Daryl P. Domning, self-described comparative biologist, teaches anatomy at Howard University in Washington, D.C. With the late theologian Monica Hellwig he wrote Original Selfishness: Original Sin and Evil in the Light of Evolution. In the 9/28 edition of the National Catholic Reporter, Domning has an article, “Unfinished business: Evolution offers an explanation of original sin.” The full text is at
http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2007c/092807/092807o.php
In Domning's view, Darwin’s discoveries tell theology that it was metaphysically impossible for God to create “anything physical at all” apart from physical evil and an inherently selfish instinct to survive. Pursuing this understanding brings him very close to Whitehead’s description of God as “the great companion—the fellow-sufferer who understands.” Excerpts from the NCR article follow:
Physical evil (suffering and death) is in every case a result of something physically coming apart. Molecules, or larger bits of me, come apart in ways that hurt or kