my upcoming blog post on this topic. So I was stuck.)

Last night's update (I wish I could link to it, but they don't put the really good stuff up on the website) dealt with Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI). Surely you remember Rep. Stupak, pro-life Democrat and briefly the darling of the pro-life movement when he refused to vote for the House health care bill without an amendment explicitly banning the use of federal funds for abortion? He and a bloc of nineteen other pro-life Democrats stood against the Speaker and the President and got the legislation passed in the House with the Stupak Amendment attached. For his trouble, Stupak earned the (still unremitting) hatred of the major pro-choice organizations and, unfortunately, plenty of ordinary people on the left; the normally Republican Susan B. Anthony List, however, picked him to receive their "Defender of Life" award. Although I was at first wary of Stupak's tactics, given that I thought health care reform would probably do more to reduce abortion (by easing one source of stress on women facing unplanned pregnancies) than any funding firewall, I was thrilled when the bill passed the House as amended. Now, finally, I thought, conservatives would have to come to terms with the existence of pro-life Democrats.

But the ending wasn't so rosy. The Stupak Amendment wouldn't fly in the Senate, and in order to get health care reform passed, Stupak and his allies negotiated a deal wherein the president would sign an executive order (which he has now done) banning the use of federal funding for abortion, rather than including the language in the law itself. Bart Stupak found himself out of favor with conservative pro-lifers as quickly as he had become their hero. The SBA List's invitation was revoked, loudly and publicly. He was denounced as a traitor and a sell-out.

(This is despite the fact that I can think of nothing for which he could have sold out. As far as I've heard, there's no "Michigan Kickback" in the health care law, although they certainly could use one. And I don't think he did it to get back in the good graces of the left; he seems to be an all-around outcast these days, and Michael Moore is whipping up a movement to unseat him. At least Moore and the FRC have found something on which they can agree.)

So, now the FRC announces that it has launched an ad campaign to unseat Stupak and the other dirty (pro-life) bums who voted with him. "We plan to raise at least a half million dollars to spend in those congressional districts whose members turned their backs on their convictions--and their constituents," they say. They've even got a catchy name for it - 20 in '10 - referring to the specific purpose of getting rid of the whole raft of pro-life Democrats who insisted on the amendment and the executive order.

Now, I'm guessing the FRC has limited resources to spend on Congressional campaigns. Why in the world, then, are they targeting PRO-LIFE Democrats? Yes, they disagree with the Stupak bloc about how to achieve health care reform. But one would think they'd be more natural allies than genuinely pro-choice Democrats who have no qualms about any sort of federal funding for Planned Parenthood et al. After all, the Democrats do control Congress, some sort of health care package was going to be passed, and Stupak and company did get pro-lifers that executive order. (By the way, for all the hand-wringing about how an executive order is so much more fragile than a law - which, procedurally, it is of course - how exactly is this order going to be rescinded? It would certainly backfire on Obama if he were to rescind his own order. And given that pro-life conservatives have been wailing since the election that Obama is the most pro-choice president in history, and presidential politics in this country generally swing back and forth like a pendulum rather than becoming ever more extreme in one direction or another, who else is going to strike the order? I don't see this issue coming up again for quite a long time, at which point we can address it again.)

And who's going to replace these pro-life Democrats? Pro-choice Republicans aren't rare birds; they're everywhere, since unfortunately the Republican Party is far more tolerant of pro-choice members than the Democrats are of pro-lifers. Remember Scott Brown, who pleased conservatives so much by winning the Massachusetts Senate seat formerly occupied by Ted Kennedy? His record is pro-choice.

But the FRC evidently hasn't given any thought to who the replacements might be for these "traitors." The only conclusion I can draw from this frenzied war on potential allies is that the FRC would still rather see Democrats lose control of Congress (even if that means putting pro-choice Republicans in their place) than put together a genuinely pro-life coalition that might disagree on the details but agree on the overall aim of reducing the number of abortions taking place in this country. Again and again, the conservative pro-life movement lets symbolism and empty stands on "principle" get in the way of actually saving unborn lives. For now, Roe v. Wade is the law of the land, and it's far more effective to look for innovative ways to reduce the demand for abortion than to keep knocking away at a locked door. I don't like the idea of federal money being used for abortion either, but the intensity of opposition to it from the right suggests a desperate attempt to keep their hands clean ("not in my name") by denying to poor women what rich women can have easily, rather than looking at the root causes of unplanned pregnancies and decisions for abortion.

As if the unreasonable attack on Stupak weren't enough, I read further. The next item in the update bore the headline, "One Birth Announcement That's Not Worth Celebrating." That immediately caught my eye, since I thought pro-lifers found every live birth worth celebrating. It turns out that the FRC is bemoaning the results of a new CDC survey showing that births to unmarried women (of all ages; I believe teen pregnancy rates nationwide are still falling, last I checked) have reached a new high, with over forty percent of all births to women who are not married. "[M]ore women are intentionally choosing this lifestyle," the e-mail says. "Instead of marrying, they're raising children alone or living with their boyfriends." It laments the disadvantages to children of not living with a mother and father, and the costs taxpayers are ostensibly paying to "keep broken families afloat."

I guess I'll have to assume that no one at FRC appreciated the irony of putting this item, tsk-tsking at unmarried women having babies, right next to an item stating that pro-life Democrats' failure to, in the organization's opinion, adequately stand against abortion, is a crime worthy of being booted out of office. Has it not occurred to the FRC that one reason out-of-wedlock births are so numerous nowadays is that many of them are, in fact, births rather than abortions? That the stigma associated with the unmarried, cohabiting, or single parenting "lifestyle" led to widespread abortions in the past? Social conservatives, both Republicans and Democrats, have to walk a fine line. We do have to say we think it's best for children to be raised by a married mother and father. But we also have to say that a baby born to a single mother is at least a living baby with a chance at a fulfilling life of following God's calling. We have to acknowledge the possibility that all is not lost, that single parents can do a courageous and good job of raising children, and that churches and communities can step in to help children in less-than-ideal home situations.

When we refer to these children only as statistics, when we lament the money we have to spend on them, we only fuel the defeatism that leads some women to conclude that their fetuses would be better off not having a chance at life at all, than to be born into their current circumstances. I'm not going to celebrate unmarried cohabitation or say that choosing to have a child while single is a good and right and valid choice. But we must speak with compassion, with the realization that people can change and lives - thank God - aren't determined by statistics. One of the reasons I identify with the Democratic rather than the Republican Party is that I believe being genuinely pro-life requires a recognition that it's going to take a village to raise children resulting from unwanted pregnancies. We, from churches to community organizations to the government, have to provide hope and alternatives - not just condemnation and shrill rhetoric and dire predictions. We DO have to celebrate all birth announcements, even as we wish the circumstances of those births were different.

Plenty of people, conservatives and Republicans included, are doing this, through work with crisis pregnancy centers and other avenues. But the FRC isn't helping their cause with its supposed stands on principle - and its determination to oust the very people, like Bart Stupak, we desperately need for this fight.

- KPE

Parental rights and public health

2010-04-09T02:06:00.001-04:00

For quite some time, I've had a fairly strong and fully-formed opinion on sex education in public schools. I think it should emphasize abstinence as the attainable ideal, but that it should also provide the information necessary for students who do make bad choices to protect themselves and others against pregnancy and STDs. I believe sex ed should be comprehensive - not just in terms of the anatomical and contraceptive information it disseminates, but in terms of discussing the true consequences of sex - emphasizing that pregnancy and disease are just the tip of the iceberg, and that even if you take the pill or wear a condom, by choosing to be sexually active you are profoundly affecting your self-respect, your self-image, and your future. In other words, as usual I tend to anger both conservatives and liberals on this issue.

There's been a sporadic but stubbornly ongoing argument over sex ed in the opinion pages of the Charleston Post and Courier, beginning (I think) with a column attacking the validity of studies that supposedly prove the effectively of "abstinence only" curricula. Not being a statistician, I won't weigh in on that particular controversy, except to say that the results of such studies seem to vary widely, depending on the age of the students when exposed to the curriculum in question, the socio-economic makeup of the school, parental and church involvement in sex ed outside of school, and the outcome measured by the study (teen pregnancy rates, reported sexual behavior during the teenage years, long-term sexual behavior, or something else). But the argument has, of course, expanded beyond the numbers and settled down to the occasional letter to the editor either in favor of or in opposition to abstinence-only education.

One letter, from someone opposed to comprehensive sex ed, caught my eye and made me think twice about my own position. I wish I could link to it, but it appears no longer to be on the Post and Courier's website, and (as my husband tells me all the time) I'm so quick to recycle our newspapers that sometimes a useful item has left our house before we realize we need it. The letter-writer approached the subject, not from the vantage point of which curriculum works best to prevent teen pregnancy or discourage sexual activity outside of marriage, but that of the function of schools. He argued that it isn't the business of schools to teach any sort of morality or worldview to children, that such things are learned at home, and that the true origin of problems with pregnancy and STDs among teens is parents who neglect to provide any such guidance to their children. If you want to make a difference, he said, educate parents first, not children.

Interestingly enough, I found this very conservative argument rather compelling. I had just attended kindergarten orientation at our local public elementary school (yes, our oldest will be in kindergarten this year), and as pro-public schools as I am, I found myself feeling a bit uncomfortable with some of what our son's school promised to teach him. For instance, the principal was bragging about a new initiative for teaching leadership, and the teachers mentioned teaching character and values. Now, there's nothing wrong with leadership or good character, but I found myself wondering about the worldview underpinning these curricula. My husband and I are rather dour Calvinists when it comes to human nature and original sin, and I'm not crazy about the thought that our children's school might be loading them up with "I'm okay, you're okay, everybody's okay" self-esteem talk, or telling them that everybody needs to be a leader all the time - when often what is needed is to know how to be a follower, once one has determined that the cause is worth following. After all, why shouldn't we be the ones to talk about these things with them? I'll be happy to handle the character education if the school will take on the messy science experiments, teaching my son to use a computer without breaking it, and all the other stuff that terrifies me about the prospect of home-schooling.

But the fact is that many children aren't getting deliberate character education at home, just as many aren't getting any information (about either abstinence or contraceptives) - or are getting wrong information - at home. We as a society, then, have to make a choice: do we, in the name of parental rights, let some public school students slip through the cracks, or do we ask schools to do their best to teach some very basic framework of morality (or at least common decency and regard for others) in hopes of functioning even partially in loco parentis for those children whose parents will not or cannot do what we think is their job? The answer lies in the government's (and by extension the public schools') traditional responsibility to do what it can to preserve public health, to "promote the general welfare," as the Preamble to our Constitution puts it. If public school character education, as flawed as it may be, can increase the number of students staying in school and growing up to become productive members of society, and decrease the number of young people going straight from school to prison, then that's a public good that saves other taxpayers money and makes us a better society. Similarly, if providing sex education in schools (in whatever form) decreases the incidence of STDs (which don't just "punish" people who make bad decisions as teenagers, but also impact their future marriage partners, and which also make the rounds via rape), then public health has been improved. And unless we believe that babies born to unwed teenage mothers are merely their just punishment for bad behavior (a view plenty of conservatives certainly decried when Pres. Obama seemed to voice it last year), we as a society should also be interested in doing what we can to prevent teen pregnancy.

Parental rights are an attractive rallying cry for those of us who have strong opinions about how we raise our children. And certainly we should continue to talk to our children and voice our concerns when we disagree with the values a school is teaching. But we also need to lend support, when we can, to public schools in their effort to be the last line of defense when parents aren't doing their jobs and young people are in desperate need of guidance and information. The letter-writer was wrong about one thing - it's far easier to reach children than parents.

- KPE

Let's stand for SC families and against Andre Bauer

2010-01-23T18:06:00.002-05:00

I, like many South Carolinians and other Americans, was shocked today to read what Lieutenant Governor (and gubernatorial candidate) Andre Bauer thinks about our lower-income and unemployed fellow citizens. I was not shocked so much as saddened that he holds such opinions. I was amazed, however, that he apparently believes he can articulate his opinions in a public forum and have any political future in our state. If you disagree that people whose children get free or reduced-price lunches at school are like "stray animals" who shouldn't be fed lest they "breed," help me call Bauer's bluff. Help me show him that we will not elect politicians who claim to be Christian but believe in shaming, belittling, and further oppressing the poor and vulnerable rather than helping them and their children succeed.

At a town hall meeting held Friday in Fountain Inn, near Greenville, Lt. Gov. Bauer made the following remarks in reference to families whose children receive free or reduced-price school lunches:

"My grandmother was not a highly educated woman but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better."

He also said of the subsidized lunch program, "I can show you a bar graph where free and reduced lunch has the worst test scores in the state of South Carolina. You show me the school that has the highest free and reduced lunch and I'll show you the worst test scores, folks. It's there, period. So how do you fix it? Well you say, ‘Look, if you receive goods or services from the government then you owe something back.'” In the course of arguing that people who receive government services should have to pass drug tests and show they are participating in their children's education by attending parent-teacher conferences and PTA meetings, he complained that there aren't enough "repercussions" for accepting government aid. Hearkening back to the "welfare queen" stereotype promulgated by Republicans in the 1980s, he stated that "they can have more and more kids and the reward is there's more and more money in it for them."

Lt. Gov. Bauer's comparison of lower-income people to "stray animals" should be offensive to every South Carolinian, regardless of political persuasion. "These people" and "they" (as Bauer kept dismissively repeating) are our neighbors. They are fellow human beings. We can certainly discuss ways to provide incentives for people to get off welfare, get jobs, and provide for their own families. We ought to be offering job training and a hand up, not just a handout. But nothing about welfare reform or "compassionate conservatism" justifies comparing people to animals or suggesting that their reproduction be curtailed. Perhaps the publicly pro-life Bauer regrets abortion a bit less when it is performed on poor women? I'm sure he would adamantly deny that charge, but the fact is that when you make it harder for people to raise children and give them what they need, like food and education, you increase the incentives for abortion. (It is also unlikely that taking away students' ability to eat lunch, in the event their parents fail to meet participation requirements, will improve their performance in school.)

Bauer has, in a way, apologized, for what he called in a statement "a badly phrased metaphor." Indeed. But it's not enough for him to apologize for the particular words, or for the way he phrased his comments, or (as so many politicians caught in verbal gaffes have done) for any offense he might have caused. What Bauer said was no mere gaffe. He didn't make a private aside, not knowing a microphone was turned on; the words weren't lifted from a college term paper of long ago. He said them deliberately, publicly, on the campaign trail. And his proposals for welfare reform back up his attitude. For instance, he believes parents of children receiving free or reduced-price lunches should be required to attend PTA meetings. Will he, then, make sure these parents are excused from work while they attend them? Or that they have transportation? Or that they can hire a babysitter? I would be highly surprised if he would agree to these steps, and if I am mistaken, I would love to be corrected on this point. The trouble with most plans to condition aid on good behavior is that they ultimately punish children and other dependents in addition to (or even more than) the adults whose behavior the government hopes to change.

But Lt. Gov. Bauer's metaphor reveals the true motivation behind his support for conditioned aid: not to protect children by encouraging more responsible parenting, but to discourage "them" from reproducing further and thus laying a heavier burden on the state.

Among those demanding a more comprehensive apology from Bauer is state senator and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Vincent Sheheen. Sen. Sheheen wrote today, "We should share a collective outrage that any child in South Carolina ever has to go to bed hungry. It's not just their problem - it's our problem. We must accept a sense of community responsibility and take action both in our policymaking at the State House and at a local level, working with our churches and civic organizations to stock our food banks and soup kitchens."

He's right. No, government can't deal with the problem of poverty alone. Throwing more money at the problem won't solve everything. But civil society can't do it alone either. We all should take responsibility. We all should show compassion, especially for the most vulnerable in society: children, the disabled, single parents, the poor and elderly, the homeless, the unemployed. We have no right to regard our fellow human beings as mere stray animals, to be sent out into the cold hungry in hopes they won't come back to beg at our doors. "The poor you will always have with you," Jesus said. He also said that how we treat the poor among us is a test of our faithfulness to God: "Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to Me." When a federal court ruled South Carolina could not use public money to produce the "I Believe" license plate, our lieutenant governor presumed to defend the "rights" of Christians and "traditional" Christian values against the attacks of liberal, secular courts. Obviously his Christian values are not my Christian values. They are not the values of most Christians I know, either Republicans or Democrats.

I ask you to stand with me against Andre Bauer and what he has said about our fellow South Carolinians, particularly the 58% of our public school children who might not have enough to eat if it weren't for the subsidized lunch program. Call the Lieutenant Governor's office. Write a letter to your local newspaper. Blog about it. Put it in your Facebook status. Don't let him get away with this. Let Andre Bauer know that he cannot shame our state, insult its people, and misrepresent the Christian faith he professes without serious consequences to his political career. We are a compassionate state, and our people care for each other in times of great need such as this. Lieutenant Governor Bauer does not - and may not - speak for us.

- KPE

A new blog

2009-10-26T07:15:00.003-04:00

Dear friends,

I'm starting a new blog over at Wordpress; the address is www.katharinepinckneyeastvold.wordpress.com. The reason I'm doing this is to separate my posts on local politics from all of my other musings. As I become more involved in politics and the community here in Dorchester County, SC, I've realized that there may be an audience for a blog that deals almost exclusively with matters of local interest (with a smattering of state and national politics thrown in, of course, since no community is an island - right now, for instance, we're being heavily impacted by our state legislature's decisions on tax structure and unemployment benefits.) These folks may not need or want to read about cute things my children did, musings on feminism and family, my opinions on the crisis in the Episcopal Church (yes, that post is coming), etc. At the same time, I realize that most of my subscribers and frequent readers here at The Eastvold Blog are not in Dorchester County (or even in South Carolina) and are thus probably not too interested in, say, waste collection policy in my neighborhood. I will continue to post on this site about child-rearing, theology, social issues, and political issues of national or international interest. Some of the posts on national political issues will be cross-posted. I don't have anything up yet on the Wordpress site, but it exists, and hopefully I'll have something there in a few days.

Thanks for your patience,

KPE

Public comment sought TONIGHT on off-shore wind farm

2009-10-12T12:06:00.002-04:00

There's a chance for the public to comment tonight on a possible plan by Santee Cooper to possibly research the possibility of placing wind turbines off the Grand Strand (yes, it's apparently that tentative). A committee will present a report to the General Assembly by Jan. 1. The meeting will be held at the Baruch Institute in Georgetown, 177 Hobcaw Ave., from 6-8pm tonight.

I'm going to try to make it up there, if the children cooperate; I don't know very much about wind power (much less the offshore variety), but it strikes me that this project is potentially very expensive and also potentially very important, so I think the more members of the general public turn up to listen and talk, the better. If you're in the area, I'd urge you to come over if you can.

- KPE

Will South Carolina miss a great opportunity to be "first in the nation" on broadband access?

2009-10-05T11:20:00.002-04:00

South Carolina is currently the only state in the nation to own all of its educational broadband licenses - and thus have the opportunity to provide free wireless internet for all schools, state agencies, and emergency first responders, and reduced-price wireless for rural residents who currently don't have broadband access, while still leasing 75% of its licenses and banking that money. Instead, state law-makers are about to lease all but the legally-mandated 5% reserve to two companies for an amount that may not be anywhere near what it's worth.

As even a consultant hired by the South Carolina EBS Commission to look for potential buyers admitted, "The timing in South Carolina could be better," with the economy still less than vigorous. (http://www.fiercebroadbandwireless.com/story/south-carolina-prepared-lease-wide-swath-wireless-spectrum/2009-01-26) The state was required to submit to the FCC a plan to use its sixty-seven educational broadband licenses by April 15 of this year, but as far as I can tell, nothing would prevent South Carolina from leasing any or all of the available broadband capacity at a later date, pending FCC approval. Meanwhile, some (see http://www.scpronet.com/policy-work/universal-internet-access-in-sc) argue that retaining just 25% (20% of the licenses plus the 5% the state must reserve by law for educational use) would allow us to have what no other state currently has - statewide, free or reduced-price wireless access for rural customers who aren't now being served by private companies; more than adequate broadband access for all primary and secondary schools as well as for use in higher education; and free, assured broadband for emergency services throughout the state. State agencies could go wireless, too, which could impact the efficiency of state government in a big way.

Lawmakers in favor of leasing the full 95% argue that the difference between their plan and the 75% plan is $35 million that could be used to help South Carolina residents in other ways. But state agencies spent $71 million on telecom services last year. The University of South Carolina just agreed to pay $840,000 for Wi-Fi. It's not a stretch to imagine that we could save far more than $35 million (at the state, county, and municipal levels) by keeping just 20% of the total availability for our own use.

Those who believe in empowering the free market, not government, to manage resources such as broadband will say that private enterprise can more efficiently provide internet access to rural communities and schools than any government can. But there is nothing in the contract our state is about to approve that requires that any of the leased broadband be used in rural or predominantly low-income areas. P. Kelley Dunne, the CEO of DigitalBridge (one of the companies to which a lease may soon be granted) told State Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter of Orangeburg that his company has a track record of providing access to small towns. But he also said, "The service delivery will be market-driven." Naturally; that's what we all expect of private enterprise. South Carolina would be wise to remember that before the Rural Electrification Administration (established as part of the New Deal) set up electric cooperatives to build power lines and get electricity to farms and small towns, rural areas had little hope of having electric power for many years, possibly decades.

Thankfully, the lease contract does allow the state to use the controversial 20% at first, and at any time it may elect to reserve that 20% and simply receive $35 million less over the remaining years of the lease. But Clearwire, the other company named in the lease, can also elect at any time to begin using the 20%, and that point it will be too late for us to change our mind. A limited renegotiation will be allowed after fifteen years. But why wait fifteen years when we have the opportunity NOW to improve media access in our classrooms?

Education is the key to improving most aspects of life in South Carolina - the kinds of jobs that are available here, the kinds of companies we're able to attract, crime, and many more crucial issues. When use of the internet (and the resources available on the internet) are such an important part of how many people are expected to do their jobs now, we can't afford to miss this opportunity. Imagine how critical the internet and wireless communication could be in fifteen years, let alone thirty (when the lease is set to end). Why should we be left behind when we have the choice to be at the forefront, not the tail end, of the nation?

I am trying to figure out exactly where the lease proposal is in the process of approval. It may already be the State Budget and Control Board's decision to make. There is an FCC public forum tonight from 6 to 8pm in Ravenel, though, and another tomorrow morning at Trident Tech from 9am to noon, if anyone is interested. http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-293800A1.pdf The events are being held to solicit comments on developing a "National Broadband Plan," and not on this specific issue, but who knows? Attending and commenting might do some good.

- KPE

Movie review

2009-07-09T01:59:00.004-04:00

I know it's been a long time since I've posted, and it will probably be several more months before I'm able to get back to blogging in earnest, but I wanted to link to the one bit of writing I've done lately, a review of Public Enemies. It's on Christ and Pop Culture, which is a great site, and not just because they let me write something for them.

http://www.christandpopculture.com/film/public-enemies-why-so-serious/

- KPE

Show us the money!

2009-03-31T22:25:00.004-04:00

Earlier today, I attended a rally at the edge of the Charleston Harbor to urge Gov. Mark Sanford to accept $700 million in federal stimulus money. Gov. Sanford has until Friday to make up his mind (which he claims is already made up); with the legislature's role (if any) in the acceptance process in doubt and tied up in legal wrangling, our state's budget is looking pretty thin. Unless our governor changes his mind or a way is found for the legislature to override his wishes, precisely the kinds of services needed during a recession will be cut drastically. Some of the worst cuts will affect education.

I went to the rally because I'm concerned that while Gov. Sanford stands on his principles of small government, low taxes, and limited spending, many South Carolinians will fall through the cracks. Our most vulnerable citizens - those who have lost jobs; the elderly and disabled forced to rely on government services; families caring for children with special needs; the working poor overwhelmed by the rising cost of groceries and other goods; and disadvantaged children attending failing public schools - can't afford to wait until the economy starts looking up again. Paying off the state's debt (what Sanford wants to do with the money, although the federal government has by now made it clear that's not an option) may put South Carolina on a surer financial footing for the future, but at what cost? How many people will lose homes and jobs, suffer needlessly, and miss out on all opportunities for learning and advancement?

I was disappointed, then, that for the most part, today's rally wasn't about the neediest and most vulnerable among us. It was about "us." The "emcee" was a woman whose children attend public middle and high schools. She warned that summer school could be canceled if the non-stimulus budget is passed, then hastened to assure us that it's not just under-achieving students who go to summer school, but really good, smart, hard-working students who want to go the extra mile to get into a better college. Another mother and public school volunteer complained that Spanish teachers were being cut to half-time and that not learning a foreign language would adversely affect students' chances of getting into good colleges. (There was no mention of the fact that knowing Spanish is a very practical life skill these days, as South Carolina's Hispanic population grows.) Charleston schools superintendent Nancy McGinley spoke well, asking whether we want to go back to a time when only people with "personal resources" could send their children to school. But as she ran down the list of possible casualties (teacher pay and positions, equipment, summer school, fine arts programs, athletics), she betrayed no willingness to compromise, to talk about some programs that might be expendable. After all, stimulus or not, we're in a recession, and even with the federal money, there still will be painful budget cuts.

The rhetoric engaged in by most of the speakers was all about "our money," "what we deserve," and so on. We were asked to get out our cell phones and call Gov. Sanford; when one man got through, he put his phone on speaker, and the crowd chanted, "Show us the money! Show us the money!" Toya Hampton-Green, chairwoman of the Charleston County School Board, was the one bright spot, bringing a more thoughtful message. She showed that she understood where the governor is coming from, but that she also understands the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable of South Carolinians.

I do think we need to take political action to try to convince Gov. Sanford to change his mind; if I didn't think so, I wouldn't have been there. But we also need to be aware of the larger context of this battle - that even $700 million is a drop in the bucket compared to all the needs our state has, and that we need to be both creative and generous if we're going to avert disaster. It isn't "our" money, and "we" don't deserve it. Rather, we have a responsibility to be good stewards of our own personal resources as well as the state's money and anything we get from Washington. That's going to mean sacrificial giving and service to "the least of these." I'm afraid political action on this scale isn't going to stir up much support or change many minds as long as we look like another selfish interest group, clamoring for our piece of the pie, rather than a compassionate multitude, ready to confront these hard times and challenging our state government to stand with us.

- KPE

Never mind

2009-02-28T20:26:00.001-05:00

I just don't think this business of blogging every day during Lent is going to work, all of Jonathan's good intentions notwithstanding. It just isn't possible for me at this stage of my life (and my children's lives.) I hope to be able to blog a little more frequently than I have in the last few months, but don't hold your breath. Thank you for your good wishes, and have a blessed Lenten season.

- KPE

Lenten memories

2009-02-26T23:25:00.002-05:00

Jonathan announced a few days ago that he was "imposing" (I use the quotation marks because neither of us believes the actual imposition of duties is allowable or possible between husbands and wives) a Lenten discipline on me - blog every day during Lent. The idea struck me as laughable for its narcissism - during this season traditionally associated with solitary contemplation and self-denial, I'm supposed to spew my self-important thoughts onto the Internet each day? It's certainly not a conventional discipline.

But I decided to give it a try, because Jonathan asked me to, because part of me does want to get back to writing, and (perhaps most importantly) because Jonathan promised to help me find the time to do this.

Where have I been during the past two and a half months since I last posted? The same places I was before: at the sink and the stove, at the park with the children, on campus with Jonathan, in the grocery store and the doctor's office, and so on. I haven't been writing because I decided over Christmas to try (just for a short time) giving up most of my personal activities and hobbies and really focusing on childcare and meal preparation. We've been trying to eat more nutritiously and more cheaply, and I've had to discipline myself (there's that word again!) to spend much more time in the kitchen each afternoon than I had been accustomed to spending. I also occasionally soak beans overnight, and once I made pita bread from scratch. The price I've paid is that I'm fairly cut off from the outside world, and that isn't good for anyone, including my children. I'm able to do these things only because I'm not working for pay or volunteering outside the home. I'm really quite inefficient. So one of my goals for this Lent is to seek God's will for how to balance all things our family should do, and how to direct our family's orientation outward. In this pursuit, Charlie (my oldest, now almost four) provides an invaluable example. Everywhere we go, he introduces himself and strikes up conversations with complete strangers. I've seen many other children do the same. It's truly wonderful to see - and a sobering reminder to all of us who have become cautious, guarded adults.

Lent is supposed to be a time of contemplation - of our sins, our humanity, our need for a savior. That we are dust, and to dust we shall return. Such contemplation requires memory. We are to remember our wrongdoing, remember what God has done for us, and remember our purpose in life. I have trouble with this, because I have a very poor memory. It's not that I don't have memories. Often they come upon me unbidden and alarmingly vivid. A smell will remind me powerfully of a lost time in my life. And yet I think the memories I have are so strong and so independent, coming and going seemingly at will, precisely because I lack a good, steady long-term memory that constructs a narrative of my life thus far, a context in which to file the fleeting memories of moments that come into my head. I have nowhere to keep them. I am struck by them, and then they're gone again.

I feel like I need to do something about this situation. I am coming to God, asking Him to reveal to me what my purposes and priorities should be in this season of my life, but I have little sense of who God has made me to be, because I can't construct a coherent story of my life. Certainly I have the facts. And I am very rooted in my family, with whom I am close. I just can't put the pieces of memories together. I don't really remember myself as a child, a teenager, or even a college student. Every morning when I wake up, I feel that I've always been this way, living this exact life, doing these exact things over and over again. That's not a complaint; my life is very pleasant most of the time. I love routine. But I think seeing my life now in the larger story of my entire life might help me also to see my life in the larger narrative of God's redemption. I also think that remembering my childhood - not the major peaks and valleys, but the day to day existence of a child - might help me become a better, more empathetic mother.

Have any other mothers out there experienced this sort of feeling of spiritual amnesia?

I'll try to post something more upbeat and outward-looking tomorrow!

- KPE

The alligator hole

2008-12-05T11:34:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I dug an alligator hole with my children. It all started with a book from the library. Charlie likes gators, so he saw a book with a picture of one on the cover, and we had to get it. It was called, What Lives in an Alligator Hole? My snide response: an alligator, duh. Not so simple, apparently. I learned from reading to my children that the alligator is a "keystone species" that enables many other species to survive in the wetland environment by providing them with relatively fresh water. The alligator wallows in the soft mud, digging a nice big hole, and the hole fills with water, from under the mud, that is less brackish than the water that typically sits around in marshes. And contrary to popular belief, alligators don't eat everything in sight. In fact, they eat less than you might expect. During the winter months, when the cold-blooded gators essentially hibernate in their muddy holes, they only eat once a month on average. Usually, birds, turtles, and other animals are pretty safe in an alligator hole. (Hibernating all winter and only having to fix myself a meal once a month doesn't sound like a bad life to me right now, but that's neither here nor there.)

So, we got to the end of this fascinating little book, and when I saw the last page, I quickly snapped it shut. "What was that, Mommy?" Charlie asked. Now, Charlie can't exactly read yet, but he knows enough that you can't fool him by skipping pages. "Uh, nothing, darling." I knew I wasn't getting away with this. I'd been caught, and it was only a matter of time. Charlie can wheedle, off and on, for weeks if necessary. I relented. "A science activity," I conceded warily, knowing I ought to be more excited about this. Predictably enough, Charlie and Kristianna were both interested and insisted I read the skipped page.

The activity was simple enough: fill two bowls with the same amount of dirt, add the same amount of water to both, then pat the dirt in one bowl down flat, while digging a hole in the other bowl. The "alligator hole" is supposed to fill with nice, clean-ish water for your toddlers to drink. Okay, so I made up that last part.

However, nothing is simple in our family. First, we had to find a toy alligator, because Charlie insisted that WE could not be the ones to dig the gator hole; it had to be dug by an actual (toy) alligator. It took a couple of weeks (no, I'm not kidding) for us to find time to go shopping for an alligator, and the window of opportunity finally opened while Charlie was at school on Tuesday. So I took the girls to A.C. Moore, where I was pretty sure I'd seen cheap plastic animals, and we started rummaging through the various species. I'd been feeling pretty guilty about the whole thing, since we try not to buy lots of junky toys, we don't have much money anyway, and then there's the business of plastic (especially the ubiquitous painted "Made in China" variety) not exactly being good for you, according to more and more studies. But I had a 50% off coupon, the little plastic animals didn't cost THAT much, and while they were in fact made in China, they also sported a tag reading "Phthalate-free." Whatever that means. Anyway, it sounded good.

The problem was that they didn't have an alligator, only a crocodile. Now, I knew that Charlie knew that alligators and crocodiles are not the same thing. (One of my nephews once conveniently combined the species, excitedly telling my sister that he had seen the "crocogator" at the zoo.) But I thought I could get away with it. How would he know the difference? No such luck. When we got to Charlie's school to pick him up, Kristianna strolled into the classroom still carrying the crocodile, which she had refused to part with except briefly so it could be scanned by the cashier (during which time she looked daggers at the clerk). Charlie's teacher asked, "Ooh, do you have an alligator?" See, SHE was fooled! But not Kristianna, who must have heard me muttering to myself at the store about the lack of a proper alligator. "No, a 'dile," she proclaimed, and the secret was out. For the rest of the day, I had to listen to Charlie's comments on the matter: "Mommy, I TOLD you to get an alligator, so why did you get me a crocodile?" "Why would you go to a store that sells only crocodiles?" "A crocodile cannot dig an alligator hole." And so on. By the next day, he had finally concluded that it would be acceptable to pretend the toy was an alligator, just for the duration of the activity.

We still had to find dirt. This isn't a problem for those of you who live in houses; just go to the backyard. But we live in an apartment complex, and a very well-landscaped one at that. After I had watched the landscapers work all fall on the beds, it didn't seem right to dig for dirt under the bushes right outside our apartment. So yesterday afternoon we loaded up the stroller, bundled up the baby, and trekked over to the pond (where the real gator has his real gator hole) to find some dirt. There were a few bare patches that I didn't think the rental office would mind if we raided for a measly three cups of the stuff. As I kept a guilty lookout for any suspicious landscaping personnel, the children spooned dirt into Gladware containers. Then of course we had to go by the playground "on the way back," and before we knew it, suppertime was upon us and another day had gone by without doing that one, extremely simple activity. (We even had to take the library book back earlier in the week. Good grief.)

Yesterday morning, the time was finally right. Personally, I don't mind getting dirty. But I didn't relish the idea of mud all over the carpet, so I contained the children in the kitchen and nervously watched their feet and clothing. It is so hard to give up control, to just let them enjoy something and not constantly be barking, "Don't scratch your foot; your hand is muddy!" and "Don't splash; it's getting under the stove!" I compared myself to the mother I'm not - the mother who would sit back and watch the children get the whole house muddy, smiling peacefully to herself at the joy of youth, and then patiently put them down for naps and clean the whole house again before they awakened.

We did succeed in getting messy, but the demonstration of the benefits of alligator holes was a complete wash. Maybe the dirt was too wet to begin with, or maybe the measurements in the book weren't right, or maybe I remembered them wrong. In any event, both bowls simply flooded with muddy water. There was no clean drinking water for the toy birds and beasts that the children had gathered for the grand experiment, and the hole was barely discernible. I tried to explain how it should have worked (and why it didn't), but they weren't listening. They were piling mud on the "alligator," making their other toy animals dive into the bowls, making muddy handprints on the kitchen floor, trying to construct a beach for a toy penguin, and of course pushing each other with muddy hands while giggling.

As I was watching them and then cleaning up the kitchen, I found myself both envying professional teachers (who would know better than I how to conduct such an activity) and pitying them. They are assailed from both sides - by a society and a government that often expects them to stand in loco parentis for children whose parents are, for whatever reason, barely involved in their lives, and then by parents who ARE intimately involved in their children's lives and would like schools to stick to teaching academic subjects and not try to parent them or teach them values. I'm in the middle of watching a documentary called Corridor of Shame, about eight rural South Carolina districts, all clustered along I-95, that sued the state of South Carolina for additional funding, claiming that they were unable to provide a "minimally adequate" education for their children with the meager revenue they gleaned from property taxes. The film depicts crumbling buildings and libraries with few new books; it also features interviews with teachers and principals who say they have to be parents to many of their pupils. They talk about first-graders who don't know their birthdays or addresses, or how to spell their names. They talk about children who come to school hungry because there is no food in the house for breakfast, and who will go to sleep hungry unless their teacher sends them home with some food. In the film, one young male teacher (he didn't look much over 25) says with tears in his eyes that he can't bring himself to leave the district, despite the poor pay, because many of his high school students call him "Dad."

I am extremely blessed. We aren't rich, but Jonathan makes enough that I can stay home with the children. I don't want to ignite the "Mommy Wars" with this post, because I know there are many working moms who do an excellent job of raising their children and are quite involved in their children's lives, helping them with their homework and passing on their values and beliefs to them. And sometime soon I would like to have a career outside the home; I don't see staying home as my final destination or something I am morally obligated to do. But the point is that I have the opportunity to choose. Many parents don't. Some of the moms and dads described in Corridor of Shame were alcoholics or in prison. But most couldn't be there for their children because they were working two or three jobs to make ends meet. And in today's economy, that's necessary for more and more couples and single parents. Increasingly, schools will need to step in to teach not just the three R's, but how to get along with others, what to wear, self-care and nutrition, civic responsibility, and yes, some sort of value system.

Parents who can afford to be very hands-on in raising their children, as Jonathan and I can, have often objected to the comprehensive nature of public education. "Why can't they stick to teaching the basics," they say, "and let us handle things like conflict resolution, sex education, how to approach other religions and other lifestyles, etc.?" A frequently heard argument for home schooling is that it takes so much less time than school in a traditional setting, because class time is taken up only with purely academic work; all the other stuff is taught in the process of living life as a family. Yet the government (really, the voting public) puts an enormous amount of pressure on public schools (and now, through voucher programs, some private schools) to serve as the final barricade separating troubled youths from the juvenile detention center and an adult life of poverty and hopelessness. Schools are expected to take children whose parents are so busy trying to survive that they can't read to them or teach them their colors, and make productive, decent, moral adults out of them. That's a very tall order, and it's one that involves much more than reading, math, science, and history.

I've been trying to think of solutions, and I haven't been very successful. Parents could be given the opportunity to opt their children out of all but strictly academic activities, but that would in effect segregate public schools into two groups of students, which would probably be mostly differentiated by socio-economic class. My worry about such a system is much the same as my worry about "school choice" - that it would help the students who already have the great advantage of involved parents who don't have to work all the time, and leave behind those who are already at a disadvantage. I also fear that it would undermine democracy by causing some students to feel superior to others, mostly by virtue of their family income and background, and as though they had been given the "privilege" of not having to spend as much time with the "other group" of children. Aside from that, I'm out of ideas and would appreciate any you have. After all, segregation (of all sorts, not just racial) in education is endemic, as a result of private schools, charter schools, tracking and gifted programs, and just plain human nature. We want to make sure that exposing diverse groups of children to each other doesn't result in gifted (or better-prepared) children getting bored and learning nothing, while academic standards are adapted to the lowest common denominator. At the same time, we want to make sure students of all backgrounds have the same opportunities.

Meanwhile, as I was thinking these things, I realized my alligator hole disaster was not quite over yet. I still had to get rid of all that dirt. Putting it down the kitchen sink would probably stop up the plumbing; ditto the toilet. It didn't make any sense to put good, clean dirt in the trashcan. So, making sure the children were clean and occupied with a coloring book, I left with the container of dirt. Again, I looked for landscapers. I found the edge of a bed where the bare dirt was exposed and, squatting, scooped the dirt out with my hands and smoothed it over the ground in an attempt to disguise its addition. Unfortunately, it still looked a little too much like dog poop, which the property manager has rightly banned from the premises. I put some pinestraw over it and hoped for the best. Back to the apartment to wash all the containers and the spoons. Back to trying to figure out what's best for my children and all the other children, too.

- KPE

If this is Christmas, then bah-humbug

2008-11-29T09:44:00.003-05:00

Yesterday morning at approximately 6:03am, temporary Wal-Mart employee Jdimypai Damour was pronounced dead at a hospital in Valley Stream, New York, a suburb of New York City. He had been trampled to death.

The New York Times reported that a crowd had grown outside the store starting at 9pm Thanksgiving evening, with hundreds and eventually thousands of would-be shoppers waiting for "doorbusters" and other "Black Friday" promotions. At 3am, police were called to the scene because the crowd was getting large and rowdy; however, police were subsequently diverted to a nearby Best Buy and Circuit City on account of similar problems. At five minutes until 5 (when the Wal-Mart was set to open), the crowd surged forward, knocking in the doors, and Mr. Damour, standing near the doors with some other employees in an attempt to control the crowd, was trampled and suffocated as shoppers tripped and fell on him. According to other shoppers and employees, people continued to stream into the Wal-Mart long after he fell, jumping over him and stepping on him, and even pushing aside employees who were attempting to help him up. Even after the police arrived, customers pushed and shoved officers who were trying to perform CPR on Mr. Damour.

What do we make of this scene? The first reaction of many people may be to blame either the insensitive shoppers or Wal-Mart. Both are at fault. Surely people are responsible for their individual choices, and in this case they acted barbarously and inhumanely. I am sickened by the kind of greed, unrestrained self-interest, and apathy that would motivate a person to step on a fallen human being and push away those providing aid. I am also persuaded by the comment of police Lieutenant Michael Fleming, who spoke for the Nassau County Police Department and said he thought the tragedy was "foreseeable" and that Wal-Mart did not take adequate security precautions. After all, Wal-Mart and many other retailers undertake a blitz of advertising in the days and weeks leading up to The Day After Thanksgiving, in an attempt to persuade people that holiday happiness is available if only you buy the right things for the right people (and for yourself, because after all, you deserve a treat after such a hard year), and since the economy is bad, you have to go to the Biggest Sale of the Year and get all the goodies as cheaply as possible. There are reminders not to overspend and that, come January, credit card companies will be beating down your door if you disregard your spending limit. But the reminders are gentle, and the advertising is relentless. Wal-Mart certainly could and should have foreseen that, given the great deals they were promoting, a crowd might form and get out of control. They could have hired more security personnel, called the police sooner, asked their employees to stand away from the doors instead of using them as human barricades, or maybe even reinforced the doors. Given that several shoppers suffered minor injuries in the stampede as well, the litigation arising from this episode will be vast and long.

But beyond the proximate causes, I believe we urgently need to rethink how we celebrate Christmas - and Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Eid, the Winter Solstice, and the generic, secular occasion commemorated each November and December and perhaps best referred to simply as The Holidays. As a Christian, I think Christianity, among the world's faiths, best advises and enables moral, loving behavior toward our neighbors. But the fact of the matter is that no major religious observance celebrated during the winter holiday season advocates or even condones the behavior of yesterday's Wal-Mart crowd. All advise love, joy, and humility. Why, then, are we trampling each other to get at big screen TVs, XBoxes, and coffee makers?

One answer is that "we" aren't. That it's just "those people" who do things like this: "those people" who are poor and desperate and made greedy by hours of television shows that encourage them to envy what their richer neighbors take for granted. "We" who can afford to order our entertainment centers well in advance of the Christmas rush are not at fault, we'd like to say. And yet "we" (and yes, I mean me, too) often send the same harmful messages to our children, our friends, and our neighbors: that bigger is better, that we all deserve great entertainment and conveniences, that every gift must be reciprocated, and that we can make each other happy by giving each other the perfect gifts. I think we do a particular disservice to our children, because even when we skimp on things for ourselves or gifts for the adults in our families, we often scrape up just enough to buy that toy our child wants, "because it will make him so happy."

I'd like to suggest an alternative. A group called The Advent Conspiracy has a great website and video at http://www.adventconspiracy.org, and I encourage you to check it out, forward it to your friends, etc. They also have a Facebook page, and you can put the link on your profile. It's a call for Christians in particular to return to a truly Christian perspective on Christmas, to cut down on our compulsive spending on useless gifts, and instead to use whatever extra we have to give to those who really need what we have.

That's a radical call in a culture where it's considered rude not to give gifts to certain people in our lives - even when those gifts are things the recipients don't want or need and which will end up in the trash or stuffed in a drawer. As our economy slows, our response should be more careful spending and valuing what we already have - not breaking down retailers' doors so we can buy the same luxuries at lower prices. The Advent Conspiracy urges us to start slow - maybe just buy one fewer gift this year, and take that money and put it in the bank or write a check to a worthy charity. The website also urges us to use our time wisely, maybe by volunteering at a homeless shelter for an hour instead of putting up one more garland on the roof, or taking the children sledding (assuming you live in a part of the country where you can do that!) instead of dressing them up and attending one more holiday party or event where they won't know anyone and it's too loud to hear yourself or anyone else talk.

It will be hard, but our family is trying to cut back this year. I'll be making fudge and sugared pecans instead of buying gifts at the store for some people (although that raises yet another prickly issue - that of good nutrition. Oops...) We'll look at our schedules and try to cut out unnecessary activities that none of us will enjoy and that won't do anyone any good. We don't want to be Scrooges; we want to embrace the joy of the season. But joy is more readily available, I think, when it's not forced, when it's spontaneous and unlooked-for, not purchased and wrapped and carefully orchestrated. I'm always stunned by how non-materialistic very young children can be, until they're coached by adults (and older children, of course) to behave otherwise. Selfish, yes. But not nearly as materialistic as we think. And when we tell them to behave selflessly and lovingly, not practicing what we preach, they often surprise us by doing what we say and not what we do. That, of course, doesn't last long. But maybe we can learn from them and enter the Kingdom of Heaven as a little child, as Jesus told us.

I would prefer to leave us with a positive vision, but I can't help pointing out the first thing I thought of when I saw the article on the Wal-Mart stampede. I was reminded of similar melees in Third World countries, with desperate people trampling and pushing and shoving and shooting over much-coveted resources. But in those cases, the loot is food, clean water, and medicine. Here, it's largely nonessential - even luxury - items. One wonders what signal this sends to the rest of the world about the heart of America.

- KPE

More on the Webb Center and the state budget

2008-11-23T16:33:00.002-05:00

After I drafted the previous post, the Charleston Post and Courier ran another article about the Webb Center. Apparently the decision to close five (the previous article said four; I'm not sure which is correct) daycare centers for disabled children was made in part in order to keep residential facilities open. The Department of Disabilities and Special Needs operates a number of facilities, including, near Charleston, the Coastal Center in Ladson, where adults with severe mental and developmental disabilities can live and receive care. The Coastal Center houses 180 such adults and employs about 450 staffers. According to a Department spokeswoman, the decision was made to keep residential centers open at the expense of daycare centers because while the children attending the day centers have homes to go back to, the adults have nowhere to go, either because they don't have families they can stay with, or because their disabilities are so severe that their families cannot care for them without expensive professional help.

If that is truly the alternative, then I think the Department made the right decision. But surely there are other places in the state's budget that can be cut. To name a small but powerfully symbolic example, I went to Columbia this weekend and observed a beautiful, very tall Christmas tree in front of the State House. At the Governor's Carolighting, the tree will be lit with thousands of bulbs, and every night it will use a good amount of electricity. The money saved by having an eight-foot tree instead of a 25-foot tree would be miniscule compared to the vast budget shortfall, but as they say, it all adds up. Surely we can find nice but unnecessary expenditures to cut. Surely there is more waste in our budget. And what about the policy of budgeting for agencies the amount they used the previous year, which encourages "use it or lose it" spending sprees? Hard times call for drastic measures, but we have to prioritize our most vulnerable citizens.

Conservatives traditionally like to cut government services and keep people off the welfare rolls. But they can't have it both ways, unless they want to put children on the streets, an outcome I don't believe they truly desire. What will happen if lower-income parents have to quit their jobs and stay home to care for their disabled children in the event that the Webb Center cannot be kept open? The state will then end up caring for them via welfare checks. Would conservatives rather pay to care for people's children while they work productively, stimulate the economy, and better themselves through their own efforts - or would they rather pay them to stay out of the workforce because of an aversion to government-run or government-subsidized daycare?

I do have an update on where to send donations to help keep the Webb Center (and similar facilities) open. Send checks to the Disability Foundation of Charleston County, P.O. Box 22708, Charleston, SC, 29413. I will continue trying to track down the petition. I'd love to see it circulating among pro-life groups and even church groups. Most of all, please contact your state legislators. Tell them we need to make tough, good choices that protect the most vulnerable among us, promote work, AND value life.

- KPE

Pro-life in SC? I've got a job for you.

2008-11-21T23:56:00.003-05:00

The Charles Webb Center in Charleston, South Carolina, cares for thirty special needs children, from infants through ten-year-olds. Its eight staff members teach, work with, and attend to the needs of their charges from early in the morning until the end of the workday. Some children are dropped off at the start of the day; others are bused to the Center after school. Autism, Down syndrome, and Fragile X syndrome are among the pupils' diagnoses. It no doubt takes great patience, skill, and professional training to work with these thirty kids, day in and day out, allowing their parents to hold jobs and keep the family finances afloat. It's the only facility of its kind in the Tri-County area.

And it's about to shut its doors - permanently - unless some drastic changes occur.

Like many states, South Carolina has been forced to respond to the economic crisis by cutting spending. One of the cuts was 11.2% from the budget of the state's Department of Disabilities and Special Needs, which funds the Webb Center. The Department, in turn, cut 80% of the Center's budget, making it impossible to continue operating it after December. In fact, four of the state's five special needs daycare/after-school centers are being forced to close due to budget cuts. Parents of the Center's children are working to keep it open by raising money and contacting their legislators for help, but according to Rick Magner, executive director of the Disabilities Board of Charleston County, who is trying to help the Center stay open, the prospects are grim. Without the Webb Center and similar facilities in other regions of the state, many parents of special needs children will be forced to quit their jobs (or at least drastically cut back their hours) to stay with their children. They will also lose access to the staff of professionals who have been helping them cope with their children's limitations and teach them basic life skills.

The imminent shuttering of the Webb Center should be a concern to all of us, but especially to those of us who call ourselves pro-life. According to the oft-cited 1999 study by Mansfield, Hopfer, and Marteau, between 91% and 93% of fetuses diagnosed prenatally with Down syndrome are aborted. The termination rates for four other prenatally diagnosable conditions - spina bifida, anencephaly, Turner syndrome, and Klinefelter syndrome - were well above 50%. To be sure, the decision to terminate a pregnancy which has a high chance of resulting in a developmentally disabled child is an intensely personal choice in which many factors play a role. But it would only be natural for women to contemplate what their lives might be like if they were raising a developmentally disabled child - whether they would be able to keep their jobs, what kinds of resources might be available to help care for and educate their children, and whether they would be able to afford necessary care. If we shut down the facilities that allow parents of special needs children to work and make ends meet, we are creating a world that is increasingly hostile to families with special needs children, and we are therefore making the option of carrying to term a fetus with developmental concerns a much less attractive one, relative to abortion.

The latest article on the Webb Center controversy, which appeared yesterday in the Charleston Post and Courier, highlighted this potential problem by referring to an unnamed woman who is trying to adopt a special needs child and was "in tears because she said the Department of Social Services said it would be a problem because the Webb Center is closing." The pro-life movement has consistently held out adoption as an alternative for women who really cannot handle, for whatever reason, raising the children growing inside them. Pro-lifers, to their credit, have lobbied to make the adoption process easier and less expensive. Many pro-life families have adopted children, including special needs children. Given the progress that has been made on this front, it is heart-breaking that the latest round of budget cuts might discourage couples from adopting special needs children - who are harder to place than other children - because of a lack of fairly basic resources.

The families who already have children at the Webb Center are scrambling, without much success so far, to place them at other facilities. But there are no equivalent opportunities in the Charleston area, according to the Post and Courier; traditional day care centers are usually reluctant to take on special needs children because of their intense need for one-on-one interaction and because they don't have qualified staffers.

When it comes to fighting abortion in the political arena, the pro-life movement has usually devoted its energies to pushing state restrictions on abortion (partial birth abortion bans, parental notification statutes, etc.) or electing presidents they think will nominate Supreme Court justices likely to help overturn Roe V. Wade. But there are other government policies (not to mention social attitudes) that affect the number of abortions. The cuts made to the Webb Center's budget are a good example. If you're a pro-life South Carolinian, I believe you need to be concerned about this issue and either help the Center stay open or help find good alternative child-care solutions for the students' parents. There is a petition circulating, and I am in the process of finding out where it is and/or the name of the contact person for the petition. You can call or write to your state legislators. You can donate to the Center: Charles Webb Center, 1611 Evergreen St., Charleston, SC 29407. There may also be some more creative organizing we can do. But we need to do something. And we need to insist that our "pro-life" elected officials respect life at all ages and stages and respect families who choose life.

- KPE

[All information on the Charles Webb Center case came from one of two Post and Courier articles. The first was published Nov. 15: http://www.charleston.net/news/2008/nov/15/families_afraid_webb_center_close_61998/. The other was published Wednesday, Nov. 21: http://www.charleston.net/news/2008/nov/21/parents_seek_way_keep_center_open62498/#comments.]

A Plea for Realism - and Idealism

2008-11-10T21:42:00.003-05:00

The election is over, and the honeymoon has begun. I can't help but feel sorry for Barack Obama; even if most people who voted for him don't really think he's the Messiah, the poor guy is saddled with a crushing weight of expectations. The people have spoken, the people want change, and they want it NOW.

I write as one who voted for Sen. (now President-elect, amazingly enough!) Obama and who desires change as much as the next person. Although we enjoy blessings that many living elsewhere in the world can barely dream of, there is much in this country that could use a little change. We need to change the way we think about and use non-renewable sources of energy, the way we regulate the banking industry, the uses to which we devote our military resources and the way we care for our veterans of battle, the absurd top-down and purely numbers-based system by which we evaluate our schools, and (most importantly, in my opinion) our government's attitude toward the most vulnerable members of our society: the poor, the homeless, the disabled, the unemployed, the mentally ill, the elderly, the children, and – yes – the unborn.

It remains to be seen what the new president will do on all these and other issues. Although he can count on a Congress controlled by members of his own party (at least for the first two years of his term), experienced Washington-watchers know that intra-party battles over legislative priorities and substance can be as bitter as (sometimes more than) squabbles pitting the parties against each other. Pres. Obama will confront a dire economic situation that will limit the amount of spending Congress can afford to allocate to new programs, such as alternative energy initiatives and health care reform. No one knows what sorts of foreign policy dilemmas the new president will face. And Obama himself will certainly disappoint all but his most blinkered partisans. He's human, he's fallible, he carries on his shoulders the weighty labels of "history-making" and "game-changing," and he will walk into a very tough situation on January 20.

How will his supporters react? I'm especially concerned about the first-time voters and the people who hadn't voted in years but who saw something in this candidate that made them drop their cynicism and disgust for politics and rush to the polls to support him. Will they denounce him as vehemently as they once cheered him? Will they cling to him, against their better judgment? Or will they withdraw again, back into their private lives, determined never again to let themselves be fooled by a politician peddling hope?

I want to talk to these voters. I wasn't a first-time voter, and I probably would have voted in this election no matter who was running, because I believe so deeply in exercising the civic responsibility that is our hard-won privilege as Americans. But I, too, was extremely cynical about politics and government. In 2004, I literally made up my mind (at least in the presidential race) twenty minutes before entering the voting booth, because both Pres. Bush and Sen. Kerry, as candidates for the highest office in the land, were so distasteful to me. A political science major in college, I thought (in the manner of the world-weary young) that I had seen it all. Sen. Obama, first at the 2004 Democratic convention and then in his books Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope, articulated a vision that was profoundly attractive to me and which I had never heard expressed by a major contender on the national stage in my lifetime.

Here's what I want to say - to you and to myself. Barack Obama will disappoint you, whether a little or a lot. Change may meet gridlock and be defeated. Or change may prevail, but turn out to be precisely the change we don't need. Or perhaps I am too pessimistic. But I know we will be disappointed, in some measure. I want to urge you: stay in the game. When Pres. Obama does something you don't like, don't give up. Fight it. Write to him - again and again and again. Join an organization that shares your views and can help pressure him to change his position. Write, call, and visit your representatives in Congress. Take to the streets and demonstrate. Whatever you do, don't give up.

Remember that politics isn't only (or even primarily) national. I want to see the energy channeled by Obama during this election cycle applied to local and state politics as well. It may be disappointing for some of us to realize that our vote - this precious resource, greatly coveted by McCain and Obama these many months - has now been spent. We may feel that we have nothing left - no bargaining power - and that we can now safely be taken advantage of by career politicians once again. Yet, in less than two years, there will be Congressional elections, and four-fifths of the states will choose governors. And in less time than that, there will be other kinds of elections in communities all over this country - for mayor, county council, coroner, sewage board, schools superintendent, and dog catcher.

If you're a CNN junkie like I am, coming down off the high of 24/7 campaign coverage, complete with dramatic music and stirring graphics, the prospect of choosing your local dog catcher or sanitation board member may not seem very scintillating. But these positions are vitally important. Worried about property taxes? Upset that it's so hard to recycle in your community? Annoyed at the strip club they're building across the street? Would you like to ride your bike to work, but there's no bike lane? Is there an incinerator nearby that's giving your child asthma? Are you concerned about violence at your child's school? Do your neighbors have a potentially dangerous pit bull that gets too close to your grandkids? Want to do something more for the homeless man you pass every daythan just slip him a quarter that he may or may not spend on food?

Then vote in municipal, county, and school district elections. Your vote, after all, will be one in ten thousand or maybe even one in three hundred, rather than one in tens of millions. Better yet, run for office. Try your hand at changing a few things yourself.

During the campaign, candidate Obama famously said, "We are the change that we seek. We are the ones we've been waiting for." Sure, it sounds a little Zen and a little humanistic. But, taken at face value and stripped of the sentimentality that was certainly intended, it's a decent statement of democracy. If there's going to be political change - bad or good - it's going to come from us. We are the government, for better and for worse. On January 20, President-elect Obama will get his shot at effecting change. We're getting our shot at it, too. Let's give Obama, our other elected officials, and the pundits even more than they bargained for.

- KPE

Endorsements

2008-11-02T23:50:00.005-05:00

I debated whether or not to post endorsements this year. Anyone who's read my blog in the past (or even looked at my Facebook account) knows which candidate I support for president. And I'm not at all enthusiastic about my choices for either Senate or House, to the point that I hesitate to even endorse the candidates for whom I will be voting, except as the lesser of evils. But I decided to do endorsements anyway, for two reasons. First, I want to take a stand in favor of going to the polls and casting your ballot even when you don't love your options, because if we don't exercise our right to vote, we're probably not going to get better choices next time around. The greater the turnout, the more beholden our public officials (and future candidates) will be to the wider voting public, and not just narrow interest groups with the time and money to influence the policy-making process. I'm not ashamed of my voting decisions, even when I wish there were a better choice on the ballot.

Second, I want to highlight the importance of researching local races and making informed decisions. Too often, elections for school board, county council, coroner, public service commission, city council, solicitor, and other state, county, and municipal positions are simply ignored by the vast majority of voters. We hear about the presidential race 24/7 nowadays, and even local newspapers give far more copy to national races than state and local ones. Since moving to the Charleston area in August, I've tried to learn about the county and municipal candidates and their positions, and believe me, it's not easy. Again, the more voters ignore these races and either vote a straight party ticket or don't fill out those parts of their ballot at all, the more the established machines or political families will be emboldened to keep voters in the dark and run counties and cities virtually unopposed. The number of uncontested races in this election is appalling to me. So I'd like to post endorsements for the full ballot to call attention to these often-overlooked races, and also to share the information I've been able to glean. I hope that in the future, local news outlets and county election commissions will do a better job of disseminating clear, accessible, easy-to-understand candidate information to voters.

Descending from that soapbox now. Here goes:

President - Barack Obama. Y'all know what I think of Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain. If I had time, I'd write a complete, cogent explanation of why I'm voting for Sen. Obama, but I don't. There's plenty about the presidential race on this blog already, and if you want to argue with me, feel free and I'll try to respond. There are also many, many other pro-life evangelicals voting for Sen. Obama, and many of them have posted explanations of their decision on the internet in some form. Do some Googling of "pro-life," "evangelical," and "Obama" or "pro-Obama," and you'll find some interesting stuff. Also, as I noted in my post from a few days ago, the Center for Public Justice (http://www.cpjustice.org) has some interesting considerations for voting on its website. They certainly do not endorse Obama (and I'm not even sure whom they'd endorse if they could/would do so), but it's valuable stuff, and personally, I think their analysis tends to point toward a vote for Obama.

U.S. Senate - Bob Conley. For me, this is one of those "lesser of two evils" votes. Bob Conley, as far as I can tell, is hardly a Democrat. He's more like a libertarian. He has openly admitted to admiring Ron Paul. I don't agree with him on much, in fact. But I have spent the last six years disagreeing with Sen. Lindsey Graham on more things and getting upset with how much time he spends chasing the press. I've lived out-of-state for almost all of his term, but I haven't missed seeing his name in print, because he always manages to show up with a pithy comment, whether I'm reading the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, or some other news source. He's also spent quite a bit of time on the trail with his good friend Sen. McCain. Sen. Graham is well ahead in the polls, but I'd prefer if his mandate were as slim as possible, in hopes that a narrow victory would scare him into buckling down and working for the tangible good of our state and nation instead of pandering to the press and trying to transform himself into Maverick 2.0.

U.S. House (1st district) - Linda Ketner. Another reluctant endorsement. Throughout most of the campaign, I've been impressed with Ms. Ketner's ideas and proclaimed willingness to work across party lines to get things done. She has a very good grasp of economics and energy issues, and her experience working for affordable housing would prove invaluable at this time of crisis, especially in the housing market. I have become increasingly disappointed, however, in her highly negative campaign against incumbent Henry Brown. Despite seeming to threaten Ms. Ketner to reveal certain supposedly unsavory things about her, Congressman Brown has in fact run a mostly positive campaign. Ms. Ketner, on the other hand, has hammered her opponent on his failure to pay a fine for accidentally allowing a fire on his property to spread to the Francis Marion National Forest, and his subsequent attempt to make it harder for the Park Service to fine property-owners in similar cases. She claims he used his influence to avoid the fine in question and also protect himself from such fines in the future. It's a troubling accusation, and for a while I felt it was legitimate for her to bring it up. But as it turns out, not long before his fire spread to the park, a controlled burn in the national forest got out of hand and spread to his property, and Congressman Brown told the Park Service not to worry about compensating him. So when the reverse happened, the Congressman assumed (perhaps naturally, perhaps not) that the Park Service would forgive him in turn. When they pressed for the payment of the fine, he got annoyed and tried to make the law fairer to property owners near national parks.

Clearly Henry Brown, a member of an older and arguably classier generation, thought he had a "gentleman's agreement" with the Park Service and was upset when they refused to play by those rules. It was just such an attitude that probably inspired Congressman Brown's exhortation to Ms. Ketner in their first debate to "be a good Southern lady and tell the truth" about his record. The fact is, I'm not convinced that such a "gentleman's code" ought to be informing the financial dealings of the Park Service, and I'm not entirely comfortable with Congressman Brown's behavior in the matter. That said, I am extremely disappointed that Ms. Ketner chose to make this incident the cornerstone of her campaign rather than running on the issues, on which I believe she has a strong advantage.

State Senate (District 43) - Republican Chip Campsen is unfortunately running unopposed.

State House (District 117) - Republican Tim Scott is unfortunately running unopposed. Mr. Scott is currently our representative on County Council, and despite the fact that he is barely waging a campaign for state legislature, he has made himself scarce and not answered an e-mail I sent to him about a matter concerning the County Council. I may or may not write in a name for this race and the State Senate race.

Republican Scarlett Wilson (Solicitor - Circuit 9), Republican Al Cannon (Sheriff), Republican Peggy Moseley (County Auditor), Republican Andrew Smith (County Treasurer), and Republican Julie Armstrong (County Clerk of Court) are all running unopposed.

County Coroner - Rae Wooten. Ms. Wooten is the incumbent, though she has never been elected to the position, having replaced the previous coroner upon her resignation. By all accounts, she's done a good job. She is a registered nurse, and she claims that during her challenging term of office, which included dealing with the deaths of nine firefighters in the Sofa Super Store fire, she was able to build solid relationships with hospitals, physicians, paramedics, federal investigators, etc. Challenger Henry Middleton on paper has impressive credentials, as he served for almost twenty years with the Charleston Medical Examiner's Office and has spent his entire career in forensic investigation. He says the coroner's office needs to be professionalized. I have been impressed, though, with Ms. Wooten's knowledge and compassion, as well as the relationships she has built during her brief time in office. I really don't know much about the work of a coroner (it seems like an odd office to be filled by public vote!), but Mr. Middleton seems to be trying too hard to argue that his experience is needed, without providing any evidence that Ms. Wooten's qualifications are insufficient. (His campaign literature also offers the memorable promise to "give a voice to all deceased persons in Charleston County," but that's neither here nor there...)

Charleston County Council (District 3) - Elliott Summey. Mr. Summey, a Democrat, is a commercial real estate developer, and his father is longtime mayor of North Charleston. His grandfather was also a successful practitioner of Charleston County and North Charleston politics. For those reasons alone, I was predisposed to find another candidate to support for County Council. However, having researched the three candidates (Mr. Summey, Republican Mickie Kelecy, and petition candidate Coakley Hilton) and attended the candidate forum last Wednesday, I've concluded Mr. Summey is the best choice. He is committed to building a rail line in the Charleston area, something that is badly needed to improve the long commutes many area residents make every day. Implementing commuter rail would take cars off the roads, save users money on gas, and allow many families to continue to function with only one car (or even no car). Mr. Summey is committed to improving recycling service in the county, including creating a convenient way for builders to recycle unused or unusable building materials. He is excited about constituent service and preventing further suburban sprawl. His opponents, particularly Ms. Kelecy, seem hostile to the idea of walkable and bikeable neighborhoods. But we need more neighborhoods that responsibly combine residential and commercial zoning so that families can go to school, go to work, and go shopping without wasting gas driving five or ten or more minutes just to get out of their massive subdivisions. A little foresight in urban planning could go a long way toward helping people conserve gas, reduce pollution, and still live in close-knit, supportive communities. One part of Ms. Kelecy's platform that does impress me is her emphasis on reforming the CARTA bus system so that stops are located where people live, work, shop, and play, and so that redundant or virtually unused stops are closed. I agree with Ms. Kelecy that people should have the option of taking the bus as part of their everyday lives. Overall, though, Mr. Summey seems to me to have the best plans for careful, responsible development in the county.

Charleston County School Board - This is one of those things it took me quite a while, as a newcomer to the area, to figure out, so hopefully I can help if you're confused, too. The Charleston County Consolidated School Board (as opposed to the constituent school boards, which govern - or at least used to govern - the schools in the constituent districts) is made up of representatives from several areas (apparently not the same as constituent districts... go figure...) This year, two seats are up for grabs representing the North Area, two for West Ashley, and one for the City of Charleston. Here's the catch: a board member must live in the area he or she represents, but all Charleston County residents can cast votes for all open seats in all areas. So, effectively, Charleston County dwellers can vote tomorrow for five names: two of the three North Area candidates, two of the three West Ashley candidates, and one of the two City of Charleston candidates.

The three contenders for the two North Area seats are Chris Collins, former teacher (and plaintiff in a lawsuit against the district) Elizabeth Kandrac, and Mattese Lecque. Four candidates are vying for the two West Ashley openings: John Graham Altman, incumbent David Engelman, Chris Fraser, and Ann Oplinger, a retired teacher. The two candidates for the City of Charleston seat are incumbent Toya Hampton-Green and challenger Marvin Stewart.

I endorse Mr. Collins, Ms. Lecque, Mr. Fraser, Ms. Oplinger, and Ms. Hampton-Green. I studied the nine candidates' responses to a Post and Courier questionnaire, tentatively made the above choices, and only later found out to my amusement that these five are considered the "liberal" candidates. I don't have time to say something about each one, but I picked candidates who favor creative options, such as charter schools, but who are committed to fixing existing public schools and ensuring equality; who hold to the dream of integrated education; who believe that money isn't the solution to all that is wrong with public schools but that it is a necessary part of the solution; who favor efforts to recruit better teachers; and who recognize the importance of parental involvement but support early childhood education to help ensure that the youngest students aren't punished for their parents' lack of concern and/or inability to prepare them to learn. Not sure how any of that is "liberal," but oh, well...

Constituent School Boards - Unfortunately, I can't make any endorsements for these, because (not for any lack of trying) I have been utterly unable to figure out which constituent district I live in, and whether voters vote in one constituent district only or in all of them. What I've read is that the constituent boards were established by court order during the era of desegregation, as part of an effort to keep the school board from reinstituting de facto segregation. However, in the last few years the constitutent boards have lost most of their decision-making power, and, understandably, few people want to serve on them. Apparently the primary duty of the boards now is holding student disciplinary hearings, which (as a former member of my high school's Honor Committee) I can imagine isn't much fun.

The candidates for all but one of the seats are running unopposed; the exception is the Cooper River At-Large District 4, in which no candidate is running at all. If you can vote for it, I wouldn't mind if you wrote in my name. No, I'm serious! I don't pretend to have much experience with Charleston County schools, but I think it's better to have someone (especially someone ready and willing to learn) on a board than no one.

State Constitutional Amendments - Three proposed amendments to the state constitution will appear on the ballot tomorrow. The first would allow the state government to invest state employees' retirement benefits in the stock market, and the second would allow local governments to invest benefit money. The Post and Courier, in urging voters to vote "yes" on the first amendment and "no" on the second, argued that the state has far greater resources at its disposal than local governments when it comes to knowing how to invest the funds wisely. However, in light of the erratic recent performance of the market, I will vote "no" on both.

The third amendment would eliminate a provision of the state constitution that sets the age of consent for sexual intercourse at fourteen for unmarried women. Apparently the actual age of consent for most purposes in South Carolina is sixteen, and the constitutional provision has been virtually ignored for quite a while. Convinced that this is little more than a housekeeping measure, I will vote "yes" on the third question.

Whatever you do, please - get out there and vote tomorrow. I know the lines are supposed to be long, but it's worth it. How many millions of people are there in the world who would give a whole lot to have the privilege - which we often take for granted - of casting a free vote to elect our leaders? There's a lot wrong with our form of government, but I'm firmly convinced it's the least bad of all possible options in this fallen world. That may not sound like a ringing endorsement, but in a world of dictatorships and war-ravaged states, the "least bad" form of government is something we should cherish as a great blessing. And the more of us take seriously the privilege and responsibility of voting, the better it will become.

See you at the polls!

- KPE

Some interesting guidelines for voting

2008-10-30T15:02:00.003-04:00

I wanted to quickly post this link (http://www.cpjustice.org/guidelines) to the Center for Public Justice's "Guidelines for Government and Citizenship." CPJ is a non-partisan, Christian think-tank that engages in research and civic education. Their political philosophy might best be described as Christian Democratic, and they are particularly committed to the preservation of religious freedom in this country. They're a great (and, I think, much-needed) organization because they're impossible to pigeon-hole, agreeing very strongly with Republicans on some issues, Democrats on others, and neither party on still others. Their "Guidelines" are a well-thought-out statement of their approach to responsible Christian citizenship in areas such as the role of government, the environment, welfare, the sanctity of life, national security, and more. In his final election season commentary, out-going Center president Jim Skillen applies the Guidelines to the two major presidential candidates (while not endorsing either.) I don't agree with all of his conclusions about Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama, but he makes some interesting and thought-provoking observations. I would highly recommend the general Guidelines, though, since even if you've already made up your mind about the presidential race, they might help you think more clearly about state and local races and ballot initiatives.

- KPE

November 5th

2008-10-27T14:18:00.003-04:00

As the wife of a political scientist (and a political junkie in my own right), I am of course eagerly anticipating a date familiar to me since the first candidates for their respective party nominations started declaring in late 2006 - November 4, 2008. Some voters, particularly those upset with Bush's victory in 2004, have been awaiting this date for much longer. I've been planning when to vote in order to avoid the atrociously long lines that have been predicted, and lining up a babysitter so I can watch the returns on campus with Jonathan and his students. But, as important as the results of this election are, there is an even more important date coming up.

November 5th.

The partisans now locked in battle in races at all levels of government are right that this election is vital and that there is much at stake. Which is why, no matter what happens on November 4th, on November 5th we somehow will have to come together to tackle some very big problems. When you watch the cable news networks or read the paper or track the political blogs, it's easy to forget that this election isn't really about Sarah Palin's wardrobe or Biden's silly gaffes or Jeremiah Wright or Bill Ayers or neo-Nazi skinheads or Ted Stevens' home improvements or even George W. Bush. I'm not saying the aforementioned aren't news or aren't legitimate factors for voters to take into consideration, but they're not what this election is about. It's really about "boring" things like the Social Secuity system, taxes, Iran, Russia, Cuba, jobs, health care reform, ethics reform, and so on. These are the things that winning candidates at the national level will actually have the ability to affect. With the sound bites finally silenced, the debates over, and the 24/7 scrutiny of the candidates by the media relaxed a bit, it will be up to us to hold their feet to the fire and make sure they follow through, to the best of their ability, on their campaign promises.

I'm concerned that the omnipresent rhetoric of fear (and a little hatred thrown in for good measure, but mostly fear) that has permeated especially the last month of this campaign will make it difficult for Americans to come together and do what we need to do on November 5th. I know people who are quite literally terrified of an Obama victory. I know others who feel the same way about a possible McCain-Palin administration. So many interest groups have been couching their endorsements (or anti-endorsements) not in terms of mere disagreement with a candidate's policies, but in shrill words suggesting that our freedom, equality, democracy, and/or even our lives are at risk if the undesired candidate wins or the undesired party gains/retains control of Congress. This has happened on both sides, but the ploy of this sort that has most captured my attention is Focus on the Family's "Letter from a Christian in 2012." The "letter," which FOTF says is not an attempt to predict the future but merely a possible scenario based on the records and statements of Barack Obama, consists of an account of the persecutions Christians might face after four years under an Obama administration. The letter vividly describes churches forced to marry homosexuals and hire gay youth pastors, evangelical teachers drummed out of the public schools, homeschooling parents fined and jailed for teaching their children that Jesus is the only way to salvation, a socialist health care system with a two-year wait for basic cancer treatments, and a skyrocketing number of unrestricted abortions, among other horrors.

If the polls are right (and I'm not saying they are; "Dewey Defeats Truman," anyone?), we will all have to work with an Obama White House. And if the polls are wrong, people who loathe and fear the party of George W. Bush will have to live with four more years of Republican rule. It won't do us any good to live in fear of persecution before even attempting to work with the new faces in Washington to protect our freedoms and save lives - not to mention fixing the economy and conserving our natural resources. Unless you're planning on emigrating if your candidate loses, defeatism will get you nowhere. On November 5th, we need to forget how to smear and jeer, and learn or relearn how to compromise while still standing for our principles, how to petition our public officials, how to pray for our leaders, and above all how to talk to each other and treat each other with respect and love.

- KPE

Response to Prof. Robert George on Obama and abortion

2008-10-22T23:27:00.003-04:00

I can't take credit for this excellent (no, I'm not biased...) essay; my husband Jonathan wrote it. And he graciously allowed me to post it on my blog, along with his explanatory note about the circumstances of its composition. Enjoy - and please post your comments!

- KPE

Over the past week, I have received several copies of the article linked below, which is a withering critique of pro-lifers who suggest voting for Obama despite his stance on abortion.

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/viewarticle.php?selectedarticle=2008.10.14_George_Robert_Obama%27s%20Abortion%20Extremism_.xml

The article is by Princeton politics professor Robert P. George, whose distinguished record as a scholar (and a defender of the "culture of life") is unassailable. My concern was a little more personal; it is indeed a jarring experience to have the chair of one’s dissertation committee describe the conclusion of months and years of soul-searching about the ethics of supporting a pro-choice candidate (though fortunately not my dissertation) as “delusional” and “spectacularly weak.”

I’ve spent the last week rethinking my position—both out of respect for Professor George’s considerable moral authority and out of fear of getting into a public argument with someone of his intellectual stature. But, since my conclusion is roughly the same after wrestling with his arguments, I feel compelled to write the following note—trusting that his sharper mind and keener moral sense will detect the errors that I—fearing more to be called a coward than a dunce—am putting forward as my best attempt to make sense of the moral ambiguities shrouding the 2008 election.

- JCE

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Professor George's essay is a well-written and cogent argument for why Obama should not be nominated as a Supreme Court justice. Senator Obama's incomplete understanding of his own ideology as it applies to the unborn is deeply troubling, and putting him on the Court where his decision-making would (at least in theory) be insulated from the pressures of the political process seems at this point to be a grave mistake. In my opinion, Sen. Obama is badly wrong about abortion, and for a sitting justice this would be problematic. (Personally, I've thought for quite a while that Professor George would make an excellent nominee for either party, but that's a subject for another essay.)

Fortunately, Obama is running for President instead, where he would be forced by political realities to pay close attention to the shifting winds of public opinion. This is especially the case given the job he will inherit if he wins next month. The economy has yet to feel the full impact of this year's crash, and it's a safe bet that income tax receipts will be significantly down for the next couple of fiscal years. Unpopular budget cuts will have to be made to keep the country financially solvent, and an Obama administration will need as many friends as it can get. Let me propose the following relationship: the more pro-lifers vote for Obama, the more he will see our votes as an essential part of his coalition, and the less likely he is to dismiss our concerns out of hand (whether or not he wants to take our opinions into account, he will feel pressure to do so).

Professor George's argument begins with the standard pro-life comparison of abortion to slavery, complete with Lincoln's argument from the 1858 Senatorial debates with Stephen Douglas that allowing people to choose a moral evil is tantamount to supporting that evil oneself—or, in this context, that there is no "morally meaningful distinction between being ''pro-abortion' and being ''pro-choice.'"

Slavery is not an apt comparison to abortion for a number of reasons, two of which are worthy of note in this context.

First is the question of enforceability. Slavery depends for its existence not only on the law's silence but the law's cooperation—in regulating and taxing the transfer of slaves, enforcing "property rights," returning fugitive slaves, etc. In the absence of legal recognition, widespread slavery is unsustainable. Abortion, by contrast, depends only on the law's silence (though, of course, the pro-choice lobby will do what it can to create as many legal protections as possible); without legal recognition, abortions would continue to take place just as they have for centuries—quietly, as something to be "taken care of" by a mother in consultation with her friends and family, her midwife, or—only much more recently—her doctor. Professor George mocks those who suggest that abortion can be morally wrong but oppose a law against it by arguing—rightly—that the taking of unborn life is such a serious action that one cannot simply be "against it personally" while tolerating it everywhere else. In doing so, however, he succumbs to a malady common among lawyers and especially legal scholars—the false assumption that making something illegal makes it go away.

Abortion was commonplace long before it was legalized, and it seems unlikely that a ban on abortion (with the current fiscal policies or especially with policies to the right of those) would be able to stop illegal abortion. Also, how exactly would we prosecute such a ban? Would underground abortion providers' attempts to escape prosecution lead to shorter paper trails and dangerous gaps in patient care that might lead to two wrongful deaths instead of just one? Furthermore, because abortion was a home remedy for centuries before it became a medical procedure, will rounding up the abortion providers successfully eradicate the practice or just drive it back into the unregulated realm of folk medicine? Abortion opponents argue that doctors, not mothers, would be prosecuted under an abortion ban; but if the woman herself is the practitioner, whom does one prosecute? Would our most fundamental freedoms be secure from a government whose power to detect and punish crime extended to the determination of whether a woman suffering a miscarriage should be comforted or indicted?

It's definitely a good thing--for the sake of symbolism--to have a law on the books saying that abortion is prohibited, but how much political capital are we willing to trade (and how many unborn children are we willing to sacrifice) for the opportunity to pretend that because no one is "supposed" to be having abortions that abortion has been eliminated? Would we rather have a meaningless (and quite temporary) law banning abortion accompanied by a set of policies that result in more people who are determined to get an abortion regardless of the law and that contributes to a higher mortality rate among working- and middle-class children, or would we rather trade the absence of a paper-only abortion ban for a set of policies that reduce the number of abortions and save lives across the board?

The second problem with bringing up the Lincoln-Douglas comparison is that Professor George's stance on abortion (as stated in his article) is actually much closer to Douglas' stance on slavery than to Lincoln's. He approvingly notes that McCain says he would appoint justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade—a pledge that seems somewhat hollow given the fact that 9 out of the 11 post-Roe v. Wade Supreme Court appointments have been made by Republicans. He notes that even though Roe v. Wade were overturned it would not outlaw abortion, its demise would return the abortion issue to state-level democratic deliberation. That means that we will be able to successfully outlaw abortion in some states (at least until something goes wrong and the movement for abortion to be "safe and legal" gains even more steam), but have virtually no chance of outlawing abortion in others. This may be the best we can conceivably do in the short run, but is certainly nothing to write home about—particularly since abortions will still be available across state lines and there will be no shortage of galvanized defenders of a woman's right to choose who will gladly assist any woman who wants an abortion.

The approach that is most consistent with Lincoln's absolute opposition to a moral evil is a Constitutional amendment establishing fetal personhood, which—assuming it was appropriately crafted—would protect unborn life everywhere in the country instead of leaving that choice up to individual states. In considering this option, however, we are forced to come to terms with the realities of gaining popular support: overturning Roe v. Wade is unlikely but within the realm of distant possibility given the current political setup. But there's no way that--absent a major political realignment and a broader pro-life consensus--we could get an amendment through.

As we consider our next move, it's worth taking a step back and reminding ourselves of the reason that abortion is such a divisive issue. It is not because the electorate is split between those who relish the thought of spilling unborn blood and those who want to keep women barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen. It is, rather, because each side is fighting in defense of an unalienable right: pro-lifers fight for the unalienable right to life; pro-choice types (tragically) fight for the unalienable rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And while the good people in the country are distracted with a debate over which unalienable right comes first, the special interests are robbing us blind. By working with the pro-choice lobby to address the topics we agree on, we can work to save babies' lives now by reducing the number of abortions, begin to tilt the playing field in favor of an eventual ban on abortion, and--most importantly--open a conversation by which we might begin to convince the pro-choice lobby (1) that women deserve better than abortion (can anyone honestly believe that the right to have the product of an unwanted pregnancy ripped from one's body by an invasive surgical procedure is a particularly meaningful expression of gender equality?) and (2) that their tenacious defense of a controversial and temporary line in the sand is less consistent with their overall ideological framework than fighting to defend those--born or unborn--who cannot adequately defend themselves.

Like it or not, the pro-life movement's hopes of a quick and easy resolution of this issue have been checkmated. We have a longer-term hope of creating the social and economic preconditions that make abortion unnecessary (and therefore easier to do away with) if we go with a candidate who is determined to appoint justices friendly to Roe v. Wade and sign laws that will broaden federal protections of the right to abortion. While these measures are a bitter pill to swallow—and represent hard-earned yardage lost on the issue—they are unproblematic concessions for us to make if the only thing that will make any difference in the long run is a constitutional amendment which will make these defeats a moot point.

Does my current argument signal that I have been co-opted by my opponents on the very issue that I got into politics to address? I don't think so, but I would nonetheless appreciate your input on this point (and any associated prayers). My current belief is that I am moving to a more responsible, credible, and ideologically consistent position. I am not proposing voting for a pro-choice candidate because I believe that abortion should be legal indefinitely. Rather, I am just voicing my concern that focusing on overturning Roe v. Wade as our best hope of ending abortion won't do any good (and might actually set us back), and that banning abortion as soon as practicable means working with abortion supporters to fix the conditions that drive people to abortion.

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Disclaimer: The above content reflects my current status in my ongoing effort to bring my thinking about this area of public policy into conformity with Scripture. As such, this should be regarded as individual speculation which has not been specifically cleared by any institution or group with which I am currently or have ever been affiliated; I, not they, am alone responsible for any erroneous arguments advanced above.

Make up your mind: good public schools or no public schools?

2008-10-16T20:40:00.005-04:00

I was encouraged to hear moderator Bob Schieffer finally ask an education question (the first in the debates this fall, I believe) in last night's debate. I don't remember the exact wording, but the question had something to do with school choice, or at least was interpreted that way by the candidates. The responses were fairly predictable; Sen. McCain spoke favorably of vouchers, particularly the District of Columbia's program (of special interest to members of Congress, who technically oversee the District); Sen. Obama stopped short of condemning them in principle but expressed serious concerns about their fairness and effectiveness. It was by no means the most interesting exchange of the evening.

But there were so many interesting questions lurking behind their words. What is the point of school choice? Simply to allow parents to take their children out of failing schools and put them in successful schools (whether public, charter, or private) at little or no additional cost. But the plan is clearly premised on the assumption that some parents of children in bad schools will NOT choose a better option for their children. In currently operating programs, like D.C.'s, this is generally because the number of available vouchers are limited. For instance, McCain, touting the success of the District's program, crowed that last year 9000 students applied for 1000 slots. (Never mind what happened to the other 8000... Sen. McCain was apparently more interested in making his point that parents choose to transfer their children out of failing schools when given the choice.)

But let's say, for the sake of argument, that D.C. suddenly had enough money to provide vouchers for every student who wanted one. One of two things would happen. First, some families might choose to use the vouchers, whereas others might not. In that case, there would be some children left in the failing schools, as a result of their parents' negligence or oblivion or poor judgment. That doesn't seem fair. Alternatively, all parents of students in a truly bad school might choose to use their vouchers to move their children out. The bad school, with no student population, would of course shut down. But all those students would have to go somewhere. Private schools, charter schools, and better public schools would be inundated with new students. They would need additional resources to handle the influx, because with that kind of mass entrance, more money would be needed than just the amount that would come with each voucher. New buildings, refurbished infrastructure, and additional personnel (both teachers and other staff) would immediately become necessary. Even if these schools got the funds they needed to handle the larger student bodies, would they be able to continue the good performance that earned them those students in the first place? There is much disagreement as to why many private schools perform better than public schools, and why some public schools provide a better education than others, but some of the factors often cited in successful cases include small class sizes, well-maintained facilities, safe and supportive neighborhoods surrounding the schools, involved parents who teach their children the importance of learning, and the ability to recruit and pay good teachers. Would these factors be affected by the addition of a large number of students from failing schools? Furthermore, consider the effects of "culture shock," friends splitting up to go to different schools, and in many cases much longer commutes. The results of such an experiment in unlimited school choice are far from certain.

Let's say assimilation happened rapidly and all these potential problems could be overcome. Even so, without a way to recruit new and better teachers, mediocre teachers would still be teaching somewhere, because of the successful schools' need to hire more teachers to accommodate the larger student population. New buildings would have to be built, and so schools would have to find the money somewhere. And what about oversight? The successful public schools would still be run by school boards and accountable to some extent to state and federal government. Charter schools would ultimately be accountable in some measure to some level of government. Private schools, however, would remain largely unregulated - unless government, having invested in these schools through vouchers, chose to intervene. After all, there would still presumably be plenty of underperforming private schools - just as before school choice. What about those students? What if they couldn't attend elsewhere because of limits on numbers of students in the better schools? Would the government start holding those private schools accountable for their performance, too? Would they shut them down, or guarantee their students spots in the already-overcrowded "better" schools? What if the schools to be regulated were religious schools? What if they were turning out students under-prepared in the sciences because of their teachings on the origins of life? You can imagine how this story might end.

Most politicians don't want to face the fact that, as we can see in this series of hypotheticals, there are ultimately only two viable choices: better public schools, or no public schools. Either we abandon school choice, which makes us feel that lower-income students are at least getting a chance at something better, and really fix our public schools, or we must abandon the entire project of government-provided and government-run education, and simply subsidize various brands of private education. Anything in between runs afoul of basic fairness, by leaving some students behind in failing schools. Some districts, Charleston County (my current home) included, have talked about making every one of its schools a charter school. All that would mean, if done across the board, is a change in the degree of government (read: public) oversight of schools. The schools would not cease to be public. If we think restructuring and reducing government oversight of public schools is the way to make them better, then we the people should make that decision - not disguise it as some form of school choice or a move toward privatization.

There may, in fact, be some conservatives who do advocate school choice in an attempt to push public education toward extinction. Many more, I'm sure, believe in public schools (or at least are resigned to them as a necessary evil) and are just trying to rescue some students from the worst schools while waiting for them to turn around - or be replaced by charter schools. But if we are truly committed to making sure no children are left behind, we shouldn't endorse half-measures. For a school system, a year is barely enough time to try a new approach, but for a child, a single year lost can make the difference between becoming an educated, productive, and employable individual, and succumbing to a critical lack of confidence and competence.

I don't pretend - at this time - to know how to fix our public schools - either here in Charleston County or anywhere else. I hope to learn much more. But I fear that there is no avoiding the task. We can't just shut down failing schools, send children to successful schools, and wish away all the problems now plaguing our school system. If we gave every child in America a voucher, we would still have poverty, we would still have racial tensions, we would still have too few good teachers, we would still have overcrowded classrooms, we would still have negligent parents, and we would still have unhealthy communities.

When "the government" oversees a school, who's really in charge? We are. We are the public, and public schools, funded by our tax money and governed by our votes, are our trust. I don't believe we ought to abandon that trust.

If you happen to live in Charleston County, check out the Post and Courier's voter guide at http://media.charleston.net/2008/pdf/ccsdqna_100508.pdf, and compare the candidates for school board on questions such as school funding, the current superintendent, and new charter schools. There is a candidate forum next Tuesday, Oct. 21, at 7:00pm at North Charleston City Hall.

I'll be making endorsements for Charleston County school board, as well as other races, closer to the election, so stay tuned.

- KPE

Why so much anger?

2008-10-12T01:55:00.004-04:00

The link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itEucdhf4Us) is to a video of some McCain supporters, waiting to get into a McCain rally, responding to some Obama supporters holding signs across the street. The McCain supporters (lots of them, not just a few trouble-makers) can be heard yelling that Obama is a terrorist and a Muslim, that he is single-handedly responsible for the financial crisis, that he is a baby-killer, and that his supporters should "get a job." I don't choose to repeat some of the other remarks made about the Democratic nominee and his voters. The degree of anger is palpable and frightening, even over You Tube.

Where did this rage come from? Sen. McCain, to his credit, is trying to rein it in, now declaring publicly (to boos at some of his rallies) that Obama is a decent man who means well. He admits that his opponent is not a Muslim. It's the honorable thing to do, and it's about time. But is it too late? And why the surge of anger now?

In February 2007, I attended Sen. Obama's campaign kick-off announcement in Springfield, Illinois. I carried a sign that read, "Pro-Life for Obama," and I stood next to (and at times among) the group of pro-lifers who were there protesting Sen. Obama. These were no fair-weather anti-abortion protestors, either; some of the movement's Illinois leaders were there. They argued with me quite strenuously, to be sure, and we made known our disagreements with each other. There was some tough talk. But no one called me a baby-killer. No one asked me what I was doing there and why I didn't have a job. No one questioned my patriotism. No one yelled and screamed. We all behaved like adults.

Apparently it doesn't work that way anymore. What changed?

Frankly, I'm disappointed in both candidates. Sen. Obama began his political career on the national stage by talking about unity, coming up with creative compromises that incorporate the best approaches of both parties, and really listening to all Americans. He promised to accept public financing for his campaign, then said he'd sit down and talk with Sen. McCain about it, then broke both promises and went for the big bucks from his many donors. He said he'd run a positive campaign, but unfortunately many of his ads are negative, and he's lobbed his share of cheap shots and misleading statements, such as his claim that McCain would tax health benefits for the first time in history, and his video on McCain's role in the Keating Five scandal. In short, he led us to believe that this campaign would not be politics as usual, but in fact it has been a display of some of the worst facets of politics as usual.

And yet, if you want to assign relative blame for the nastiness of this year's election season, there's no contest; Sen. McCain wins, hands down. The Keating Five video was circulated fairly quietly through Sen. Obama's website and e-mail list, serving mostly to fire up committed supporters; the McCain campaign's accusations related to Bill Ayers have surfaced at many rallies and in countless interviews with people speaking for the campaign (not to mention tonight's debate.) Almost all of Sen. McCain's recent ads have been negative, and an anonymous campaign official told a reporter last week that the campaign was going even more negative in hopes of squeaking out a win despite the worsening economy. Last night, Sen. McCain said he had repudiated every nasty and false attack made on Sen. Obama by his supporters. That may be true when it comes to remarks made in his hearing at his own rallies. But he has done next to nothing to stop the ugly and incredibly offensive lies shouted at Gov. Palin's rallies and by his supporters in the blogosphere and in e-mail forwards. True, the people who start these rumors don't work for McCain (or at least I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say they don't.) But if he were really committed to running an honest, clean campaign, he long ago would have started sending out statements condemning the pernicious e-mails his supporters have circulated. These e-mails have claimed, among other things, that Sen. Obama is a Muslim, that he took his oath of office on the Koran when sworn into the Senate, that he was educated at a radical Muslim madrassa, that he refuses to say the Pledge of Allegience, and that he is not a natural-born U.S. citizen. Just as he smiled and nodded at a supporter who earlier in the year asked (referring to Hillary Clinton), "How are we going to beat the b****?," he declined to associate himself with these ludicrously false rumors but also declined to denounce or correct them. His statements in defense of Sen. Obama's integrity and patriotism are laudable but of recent vintage.

And they may well be too little, too late. Why are Sen. McCain's supporters so angry, and why has the tone of the whole campaign changed? Certainly McCain's slip in the polls over the last few weeks has lent an air of desperation to his organization and his supporters. The economy is certainly a bigger factor. Politics isn't a mere diversion now; people can see how our choice of president will impact, in a real way, whether they will lose their jobs or their homes, and whether things will get better soon.

But this would explain heightened interest and seriousness, not seething anger. Certainly the rumor-mongering has taken its toll. And Republicans aren't just angry at Sen. Obama. Many social conservatives are frustrated at Sen. McCain and also feeling especially left out as all the pundits and debate moderators want to talk about is the economy. The Family Research Council's daily update yesterday implored last night's moderator, Bob Schieffer, to ask a question about abortion, stem cell research, gay rights, or other social "values" issues. This is just my guess, but I think many social conservatives (those who have remained Republican in the face of increasing desertion by theologically and socially conservative evangelicals) are sick of being depicted as either fools or martyrs, for allegedly betraying their own economic self-interest to save the lives of the unborn.

I still find Sen. Obama's original vision for this campaign inspiring. In order to have a democracy that works well for everybody, we must show a modicum of respect for each other. There is no point in telling your fellow voter who's canvassing or holding a sign for the other party to "get a job" when you yourself are missing work to wait for a rally to start. There's no point in calling other Americans "baby-killers" when we could be working together to reduce the number of abortions happening in this country.

I wish all the angry people would hibernate from now until Nov. 5. I'm guessing I'll have no such luck.

- KPE

Rethinking the American dream (or, in praise of renting)

2008-10-04T00:53:00.002-04:00

For generations, we've been told by politicians, activists, and inspirational speakers that home ownership is the essence of the American dream. Candidates for offices high and low have urged us to get out of our rentals and take the leap of faith (and they've promised to help us.) Economists have watched the number of first-time home buyers as an indicator of our national well-being. Fannie and Freddie have been there for us - at least until now. Home ownership isn't just about practical economics, either; here in America, it's all tangled up with liberty, self-reliance, individualism, being your own man (or woman), declaring your independence from the government and "the man," leaving a legacy for your children, our near-worshipful attitude toward land (left over from the good old days of the Homestead Act, the Sooners, and so forth), and creating a snug retreat for your family from the threatening and confusing outside world.

Renting bespeaks instability, impermanence, and a poverty of heritage. Rent a home or apartment located in a neighborhood whose residents are mostly homeowners, and you'll soon discover that renters are looked on with great suspicion. You'll quickly be stereotyped as rootless and uncaring about the future of your neighborhood. Your neighbors may worry that you will decrease their property values by failing to take proper care of your house or apartment and, if you have one, your yard. They might suspect you of using or selling drugs and bringing "bad elements" into the peaceful, close-knit collection of homeowners. At the very least, they know you're likely to move out (probably in pursuit of your own home, if you can afford it) as soon as possible, and even if you're a good and responsible neighbor, your successor might not be.

And yet much of the current economic crisis is related to over-reaching for the grand American dream of home ownership. Lenders and the government alike have promised us happiness if we will only take the plunge and buy a home. Don't think you can afford it? Think again! We'll make it work! As we now know, that attitude resulted in far too many "toxic mortgages" that the borrowers couldn't really afford. Turns out many of the lenders couldn't afford them either.

We're hearing a lot these days about two themes: corporate greed on Wall Street, and irresponsible borrowing (specifically buying too much house with too small an income) on Main Street. Often the two are pitted against each other, and we get caught up in arguments about who's to blame for the crisis. Did lenders lull new home owners into a false sense of security about what they could afford? Or should the borrowers have known better?

Even as we address the imminent questions of how to fix the situation, what regulations are needed, which firms to prop up, and so forth, we ought to look at the underlying philosophy that has allowed so many new home owners to accept a fairy tale from lenders. And to do that, we have to go back to the American dream and ask ourselves - what's wrong with renting? Is it unpatriotic? Un-American? Can a nation be democratic without being a nation of homeowners?

Renting certainly has its problems; as a renter for my entire adult life, I can attest to that. Most obviously, you lose money in the deal. You pay, month after month, without building any equity and without getting any closer to owning anything. If you are renting and intend to buy a home (and take on a mortgage) in the future, you feel like paying the rent each month is pouring money down the drain - money that could be going toward a house. Renters can't make improvements on their property - either because such improvements are forbidden by the lease or because they are afraid to lose money making an improvement that won't do them a bit of good after they move out and leave it behind. This, more than just about anything, is what gives renters their bad reputation in neighborhoods of homeowners: they have scant financial incentive to improve the appearance or structural integrity of their property, or even to maintain it. Under the terms of most leases, even if you completely trash your apartment or rented house, all you lose is your down payment. I'll be the first to admit it's frustrating not to be able to put your signature touch on a rented apartment or house. I'd love to put up curtains or paint a mural on my children's bedroom wall. Charlie once sang a song about this problem, after I explained to him that we couldn't paint his walls a different color: "Everybody knows we don't have house paint / Everybody knows we don't have house paint / Everybody knows we don't have house paint / Because we rent."

And yet, as the crisis deepens, more and more Americans who once owned homes will be forced to go back to renting, and even more will have to continue renting while they delay buying a home because lenders are stricter about giving credit, or because they lost their down payment in the stock market. Instead of mourning these people's loss of the American dream, why not make renting a more attractive option? Instead of focusing all legislative effort on tweaking regulations so home ownership doesn't suffer too much, why not have a serious conversation about how government can make renting a fairer and more pleasant experience? My family has had good landlords and bad landlords, and more can be done by local and state governments to keep the bad (or at least lazy) variety from taking advantage of their tenants. Raising habitability standards might be a good start. Maybe more could be done to increase the incentives to take care of rented property - for instance, granting tenants a right to take certain kinds of improvements with them (as long as they don't damage the property significantly in removing them), or giving former renters a portion of the increase in rent a landlord is able to charge the next tenant on account of an improvement. Maybe municipalities ought to step in more aggressively to fine both renters and homeowners who trash their front yards (and I'm talking littering and gross neglect here - not just failing to have a lawn as green as Mr. Jones'); having the town or city be the bad cop might allow neighborhood associations the freedom to actually be welcoming to renters, instead of seeing them as nuisances. Maybe long-term renters, who don't constantly move around, shopping for the best deal and creating upheaval in neighborhoods, could be rewarded somehow.

I'm not sure how much of this is a job for government, at any level, although I do think much can be done to protect tenants' rights. Mostly, we need to revisit the home ownership element of the mythos of the American dream. We need to see it for what it often is - a throw-back to a time when only landed gentlemen were allowed to vote and hold office, because a person without property was thought to be owned by someone else. Unfortunately, home ownership today, considered in those early American terms, is an illusion, because almost all homeowners are, in fact, owned by their lenders in a financial sense. The illusory nature of their independence is becoming all too clear as neighborhoods are wracked by foreclosures. The American dream should not be this fragile, built on a mirage of economic freedom. Rather, I believe the American dream should be about community, a place where we are guaranteed certain personal freedoms but are bound, by cords of responsibility and compassion, to the needs of others. Homeowners need to be a part of this community, but so do renters. Politically, we cannot afford to make renters a new under-class. Spiritually, we cannot afford to define the American dream by what one owns rather than what one gives.

- KPE

VP debate - liveblog

2008-10-02T20:59:00.019-04:00

What I'm going to do is repost this, with additional comments, after every set of questions or so. Hopefully that won't result in an e-mail being sent to the whole subscriber list after every update! So if you'd like to follow along, get on the blog rather than just checking your e-mail - and please let the comments fly, too. By the way, if you're Facebook friends with Jonathan, I believe he's going to be on there changing his status message frequently and maybe chatting with people about the debate.

Oh, good, Gwen Ifill is still the moderator. I heard there were some people calling for her to let someone else do it. That would have looked very bad.

"Can I call you Joe?" Palin asks as she comes onstage. Weird... (9:05)

Question: Does the bailout bill demonstrate the best or worse of Washington?

Biden's doing well with this answer - coming right out and stating the fundamental difference between himself (and Obama) and Palin (and McCain). Palin, on the other hand, is starting with an emotional appeal to how real people are really feeling. Hmm, I wonder how this is going to play out... Okay, now she's talking about "reform." And "John McCain." She always calls him by his first and last name.

Ooh, she's mentioning his "suspense" of the campaign. Ugh. (9:08)

Biden's hitting Obama's theme of "McCain's not a bad person, he's just out of touch." I'm not sure how that refrain will do. It's better than saying McCain's evil, but it does sound rather condescending. Palin then responds by saying McCain was talking about the American workers when he said "the fundamentals of our economy are strong." It's a nice story about what he meant; I'm just not sure it's true. But I think it will probably work.

Palin's talking about "greed," "corruption," and "deception" on Wall Street. And "Joe Sixpack" and the "hockey moms" are being exploited by "those lending us money." Okay, NOW she's getting down to urging people to take personal responsibility. She's trying to walk the line - not blaming ordinary Americans for the crisis, but also saying we need to live within our means. She's actually doing a good job.

Biden's getting back to the issues, the legislation, the regulation and deregulation of the banking industry, McCain's and Obama's records. He's doing better, formally speaking, than Palin, but I'm just not sure people will find his story about this crisis as compelling as the picture of hockey moms rising up against exploiters.

Palin's on taxes now. And talking about McCain being "on the people's side." She's becoming quite the populist - a very convenient character for the Republicans to have in their corner this year.

Now Biden's responding to Palin's accusation that Obama voted to raise taxes on a particular occasion, saying it was a purely procedural vote. He's boring, but he's being tough. Unfortunately, he keeps smiling while Palin talks. It doesn't look, uh, nice. Palin: "I'm gonna talk straight to the American people." This is a fascinating narrative. (9:15)

Question: How will you help the middle class? How are your (Biden's and Obama's) policies not "class warfare"?

Biden is hammering home the point that Obama will not raise taxes on the middle class - only the very wealthy. He's explaining himself very clearly, which is good. "We have a different value set," he says, and he's coming right out and saying the wealthy don't need a tax break.

Palin accuses Biden of espousing "redistribution of wealth" and raising taxes on small businesses. She identifies herself with the middle class and says patriotism means telling the government it's the problem, not the solution. That's an interesting definition. Maybe she ought to let some other disparate viewpoints into the patriotism tent, too.

Okay, she just appealed to American's displeasure with the federal government, asking do we want this government to take over the health care system. And yet she wants to let everyone pick any plan from any state. So that's not going to involve the federal government inserting a heavy hand in healthcare?

Uh oh, Biden mentioned the "bridge to nowhere." It didn't even have to do with anything. He shouldn't have done that.

Palin smiles smugly while Biden's answering, too. Neither has as smug a smile as McCain, though. (9:23)

Question: What promises are you making that you won't keep?

I don't know why moderators and reporters ask questions like that. Do they really expect to get an answer?

Wow, Biden actually did answer it. He says we probably won't be able to provide as much foreign assistance as they had planned. Okay, that makes sense in our current economy.

Palin gave the line about John McCain not saying one thing to one group and another thing to another. Well, Biden deserved it after the "bridge to nowhere" comment. I hope this doesn't get too ugly.

And now she's promoting herself as someone the oil companies don't like. I'm not sure about that. Palin won't say there are any promises she won't keep because of the economic crisis. Of course, it's a stupid question since she's not in a position to make promises. Oh, oops, she just committed McCain, too. Well, she didn't have to go that far.

Biden's biting on the oil company comment - AND praising Palin for instituting a windfall profits tax in Alaska. He says McCain hasn't supported such a tax. Smack-down. That was good - and she didn't even get to respond. (9:28)

Question: Do you support legislation to help homeowners in bankruptcy?

Hmm, Biden voted for it and Obama against it, according to Ifill. Interesting.

Biden says it's complicated. What else is he going to say? Basically, the message is that they agreed to disagree. That's as good an answer as he can give, and now he's back on the offense against McCain - and advocating for giving bankruptcy judges the freedom to adjust mortgage terms.

Palin has decided to come back to the oil companies... oh, except now she's gone off on exploring all energy options, drilling, foreign oil, etc. I still feel like she's on script, although she's been doing better than expected. Except now what she's talking about has nothing whatsoever to do with either the current or previous question.

Gwen Ifill isn't rebuking her; she's agreeing to go on to climate change. And Biden is doing a great job of not smirking or looking annoyed.

Palin admits there are real changes happening to our climate and says she doesn't want to argue about the causes of those changes. She says we should clean up our planet, reduce emissions, etc. And back to hammering home the "all of the above" approach to energy. She just blamed other countries, too. Of course China and other polluters are a problem, and we should still do what we can to get them to curb their emissions, but we MUST take responsibility for our own actions first.

Biden: "I think it's clearly man-made" (speaking of global warming.) And he says you can't address the problem if you don't agree about the cause. I'm not sure I buy that - even though I agree with him about the origins of global warming, from all I've heard. And now HE's off on China. This is a big distraction.

Palin: "People are so hungry for those new energy sources to be tapped into." She's painting this picture of people as having insatiable appetites for oil - and saying that's okay, and we need to feed the beast. Never mind that we could decrease our consumption and live a little differently. Make some lifestyle changes.

I think Biden's doing a great job of keeping on McCain about his record of voting against alternative energy, even though he says we should try all approaches. (9:38)

Question: rights for same-sex couples

Biden gave a good answer that focused on civil rights without even mentioning marriage.

Palin says she's tolerant and says she herself has a diverse family and group of friends. She says McCain's administration would do nothing to deny the rights of visitation and contract, but that she cannot support anything but a traditional definition of marriage.

Back to Biden on marriage. He doesn't support same-sex marriage. He sounds very unequivocal on that, and he's seeking to prove that there's no difference between himself and Palin. Good technique. Wow, she agrees. Thank goodness they agree on something. (9:41)

Question: exit strategy for Iraq?

Sometimes I wish they would all stop talking about the past on Iraq: both who supported the war to begin with, and who supported the surge. I wish there were more talk about where to go from here.

Palin says we still need to "grow our military." I really hate it when politicians use "grow" transitively, not referring to crops.

Biden is explaining that both Obama and McCain have voted against funding the troops at various times. because of what else the bills contained. Good for him. Now he's identifying another "fundamental difference" - Obama-Biden will end the war, McCain-Palin will keep the troops there indefinitely.

Palin replies that Biden is talking surrender. Ugh, he's smiling that goofy smile while she says it. Bad move; that's a serious charge. Now she's bringing out some comments Biden has made - that he would be willing to be McCain's running mate at one time, and that Obama wasn't ready to lead. (9:47)

Question: Which country is more dangerous: Pakistan or Iran?

Biden's response: Pakistan, because it already has nukes. Iran would be a serious game-changer if it acquired nuclear capabilities, but that's still far off. I wonder if he'll get hammered for that - accused of sticking his head in the sand. Really, he's trying to say we should focus on Pakistan and stabilize it, helping the new government to win hearts and minds. And he's bringing up the determination to go after Osama bin Laden in Pakistan if we have actionable intelligence. Biden is certainly not playing this cautiously.

Palin says both would be dangerous, but she's focusing on Iran, along with the exciting and the sensational - Ahmadinejad's remarks about Israel. And, of course, that's a bridge to a criticism of Obama for saying he'd meet with Ahmadinejad, Castro, etc. And she pronounces Iran's president's name correctly (while Obama tripped over it last week.) She's doing well.

What was that gesture Biden just made? Maybe he was just scratching an itch on his neck, but it looked dismissive.

Biden is now saying Obama didn't say he'd sit down with Ahmadinejad. Uh, actually he did, didn't he? He'd better defend the comment - not try to deny it. I thought Obama did a great job last week of defending that perspective and really going on the offensive, saying effective diplomacy is what's been missing from the current administration. (9:53)

Question: Israel-Palestine

Palin favors a two-state solution, Israel is "our best and strongest ally in the Middle East," we need to make sure the Holocaust never happens again, Iran is dangerous because it threatens Israel, etc. The usual.

Biden is trying to out-do her, insisting that Israel has no better friend in the Senate than himself. Obama and Biden opposed the Palestinian elections that resulted in the Hamas government? I didn't know that. I also didn't know that was our decision to make.

Palin's not taking the bait, as Biden just said this administration "has been an abject failure" on Israel. Instead, she manufactured a sweet moment of agreement - "I'm so encouraged to see that we both love Israel." Biden is now pressing her to say how McCain's policies on various foreign countries will be different from Bush's. Very strong comment, and he gets the last word on this topic. (9:59)

Question: What would be the trigger that would justify use of a nuclear weapon?

Palin completely sidestepped the question, saying a few things about opposing the building of nuclear weapons in Iran, North Korea, etc. And then she says she wants to talk about Afghanistan - looking eager to address the issue.

I'm upset at Gwen Ifill. She's scared to death to look like she's being too hard on Palin, especially after she was urged to let someone else moderate, I guess. She's not insisting that she answer the question about nuclear weapons - "We can talk about Afghanistan." Reporters don't usually roll over that easily. So now Biden's off on Afghanistan, too. Okay, now he's back to nuclear weapons, but still anti-proliferation. He says McCain has been opposed on many occasions to expanding the arms-control regime internationally. Good point.

I'm not at all sure what Palin's saying about Afghanistan and what, if any, difference there is between Biden and Palin on that issue. It seems to be a question of who supports Afghanistan more, who's voted more funding for that country, etc. Which of course comes back to whether we're spending too many valuable resources in Iraq. (10:04)

Question: Do Americans have the stomach for military intervention in Darfur?

Biden: "I don't have the stomach for genocide." Great line. His argument: there's suffering, we can do something about it fairly easily (for instance by using our helicopters to get African Union troops in and out), and our intervention worked out well in Bosnia.

Palin supports the no-fly zone and "keeping all options on the table." Alaska, she says, has divested from Sudan, and that's her contribution. They didn't want to be seen as condoning the genocide. What she doesn't understand is that it's not enough just to not condone something. Biden is pursuing this - we have to ask whether we can do something about the atrocities. Palin spent most of her statement on one of her strongest points against Biden - that he voted for the war before he came out against it and became Obama's running mate. She seems to be getting flustered, as she keeps returning to the "straight talk" message and her almost fawning praise of Sen. McCain. Still, I think that approach will be successful with many voters. (10:09)

Question: What if Obama were assassinated in a terrorist attack? Would a Biden administration be different?

He's giving a great answer. First, he reacts with horror to the scenario, saying it would be a tragedy. Second, he says his administration would be no different from Obama's. Third, he gets away from the question of whether there are differences between the running mates and focuses on getting out a positive messages.

Palin's doing well on this one, too. She says she and McCain are both mavericks so they will naturally differences in opinion between them. She cites ANWR. (I didn't know McCain opposed drilling in ANWR.) She says "he's never asked me to check my opinions at the door." And then gets back on message.

She's not saying anything about education - just that it's important, that she has friends and relatives who are teachers, gives a shout-out to some third graders watching the debate, etc.

Question: What does a vice president do, anyway?

Okay, she's getting testy, telling the moderator that she told a lame joke and she ought to know what a Vice President does. (10:16)

Biden's recovering nicely and gaining the advantage, answering the question seriously and looking like he's taking the role of the VP seriously. Palin's language is becoming more and more folksy - "doggone it," "their [teachers'] reward is in Heaven," etc. Using the words "passion" and "love." Saying she's a Washington outsider. I wonder if the statement about teachers getting their rewards in Heaven can be taken as an unspoken statement of how they should be rewarded on earth. Biden responded to Palin's extended shout-out to teachers with a short, effective recap of McCain's record on No Child Left Behind and education funding in general. (10:19)

Question: What are your respective Achilles' heels?

Palin is trumpeting her executive experience and (more importantly, she says) her identification with ordinary Americans, with a son in the war, a special needs baby, not having insurance at times. etc. And then she tries to channel Reagan, saying

Ooh, Biden's being humble. Sort of. And he can say "passion," too. Now he's off on his legislative record. People will see a Washington insider. Oh, except now he's talking about losing his wife and caring for his severely injured kids after the auto accident in which his wife was killed. Good move. Oh, my goodness, his voice is breaking and he may be tearing up. That wasn't expected. He is hitting the ball out of the park - sounding intelligent about policy, but also very, very human. Beating her to the punch in talking about himself and his family and how he's a real person, too. Palin just keeps calling McCain a "maverick," and now Biden is saying he loves McCain for being a maverick in some areas, but lists all the areas in which McCain has not been a maverick. He's talking about real people, examples of what they talk about around the kitchen table. (10:25)

Question: Have you changed your view on anything since entering public life?

Biden's example is that he at first thought the only thing that mattered in a judicial nominee was his/her legal ability and good character, but he decided that judicial philosophy matters. He mentions Roe v. Wade and civil rights and prides himself on leading the fight against Bork. Interesting that he would go there...

Palin says she hasn't ever had to compromise her principles. Um, that wasn't the question. Now back to her bi-partisan credentials - right after she said she won't compromise. Interesting juxtaposition. How will this work in real life? (10:28)

Biden tells a story about how he learned not to question the motives and integrity of other people in Congress. He says he and Obama will get things done through respecting those with whom they must work. I wish they'd follow through on that and always run their campaign that way, but I guess that's too much to ask.

Closing statements:

Palin says she likes to speak directly to the American people, not through the "filter" of the "mainstream media." Bad choice of words, I think; some will cheer her on for that, but more will find her whiny. She's playing to those who are already in her corner. Now she's talking about patriotism and fighting for freedom - closing with her oft-used point that in this campaign only McCain has actually fought for us. There is a certain antipathy toward politics and politicians, the suggestion that the military is somehow a morally purer occupation.

Biden appeals to unity and, a la Kennedy, working for the betterment of our county and taking responsibility. And he closes with asking God to bless the troops.

I think Palin did well - no major gaffes or slip-ups, and she looked pretty intelligent and at ease. Biden did better, though - appearing intelligent and experienced and serious while still very human, sympathetic, and caring. He definitely didn't look condescending or like he was bowling her over (mostly because she didn't let herself get bowled over.) He definitely didn't "let her win" either, lest anyone have that concern.

This was a decent debate. Time to breathe a sigh of relief. Signing off.

- KPE

A tale of two debates

2008-10-02T14:05:00.002-04:00

Everybody's talking about watching the debate tonight. Well, I watched the debate last night. It took place in Beaufort, South Carolina, between Congressman Henry Brown (R), an incumbent seeking his fifth term, and Democratic challenger Linda Ketner, a businesswoman. Since we now live in the first Congressional district of South Carolina, Brown's district, we decided to tune in to public television to check out the match-up.

Please, everybody, try sometime to watch (either in person or on public television or CSPAN), a debate between candidates in a state or local race. They're so much more entertaining and genuinely interesting than the presidential (or vice presidential) variety. State and local candidates just don't have the time to spend in debate prep, nor the scores of staffers laboring day and night crafting perfect sound bites. Don't get me wrong; of course these candidates (especially those running for Congress) are crafty politicians and have dedicated staffs. Neither Brown nor Ketner is Mr. Smith going to Washington. But in most cases they just don't have the luxury of obsessing about their image quite as much as the national standard-bearers for their parties. Last night's debate turned raw and ugly (at times uglier than any presidential debate we've seen this season), but just as quickly it could become a respectful conversation, before heating up again. Congressman Brown often sounded like a rambling old man telling war stories; Ms. Ketner at times seemed like a very young woman, suggesting fresh ideas but deferring to her rival's age and experience when appropriate. Last week, the moderator of the first presidential debate continually reminded McCain and Obama to address each other, and he finally gave up because they wouldn't cooperate; Brown and Ketner sat across the table from each other, each looking the other square in the eye and having a conversation - without any prompting. It was a messy, rambling, and sometimes mean-spirited conversation, but it WAS a conversation rather than a parade of glibly delivered sound bites.

Another refreshing thing about the Brown-Ketner debate was Ms. Ketner's unassuming, natural ease with the issues confronting our Congress and the relevant supporting facts. Over the past few weeks, as I've watched Gov. Palin interact with the press, I've usually felt worried for her and embarrassed on her behalf. I don't believe her relative lack of experience in elected office disqualifies her to serve as Vice President or even President, but I do think it's clear that she does not know enough about economics or foreign policy to take on the job any time soon. Watching Charlie Gibson's or Katie Couric's interview with Gov. Palin is a painful experience - even for someone who, like me, didn't plan to support her in the first place. Somehow I feel solidarity with her as a woman, I see myself up there in the spotlight instead of her, and I get sympathetic butterflies.

Linda Ketner soothed my butterflies. Not flashy and not a smarty-pants either, she proved herself very familiar with economics and the ins and outs of banking regulation. She (and Brown, though to a lesser extent) talked about more specifics in one hour than I've heard either presidential candidate mention in a month. I was confident that she wasn't going to say something embarrassing, and that freed me, as a voter, to objectively evaluate the content of what she was saying. In order to be pro-woman, I don't have to hitch my wagon to Sarah Palin and hope she doesn't make us all look bad. I do hope she does well tonight, and I wish her the best. I want it to be a clean debate - about the issues, and not about personality or whether Joe Biden was "too hard on her." But it's women like Linda Ketner who restore my confidence in female candidates. Women in politics don't have to act girly or act like men or act like they know more or less than they do. They just have to have good ideas and talk about them. Just like anyone else.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention what the Charleston Post and Courier reported about what happened afterwards. In his closing statement, Congressman Brown objected strongly to a negative ad that Ms. Ketner has run against him, claiming that he started a fire on his land, adjacent to the Francis Marion National Forest, on a "no-burn" day, that the fire spread to the park, that he was fined $7000, and that he never paid the fine but instead used his influence to avoid it. Brown said she was lying about the incident (though he didn't explain what really happened) and admonished her to "be a real Southern lady and tell the truth." Ketner responded briefly that everything in the ad was taken directly from newspaper reports, then continued with her statement as planned. But the argument apparently didn't stop there, and after the cameras were turned off (but while the moderators, one of whom writes for the Post and Courier were still present), Brown told Ketner, "I'd like you to take [the ad] down, or we'll have to respond. There's a lot of stuff out there about you, and we don't want this to be a personal issue."

Those kinds of threats shouldn't be a part of any campaign. I hope Ketner keeps playing the ad (and insisting that its claims are a matter of public record, if indeed they are), and that if Brown does respond with any false or irrelevant claims about Ms. Ketner, the voters will be wise enough to see through the scheme and make their judgment on the issues. Whether Congressman Brown used his official position to avoid a fine levied against him is certainly relevant to his performance as a Congressman and whether he should be sent back to Washington. Whether any dirt Brown manages to dig up on Ketner is similarly relevant remains to be seen.

You may read the rest of the article at http://www.charleston.net/news/2008/oct/02/ketner_brown_debate_but_gloves_come_off_56545/.

I'll probably be back online after tonight's debate.

- KPE

If Palin's scary, it's not because she's an evangelical

2008-09-23T22:13:00.005-04:00

Unfortunately for the level of discourse of the '08 campaign, one of the words for Gov. Sarah Palin most frequently thrown around by Democrats (and disgruntled Republicans) is "scary." (Sarah Palin jack-o-lanterns anyone? I'm all for it; they won't frighten my three-year-old nearly as much as most of the Halloween stuff on display at Michael's, Target, etc. these days. But I digress.)

Although I'm not fond of using the word "scary" in a political context, since it's pretty insulting and non-specific, I could probably go along with describing some of Gov. Palin's record as worrisome: paying hunters for the severed legs of wolves shot from helicopters, fighting the classification of the polar bear as an endangered species, failing to change Wasilla's policy of making rape victims pay for their own rape kits, and, of course "trooper-gate," to name a few. And McCain's tax plan, which Palin supports? Sure, I'll call that scary.

But some liberals, as usual, are barking up the wrong tree. I had to laugh at the linked article (http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/09/18/palin_iacc/index.html?source=rss), by Sarah Posner, author of the "FundamentaList" feature of The American Prospect Online. What's so scary about Palin, according to Posner? As mayor of Wasilla, she had her town named a "City of Character." Wow, I'm shaking in my boots.

Surely, you say, there's more to it than that. Well, there is... sort of. Posner tries valiantly to dig up some associated dirt, charging that the "City of Character" principles are actually from the Bible, modeled on those promulgated by the Institute of Basic Life Principles, which was founded by evangelist Bill Gothard. It's not quite six degrees of separation, but it's several; the "City of Character" program is administered by the International Association of Character Cities, which is a secular organization but did essentially copy the "basic life principles" of Gothard's organization. Gothard and some of his associates did teach some sessions of the IACC training seminar Palin attended before naming Wasilla a "City of Character," but there is no formal affiliation between the IACC and the IBLP - at least according to Wikipedia. (The Wikipedia entry for "character city" also tells me that Palin isn't the first politician this election season to get in trouble for her association with the City of Character movement; Huckabee was apparently also involved.)

But what nefarious effects did its "City of Character" status have on Wasilla? Posner speculates that the 49 principles might have been used to hire and fire city employees based on Biblical standards. (Is a front organization really necessary for that to happen? How many mayors in this country think about what Jesus would do before hiring or firing? If that's scary, it's a problem that goes WAY beyond Palin.) But Posner found absolutely no evidence that this was the case in Wasilla. The town's newfound "character" under Palin showed itself through billboards proclaiming some of the principles (the secularized versions), a "character quality of the month" printed on employee paychecks, and utility bills bearing the phrase, "Help us promote good character in our community!" Apparently, that's it.

Posner wasn't through yet, though. She cited a Christianity Today article finding Gothard's teachings troubling for their degree of authoritarianism. Then she cites the claim by Matthew Murray, who shot up a Colorado church last year, that he was influenced by homeschooling materials published by IBLP. Finally, she digs up a story about a juvenile center run by IBLP in Indianapolis that was investigated for child abuse, allegedly consisting of spanking and time-outs in a prayer room. (It was later cleared of all charges.) And - gasp - the center was housed in the very same building where Palin attended the seminar on the "City of Character" program. Well, that proves it.

Proves what? The subtitle on Posner's article is "How the vice-presidential nominee brought fringe biblical teachings to her work as the chief of Wasilla, Alaska." What fringe teachings? That city employees ought to demonstrate diligence and discernment, according to the phrases printed at the tops of their paychecks? I'm no fan of Gothard, and I'm certainly no fan of Palin's politics, but this sort of thing is ridiculous. Isn't there enough on which we can disagree with Palin that we don't need to engage in the kind of wild goose chases that will merely alienate evangelicals and make everyone think we're pathetic and desperate?

I would be more concerned about a fact Posner doesn't mention: according to a Florida newspaper, when Orlando ordered the materials required to become a "City of Character," the bill was over $8000. Fringe Biblical teachings? Not really. Fiscal irresponsibility? Maybe a little of that.

- KPE

Too much information?

2008-09-10T21:42:00.004-04:00

Even if it provides nothing else of value, the nearly two-week-old media frenzy over Gov. Sarah Palin certainly has raised the question of what type of information we need to know about a candidate for high office. At first glance, many of us would probably say it's not a difficult question at all; it's obvious, we might insist, that most of the speculations about Gov. Palin's family and personal life are neither appropriate nor relevant to her qualifications for the second-highest office in the land. But while there are a few Palin rumors the vast majority of us might agree are irrelevant in the extreme (the obviously fake Internet video posted by a young rapper purporting to be the father of Bristol Palin's child, for instance), I wonder if we find much common ground otherwise.

The problem is that which kinds of information you find relevant depends in large part on what you think of the information itself. For instance, if you are pro-life and concerned about the experiences of special needs children and their parents, you may find it very relevant to your decision that Gov. Palin chose to carry and deliver a baby with Down syndrome, and that she pledged in her acceptance speech to be an advocate in the Washington for parents of special needs children. If, however, you are pro-choice and believe that women ought to decide for themselves, according to their individual circumstances and ability to care for a special needs child, whether to abort a fetus likely to have a developmental disability or other birth defect, you might not find Gov. Palin's personal choice to be particularly salient. In fact, you might see the constant harping on this detail by the media and the McCain campaign as both a sympathy play and a dog-whistle to the religious right.

I was going to blog about how disgusting I find most of what has been said about Gov. Palin over the past two weeks, both in the mainstream media and in the blogosphere. But I quickly realized that disagreements over which information ought to be unearthed is not purely a matter of taste; in fact, it's quite political. Was Gov. Palin's decision to "parade" her pregnant daughter and said daughter's fiance onstage at the convention her own business? Or does it display a critical lack of judgment and compassion? Should comments her pastor made, suggesting that true Christians would never vote against George W. Bush, be ignored as less than germane to the question of what policies Gov. Palin would pursue as president (should something happen to Sen. McCain), or do they indicate a dangerous inability by the governor of Alaska to work with or even tolerate political opponents? Was Mayor Palin's tiff with the librarian of Wasilla merely a personality clash, typical of small-town politics, or is it fair game - a sign that the nominee might not respect the First Amendment? Are pictures of Gov. Palin posing with a gun by a dead moose just part of the family photo album, or do they tell us something about her environmental priorities? Was selling (uh... just listing, as it turns out) the state airplane a meaningless publicity stunt that's receiving way too much air time, or the hallmark of a great reformer?

One's answers to all these questions and more, I realized, hinge not just on one's good or bad taste, or one's predilection for juicy gossip, but primarily on one's political ideology. And it goes deeper than partisanship, too; ultimately, how we treat information that comes out about candidates in the course of a campaign reveals the extent to which we believe a candidate's future performance, once in office, can be predicted by his or her past performance (i.e., his or her "record") and/or his or her past behavior (i.e., personality, personal judgment, leadership qualities, or however you want to put it.) There are three extreme forms of this evaluation; most of us, I imagine, fall somewhere in the middle between these positions:

1) Who cares what a candidate has done in the past? What matters is what he or she will do once in office - which may be very different from what he or she did while governor or senator or whatever. Once the candidate is accountable to a different constituency and playing on a different field with different players, he or she may act very differently. Don't look at the candidate's record; try to discern what he or she will do in the future, based on what the candidate actually says on the campaign trail, as well as an analysis of the political hand the candidate will be dealt once in office.

2) Campaign promises are meaningless, since a candidate will say anything to get elected. Look at the candidate's record, because what someone has done in the past, he or she will likely return to in the future. Politicians have trouble making a clean break from the past, even in a different office and with a different set of associates.

3) Neither past record nor present rhetoric count for anything. You can't trust campaign promises, but neither does past performance guarantee future performance. Even the candidate himself or herself has no idea what he or she might do when confronted with a radically new situation, since as a domestic or international crisis. Think, for instance, about Bush's response to 9/11; while many now claim that he and his neocon advisors had had their eye on Iraq the whole time, the truth is that many people, both experts and ordinary voters, predicted a very different Bush administration than the one that actually came to pass. [I am indebted to Jonathan for that example, by the way.] In a crisis, when past actions and campaign promises go out the window, the only thing that matters is the politician's own leadership attributes and personality traits. Thus we as voters must examine whatever raw material we can dredge up - family life, responses to past crises, organizational style on the campaign trail, and so on - as evidence of how the candidate might react to a future crisis. In this view, pretty much anything, no matter how tawdry, is fair game because it might provide a window into how the candidate thinks and behaves in various situations, particularly those that are not overly pleasant.

Of these oversimplified views, the third one seems to have won out in this campaign. Perhaps more than ever, media interviews, newspaper articles, and even the official debates have been preoccupied with a relentless attempt to "get to know" the major candidates, as we all seek to discover how they tick. The famous "3am" ad run by Hillary Clinton (and Obama's response) played to this concern, because in Sen. Clinton's parlance, "experience" was an amorphous term, not referring to any particular experience or any aspect of her record, but rather an intangible quality that, allegedly, would make her response to a crisis more mature, more measured, and ultimately more right. CNN has been airing a serious of specials entitled "Obama Revealed" and "McCain Revealed," and this Saturday night there will be a new "Revealed" special on Palin and Biden, the vice presidential candidates. There was a great article in July in the satirical online paper The Onion, entitled "'Time' Publishes Definitive Obama Puff Piece." (http://www.theonion.com/content/news/time_publishes_definitive_obama) It makes fun of the supposed tendency of the media to throw softballs to Sen. Obama during interviews, but it's also funny because the questions the fictional reporter asks the candidate (everything from his favorite ice cream flavor to what songs he has on his iPod) are (albeit a bit exaggerated) the kinds of questions many voters have taken to asking, in a desperate attempt to figure who the candidates REALLY are - and thus how they would really act once in office. A profound distrust of both record and rhetoric are behind this obsessive panning for the most minute bits of what might be gold.

Of course, there is a fourth, and much darker, point of view. What if neither record, nor campaign promises, nor personal intangibles can tell us anything reliable about a candidate? The campaigns, obviously, are wise to Americans' insatiable appetite for the smallest, most potentially revealing details about the candidates' thought processes and judgment. Candidates craft their images (including their clothes, their modes of travel, their appearances with family, and so on) as carefully as they polish their records and perfect their speeches. Often, the little evidences of sound judgment that we might take as proof of fitness for office are planted there with quite a bit of intentionality - and often the foolish gaffes that trouble us were exaggerated (if not planted outright) by the other side. The cynic, then, concludes that there is no way we can really know a candidate (especially for national office), and we might as well not vote - or if we do vote, we can do little better than to take a wild guess and hope for the best.

To make matters worse - and bolster the cynic's view - we develop our perspective on which information matters based on what we want to hear. I know this is true of myself when it comes to the coverage of Gov. Palin's nomination; I want to believe that her family's "ups and downs" (to quote Palin herself) aren't important and should be respectfully ignored by the press, but that her environmental record in Alaska is a grave portent of things to come. In the same vein, I know I show my own bias when I pooh-pooh McCain's allegedly solid commitment to the pro-life cause while drawing plenty of attention to his support for embryonic stem cell research funding. Trying to identify and draw out your own biases is challenging enough; figuring out what that all means is enough to make your head spin.

Some have suggested that we've gone so far toward analyzing every move of a presidential (or, in Palin's case, vice presidential) candidate because our Constitution vests too much power in the office of president. (See Center for Public Justice president Jim Skillen's commentary at http://www.cpjustice.org/content/election-series-08-no-1.) I plan to address this argument in a future post (hopefully the next one, and hopefully soon), but this post is already too long, and I'd better get back to the important stuff, like unearthing Bob the Tomato from the toy pile so Charlie can have something red to take to show-and-tell tomorrow.

- KPE

The next move is the Church's

2008-09-05T23:23:00.002-04:00

I can't count on my fingers and toes how often I've heard pro-lifers (and Republicans) quote the statistic that in the U.S. 90% of babies with Down syndrome (or at least babies whose prenatal screenings indicate a high likelihood of such) are aborted. The desired effect, obviously, is horror that such a genocide of special needs children is taking place. I am horrified, but I also experience another reaction. I wonder, if somehow all abortions of developmentally disabled fetuses ceased tomorrow, how our society would cope with ten times the current number of new cases of Down syndrome, not to mention the additional cases of other disabilities diagnosed before birth.

As much as I believe in the power of government to do good in many instances, I have to agree with (and challenge) conservatives and say that the ball is really in the Church's court on this one. Government is in an excellent position to provide funding and other resources to help people raise, care for, and educate special needs children, but the day-to-day hard (and, I hasten to add from what I hear, rewarding) work of caring for these children will fall on individuals, since most of us have rejected Dickensian state-run (or church-run) institutions for orphans and abandoned children. In many cases, the responsibility will be borne by the biological parents, but given the current abortion rate, it's probable that for many (maybe even most) mothers facing the birth of a developmentally disabled child, the preferable alternative to abortion will be adoption.

As we all know, children with special needs are notoriously hard for adoption agencies and state governments to place. Too often, they languish in the foster care system. I do not seek to belittle the enormous contributions - and sacrifices - that foster families make. But as long as a child is not adopted, he or she does not have a permanent home. And in many states serious problems have arisen within the foster care system, whether due to a lack of training and material resources, or a lack of monitoring so that children are quickly removed from the homes of the few bad apples in the barrel. Given the current difficulty of placing special needs children whom their birth mothers seek to have adopted, imagine if that 90% became 10%, 20%, or 50%. The impact on social services agencies and on society as a whole would be profound.

That's where the Church can step in and help. We need to put our money, our time, our energy, and our patience where our mouths currently are. I'd like to see pastors actively encouraging couples who are able to do so to consider adopting a special needs child - and then providing resources such as training, food and clothing, babysitting so the parents can get out from time to time, prayer, and encouragement. Too often even parents with "normal," well-behaved, and conventionally intelligent children are looked at askance for bringing their children into a service or seeking to include them in a church-sponsored activity; too often parents of small children are unable to participate fully in the life of the church because of a lack of childcare or a lack of patience and understanding when the presence of children keeps things from flowing absolutely smoothly. If this is the case, then how can Christians wring their hands over the tragedy of so many developmentally disabled children being killed through abortion? Are we ready for the alternative? Are our arms open?

Too often, conservatives - even some who are Christians - have an attitude that when parents choose to have children, they voluntarily exile themselves from much of communal life. We're not the ones who chose to have these children, the response goes, so why should we be expected to help care for them, or look the other way when they aren't well-behaved in public? But if we want to end abortion, we will all have to make sacrifices. It isn't enough just to elect officials who will appoint strict constructionist judges. It isn't enough to pass laws. We have to work to create a society in which carrying a child to term - even a child who will take more time, money, and energy to raise than the average child and may in fact require intense care throughout his or her life - is seen as feasible, where there is light at the end of the tunnel for mothers who feel they can't deal with an adverse result from a prenatal screening.

I would like to see churches come alongside both birth parents and adoptive parents of special needs children and say, "You're not alone. Your child may live at your house and be legally yours, but we're going to help you raise him or her to whatever extent possible. You're making a huge sacrifice, so we're going to sacrifice, too. You can count on us."

I believe this is one of the greatest challenges and opportunities for the Church today. If we are faithful in this, not only will we reduce the number of abortions in this country and help a great many children and their parents, but the Holy Spirit may also be pleased to use our work to draw many people to the reconciling love of Christ. After all, the Spirit of God is the true Comforter, even in the most difficult of situations.

- KPE

McCain's speech

2008-09-05T00:50:00.000-04:00

It was good. Really good, at times. Sen. McCain sounded eloquent, honorable, and compassionate. In other words, he did what he had to do. After a frustrating night of viewing on Wednesday evening, I think I understand the Republicans' convention strategy: line up all the attack dogs (most notably Gov. Palin) to get the base good and mad and all revved up, then on the final night let the nominee himself reach out to the moderates and the undecideds. It was probably a good strategy, although I was interested to note the considerable increase in enthusiasm from the previous nights to tonight - much more dramatic than for the Democrats. I wonder if halfway-clever barbs delivered with a sneer really are the "red meat" the base needs to get out there and do the hard work of campaigning, or if a larger-than-expected number of Republicans don't care for all the negativity either and would rather hear a speech like the one McCain delivered tonight. One can hope.

The enthusiastic reception McCain got from his crowd tonight reinforced the suspicion I had last Thursday night that Sen. Obama had made a grave mistake by letting his much-anticipated acceptance speech veer into negative territory. Sure, plenty of the Republican speeches did include stinging pot-shots at the Democratic nominee. But isn't that what friends are for? The nominee himself - especially when he founded his campaign on the assertion that he won't employ politics-as-usual and is willing to work with those who have good ideas, no matter on which side of the aisle - shouldn't stoop to that level.

The Republican strategists this fall must acknowledge that there is nothing to be gained by pretending that the Bush Administration has been a successful one. In contrast to the usual "everything is hunky-dory" song-and-dance routine usually presented by the incumbent party, Sen. McCain talked of getting the country on the right track again (implying that it's gotten off on the wrong one) and did not shy away from describing the deep economic troubles of many Americans.

I think he did what he needed to do. Now it remains for Sen. Obama to outclass McCain by swearing off negativity (at least when he might be the one wielding it), and for all of us to hold Sen. McCain to his own words - his promises to govern with integrity, fight corruption (even in his own party), make sure workers whose jobs have been shipped overseas can be trained to take a job that won't disappear, and even to be an advocate for parents of children with special needs. Talk about words versus actions; if the Straight Talk Express is so keen on action, then let's see some. And for pity's sake, let's hope the action on the GOP side is inspired by Sen. McCain's convention speech and not, uh, Lindsey Graham's. Or Romney's. Or Giuliani's. Or, for that matter, Sarah Palin's.

- KPE

Missed opportunity

2008-09-04T22:28:00.002-04:00

I'm not entirely sure what just happened during McCain's acceptance speech; I know there were a couple of guys holding anti-McCain signs in the balcony of the hall, and then I saw a woman dressed in pink being dragged out by security, and there was apparently some sort of altercation. I'm not sure what, if anything, the protesters said, but I'm assuming they yelled something, since several times the crowd of delegates interrupted McCain's speech to chant "USA! USA!" as if trying to drown someone out. I'm sure I'll find out later exactly what happened. (I'm watching CSPAN, so I'm spared the commentary. I'm sure CNN has something to say - and is interrupting the rest of the speech to say it.)

Anyway, McCain seemed completely disoriented and befuddled by the interruption. He didn't know how to deal with his supporters' chanting, or with the protesters. He had a lame quip, but that was it. Here was a huge missed opportunity. If he had had a good line ready, he could have responded to the interruption in a way that was respectful and in fact invited dialogue in the months to come - heaping hot coals on their heads, so to speak. Instead, he seemed weak, letting his belligerent supporters have the upper hand and knock him off his game. More disappointment from the Republicans. Every time I like something they have to say, something like this happens.

We'll see what the after-effects are. He's not going to get a bounce from that particular episode.

- KPE

Correction

2008-09-04T01:16:00.002-04:00

It has come to my attention (via my husband) that I've been chronically misspelling the name of former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani. I have fixed all the instances I can find on the blog itself, but the misspellings remain in the versions mailed out to the Google groups list. I apologize for the error, and I will now go to bed before things go from bad to worse. :-)

- KPE

Another clumsy move by the Republicans

2008-09-04T01:05:00.004-04:00

I can't help but think the Republicans made a grave error in handling the "time crunch" they experienced at the end of tonight's convention festivities. Rudy Giuliani was scheduled to speak and was to be followed by a video about Gov. Sarah Palin's life - then to be followed by Gov. Palin herself. Instead, former Mayor Giuliani ran considerably over his allotted time, cracking harsh jokes about Democrats (and very nearly cackling over them.) and Obama in particular, stoking up the crowd and preaching to the choir. The call was made to omit the video and let Gov. Palin go onstage as soon at Giuliani left. I think it would have behooved the Reps to yank Giuliani off the stage somehow and start the video, as such videos tend to humanize candidates and show where they're from. This was especially important with near-unknown candidate Palin. Again, are they trying to fire up the base over and over and over, or are they actually intent on capturing would-be Obama voters and undecideds?

- KPE

Disappointed

2008-09-04T00:39:00.002-04:00

I was pretty sure Gov. Sarah Palin's speech wasn't going to be good enough to convince me to vote for John McCain. But I'm still disappointed at the extent to which it sounded whiny and dripped sarcasm. After spending a brief time talking about herself, her record, and her politics, Gov. Palin launched cheap shot after cheap shot at Barack Obama. She made fun of his job as a community organizer, claiming that the world "is not just a community, and it doesn't just need an organizer." She even pitted her experience against Sen. Obama's (I'm thinking that's not a good idea for her), claiming falsely that Obama has never authored a piece of major legislation in the Senate or the Illinois General Assembly, and asserting that working as a community organizer (only one of the jobs Sen. Obama has held, of course) does not involve decision-making.

The speech, like those of Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani, who appeared on the program before her, was a classic example of throwing red meat to the base. I suspect many of the bloggers who immediately praised her speech - and proclaimed that she had done what she needed to do - were more surprised (and perhaps relieved) that she was up to the traditional veep nominee job of attack dog, than actually impressed with the speech. At least that's the only possibility I can come up with. In my opinion it was an unremarkable speech, and I never had harbored any doubts that she could serve as an effective attack dog. I was in fact wondering if she could do anything else, and she didn't convincingly answer that question. (Her one remark that I found convincing and good was her pledge to be an advocate in Washington for parents of children with special needs. Vice President or not, I hope she keeps her word.)

The problem for the Republicans is, I think, that throwing red meat to the base is exactly the wrong approach. They stand little chance of losing a significant percentage of their solid supporters, but they do have an opportunity to bring in moderates and independents. In fact, I thought that was one main reason Sen. McCain picked a women as his running mate - as an attempt to woo Clinton supporters. That flow must have proven a trickle, because I'm pretty sure Gov. Palin's speech would only disgust the vast majority of Americans who voted for Hillary Clinton. What sealed the deal for me was the following remark: "Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America... he [Obama]'s concerned that someone won't read them their rights." I cannot vote for a candidate who, even in a convention speech meant to whip a sympathetic crowd into a frenzy of enthusiasm, sees the fundamentally American tradition of granting rights to the accused (not yet proven guilty) and informing them of such rights as needless, silly political correctness.

No way, Gov. Palin. But congratulations anyway, and thanks for providing one more data point to show my daughters that they can follow God's leading wherever He takes them.

- KPE

Gov. Palin and women in 2008

2008-09-03T03:54:00.002-04:00

Note: I started writing this before "the speech." More on that later on tonight, if I can stay awake. - KPE

Every time I turn on the TV or pick up a newspaper or go to a news-related website, somebody's saying something about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, John McCain's pick for Vice President. And each time, I get angrier. Which is saying something, because there are few circumstances under which I would vote for Gov. Palin for almost any office. She supports drilling (in her state and elsewhere), supported the infamous "Bridge to Nowhere," and is a die-hard fiscal conservative (bordering on libertarian.) We can argue about those issues and others, but suffice it to say for now that politically, she's not my cup of tea.

Unfortunately, those facts about Gov. Palin, while available in the media, aren't getting much play. Instead, we've been treated to constant analysis of her hair, wardrobe, and overall looks; speculation as to her motivations in getting pregnant with a fifth child, having an amnioscentesis, and then deciding to keep the baby once she learned he probably would have Down's Syndrome; carping that perhaps she has neglected her family for the sake of political ambition; and, of course, that endless loop of pictures of her 17-year-old daughter Bristol, whom we now ALL know is five months pregnant.

I won't pretend that this kind of purely personal (and quite prurient - Prof. Patrick Deneen wrote on his blog that what the media would like best is probably to ascertain precisely "when and where the dirty deed was done") scrutiny is going on solely because she's a woman. After all, when John Edwards decided last year to continue his run for the presidency despite the agressive return of his wife's cancer, the news media indulged quite a bit of speculation as to whether his decision was appropriate. But I think most Americans would have to admit that the current media feeding frenzy is fed in large part by Gov. Palin's gender. And what is disappointing is that quite a few Republicans who aren't known for their feminist sympathies are rallying not only to her defense, but ostensibly to the defense of all women - and far too many Democrats are taking the bait. Tonight at the convention, for instance, none other than Rudy Giuliani, who last I checked isn't known for his respect for women, suggested that there are those (Democrats, of course) who would question a VP Palin's ability to care for her family and fulfill the duties of her office but would not ask such questions about a man. That smacks of hypocrisy to me.

And yet, sadly, the criticism is apt, no matter who makes it. I worry about Gov. Palin's nomination because, so far, it seems to have brought out so much of the ugliness that underlies American perceptions of women in general and mothers in particular. As much as I dislike Sarah Palin's politics, I am proud to see a mother of young children participating in and influencing politics at a very high level. I nearly started cheering when one CNN anchor asked a pundit whether Gov. Palin might not be neglecting her responsibilities toward her children if elected vice president, and the pundit replied that she DOES have a husband who generally takes care of the younger children while his wife is otherwise occupied. There are so many attitudes - common to Republicans and Democrats alike - that contribute to mothers of young children not living up to their potential and making as much of a contribution as they could. If you choose to have children, you should be content to stay home with them. Women who work are neglecting their children. Women who don't work for pay outside the home aren't really working. Rearing and educating children can't be a woman's calling; there has to be something else. Rearing and educating one's children is always the mother's calling, once God has given her children and at least while they are young. Children should be seen and not heard - or neither seen nor heard in public. Caring for young children is a brief season of life, and mothers in this season should enjoy it and not seek to do anything else until their children are in school. "Opting out" of the workforce while your children are young is irresponsible, and stay-at-home moms are wasting the educational resources lavished on them.

And the myths go on. The fact is that motherhood is not one-size-fits-all, and while most of us wouldn't even want to do what Gov. Palin does, that's no reason to say she shouldn't be doing it. The more serious question related to her personal judgement is, in my mind, her decision to accept the VP nomination despite knowing of her daughter's pregnancy and having at least some inkling of the intense media scrutiny to which she (and her fiance) would be subjected. I have mixed feelings about this critique. On the one hand, I do deplore what Bristol Palin is enduring at the hands of the media. (Monday night, for instance, I could barely find any news on Hurricanes Gustav or Hanna for all the breathless excitement over Gov. Palin's daughter's pregnancy.) Then again, 17 isn't so young that Miss Palin cannot make decisions for herself. I don't want to dismiss out of hand the possibility that Miss Palin in fact welcomes the publicity or at least is minimally bothered by it and was mature enough to choose her course of action without being pressured by her mother.

In short, the more we talk about the issues and Gov. Palin's record on them, the better for women. Why not give her the benefit of the doubt that she can juggle her family and professional responbilities in a mature way? There's still plenty of room for disagreement; let the sparks fly.

- KPE

First two nights of the Democratic National Convention

2008-08-26T23:42:00.002-04:00

Last night, there was a great moment after Michelle Obama's speech - a moment that was quite possibly scripted but maybe wasn't. Soon-to-be nominee Barack Obama appeared on a screen at the convention center to congratulate his wife. (He was watching the convention from a living room in Kansas City, upholding the tradition of nominees not appearing until the final night of the convention.) Sasha and Malia stood on the stage with their mother and said hello to their father on the video, but they didn't stop there. Repeatedly snatching the microphone from Michelle Obama, they kept excitedly saying, "Hi Daddy," asking him where he was and when he would be coming, etc. Sen. Obama introduced the family of supporters with whom he was watching the speech, and one of the children gaily yelled, "Hi, ____ family!"

They're pretty cute children. They also reminded me of my own Charlie and Kristianna. Last night, Jonathan made a brief appearance on one of the local news stations, talking about the convention. I dropped him off at the station, then made a beeline to a nearby hotel in hopes of finding the program on a lobby TV. The manager of one motel kindly changed the channel for us, just in time to see Jonathan come on the screen. Charlie was fascinated and wondered if Daddy needed any help, so he could be on TV, too. Kristianna, for her part, simply bounced up and down in her chair, yelling, "Daddy! Daddy! Hi, Daddy!" excitedly. Sasha and Malia are much older than my children (which does make me suspect that the whole thing was carefully orchestrated), and I'm certainly not comparing my husband to Barack Obama, since Sen. Obama could never hope to be as handsome or as good a husband and father. Sorry. But it was very touching to see his children reacting roughly the same way as mine to seeing their father on TV.

Hillary Clinton gave a great speech tonight. (Honestly, if she had displayed as much fire and conviction in her campaign speeches during the primary season, she might have bested Sen. Obama. But it would be very hard to keep up that level of intensity for long at all.) The media will, no doubt, dredge up die-hard, dissatisfied Clinton supporters who intend to vote for McCain or stay home rather than pull the level for her rival, but I'm convinced that the display of party unity, no matter how well-coordinated, was mostly genuine.

Sen. Bob Casey, Jr., of Pennsylvania, possibly the most well-known openly pro-life Democrat currently in office, was allowed to speak at the convention this year and did mention abortion, although only to highlight what he perceives as Sen. Obama's talent for bipartisan persuasion and agreeing to disagree. (He observed that, were it otherwise, he (Casey) would not have been allowed to speak at the convention.) Convincing? The jury's still out on that one.

Update

2008-08-25T09:01:00.003-04:00

Once again, I've fallen off the radar, and once again, I'm back. On May 24, our third child, Katharine ("Kate") Alethea Eastvold was born. She weighed 6 pounds, 14 ounces, and was full-term and healthy. She was, however, not fond of sleeping - at least not at night. Midway through June, Jonathan went to Charleston Southern University in North Charleston, South Carolina, for an interview, and at the end of June he was offered a position teaching American politics there. We moved at the end of July, and now here we are. Charlie, our oldest, has started preschool, the children are beginning to adjust to their new surroundings (although still missing Illinois very much), Jonathan has started teaching and is very busy but enjoying himself, and Kate is three months old and sleeping (a little) better. So I figure it's as good a time as any to get back to the blog.

Jonathan, by the way, is no longer employed by a non-partisan government agency, so he is free to blog. He may be contributing frequently to this blog, or he may start his own; I don't think he's decided yet.

There's much to talk about: Obama's new running mate, the upcoming conventions, our neighborhood here in North Charleston, having a child in preschool, and much more. But for now I'll end this post with a word to those readers still living in Springfield. For a long time, I've been meaning to do a "Best of Springfield" post. Having lived there only two and a half years, I don't have picks for all the usual categories, but I did want to recommend three businesses.

Springfield's best restaurant, in my opinion, is without question the Holy Land Diner. Located in Vinegar Hill Mall (where they moved from the Old State Capitol last year), they put out a sumptuous buffet of Middle Eastern and Greek cuisine for lunch each weekday and for dinner on Fridays and Saturdays. The buffet is affordable and includes a drink and dessert (usually baklava and an ice cream sundae buffet). For an additional price (under a dollar, I think!) there's Turkish coffee in a beautiful little cup, made just right. The atmosphere is friendly both to families and working people, and Jamal and Afaf Rashmawy, the owners, are as nice as can be. (Full disclosure: they attend one of the churches we attended in Springfield. But we discovered the Holy Land Diner before that was the case, so I don't think we're TOO biased.) And the food is to die for. There's gyro meat and chicken in savory sauces, but also fresh vegetables prepared perfectly. Afaf does an amazing job with zucchini and eggplant. The falafel is the best I've ever had. The buffet also offers several kinds of salads, tzaziki sauce for the meats, rice, and hummus and pita wedges. Try the lentil soup; it's amazing, especially with pita crisps on top.

If you need a mechanic for something relatively complex, I heartily recommend Carl Johnson Automotive. It's a fair distance if you live in Springfield proper or on the west side, but it's worth it to go to a friendly, knowledgeable, and honest mechanic. We've had no complaints. And if you have a minor job or need an oil change, Town and Country Shell on Macarthur. They're friendly, pretty cheap, do a good job, and are extremely helpful. When I took my car there for an oil change, pregnant with two children in tow, I dropped it off, put the children in the stroller, and walked the block-and-a-half to the McDonald's. The man from Town and Country Shell called me to let me know it was ready, then asked if he could drive it over so I wouldn't have to walk back. He not only delivered the car; he helped me get the children and the stroller loaded. Very impressive.

Enough of the advertisements; I just thought those plugs could be helpful. I'll be back with (hopefully) more interesting fare in the next few days, as the Democratic convention gets underway.

- KPE

A quick note about appeasement

2008-05-16T22:32:00.005-04:00

In the aftermath of Bush's controversial comments about appeasement at the Knesset this week, I thought it might be worth reprinting an excerpt from the paper Jonathan delivered last year at the Midwest Political Science Association conference in Chicago (linked above). The paper as a whole argued that a useful approach to containing a militant movement (religious or otherwise) is to make targeted concessions designed to drive a wedge between the top echelons of a militant group and the support base on which it depends for support. I'll draw from two sections: one specifically addressing the ubiquitous Munich example, and his conclusion.

- KPE

But what about Munich?

Previous versions of this formula elicited accusations of appeasement. Its critics suggested that, by calling for accommodation of the concerns voiced by militants, one falls into the same trap that Chamberlain fell into at Munich in 1938. I would argue, however, the example of Munich is far too unique to be applied as generally as its detractors tend to apply it. There is a dramatic difference between Nazi Germany—a totalitarian dictatorship ruthlessly controlled by the charismatic and paranoid Adolf Hitler—and most of the other cases in which policymakers face a choice between taking a harder line and taking a softer line.

Targeted appeasement works by driving a wedge between the unlimited aims of the hard-line militant elite and the limited aims of that elite’s support base. Where the militancy’s coercive power is concentrated in the hands of the upper echelons (as with a state controlled by a totalitarian dictatorship) or when the mediating institutions that could support the base in its break with the elite have been co-opted by the elite (as was the case in German civil society[1]), driving such a wedge is difficult if possible at all. Nazi Germany seems like an exceptional case where appeasement could not work.

Even this scaled-down version of the argument against appeasement runs into problems, however. In the months after Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union, elements within the German high command began to question the wisdom of Hitler’s policies—a phenomenon that became even more pronounced after regular army units rather than specially selected SS units were ordered to commit atrocities against Soviet civilians and prisoners of war. Accordingly, a message was sent to the Allies (incidentally, through counterintelligence operative Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s connection with George Bell, then-Bishop of Chichester in England), asking “whether the Allies, on the assumption that the whole Hitler regime had been destroyed, would be willing to negotiate with such a new German government for a peace settlement.”[2] When the Allies brushed aside the overture and reiterated their determination to seek Germany’s unconditional surrender, the broad anti-Hitler coalition disintegrated. As Bell wrote to Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden in July of 1942, “The opposition…hates Hitler but sees no hope held out by the Allies of any better treatment for the anti-Nazis than for the Nazis. ‘It is either this (i.e., Hitler) or slavery. We hate this, but we prefer it to slavery.’”[3]

Assuming (as seems clear from the historical record) that this overture to the Allies was credible, one is faced with the apparent reality that the Allied refusal to appease the German opposition by backing down on its requirement for unconditional surrender actually strengthened Hitler’s hand, prolonging the war for another three years. The problem was not that the British government used a policy of appeasement, but rather that it appeased the wrong person (Hitler) and failed to appease the right people (the anti-Hitler faction in the German military). There is also a significant difference between the demands in question—trading away the fortified border region of a trusted ally in exchange for vacuous promises that German expansionism would end, as opposed to backing down on a made-for-propaganda statement in exchange for a high probability that Hitler would be overthrown.

Particularly with respect to religious militancy (and especially when an apocalyptic element is present), targeted appeasement is a much wiser policy than stubborn inflexibility. Appeasement has slain its thousands, but inflexibility has slain its tens of thousands.

Why targeted appeasement is a good idea

A policy of targeted appeasement—identifying what fears or needs a militant group is using to sell violence to its base, then addressing them directly—has two major advantages over its hardline alternative.

The first advantage is that it works. “Do I not destroy my enemy,” asked Lincoln, “when I make him my friend?” It is quite true that there will always be a “real IRA” factor—those parts of the militant movement that have too much vested in the movement to look kindly on resolution and decommissioning—and it is probable that force will have to be used to eradicate the hard core of the movement that cannot be bought.

But three additional things are also true. First, the population as a whole can be bought—not (necessarily) by money, but by identifying and addressing the legitimate grievances and valid fears on which the militant core preys. Second, as Mao Tse-Tung observed, a guerrilla force depends upon the goodwill of the population in roughly the same way that a fish depends upon water.[4] Winning over the population may not end the militancy, but it does deprive the militants of the assistance they desperately need and flushes them out into the open where they can be more easily and accurately dealt with. (A corollary to this argument is that one is unlikely to achieve a lasting peace by treating with contempt the values and ideas cherished by the militants’ potential base.) Third, a policy of targeted appeasement places strain on militant-advanced worldviews in which the militants are locked in an apocalyptic struggle with a foe who is hostile to their religion; by going out of one’s way to show respect for the faith espoused (whether or not practiced) by militants, it may be possible to defy expectations to the point that the militant base starts looking for a new worldview. Properly executed, selective appeasement isolates the hard-line elite from its support base by depriving them of whatever moral high ground (or fear-inspiring mischaracterizations) they are using to gain support.

The second advantage is that it is a more democratic way to govern. In a conflict within one’s own country, an outbreak of militancy among a particular constituency represents an opportunity missed to meet the needs and address the fears of that constituency. It signals that a breakdown has taken place in the political process that has forced that constituency to seek redress of grievances outside normal political channels. While the militancy must be put down and the hard-line elite dealt with, merely achieving victory only puts the state back where it started—facing a little more bitterness and anger as a result of the actions it took to suppress the militancy—and does not address the root causes of the activity. . . .

Conclusion

Particularly in a democratic society, the ultimate goal is not to kill religiously-motivated insurgents, but rather to demobilize them and reintegrate them into society as full and loyal citizens. While frequently there is a hard core of militants that has fully embraced criminality and must be met by force, it should not be forgotten that the bulk of any militancy’s support base (if not rank-and-file) is fighting a desperate battle to defend core interests that have been indefensible through legitimate means, and—when the militancy is finally past—will have to live under the same political roof with its former adversaries. To accommodate the concerns of militants and potential militants is not to “let the terrorists win.” Rather, it is to deny the moral high ground to the militants while depriving them of the support base they desperately need for their sustenance and security. Appeasement is not always the best option, but it is irresponsible to dismiss it out of hand.

[1] Cf. Sheri Berman, “Civil Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic,” World Politics 49:3 (1997).

[2] George Bell, Bishop of Chichester, “Memorandum of Conversation” (May 1942). In Edwin Robertson, ed., True Patriotism: Letters, Lectures, and Notes 1939-1945 from the Collected Works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (New York: Harper & Row, 1973) 171.

[3] George Bell, letter to Anthony Eden (18 June 1942). In Robertson 183.

[4] “Many people think it impossible for guerrillas to exist for long in the enemy's rear. Such a belief reveals lack of comprehension of the relationship that should exist between the people and the troops. The former may be likened to water the latter to the fish who inhabit it. How may it be said that these two cannot exist together? It is only undisciplined troops who make the people their enemies and who, like the fish out of its native element cannot live.” Mao Tse-tung, On Guerilla Warfare, Mao Tse-tung Reference Archive http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/1937/guerrilla-warfare/ch06.htm, accessed 21 December 2005.

Obama just says "no" to Washington gimmicks

2008-04-30T21:20:00.002-04:00

I was rather astounded this afternoon to hear one of the correspondents on NPR's "All Things Considered" say that Sen. Obama is "on the defensive" in two areas as he campaigns in Indiana and North Carolina: his relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and his opposition to the "gas tax holiday" supported by John McCain and Hillary Clinton.

The first, yes. But as to the second, why on earth would Obama be on the defensive? For one thing, it's just not good for Sen. Clinton's supposedly sterling Democratic credentials that John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, comes up with an idea, and a week later Clinton's on the bandwagon tooting the loudest horn. For another thing, the whole argument is a side-show from the campaign's larger economic issues, since none of the three remaining candidates will be in a position to impose such a holiday this summer, before the general election, and President Bush has said through his press secretary that he won't sign legislation implementing it, even if it does reach his desk.

Most importantly, the majority of economists who have weighed in on the question have concluded that the gas tax holiday idea is, at best, a pointless gimmick that won't really help any working-class consumers, and at worst, a major blunder that will line oil companies' pockets while rendering us even less prepared at the end of the summer to deal with the serious long-term problems posed by the diminishing supply of oil. See here (http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2008/04/score-one-for-obama.html), here (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/gas-tax-follies/), and here (http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKN3038243520080430?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true) for a few examples of economists panning the McCain plan. (Here (http://www.env-econ.net/2008/04/obama-goofs-on.html), by the way, is an economist who disagrees with Obama on this issue, although he does concede that Sen. Obama's estimate of the amount of money the average consumer would save on gas during the whole tax-free summer - about $25-30, or about half a tank worth of gasoline - is probably accurate.)

Obama is seeing clearly on this issue, and it's not popular. Sure, we'd all like to think there's a quick fix to the problem of high gas prices, especially as we head into the summer peak driving season and many of us are faced with having to change our travel plans if prices don't go down. But what most economists are telling us is that there can be no quick fix, because (assuming prices don't actually go UP with a temporary repeal of the federal gas tax, a possibility some have proposed) lower prices will only drive up demand, since the supply of gasoline produced by refineries typically remains stable during the summertime. The cruel truth is that we are facing a diminishing global supply of oil in the not-so-long-term, and we have to find ways of dealing with it - development of alternative energy sources, cars (including hybrids) that are more fuel-efficient, increased funding and infrastructure for mass transit, and individual choices to quit driving so much - car-pooling, biking, moving closer to work, or just going fewer places. A three-month "holiday" (even if it worked to lower prices) would only delay the average American's response to high-priced gas and thus delay our national response to the diminishing supply of oil worldwide. We would only prolong our dependence on oil in general and foreign oil in particular. The McCain plan (and Clinton's version of it) is the classic feel-good, do-little political ploy that tends to surface in hard economic times.

If Obama cared only about winning the next couple of primaries, he'd sign on, too. Maybe he'd make a few minor modifications to the plan, to distinguish himself from McCain and Clinton. Instead, he's refusing to get on the bandwagon and is doing a very unpopular thing - telling working-class voters the truth about the hard decisions we'll all have to make in order to deal with the rise in gas prices. We must embrace long-term, responsible solutions, and Obama thankfully isn't afraid to say so. I don't know whether voters will buy it, but NPR is wrong: it's not defensiveness. It's going on the offensive against politics-as-usual, and it's pretty gutsy. It's also the right thing to do.

- KPE

Troubling necessity

2008-04-29T00:03:00.002-04:00

The general consensus of the mainstream media and quite a few bloggers, too, is that Rev. Jeremiah Wright's tour of self-justification or self-defense or whatever you want to call it is bad for Barack Obama's campaign. The evidence certainly does point in that direction. Today, in a speech at the National Press Club, Wright gently chastised Obama for denouncing his more controversial remarks but, rather than admitting differences in principle between himself and the candidate, insisted that "politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability" - in other words, that Sen. Obama's condemnation of Rev. Wright's statements was not sincere. And of course, the very fact that Wright is making these public appearances keeps him (and the contested sound-bites from his sermons) in the news. It's probably not what Obama's campaign wants, as pundits and pollsters tirelessly trumpet the importance of the working-class white male in the upcoming primaries in Indiana and North Carolina.

It really is a terribly frustrating situation - not just for Obama, but for the country. Because the pundits are right - Rev. Wright's appearances aren't playing well on the campaign trail. (Of course, much of the reason they're not playing well has to do with remarks made by these very pundits, but we'll just leave that there...) In order to win (in November, not just in Indiana and NC), Obama is probably going to have to distance himself more and more from his former pastor's new campaign to set the record straight. That's a shame, because this country badly needs a renewed conversation about race, and Obama - if he can avoid looking cowardly and opportunistic now - is just the person to lead it. Rev. Wright has some tough words to say, and I would argue that he has at times forgotten the "love" part of "speaking the truth in love," but he has some good points. He's right that our nation's government has not truly apologized for slavery or racism. He's right that "God condemns some things" and that at least in some cases, "there's no excuse for the things that the government, not the American people, has done." And, yes, he's right that the recent attacks on him and (by association) Obama have in many cases been attacks on the much-misunderstood black church.

Gina Dalfonzo of The Point posted a link to the video of Wright's speech, noting that it "is doing his friend Barack Obama a bit of no good. Isn't selfless love for one's friends supposed to be a major tenet of Christianity?" Well, yes. But so is contending for the faith - in this case, the faith and integrity of Christians worshiping in majority-black churches. And if Wright kept quiet, would that really be the best thing for Obama? Would it be the best thing for America?

- KPE

Environmentalism, doomsday predictions, and the poor

2008-04-23T18:13:00.002-04:00

What follows is the majority of a comment I posted on The Point (see http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/1067893/28374270 for the original post and other people's comments) on how Christians should respond to "doomsday talk" designed to scare us into responding to the alleged threat of global warming. The original post had to do with a Discovery Channel special airing this week on global warming and caring for the earth.

I haven't seen this Discovery Channel special, so I'll have to take your word for it that the narration is annoying. But on the larger question of whether global warming is occurring and, if so, what our response should be, I think some of the "doomsday rhetoric" we've been hearing is not misplaced.

It's my understanding that there is a fairly small number of scientists who believe that global warming is not occurring at all, and a larger number who believe it's happening but don't think it's caused by human activity (or think the causes are unclear.) So we have three main scenarios that are possible.

1) Global warming is happening, and it's our fault. In that case, why stick our heads in the sand? Surely we need to take responsibility and do something to fix the mess we've made - if not for the sake of the earth itself, then for our children and grandchildren.

2) Global warming is happening, but it's just a natural fluctuation in our climate, and human-produced emissions have nothing to do with it. In that case, we don't need to sit around feeling guilty. But no matter the cause, global warming as described by most scientists will have a devastating impact on human life - particularly in low-lying areas, areas prone to water-borne disease, etc. So, whether or not it's our fault, we should probably try to mitigate its effects and protect ourselves against the damage it will cause. Those of us who live in developed nations can, for the most part, afford to move to higher ground. Especially in the U.S., where there is still plenty of open land, if we act prudently we may not be in much danger. But as Christians, we have a responsibility to consider the poor of the world, many of whom do live in low-lying areas or islands and can't get to higher ground, or escape the ravages of extreme weather phenomena, as easily as we can.

3) There's no such thing as global warming. Even if this is the case, there are many advantages to be gained from taking fairly drastic steps to conserve energy and resources. It is a fairly undisputed fact that oil is a non-renewable resource (some attempts have been made to synthesize it, but no real progress has been made). So is natural gas (unless you count the methane produced by livestock). So coming up with alternative energy sources and cutting our consumption of fossil fuels won't just stave off global warming (if it exists), but keep us from suffering a full-fledged economic and humanitarian crisis when oil and gas reserves do run dry. The problems won't start when the fuel actually runs out, either; as oil-rich locations become fewer and fewer, there will inevitably be more wars. Scarce resources cause conflict; that's been true almost since the beginning of human history. Conservation will also make us healthier (by improving air and water quality), make our world more beautiful and enjoyable for our children, and fulfill the Biblical mandate to care for Creation. Global warming or no global warming, preserving the environment, developing more environmentally-sound sources of energy, and cutting consumption are all good ideas that Christians can embrace.

Much of the criticism of global warming doomsday talk has centered on the plight of the poor, who, the theory goes, will suffer if economic growth slows due to environmental regulation. I don't believe that the effect on the world's poor will be a net negative at all. Poor people are more likely than rich people (by virtue of their inability to pick up and move when conditions get bad) to live next to noxious dumps, breathe polluted air, and work in environmentally hazardous conditions. All these things adversely affect their life span and quality of life. If (or when) wars break out over increasingly scarce fossil fuels and other resources, poor people will disproportionately bear the burden as they become refugees and/or are conscripted (or forced by economic circumstances) into armies. Many of the world's poor are engaged in fishing or harvesting shellfish, and if the mercury content of fish and shellfish continues to rise, discouraging people from buying those foods, these people will increasingly be unable to earn a living. The poor are often the most vulnerable victims of environmental degradation because they can't escape it or pay for better-quality alternatives, such as bottled water when water sources are polluted.

Finally, the search for alternative energy sources and the manufacture of new, "green" products will create jobs at all levels of the economy.

Ultimately, I think Christians tend to be irked by environmentalist and anti-global warming talk because we worry that fighting global warming will require us to prioritize animal and plant life over human life, or the survival of the earth over our own survival and well-being. Since we are a privileged species in God's creation, we rightly bristle at anything that threatens respect for human life in favor of other life on earth. But despite what some environmentalists believe on that subject, I think taking steps to reverse or slow global warming and take care of our environment will greatly improve our lot and, indeed, ensure our own survival (for as long as God wants this earth to remain).

As for the ads for hybrid automobiles [that apparently aired during the special and were targeted at kids], I'm not crazy about my children watching lots of advertising, but of all the products a child might see advertised and pester his or her parents to buy, I count a hybrid car as a relatively harmless one. Better that than Bratz dolls or Cookie Crisp cereal, if you ask me...

- KPE

Pennsylvania wrap-up

2008-04-22T23:20:00.002-04:00

CNN now shows a 55% to 45% margin, Clinton over Obama, in Pennsylvania with 88% of precincts reporting. The victory speeches (because at this point no one's conceding anything) have been made, and it's on to Indiana and North Carolina in two weeks. The only thing left to observe is how the media interpret Sen. Clinton's ten-point margin of victory - a blowout? Just enough? Too close for comfort? Right now it's an expectations game when it comes to wooing superdelegates and building momentum in the undecided pool, especially in Indiana, which is still very much up for grabs.

The exit polls have shown predictable demographic trends: Clinton leading among whites, women, blue-collar workers, those without college degrees, and older voters; Obama leading among blacks, those making over $100,000, the college educated, and voters under 25. (Incidentally, he also won voters making under $15,000 a year, many of them probably current or recent students.) Surveying frequency of church attendance, pollsters found an interesting result (one that has been replicated in a number of other states): Obama carried the day among voters who attend church more than once per week and those who never attend church, whereas Clinton won the other categories (once a week, once a month, and rarely) by varying margins. And one more number for you: 37% of voters in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary own guns.

I'll leave you with a number from the other side of the aisle: 72%. That's the percentage of Republican voters who pulled the lever for John McCain in Pennsylvania today. Sixteen percent voted for Ron Paul (who has not yet dropped out of the race); 12% opted for Mike Huckabee, who has conceded but was still listed on the ballot. Of course, those numbers won't do anything to change McCain's status as the "presumptive" GOP nominee, and my best guess is that they're a little skewed as a measure of what Pennsylvania Republicans really think, since many McCain supporters might not have shown up to vote today, as their man's nomination is all but a done deal. But it isn't a great sign for Sen. McCain either. For some weeks now, much of the media coverage has assumed that McCain is sitting pretty, fundraising and shoring up his party's support while the Democrats continue to duke it out right down to the wire. Tonight's numbers, however, may indicate that McCain has been less successful than previously thought at unifying Republicans and smoothing the ruffled feathers of Paul and Huckabee supporters. Establishment Republicans are clearly enjoying the Clinton-Obama fight, but when it's over, McCain may find himself in a less than enviable position going into the general election.

- KPE

Expelled: Choir members only

2008-04-22T20:21:00.009-04:00

I went last weekend to see Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Ben Stein's documentary on the alleged blacklisting from the scientific community of scientists who espouse (or even fail to criticize sufficiently) intelligent design (ID) theory. It was a Sunday matinee, with time to grab a quick lunch (but apparently not a change of clothes, judging from the dress of the audience, myself included) after church. We were a whole theater full of church-going folk (you could tell the cashiers were getting a kick out of the look of the demographic for Expelled), and we were a good anti-Darwin choir - laughing at the black-and-white movie clips cleverly inserted in the documentary-style interviews, gasping when an atheistic scientist called Christian fundamentalists idiots, and applauding heartily when the credits rolled. I'm sure we were a more homogeneous crowd than most that have seen and will see Expelled, based on our location and the day and time of the show, but it did occur to me that I probably wouldn't bring a non-Christian (or, for that matter, an anti-ID Christian) to see the movie, because he or she likely wouldn't be a bit convinced and would probably just get angry.

Turns out even some of the movie's fans agree with me. J. Clinton, a blogger on The Point (Breakpoint's usually conservative blog) wrote favorably today about Expelled but still conceded, "I seriously doubt that this ID-friendly film is going to move the hearts of Darwinists to suddenly question their beloved theory. In fact, it will just make Darwinists more mad." (He then says that's okay, because "they were pretty much mad to begin with, as the film makes clear.")

So the purpose of Expelled isn't to persuade ID's intellectual opponents; rather, it's supposed to be a wake-up call, to those already committed to the idea of ID, that an outrage is being perpetrated by "Big Science" and that "we" (freedom-loving people, according to Stein) ought to do something to stop it. There the mission of the film gets a little murky. Surely, scientists friendly to ID are already doing what they can. And I'm not sure how much pull the non-scientific among us (and I'm counting myself firmly within that segment of the population) have with the scientific establishment. So maybe the film's purpose is to convince young people to become scientists. If so, I would guess its effectiveness will be limited. The chief occupations of every scientist interviewed - from staunch ID proponents to the likes of Richard Dawkins - seem to be those of pundit, armchair philosopher, professional atheist or agnostic or Christian, public debater, and/or trouble-maker. One wonders, at the end of the movie, what any of them gets paid to do. The answer, of course, is (or at least should be) research. Sure, scientists teach, and society benefits when they write books accessible to a general audience. But at the heart of the scientific ethos is experimentation. And unless I slept through part of Expelled, not a single interviewee discusses a single experiment he or she has conducted, or a single piece of research he or she has published. The closest we get is the former editor of a Smithsonian-linked scientific journal, Richard Sternberg, who published an article written by another scientist sympathetic to ID. Even in that case, though, we get no information in the film as to what that paper was actually about - and surely newly-sprouted websites such as http://www.expelledexposed.com are gaining a modicum of credibility simply because they go into some level of scientific detail (whether or not accurate - I can't judge that) when attempting to counter the film's claims. I'd be the first to admit that had Expelled detailed real research that real scientists do in the real world (as opposed to the blogosphere and book-signing circuit), I probably wouldn't have understood most of it and would have been more likely to fall asleep during the movie. But at least I wouldn't be left with the impression that scientists these days (on either side of the divide the movie defines) are too busy fighting the Culture Wars to actually engage in research that might improve our lives. All that squabbling hardly seems an inspiration to young people to become professional scientists and challenge the establishment.

The fact that Ben Stein isn't doing anything to actually reach out to his intellectual opponents, but is rather trying to rally the base, becomes abundantly clear through the film's treatment of the relationship between ID and theism. Early in the movie, a few interviewees rather half-heartedly explain that ID does not necessitate religious belief, that it hypothesizes only an intelligent designer of some sort (perhaps a super-intelligent alien race?) and not the particular god of any religion, and so on. Sure, that's a logically plausible premise for a theory; I'll buy that. But then Stein spends the rest of the movie drawing in his conservative Judeo-Christian audience. Whether it's a trip to Dachau, footage of Stalin and the Berlin Wall, or a sinister-sounding reference to Planned Parenthood and its roots in the eugenics movement, Expelled again strays away from discussion of what actual scientists are researching and discovering and instead uses scare tactics to get on board those of us concerned for the sanctity of human life. And then he brings in Richard Dawkins, LOTS and LOTS of nice, juicy Richard Dawkins footage. Dawkins has lots to say (none of it pleasant) about Christianity and its alleged primitivism, cruelty, foolishness, etc. It's provocative stuff. But again, he doesn't have that much to say about science, and as far as I know, he hasn't published serious scientific research in a while. I think he's mostly a professional atheist and Christian-basher these days. By making him one of the primary spokespersons for the "Darwinist scientific establishment," Stein appears to me to be constructing a straw man of the first order. By the way, Dawkins does admit to Stein that his study of evolutionary biology drew him in the direction of atheism.

There are other problems with the film, for instance its reliance on the term "Darwinism" instead of "evolution" or "evolutionary theory," its insistence on using the beliefs of Darwin himself (not to mention the Nazis) as a proxy for the beliefs of actual evolutionary scientists today, the see-sawing back and forth between the claim that this is a war against scientism and the claim that there is actually a clash between religion and science, and the apparent conflation of research and teaching. This last one is especially important, because "lay-persons" like myself may not care much about cutting-edge research but do care deeply about what our children are taught in school. With one or two exceptions, the persecution and mistreatment Stein identifies are responses to the teaching of ID (or at least the questioning of evolutionary theory) in the classroom, not to actual research. (By the way, are there major differences in the kind of research an ID proponent would do and the kind of research an ID opponent would undertake? Again, the film never tells us.) I'd like to bring up, at least, the possibility that limits on research freedom and limits on curricular freedom might be two separate issues.

All those criticisms aside, I'm on board with the basic premise of the film, which is that freedom is threatened when scientists are not allowed to question a dominant theory. The censoring and attempted silencing of ID proponents (or just evolution=doubters) clearly is happening on some scale, and when it does happen it is a violation of academic freedom that should be opposed. (I'm not sure I'd compare it with the threat to freedom posed by the Berlin Wall, but I'll grudgingly grant Stein his favorite metaphor.)

Rather, I'm so upset with Expelled and its makers precisely because this is an important issue, and in my opinion, they botched it. They missed an opportunity to change minds by being pompous, clever, and confusing in tone; by playing to the usual crowd and preaching to the usual choir; and by favoring sensational soundbites above the tough philosophical questions that need to be asked in any discussion of religion and science. Current revenues indicate that Expelled could end up ranking as the third biggest money-maker in history among documentaries, probably because it's funny and it's controversial and it's Ben Stein. I just wish it hadn't taken the easy way out.

- KPE

Polls close in Pennsylvania... stay tuned

2008-04-22T20:09:00.002-04:00

Polls closed about twenty minutes ago in the long-awaited Pennsylvania Democratic primary. Apparently, exit polls show the race too close to call, so we'll have to wait on the actual ballots. Meanwhile, a couple of interesting statistics from the exits:

- 60% of voters who became registered Democrats after the first of this year chose Obama.
- 58% of voters who made up their minds in the last week opted for Clinton.

Not sure where that puts us, but I'll just throw that bone out for us to gnaw on until more dependable results come in...

My hopes for the evening: a smaller-than-predicted margin of victory for Clinton (assuming Obama wasn't able to pull off a miracle upset), and that maybe, just maybe, a return a more packed schedule of primaries after the recent six-week gap will distract the media from making any remark made by any candidate, candidate's adviser, candidate's uncle's dogsitter, etc., into another scandal. We've had "Pastor-gate," "Sniper-gate," "Bitter-gate"; if the voting hadn't taken place today, to what would be treated next? Waffle-gate? Cheesesteak-gate? On to Indiana and North Carolina. Please.

- KPE

Hookup culture, drinking culture

2008-04-10T00:12:00.002-04:00

The Point (http://www.thepoint.breakpoint.org) directed me to this Wall Street Journal article (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120728447818789307.html), which isn't going to dispel the WSJ's reputation for a certain brand of prudery. It's yet another critique of the "hookup culture" prevalent at many (perhaps most) secular colleges and universities these days - a culture notable not just for its sexual promiscuity but for the near-total dissociation it has achieved between sex and love, and the accompanying near-absence of the usual rituals of the mating dance, from flowers to dinner-and-a-movie, to snuggling and talking under the stars.

Author Donna Freitas goes farther than finger-wagging; she conducted a recent survey of college students who apparently in large numbers rejected the hookup culture, saying it made them feel "dirty" and "used," even while continuing to participate in it. The survey also revealed that what most college students associated with "love" and "romance" was not sex at all, but talks, long walks, eating dinner together, exchanging gifts, going on dates, and so on - and yet most did not regularly "date" in this way.

Freitas finds in this data cause for complaint against colleges themselves. She accuses most secular colleges of condoning and even encouraging sexual promiscuity and abandoning their duty to foster a healthy social environment and attitude toward sex on their campuses.

No doubt the administrations of many colleges are no friend to conservative social behavior in general and sexual modesty in particular. But I question whether there's much even a concerned administration could do to address sexual conduct per se, aside from taking drastic measures to limit contact between male and female students, a route which many Christian colleges have taken, with varying degrees of success. The preference for hookups and large group outings over one-on-one or double dating has become fairly entrenched in this generation's social playbook, and it's not going to change overnight or because a college suddenly decides to encourage healthier sexual attitudes.

But it strikes me that mere social and cultural changes aren't all that's going on here. Freitas complains about theme parties called things like "CEOs and Office Hos" and "Millionaires and Maids." Well do I remember. The most egregious one at my eating club (what passes for a frat, sorority, and bad cafeteria, all rolled into one, at my alma mater) was Jersey Trash Night. As far as I know, these things aren't sponsored by the Office of the Dean of Student Life. Students are perfectly capable of coming up with this junk on their own. And the centerpiece (and probably the main objective) of these lovely soirees? Alcohol. When I was in college (just four years ago), hookups (as prevalent as they were) were usually but a byproduct of drunkenness. Most people I knew wouldn't dream of having sex with near-strangers when sober. With the liberal usage of alcohol as a backdrop, the results of Freitas' survey start to make more sense. Why would large numbers of students routinely hook up while, in their more reflective moments, disapproving of hookups and how they make them feel? Probably because most are three sheets to the wind at the time. Excessive alcohol use on (and near) college campuses creates an environment in which students are too often not reflecting on their actions and are doing stupid, dangerous things.

And, as I argued without much success when I was a student, alcohol consumption is something administrations CAN, to some extent, do something about. Colleges, both secular and religious, have regulations governing the consumption and carrying of alcohol on school property, drunken behavior on campus, possession of open containers in dorm rooms, parties that serve alcohol being held in dorms, and so on. All colleges, by way of nodding to state and federal law, ban underage drinking and the serving of alcohol to minors. Yet most look the other way when drunken students (and admit it, most of them are under 21) careen across campus, destroy property, harass fellow students, have drunken parties in their rooms, and of course have drink-fueled sexual encounters. For the most part, there are already rules on the books that could be enforced but aren't. Cracking down on excessive drinking and underage drinking on campus doesn't require an administration to look conservative or prudish or religious, or even say anything additional on the subject of sex.

The objections are many and familiar: drinking occurs off-campus as well as on-campus (and at some schools, most drinking is done off-campus, at bars or Greek houses), enforcing the rules will only drive more drinking off-campus, students will be discouraged from getting help for friends who have passed out or otherwise injured themselves while drinking, drinking in a social environment is healthier than drinking alone and in secret, and the list goes on. I've heard them all a thousand times. But the fact is that college drinking is a problem, and lack of attention isn't going to make it better. Students do die from alcohol poisoning, drunk driving, and other alcohol-related mishaps, even when the most hands-off policies are adopted. Date rape under the influence does happen. Students do become alcoholics. Increased enforcement would have to be accompanied by renewed efforts to help students with drinking problems. But I'm sure it can be done.

Ms. Freitas would like to see college administrators ascend the bully pulpit and speak out about sex, love, and marriage. I can't see that happening at most universities. But common-sense enforcement of existing alcohol regulations is something that can and should be done. To close our eyes to the relationship between alcohol and the hookup culture is to consign ourselves to delivering the same tired speeches about modesty that may be well-received by the sober but won't be remembered by the inebriated, leaving yet another crop of college students feeling dirty and used by the end of the weekend.

- KPE

A few links

2008-03-31T21:07:00.003-04:00

First, on the ever-controversial (at least among parents and caregivers) topic of what's better for the environment, cloth or disposable diapers, we have this article from Slate Magazine's "The Green Lantern":

http://www.slate.com/id/2187278/

In case you don't want to read the whole column, the conclusion is that cloth diapers do use less energy and leave less of a carbon footprint than disposables, but not by as much as you might think, and only if you have a new, energy-efficient washer and line-dry them rather than using a dryer. Well... I guess I'm guilty now, because as a fairly die-hard cloth devotee, I do dry my diapers the modern way (line-drying doesn't work so great when you live where it barely gets above freezing most of the winter, and besides, any cloth diaper worth its salt in absorbency is going to take a LONG time to dry unaided by electricity), and while my washer isn't exactly an old clunker, it's not the most expensive, front-loading Energy Star model either. So... I reckon I'm falling behind on my carbon footprint.

At the same time, different calculations apparently yield different results, and so it's still true that nobody REALLY knows which is better for the environment in the long run. The Green Lantern points out, for instance, that the study he uses assumes that a certain number of cloth diapers will be thrown away for each child, whereas I'm getting ready to start on #3 and haven't yet found it necessary to throw out a cloth diaper. (And after I'm done with children, I'll probably pass mine along if I can find someone who isn't grossed out by the thought of hand-me-down diapers.) Furthermore, there are other benefits to cloth besides the putative environmental ones: the natural cotton tends to be easier on extremely sensitive skin (such as my children have) than the artificial materials used in disposables, cotton (and the strange stuff they use to make the diaper covers I use, which isn't quite fabric and isn't quite plastic and seems pretty comfortable and breathable) breathes better than disposables and seems to keep them warmer in winter and cooler in summer, and potty training is apparently easier for many children when cloth is used, because the child can tell more easily when he or she is wet, and being wet is more uncomfortable. (In fact, I've known quite a few parents who used exclusively disposables but bought a few cloth diapers to use when getting ready to potty train - and one little girl who immediately agreed to start using the potty when threatened with having to wear cloth...)

All that said, I am most certainly not guilt-tripping or haranguing anyone for his/her diaper choices, now that I know I may be messing up the earth more than you 'sposie users!

Oh, and did I mention cloth diapers save money?

Couldn't resist one last argument... :-)

2) From a friend of a friend's blog, some interesting thoughts on being politically liberal but theologically conservative:

http://emergingpensees.blogspot.com/2008/03/we-were-there-first.html

3) And finally, I couldn't resist linking to one of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's sermons on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOdlnzkeoyQ&feature=related

This is just one of them (I believe it's the one in which he refers to America's "chickens coming home to roost" after 9/11), but from there you can link to a number of his sermons on YouTube. The point is that it's interesting to listen to whole sermons of his (or at least longer excerpts) rather than the brief clips that Fox News started playing a few weeks ago and that have been bandied about the Web ever since. There are also some sermons that do not contain comments such as the ones that have been controversial, posted by church members and other sympathizers in an effort to show Wright delivering sermons more typical of his ministry. Obviously I have no basis for knowing how "typical" these other sermons are. But they're pretty good, and honestly, as an evangelical I'm less troubled by how "black" Trinity UCC is, than comforted that it doesn't seem to be as theologically liberal as many predominantly white UCC churches. You may also be in for a surprise if you listen to the "God damn America" and "chickens coming home to roost" sermons in their entirety; you may actually find yourself agreeing with a lot of what Rev. Wright has to say. Or not. But at least give them a listen before you make up your mind based on a few cherry-picked clips.

- KPE

Freecycle is awesome

2008-03-25T23:44:00.002-04:00

After being hounded about it by several friends, I finally joined my local Freecycle group. For the uninitiated, Freecycle groups are local, e-mail based groups that basically put into practice the old saying, "One man's trash is another man's treasure." Rather than throwing something away (old shoes, electronics that don't work anymore, extra drywall from a renovation project, unused coloring books, and so on), you e-mail the Freecycle list saying you want to offer it. Anyone interested in having your old, free stuff e-mails you back, you pick one of the people to have it, and you make arrangements for the thing to get picked up. So far, I've given away a large toy that was living in our basement due to lack of room upstairs and some of Charlie's out-grown clothes, and I've gotten two pairs of shoes, some file folders, and even a bike. It's a good way to recycle, clean house, and get things you want or need. It's also lots of fun to look at the digest every night; you see offers for everything from tarot cards and unopened bags of Easter grass to washing machines and cars.

Go to http://www.freecycle.org to find your local group and subscribe.

- KPE

And... it's a "cute kid" post!

2008-03-25T23:33:00.002-04:00

These seem to do better than my political posts anyway...

So, Jonathan had to mail something at lunch today, so he asked if he could take Charlie with him. I dropped Charlie off at his office, and they walked to the post office and then to the popcorn shop, where they purchased a bag of popcorn to share. Hand in hand they went over to the Old Capitol square and colonized a park bench, with Charlie begging all the way to hold the popcorn bag. Jonathan insisted on holding it himself, anticipating (probably rightly) that Charlie holding the bag would result in the bag getting spilled or, most likely, Jonathan not getting any of the popcorn. Unluckily, a gust of wind came along and took a good deal of the popcorn with it. Jonathan explained that they were just feeding the birds, but Charlie wasn't buying it; he kept saying, "I TOLD you not to spill the popcorn."

Later, after I picked up Charlie from Jonathan's office again, Charlie explained, "Mommy, I'm big and strong to carry the popcorn bag. And I TOLD Daddy not to spill the popcorn. But he spilled it anyway. He's not very good at not spilling the popcorn."

Later, when he told the same story to his grandma, he was told that he ought to be less critical of others, since that very well could have been him. But Jonathan and I still think it's pretty funny... I think the trash-talking over who gets to hold the popcorn bag will continue for a long time...

- KPE

Blagojevich's hate crimes commission

2008-03-25T23:29:00.002-04:00

Check this out: http://www.sj-r.com/News/stories/27499.asp

Apparently, after Gov. Blagojevich (apologies to all you non-Illinoisans who may not care) got in hot water for a hate crimes commission member's ties to Louis Farrakhan, he pretty much scrapped the commission but never appointed new commissioners and kept paying the executive director to the tune of almost $100,000. Go figure...

- KPE

Is Easter too scary for preschoolers?

2008-03-24T21:12:00.002-04:00

When I saw that The Point (the Breakpoint/Prison Fellowship blog, at http://www.thepoint.breakpoint.org) had linked to an article by this title, I of course had to take a look, being a parent of two preschoolers.

http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/234392/27187446

I've already come up against this question, when discussing the Gospel with my children, and particularly during the Easter season. I wholeheartedly agree with the author of the Touchstone post that it doesn't do anyone any good to try to "protect" young children by not telling them about the crucifixion or resurrection at all. (Among the many "children's Bibles" and "baby's first Bibles" we've received as gifts since becoming parents is one that summarizes the Easter story as, "Some bad men took Jesus away. But then He came back again." We didn't care for that creative retelling of the story.)

But how much is too much?

I've always used the words "died" and "was killed" to describe what happened to Jesus on Good Friday. Saying such things to mere babies (as mine were when I began telling them the Gospel) is, however, a bit like talking to babies and toddlers about sex; you can use all the right words, but because they have absolutely no real-world context for understanding them, they aren't scary or offensive. They're just new and unfamiliar words - like so much else they hear. My children have been blessed; they haven't experienced the loss of a friend, grandparent, or great-grandparent. No one they've met more than once and would remember has died. Furthermore, we're renters, so no pets. They haven't experienced the death of a beloved animal. We don't let them watch violent TV shows. The closest they've come to death is when the flowers I occasionally buy at the store shrivel up and die and have to be thrown away.

So, on the one hand, the challenge is to find a way to teach them what death means. But on the other hand, we don't want to unnecessarily traumatize them. On the night before Easter, we got out the dramatized, word-for-word version of the Gospel According to Matthew (produced by The Visual Bible - I VERY highly recommend it, both for church and home use). We had the children watch Jesus teaching for a while, then the Last Supper, His prayers in the garden, and finally the arrest and trial. Jonathan and I had decided to show them (or at least Charlie; Kristianna got cranky and had to be put to bed part-way through) the beatings and the crucifixion on the theory that it couldn't be THAT bloody. After all, this wasn't Mel Gibson's The Passion. Well, it's not, but it's still graphic enough that we chickened out pretty soon after the blood started flowing and fast-forwarded to the final death cry of Jesus, and brief scene of Him hanging dead on the cross, and then all the post-crucifixion and resurrection events. Charlie seemed a bit taken aback and asked in a whisper, "Is He dead?" But no nightmares were reported, and he seems none the worse for wear.

Then again, as the Touchstone blog post proposes, maybe preschoolers SHOULD be disturbed by the crucifixion. After all, shouldn't adults?

I'd be very interested to hear what you parents (and non-parents, too) think, how you've approached this with your very young children, etc.

- KPE

'Twas the night before Easter

2008-03-22T23:08:00.002-04:00

This morning I read an item in the local paper about a murder that took place in the river-side town of Alton, Illinois. Six housemates are charged with torturing, then beating to death, a mentally disabled pregnant woman who, along with her one-year-old son, lived in the house. The owner of the house worked as a coordinator with a regional organization dedicated to helping the developmentally disabled find jobs and housing; the victim, Dorothy Dixon, was one of her clients. Apparently, she offered Dixon the chance to live in her home and have help with her son and her pregnancy, only to confine Dixon to a cold and unfinished basement, deprive her of almost all food and water, force her to go naked much of the time, and steal her Social Security disability benefits. The other five people in the house, including three teenagers and a twelve-year-old boy, are accused of participating in this treatment and, according to the results of the autopsy, routinely used Dixon for target practice with their BB guns. Dixon also suffered severe burns, probably from having scalded water thrown on her. On January 30, a number of members of the household - possibly all six - beat her with aluminum baseball bats and left her (and her unborn child) to die. Dixon's one-year-old son is alive but weighs only 15 pounds and also shows signs of abuse and malnutrition. Police Lt. David Hayes commented that none of the six people charged in the murder has shown any sign of remorse.

After I got through my initial phase of blind, righteous, "let's string them all up" rage (yes, I oppose the death penalty, but I'm still human), I was struck by two ways this sad, hopeless, horrific story relates to how I think about Easter. First, extreme suffering is nothing new, and the physical suffering experienced by Jesus before and during His crucifixion was not unique. On several occasions, I've attended Good Friday services during which the preacher or someone else describes in graphic, gruesome detail what death by crucifixion is like. It's a helpful reminder, especially since crucifixion is no longer a common form of execution. And yet I wonder if the seeming sufficiency of such a reminder (of Jesus' physical suffering) is a product of how sheltered and privileged most of us Americans are. We - especially those of us who live in "nice neighborhoods" where gang cross-fire isn't a big worry - hardly ever confront physical suffering caused by malevolent violence. We see it on TV, and we even worry it might happen to our loved ones who are soldiers or contractors in Iraq or Afghanistan, but it's still happening half a world away. We don't experience a daily fear of suicide bombings or beheadings or torture. And so the physical suffering Christ experienced is shocking enough that we stop there.

We forget that the Romans crucified many, many people as they expanded their empire and subdued restless lands. We forget that, at least physically, the thieves crucified alongside Jesus felt just as much pain as He did. We forget that countless other human beings - from victims of impaling, to those burned during the Inquisition, to victims of the Holocaust and Pol Pot and Stalin's frozen Gulags - have died in terrible, almost unthinkable ways. Unfortunately, by historical standards, Christ's physical death was rather ordinary, if still appalling.

No, we have to go beyond imagining the excruciating physical pain that Jesus experienced on our behalf, to the pain that was unique to Him - the spiritual pain of taking on all our sins as His Father turned His face from the Son. Honestly, we really can't imagine or identify with such spiritual, existential anguish - not only because we are not without sin, as Christ was, but because we don't have as intimate a relationship with God as Jesus did. Through Jesus' death and resurrection, we are invited to have such a relationship, to live in such intimacy with God, but how many of us really take advantage of the gift we've been given? Can we ever really imagine the agony of the spiritual darkness in which Jesus found Himself as He endured our punishment? For me, the closest I can get is my own outrage over the pathetic story of Dorothy Dixon, the outrage we feel whenever young children or the mentally handicapped or the elderly and senile are made to suffer. Certainly, we all bear the imprint of original sin, but these vulnerable members of society are still innocent - if not completely, as Christ was, then at least in a way the rest of us are not.

Secondly, I was reminded viscerally of our need for a Savior. Now, I know I need a Savior. I know it every time I snap at my children or my husband, or avoid a friend because I don't feel I have time to listen to her complaints, or do any of the countless other sinful things I do. But when we see pure evil being perpetrated against the helpless, our very souls cry out for justice - not only justice in the form of punishment for the perpetrators, but some way to make the world right. We see evil and suffering all around us, we read the history books, but we still scream in outrage that this is not right, that this should not stand. Maybe we can accept a friend's death from cancer, or the shooting of an honor student walking in the wrong place at the wrong time; maybe we find ourselves jaded and world-weary and expecting nothing better from life. But at some point, whether it's looking at the pile of children's shoes at the Holocaust Museum, or reading about Dorothy Dixon's death in Alton, our spirits say, "Enough is enough. It should not be this way." And then we start to try to fix it. But we aren't enough. And finally, in this time between, in this maddening epoch of "already" but "not yet," we cry out with the words of Revelation: "Even so, Lord Jesus, quickly come."

He has come. He came on Easter morning when His followers had despaired and could no longer tolerate the world's cruelty. He will come again.

- KPE

What do bioethics and global warming have in common?

2008-03-19T22:49:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately for your curiosity, I'm not posting an answer here. That's just the teaser to persuade you to check out a very insightful post on my friend Patrick Deneen's blog:

What I Saw in America: Dignity

It's actually a transcript of some remarks he gave at a panel on "Human Dignity and Bioethics." In the remarks, he confronts those who believe religion is making war against science (particularly, in this case, biomedical advances) and that religion has no right to wave the caution flag of "human dignity" when such advances promise to alleviate human suffering. Heaven knows this topic has received so many treatments it seems impossible that anyone could say anything new. But Prof. Deneen's insights are, in fact, fresh and challenging. I really urge you to take a look at this; let me know what you think!

- KPE

Neighborhood libraries... and neighborhood schools

2008-02-28T20:37:00.002-05:00

I haven't been blogging much recently, but for better or worse my name has popped up in a few other media contexts. As one acquaintance put it (and I'm not sure it was entirely a compliment), "You're turning into quite the little activist." Well, not exactly. But I've turned up at a couple of meetings and tried to get more involved in local politics here in Springfield. After all, I give a great deal of lip service to the importance of politics at the state, and especially the local, levels - and yet I blog almost exclusively on the big national controversies. Certainly issues like the Iraq War, global warming, abortion, and the like do have very practical consequences in our own neighborhoods and even homes. But while we wrangle over these, often foregoing specifics in favor of high-sounding rhetoric, we tend to overlook questions like how funding for public schools is being used, what kind of trash service we get, which neighborhoods' sidewalks are maintained, and so on - until they suddenly result in negative consequences for ourselves or our children or our neighbors.

One such question that came to light here in Springfield last week was whether to close the two branch libraries we have here in town. There is a large main library downtown that has just undergone fairly major renovations (and is slated to receive some more in the near future) and is quite nice (except for a few drawbacks I'll mention in a moment). The branch libraries are considerably smaller, have many fewer books, and haven't received any significant renovations recently, to my knowledge. Previously, Springfield had a third branch library (on the north side), but it was closed indefinitely a few years ago on account of mold. Last Friday, the City Council met to hash out the budget for next year, and it became known that one alderman would recommend closing the two branches and putting the money saved into additional improvements to the main library, a bookmobile to replace the branches, and a current crunch the city is experiencing with regard to police officers' and firefighters' pensions. The report of this recommendation in the State Journal-Register elicited an explosion of responses on the online comment board - quite a few in defense of the branches, some in defense of Ald. Mahoney's proposal, and a significant minority in favor of closing the public libraries altogether.

The end result was that Ald. Mahoney's proposal was defeated, we still have our branch libraries, and we raised the hotel tax to pay for things. But arguments over the library system here (and in many other local communities) are far from finished, so I thought I'd chime in on behalf of the neighborhood library. One of the branches is just blocks from my house, and the children and I frequent it, as we're even able to walk back and forth in good weather. Its selection of books and videos is poor, it's small and cramped, and there are few computers and other resources. But thanks to a good online request system (and interlibrary loans), you can get pretty much whatever you want delivered to the branch library if you're willing to wait a couple of days to pick it up. And the coziness is a plus when you have young children; it's almost impossible to lose them in a children's reading area roughly two-thirds the size of my living room. The main library, by contrast, is big, busy, and labyrinthine. It would be frighteningly easy to lose a toddler there. Even if you don't live within walking distance of a branch library, they're still closer than the downtown one for many people - resulting in saved time, money, gas, and exhaust fumes. Like most cities these days, Springfield is expanding ever outward, with more and more residents living fairly far from the center of town.

Some of the same arguments hold true for another, even more sensitive issue - one Springfield also happens to be confronting at this time. The phrase "neighborhood library" doesn't raise many hackles. "Neighborhood school" certainly does. In the decades following Brown v. Board, a commitment to neighborhood schools has too often been code for a commitment to segregation. The logic is simple: blacks live in black neighborhoods, whites live in white neighborhoods, so if we suddenly assume an avid interest in keeping our children nearby, in supposedly cozy and nurturing "neighborhood schools," then we can further prolong segregation without resorting to blatantly racist argumentation.

The inconvenient truth, though, is that like so many institutions defended for ugly reasons (such as states' rights), the neighborhood school has much to recommend it, for children of all races. Most obviously, small, neighborhood schools cut down on travel times and costs. Busing was abandoned in many communities as a tool for integration not just because of lingering racist attitudes, but because children's grades and behavior suffer when they are made to sit on buses or in cars for long periods of time every day. With the high price of gas and newly-realized environmental concerns, the costs of unnecessarily ferrying large numbers of children all around town become even higher. Attending a school located near your home, although with other children who also live in your neighborhood, facilitates trust and friendships, if only because it's easier to arrange social contacts outside of school. It's easier for parents to get involved in schools when they live nearby. Inasmuch as in many cities and towns racial minorities tend to be poorer, more likely to use public transportation, and more likely to work more than one job (or, in a two-parent family, to need both parents earning incomes), these effects are probably starker, if anything, for minority families and their students.

What the two issues have most in common is the higher-than-ever cost (both financial and environmental) of transportation. Currently, Springfield's school board is considering a facilities plan that would retire one of the city's three high schools, an older building more or less centrally located on the west end of downtown, and build (at an estimated cost of $57 million) a new high school on the far west side, where the highest population growth (at least according to 2000 census numbers) is taking place. It's a real dilemma, because of course for those who live in far west side neighborhoods, the new high school would in fact be a neighborhood school. But it would be a neighborhood school with a large number of in-town "interlopers," or at least that may be the perception. And no matter how explosive the growth on the far west side (and that's a matter of some dispute), the fact remains that the new high school will be located near the boundary of the district; it will not be a central location.

It's a great irony that even as globalization continues apace and our world is more connected than ever, the rising costs of travel and the increasing deterioration of the natural environment are making local solutions (to food production, schooling, services, social networking, trash disposal, and a whole host of other areas) more attractive than ever. "Glocalization" has become a buzzword of sorts because the localizing tendency is not a reaction against globalization so much as a trend advancing parallel to it and largely in concert with it. We can have both Wikipedia and dusty old books at a branch library. We can have both Facebook and good friends next door. What we increasingly can't afford is driving (or riding) intermediate distances for goods and services.

Unfortunately, the racial implications of neighborhood schools haven't gone away, as neighborhoods in many places are still almost as segregated as they were in the 1950s and 1960s. The key, in my opinion, is not to build huge, consolidated schools that bring children of different backgrounds together in highly stressful and often artificial settings, but rather to maintain multiple neighborhood schools while redrawing district and sub-district boundaries. Ultimately, the lines mandating where children attend public school can even begin to redefine the unofficial, perceived boundaries of neighborhoods - or at least that's my hope. The largely failed busing experiment has taught us that it's hard to feel pride in vast, overcrowded schools located across town. But a smaller, nearby school may slowly begin to instill and embody that pride, even if populated by half the students from Neighborhood A and half the students from adjoining Neighborhood B. With so many other arguments in favor of neighborhood schools (and other institutions) the moment has never been more right.

- KPE

The Warrior and the Preacher

2008-02-15T11:10:00.002-05:00

Personal disclaimer: Prof. Peter Lawler is a man I consider a friend. We met in 2001 at a conference for junior fellows of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, back when I was still trying to be a conservative (or at least call myself one.) A group of bright, curious faculty and undergrads went to Oxford for a week to talk about "Shakespeare and Politics" - and drink and debate in the wonderful old pubs in that town. (Do keep in mind that the drinking age in Great Britain is 18. My political career isn't ruined quite yet.) In many ways, I look back on that week as an idyllic time, both because it occurred about a month before 9/11, but also because most of the men and women who served as our instructors and interlocutors were intelligent enough not to insist on labels and litmus tests, and so we were able to talk very freely. I miss that.

In any case, I came across Prof. Lawler again today, in the form of an article he wrote for the Ashbrook Center at Ashland University, where he is an adjunct fellow. The link was on one of my favorite blogs, "What I Saw in America," penned by my thesis advisor (and another ISI faculty fellow from that Oxford conference), Patrick Deneen. (http://patrickdeneen.blogspot.com) He provides a thoughtful dissection of the major strands of conservatism active in today's Republican Party (foreign policy conservatism, limited government or fiscal conservatism, and social conservatism) and seeks to explain why candidates whose messages were primarily of the fiscal conservative sort (Thompson, Romney, and Giuliani) fell short this campaign season as voters favored the "Warrior" (John McCain) and the "Preacher" (Mike Huckabee). Lawler's theory is that the situation and society in which we Americans (rich as well as poor) now find ourselves is one in which we crave the priorities and assurances of the warrior and the preacher more than those of the businessman or economist.

It's a fascinating and thoughtful article, one that will probably be completely overlooked in this election season in favor of fear-mongering, race and gender baiting, ad hominem attacks, and all the other standard fare. Which is exactly why I want to call attention to it here.

http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/oped/lawler/08/warrior.html

- KPE

Something interesting from the Virginia exit polls

2008-02-12T19:19:00.000-05:00

It's too early to say very much about the day's primaries, but I thought there was a very interesting statistic in the CNN exit poll for Virginia (page 3 of 6):

Of the 5% polled who self-identified as Latinos, Obama took 55% to Clinton's 45%. For a constituency that the media has been trumpeting for months as locked up by the Clintons, that's a pretty good showing.

We'll be watching as the results come in from the other two of tonight's primaries...

- KPE

Interesting video: Bill Clinton on "experience"

2008-02-12T12:58:00.001-05:00

I found this video clip, posted by someone on YouTube about 6 months ago, interesting because of what Bill Clinton has to say about "experience," including referencing a book his wife Hillary Clinton gave him. Among other things, the former president, running for office in 1992, said that "experience is important, but it's not everything" to the charge that he was not experienced enough to be president. The rest of the clip sounds like something Sen. Obama could say now, virtually word for word. What a difference 16 years makes...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMlrSG1xb5k&feature=related

- KPE

Saturday night update

2008-02-09T22:21:00.000-05:00

It's a clean sweep... for Obama. (And possibly for Huckabee; stay tuned to close races in Louisiana and Washington.)

What does all this post-Super-Tuesday activity mean for the two parties? Particularly when tonight's winners were Super Tuesday's supposed losers? The difference in the tone of the races is clear. The Democratic contest is historic (either a black man or a woman will move on to the general), fairly substantive, and remarkably clean. Exit poll numbers show that high percentages of registered Democrats in most states would be satisfied if the nominee turned out to be a candidate for whom they didn't vote. The Republican race for the nomination has been ugly (especially when Romney was still in the running), heavy on squabbling, and divisive. Social conservatives and fiscal conservatives aren't happy with McCain. Fiscal conservatives are, if anything, even less happy with Huckabee. And foreign policy conservatives are already pulling out the stops to strike fear in the hearts of Republicans that if they don't rally around McCain, unify the party, and stop Clinton or Obama, the terrorists will smell weakness and strike again. McCain finds himself doing a veritable hokey-pokey ("you put your right foot in, you put your right foot out," etc.) trying to woo fiscal conservatives, placate social conservatives, and not alienate the independents and moderates who have long been his strongest supporters. I don't envy him.

So what's a Democrat to do? Look over at the Republican infighting and smirk? Hardly. It will still be a hard-fought general election, and there will be especially tough questions posed by the American people about staying in or getting out of Iraq, and how to do either responsibly. If the Democrats are going to beat McCain, they're going to have to unite quickly behind a nominee and marshal their resources for the campaign ahead.

Which, I'm increasingly convinced, means the smart thing for Hillary Clinton to do is end her campaign now. Obama swept tonight's states, and he expects to do very well in the "Potomac primaries" taking place Tuesday in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC. The first major contests in which Sen. Clinton is really putting up a fight will take place in early March (Texas and Ohio). That may be too long for money from Democratic donors to be poured down the primary drain. Sure, Huckabee is still fighting McCain and vows to do so until the convention. But chances are, McCain will soon secure enough delegates to put him over the top, and in effect the GOP can start working on gluing the party back together and going after the Democrats.

Why should Sen. Clinton step down, and not Sen. Obama? Certainly she is qualified enough to be president, and in many ways, it certainly is her turn. But Sen. Obama has momentum and has generated a degree of excitement not seen for many elections cycles - not just among Democrats, but among independents, lifelong Republicans, and first-time voters. The Democratic Party needs his magnetic pull. Clinton would do a fine job of uniting life-long Democrats, getting the base of the party firmly behind her run. But Obama will ensure that most of his unconventional primary-winning coalition sticks around for the primary. If Clinton finally defeats Obama after a long, hard nomination fight stretching into March or April, many of these newcomers to Democratic politics may well drift over to McCain or once again lose interest in the political process.

I propose, then, that Sen. Clinton do the stateswoman-like thing, for the good of her beloved party, and concede the nomination before it's too late.

- KPE

"The Cult of Obama"; Dobson endorses Huckabee

2008-02-08T10:24:00.000-05:00

Apparently some reporters have started to notice what many ordinary horserace-trackers already have sensed - that there are some Obama supporters who have elevated their candidate to almost messianic heights. For instance, see on ABC: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/02/and-obama-wept.html

According to the above article, some Obama staffers are referring to supporters "coming to Obama," as if they were converting to a religion, and some Obama fans use Biblical language or identify him as a prophet of some sort.

I wish this weren't necessary, but since there have been a few articles and op-eds saying basically the same thing in the past weeks, I feel the need to respond, especially as an evangelical Christian who voted and volunteered for Sen. Obama. I, of course, don't think Sen. Obama is any sort of Messiah. We Christians should be absolutely clear that our allegiance to God and His Christ comes first - before loyalty to our nation, and certainly before loyalty to any politician. I also wouldn't call him a prophet, since I believe that Jesus was the culmination and fulfillment of the series of prophets appearing in the Old Testament (plus John the Baptist). He may speak prophetically or have the gift of prophecy, although I don't feel at all up to the task of identifying the spiritual gifts of someone I've never met.

In any case, I'm concerned that we stick to the issues and talk about what an Obama administration would do for our country - rather than gushing over the Senator's magnetic personality or sparkling rhetoric. I do believe his ability to inspire by his words is valuable, but it's not everything.

I'm on an e-mail list called Evangelicals for Obama, and I've been impressed and refreshed by the single-minded faith of most of those who are active on the list - faith not in Obama, but in God. These are individuals who truly want what's best for our country and are willing to tell hard truths. They are excited about their chosen candidate, but for the most part not giddy and not blind to his shortcomings. Many have wrestled long and hard with the conundrum posed by Obama's pro-choice positions. Before the Nevada caucuses, some members of the list sought volunteers for a 24-hour prayer vigil. One woman specified that participants didn't necessarily have to be Obama supporters, as long as they were willing to pray openly for the will of God to be done. Now that's an attitude I don't see much in presidential politics!

All that said, I think (or at least I hope) that the "cult of Obama" is an isolated problem, and not one that defines the campaign as a whole. We needs real solutions - not a cult of personality and vague platitudes. This morning, someone on the Evangelicals for Obama list sent around several links to articles about cult-like behavior and language among Obama supporters, asking how we should respond to such observations. So, this is my response, and I hope others pass it along and get the word out that most evangelical Obama supporters are not held in the thrall of a human politician, but are still loyal to our Heavenly King.

On another note of interest to evangelicals following this campaign, James Dobson of Focus on the Family is reportedly poised to endorse Mike Huckabee, who along with Ron Paul remains in the race to challenge John McCain, as the Republican nominee. This news comes a few days after Dr. Dobson publicly stated that he would never vote for Sen. McCain. I'm not sure how relevant Dobson's endorsement will be; McCain's lead in the delegate count is almost insurmountable, and young evangelicals are increasingly turning to newer leaders for guidance (or ignoring "movement leaders" entirely). I can't help but view the endorsement as a positive step, though. It demonstrates the willingness of an influential member of the evangelical "old guard" to call a halt to the conservative Christian love affair with the fiscal conservative wing of the Republican party, preferring to endorse a governor whose policies while in office were more progressive than the Republican norm, rather than risk getting behind a candidate whose commitment to "family values" has been less than flawless, and who has a history of thinly veiled disdain for evangelicals. It shows a determination not to be a doormat for whatever the Republican Party dishes out this cycle.

There will be criticism that Dr. Dobson is willing to destroy the party on account of a few things McCain said long ago. But his endorsement won't destroy the party. Most likely John McCain will win the nomination and face the Democratic nominee in November with much of his party behind him - if reluctantly. What's important is that Dr. Dobson's remarks may cause some evangelicals to rethink the price of supporting political parties wholesale.

- KPE

Endorsement

2008-02-03T16:55:00.000-05:00

I'm sure this is coming as no surprise to those of you who've been reading my blog over the last few months (the last year, really), but I am endorsing Sen. Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee. (Since I no longer consider myself a Republican, I'm not doing a Republican endorsement, although I'll have a few words to say on the GOP race at the end of this post.) However, I've never systematically laid out a case for why I support Sen. Obama, and enough of you have asked questions about my choice, both in person and by e-mail, that I feel I should say something a little more to the point. Here are my primary reasons for voting for Barack Obama:

1. Health care. We support universal health care, not only because we believe it's the right thing to do, but because it's the smart thing to do. Make health insurance truly affordable and available to everyone, and we'll see a lot more preventive care, a lot less unnecessary emergency room use, and eventually lower costs. The primary difference between the Clinton and Obama plans is that, while both mandate that children have coverage, the Obama plan does not mandate coverage for all adults. Rather, it seeks to make coverage so affordable that no one (or very few people) would be tempted to forgo health insurance. Sen. Clinton has pointed out that this system retains the possibility that people will game the system, using emergency rooms for routine care and/or failing to purchase coverage until the state has been forced to eat their medical costs. I agree with Sen. Obama that, while this is possible, it's unlikely. There may be a few grouches out there who don't want health insurance on principle, or because they're macho, or whatever, but for the most part, people who play Russian roulette by failing to purchase adequate health insurance do so because of its cost. A trip to the ER, for whatever reason, is not pleasant or fun, and it's hard to believe anyone would choose, with price no object, this means of receiving care.
The other factor in deciding on a health care plan is one I discussed at length in an earlier post - Sen. Clinton's insistence that Democrats have to start with mandates in order to end up with a satisfactorily universal compromise once the Congressional dealing is done. Look a couple of posts up for my take on that assertion.

2. Iraq. I'm cautiously optimistic that either major Democratic candidate would do a responsible job of getting our troops out of Iraq without undue regional destabilization. And I don't assign a great deal of priority to Obama's mantra that he was always against the war, whereas Clinton initially voted for it. So many of us were confused about the evidence leading to war; I can't exactly blame Sen. Clinton for that one, even though she did have access to more information than you or I did. I'm even less thrilled with the comparison because Sen. Obama wasn't even in a position to vote on the war at that time. That said, Sen. Obama has a stellar team of foreign policy advisors, and he is also just the kind of fresh face we need to get our allies and potential allies firmly in our corner once again. He's expressed a willingness to meet with the leaders of Iran, North Korea, and other hostile countries - not to condone their actions, but to open vital lines of communication. He also cares deeply about conflicts and crises in Africa, a chronically ignored region in our Middle-East-centric foreign policy. Perhaps he can finally restore our perceived status from bullying, swaggering hegemon to a force for good, able to protect our own interests but also eager to partner with others to work for a more just world.

3. Leadership, "change," etc. Most of my reasons for voting for Sen. Obama come down to this rather elusive category. America has become so polarized politically that we are unable to get much done on the national level (and the rancor has trickled down to lower levels of government as well.) With a notoriously stubborn Republican administration in the White House and a hubristic newly-Democratic Congress in the Capitol, real advances in legislation have taken a backseat to partisan grand-standing like never before (at least not in my memory.) Americans, especially young people, are becoming dangerously cynical and apathetic about politics. The 2008 race so far has represented a bright spot, mobilizing a high number of newly eligible voters, newly registered voters, and voters who haven't seen voting as particularly effective in a while. Most of these newly energized, newly mobilized people are supporting Obama. That should be enough to make us at least sit up and take notice.

Hillary Clinton has criticized the Obama campaign for its reliance on inspirational rhetoric rather than a history of proven results. Famously, she likened the office of President to being both CEO and COO of America's biggest, most complex corporation - thereby putting down Sen. Obama's strengths as a motivator, a statesman, an energizer. I wonder, though, if what our country (and world) needs right now is, in fact, more a motivational speaker than a Head Paper-Pusher. We have many federal employees, and each candidate already has many highly capable advisors lined up. The President simply does not have time to micro-manage, or have her hands in dozens of complex situations at once. It's not humanly possible, and it's not desirable. The job of the President should be to set the tone for the administration, to inspire courage, sacrifice, compromise, and creative thinking. It's to bring parties to the table and encourage them to work together for the good of the nation. Obama has articulated better ideas for doing this than anyone else in the race.

Whether or not it's her fault (mostly not, I'm inclined to believe), Hillary Clinton is a very polarizing figure. Obviously, she is associated with the Clinton administration, which, despite many successes, failed to win even the grudging respect of most Republicans and alienated most Christian conservatives entirely. Considering that Bill Clinton was on most issues a centrist Democrat, far more conservative politically than his wife, that's quite a failure. Barack Obama does not lack detractors, and there will continue to be those who insist that his middle name and his family heritage mean he's a radical Muslim in disguise. But again, he's a relatively new face on the scene, and he doesn't come with Sen. Clinton's considerable baggage: Whitewater, Travelgate, Vince Foster, the failed Clinton health care plan, the alleged cover-up of Pres. Clinton's sexual activities, and, in short, everything the Clinton White House ever did in eight years of power. Sen. Obama's past is not free of unsavory ties (although I'm convinced that his friendship with Tony Rezko really didn't involve any major wrongdoing on Obama's part.) But in politics, where perceptions are everything, having a president not weighed down "from day one" with a long history of alleged corruption and partisan squabbles may well prove an invaluable asset for our country.

4. Attitude toward evangelicals. Barack Obama doesn't call himself an evangelical (he does call himself a committed Christian), but then again, neither do any of the remaining candidates on either side, with the exception of Mike Huckabee. But his campaign has done much to reach out to evangelicals, both black and white, and to assure them that while he intends to govern in a way that includes Americans of all faiths, he is not interested in launching a witch-hunt against those who hold exclusivist Christian views and bring their faith into the public square. Sen. Clinton has also talked about her faith to some extent and has appeared in churches, mostly African-American ones. But her campaign has been less open to evangelicals and a little more wary of embracing people of faith. For instance, both Sen. Obama and Sen. Clinton have aggressively courted Latino voters, and Sen. Clinton has generally emerged with the edge in that demographic. Yet, when noted Latino evangelical leader Rev. Samuel Rodriguez approached both candidates about holding a round-table with Latino Protestant clergy, only Obama responded to his phone call. (Latino Protestants make up about a third of America's Latino population.) Sen. Obama has a very active Evangelicals for Obama group on his website, and let me tell you, these are committed evangelicals, who pray regularly, wrestle with issues like abortion and the war and seek to be pro-life across the board, and seek to be on God's side, rather than insisting that God is on their side and on the side of their chosen candidate. There's a conference call every Friday morning to pray for Sen. Obama and the Obama campaign, and the Evangelicals for Obama group organized prayer vigils before the major primary contests - again, making it clear that we ought to pray that God's choice would prevail, not just that Obama prevail. Having heard a lot of religious/political rhetoric in my life, most of it leaning Republican, I'm pretty impressed by that. Sen. Obama has also been more favorable than other Democrats to the idea of expanding the stalled Bush faith-based initiatives program.

Sure, it could all be a gimmick. But the fact that Sen. Obama, whatever the eternal status of his soul, cares enough about wooing evangelicals to take these steps makes me think he'll be more willing than Democratic candidates of the recent past to actually work with evangelicals in his administration. We know from his community organizing experience, in which he spent much of his time partnering with churches, that Sen. Obama understands evangelical concerns and can talk the talk. And that's important, when you consider the potential for hurt and offense if (and I think this is very likely) the keys to the West Wing are handed over to the Democratic Party. We need a president who, at the very least, knows better than to label us as wackos, and who knows that he can and should work with us, not just to mollify us on abortion and gay rights, but to end poverty, figure out what to do with the illegal immigrants in our midst, and deal with other key social issues.

I want to end with a plea to Republicans. Consider the likelihood of a Republican win in November. Assuming there are no very major national or world upheavals in the next nine months, the numbers suggest that the Democrats will take control of the White House, whether their nominee is Sen. Clinton or Sen. Obama. Many, many Republicans I've talked to during this primary season are disappointed in their crop of candidates and feel defeatist about the whole process. If you live in an open primary state, or if you'd be willing to switch party affiliation for one election, I encourage you to cross the aisle and vote for Obama. After all, the Republican race is not as close at this point, and so your vote will count more in the other party's primary. I'm not a Hillary-basher, but I do firmly believe that our country does not need four more years of polarizing politics, partisan bickering, the continuation of yet another political dynasty, and nasty "blasts from the past." A vote for Obama is a vote against the corruption of the Clinton years and in favor of a Democrat with whom I believe we can actually work to craft acceptable legislation for our country. It's also, I believe, a vote for evangelical involvement in politics over the next four years, rather than bitter, grumbling exile.

Thank you sincerely for reading this far. I hope this answers the questions many of you have had about my political positions and why I'm an Obama fan. By the way, I left abortion out of this issue list, not because I don't think it's important (I hope you know by now just how important I think it is), but because I've talked about abortion (and why I'm a pro-life Democrat) on this blog before and figured it would be redundant. Let me know, though, if you have questions about why I'm a pro-life Democrat or can't find my earlier posts on the subject.

And regardless of whether you find the above convincing or completely batty, please do get out there and vote tomorrow!

- KPE

With Edwards gone, will anyone else say the "P-word"?

2008-01-30T11:08:00.000-05:00

Although I wasn't planning to vote for him on Tuesday anyway, I have to admit feeling a little glum that John Edwards has left the campaign trail. It's not just personal pity - that he now has to give up his dream (at least for the next four years) and go back to his wife's grim cancer diagnosis and no steady job. It's mostly that I actually liked much of what Edwards had to say - at least on domestic, economic policy. I didn't favor his candidacy because he just didn't seem to have enough of either experience or wisdom, especially on foreign policy, where both in '04 and '08 he came across looking like a yappy young pup compared to debate adversaries like Kerry, Cheney (in the disastrous '04 VP debate), Clinton, and yes, even "inexperienced" Obama. He seemed at the same time trial-lawyer-slick and boyish, disingenuous and naive.

But at least he was willing, especially in his final weeks as a candidate this time around, to say the "P-word." I'm talking about poverty. The poor. Poor people.

Serious candidates on both the Republican and Democratic sides talk a LOT about the middle class. Republicans don't want to talk much about their tax cuts for the wealthy, so it's all about the vast, ill-defined "middle class." Democrats don't want to appear pro-welfare or talk much about how much their programs are going to cost, so they, too, appeal to the "middle class." "Middle class" has become almost a euphemism - for whatever you don't want to say. My guess is that most people (especially those who probably should be termed upper class) identify themselves as just part of that muddy middle - working hard, not on the verge of homelessness, but nevertheless engaging in a daily struggle to get by.

Edwards challenged the Democratic wisdom that it's okay to help the poor once you're in office, but please don't talk about them on the campaign trail. He spoke most eloquently when he was telling the stories of those who aren't struggling to get by - they're not getting by at all.

It's an unpopular subject. Most of us aren't poor, and the poor don't usually vote at the same rate as those who are better off economically. Moreover, in this country, where poverty admittedly is not as grinding and deadly as in much of the rest of the world, saying the "P-word" often conjures up images (even for Democrats) of "welfare queens," gang members, and lazy people camped out in front of the TV, preferring to live on the government dole rather than find a job. The prevalence of these categories is, I firmly believe, quite often overrated, by members of both parties. And there are ways (admittedly imperfect) that government can separate the working or willing-to-work poor from those who would take advantage of the taxpayers. Yet candidates continue to fear these images and stick doggedly to their script about the middle class, whoever they are. I actually remember a debate (I think during this cycle but I can't be so sure; we've been watching the debates for so long...) in which the moderator asked the candidates (I think Republicans, in this case) to define, by range of household income, "the middle class." There was a good deal of hemming and hawing and making of excuses, and when some of the candidates finally got down to numbers, the variance was comical. Politically, the "middle class" is not a socioeconomic category at all, but a symbol of good, decent, hardworking American voters, whoever they may be.

I had to admire Edwards for at least challenging the conventional wisdom, and so for that reason I'm sorry he's out. I'm sorry we don't get to listen to any more of his supposedly "angry" speeches against the "corporate fat-cats" and the insurance companies. Maybe he wasn't all that nuanced, and I don't think he had the best ideas for dealing with the problems he named. But at least he named them.

I'm hoping the other candidates (if only in a crass attempt to win over his supporters) will start saying some of the things they've been afraid to say while he was in the race. Watch the California debate on Thursday and see. And listen for the "P-word."

- KPE

Obama and momentum

2008-01-28T15:57:00.000-05:00

I have to say, I'm pretty dang pleased that Barack Obama (my candidate - for now; I always have to add that caveat) won my home state of South Carolina, and by a huge margin. (This appears to have happened without the help of much of my family, who just may have cast their votes otherwise to spite me for bugging them so often with my blog posts about Obama. Just kidding, guys.)

Now the question for the pundits and the campaigns remains: how much momentum did Sen. Obama pick up with his big win, and will it be enough?

I'm not going to try to answer that question, because even the best pollsters and prophets have been wrong at many points along this twisted campaign trail. But I have a few data points from the South Carolina vote that might prove enlightening.

First, Sen. Obama defeated Sen. Clinton by 28 points, whereas polls taken the week before the primary showed him only 10 to 20 points ahead. This was not only a big win; it was an unexpectedly big win. Secondly, Obama out-ran Clinton among most demographic groups (one exception that will likely be significant in Florida - older voters.) His 80% support rate among black voters has been duly noted, but he also won the youngest demographic (voters 18-29) hands down - by about 42 percentage points. Interestingly enough, it was not Sen. Clinton who won most of the age categories of non-black voters, but Edwards, and Obama securely won over non-black voters in the 18-29 age range. Obama's performance among men and women was virtually identical, and Sen. Clinton did only 7 points better among women than among men. I would argue that these numbers show he can compete across a wide demographic spectrum in a variety of states.

The black vote, while more important in South Carolina than almost any other state, was a powerful indicator. In 1992 and 1996, Bill Clinton was extremely successful in attracting the support of black community leaders and their "constituencies." Sen. Clinton went into the race hoping to use these long-standing relationships to her advantage. While some black leaders (pastors, activists, and politicians) did jump ship and endorse Obama, most stuck with the Clintons. However, black voters did not. Especially in the younger age group, black voters deserted Clinton in droves, choosing to reject the endorsements of many supposed leaders in the black community. Iowa proved whites would vote for a black man, and South Carolina proved that blacks would vote for a black man with bold, new ideas, even when he wasn't the establishment choice of the usual black Democratic voices.

Which leads me to my next point: what Obama stands for in the minds of his supporters. A glimpse into this was provided by some particularly interesting exit poll questions asked in South Carolina. One asked which candidate was most likely to beat the Republican nominee in November. Of those voters who said that candidate was Sen. Obama, predictably, most (88%) voted for Obama, and only 4% voted for Clinton. However, of those who said Sen. Clinton was most likely to defeat a Republican in November, only 68% voted for Sen. Clinton, while 21% voted for Sen. Obama. Similarly, voters were asked on exiting which candidate was most qualified to be commander-in-chief. Ninety-four percent of those who said Obama in fact voted for Obama - pretty predictable. But 20% of those who named Clinton most qualified did not vote for her; they voted for Obama. One final question of this sort: how satisfied would you be if Clinton were the nominee, and how satisfied if Obama were the nominee? Of those who said they'd be very satisfied with Clinton as the Democratic nominee, 29% nevertheless voted for Obama. Of those who said they'd be very satisfied with Obama, only 12% cast a vote for Clinton.

These are some pretty strange results, and I'm sure there are multiple interpretations. Mine is this: Obama is not just a candidate, but a symbol of all the things he's spoken about during this campaign - change, hope, bipartisanship, working together, integrity, eliminating negativity from politics, and so on. In other words, people who don't think Obama can beat a Republican, who don't think he's the best qualified candidate, and who would be satisfied with Clinton as the nominee are nevertheless still voting for Obama in fairly large numbers - perhaps because they want to use their votes to make a statement about how they want politics to change. Maybe they want to send a message to Clinton, that if she is the nominee, she needs to change the way she does things, campaign positively, be open about accusations of past unethical behavior in her husband's administration, and buck the Democratic establishment a little more often. I think this bodes well for Obama in subsequent primaries, because it says that whatever feeling of inevitability still attaches itself to Hillary Clinton may not help her as much as she would like, because many voters who see her nomination as very likely (and perhaps even desirable) are still voting for her main opponent in hopes of sending a message to her campaign.

Finally, there's the evangelical factor. I don't have the numbers in front of me (they're on Jonathan's computer), but Jonathan has been tinkering with some exit poll numbers from South Carolina in an attempt to figure out how evangelicals voted. Figuring out which voters (and how many) are evangelical Christians is notoriously difficult because of different people's (and different region's) differing definitions of the term. One useful proxy, though, is frequency of church attendance. Using the portion of voters who said they attended church once a week or more, Jonathan found that (if those numbers are reliable) Sen. Obama actually garnered the votes of more evangelicals in South Carolina than any other candidate, in either primary. It appears, in other words, that he secured more evangelical votes than even Huckabee - a Baptist pastor - and certainly more than McCain or Clinton. It remains to be seen if this success will be a factor in upcoming contests, but I still think it's an interesting statistic. (If you're interested in Jonathan's numbers or how he came up with the above result, e-mail me or leave a comment, and he'll probably be willing to get in touch with you about it.)

- KPE

Two different styles of getting it done

2008-01-22T23:03:00.000-05:00

Monday night's Democratic debate, held in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, I thought was one of the better ones this season. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that CNN's questioners were a little less pushy, sensational, and self-promoting than debate hosts typically have been this season. Perhaps it was the fact that there were only three candidates on stage (Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich being excluded from the debate due to low numbers in previous primary contests, and all other major candidates having conceded), so each had more time to give in-depth answers to policy questions. There were not the same frenetic pace and constant interruptions of everyone by everyone, as we saw in earlier eight- or nine-person debates. Or perhaps we have ourselves a pretty good crop of candidates this time around, who have some serious and provocative things to say about the issues.

If the latter is true, then we as the voters are trying to see beyond even the issues at this point (since the three leading Democrats share much in common on health care, Iraq, immigration, and other biggies), trying to catch some glimmer of how successful they might actually be in implementing their agendas.

I think we got a good glimpse into their leadership styles on Monday night, as Edwards, Obama, and Clinton wrangled over each other's health care plans. There are some differences among the largely similar (i.e., universally affordable but not single-payer) plans - most notably that the Clinton and Edwards plans would mandate coverage for every legal resident, both adults and children, whereas Obama's program would mandate coverage only for children. It would make health insurance much more affordable for all adults, so that hopefully no one would feel financial pressure to forego insurance, but it would not penalize adults who chose not to be insured, or automatically remove money from their paychecks to go toward health care.

There certainly are substantive arguments for and against mandating coverage, and the candidates got into them on Monday night, with Obama actually showing some of a conservative's squemishness with government forcing consenting adults to take care of themselves. But the squabble got really interesting when Sen. Clinton pointed out, "Well, first of all, if you don't start out trying to get universal health care, we know - and our members of Congress know - you'll never get there." Later, she reiterated the same pragmatic consideration: "When... you don't have any wiggle room left, you know that you're going to draw a lot of political heat."

Sen. Obama, to my frustration, never directly countered this "strategy," but then again, it's easy to come up with exactly what to say when you're not on stage, with everything on the line. What he did do was give sound, principled reasons for starting with his chosen plan, rather than in essence saying, "Let's start big, because we're going to have to compromise." He talked about working together to get things done - not just supporting universal health care because it's the Democratic thing to do. Sen. Clinton appears to be trying to win this primary by being a Democrat's Democrat. But Sen. Obama realizes two things: first, that many states have open primaries and so there are independents and even Republican voters up for grabs in the primaries, and second, that whoever wins the nomination can't afford to burn bridges. Bringing people together from both sides of the aisle isn't just a slogan; it's what's necessary to get things done after the politically turbulent, divisive Bush years. Democrats don't need to eke out a win in November; they need a landslide, and they need more seats in Congress if they're going to start checking off items on their agenda. And that's not going to happen if their future nominee isn't willing to woo Republicans and independents. Even Reagan, now the idol all Republican wanna-bes must bow to, had his fair share of "Reagan Democrats."

So, the debate gave us two mental pictures. One is Pres. Hillary Clinton, standing for a fairly liberal position virtually no Republican will endorse, dragged into a compromise that may well be to the right of Obama's current position - then, most likely, taking credit for the health care fix. The other pictures is of Pres. Barack Obama, working with a fair number of Republicans from the get-go, and quite possibly securing a health care overhaul more comprehensive than an eventual Clinton compromise. Everyone except the far right and the far left win, and can take credit for a good plan, whereas Clinton's legislative strategy seems destined to end in bitterness and finger-pointing.

We voters should ask ourselves not only what kind of health care reform we need, but what kind of politics our nation needs.

- KPE

New York Times: Waging war on vets or getting them help?

2008-01-18T15:41:00.000-05:00

Last week, when I found myself with several hours to kill in the Atlanta airport (and no kids with which to kill them, with a vengeance), I plunked down five bucks and bought a Sunday New York Times, figuring it was cheaper than buying a novel at the airport and would take just about as long to read. The cover story (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/us/13vets.html?em&ex=1200805200&en=add88fbcfd7397a0&ei=5070) was a detailed investigative report on the problem of violent crimes committed by veterans returning from Iraq - specifically, the 121 Iraq veterans who have been convicted of (or are standing trial for) capital offenses since returning from overseas duty. The story profiles some of these young men (only one woman was among the 121), their families, and their victims, as well as delving into the question of whether Iraq vets are getting adequate care for post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychological problems triggered by their combat experiences.

Now, the New York Post, as always eager to take shots at their larger, more liberal competitor, is crying foul. The latest Ralph Peters op-ed accuses the Times of trying to transform vets into "the new lepers" - men and women held in suspicion by society because of their service, unable to get jobs, make friends with the neighbors, and start families. Peters complains that no Times piece on the heroic deeds of servicemen and women has approached the length and in-depth reporting of this piece exploring their occasional psychosis. He points out the extremely small percentage of Iraq veterans this group of 121 represents, and that as a whole, veterans of our current war are less likely to commit violent crimes than the population at large. Why do this to our men and women in uniform, except as part of a far-left agenda to discredit military service as a career and take out liberal frustrations about the Iraq War on those who are fighting it.

Is his criticism valid? Sure, the Times could have run more stories in the past few years on the bravery and heroism (both on the battlefield and here at home) of our troops; that's probably a fair critique. But Sunday's article made mention, more than once, of the statistical anomaly of vets committing rape and murder; emphasized how small a number 121 is, in the grand scheme of things; and pointed out that many of the crimes were related to drunk driving, preexisting marital problems, preexisting mental illness, and other factors minimally connected to service in a war zone. Reading the article before reading the Post's critique, it struck me not as a sweeping statement that veterans are not to be trusted, but rather as an expose of the Pentagon's failure to adequately screen returning soldiers for PTSD and provide them with adequate mental health care, while also working to reduce the stigma associated with seeking psychiatric help while in the military. While it's true that veterans commit violent crimes at a lower rate than Americans on the whole, it's also true that returning servicepeople face challenges that are unique to them as they seek to reintegrate into society, find civilian jobs, marry or continue existing marriages, raise children, and the like. Often, substance abuse problems start in the military and/or reflect an attempt to self-medicate PTSD, sleep problems, and other conditions related to combat trauma. The relevant question the Times asked is not whether 121 is a big number or a small number, but whether some of these crimes could have been prevented.

On the other hand, I have to admit that turning veterans into lepers is a real concern. Already, it's too hard for our returning warriors to find good civilian jobs. And while this is not Vietnam, some anti-war Americans do view the troops themselves with suspicion. More importantly, after the Virginia Tech massacre, our nation is more wary than ever of the mentally ill. Colleges, in particular, are starting to look at applicants' mental health history (to the extent they are legally able to access it) and talk of rejecting otherwise qualified applicants whom they fear might "snap," in order to protect the safety of their supposedly saner students. Many commentators have pointed out what a slippery slope this is, the potential violations of privacy, and the danger that people with relatively mild psychiatric disorders may be more likely to turn violent if they perceive society has turned its back on them, than if they felt integrated and accepted. I agree. I'm sure that many people, reading the Times article, felt compassion for the victims, their families, and the veterans who simply couldn't adjust to civilian reality and got little or no help. But others may well have reacted with fear, and Peters may be right that this article's ultimate effect may be more doors slammed in veterans' faces.

So we're left with the question, what's worse: to brand veterans as potential psychotic killers and a big hiring risk, or to pretend everything's okay and thus fail to give appropriate help to those veterans who really need it. After all, the number of returning combat personnel suffering from PTSD is much larger than 121. The vast majority of combat-induced PTSD sufferers will never hurt or kill another person. But they are at increased risk for excessive drinking and other self-destructive behaviors, divorce and relationship problems, inability to hold a job, suicide, and homelessness. Just because they aren't killers doesn't mean they don't need and deserve help from a grateful nation. Treating the subject of PTSD-related violence as taboo certainly doesn't do our veterans any favors.

What's the solution? Maybe the Times should have done a piece on PTSD sufferers in general, and left the violent outliers out of it. But would that have had the effect of branding all veterans with mental problems as psychos? And would it have gotten anyone's attention?

Peters has a point. But he and most other conservatives are still too committed to the myth of all veterans as macho, heroic, perfectly well-adjusted citizens to push for the services we owe our troops in exchange for enduring the trauma we don't have to face.

- KPE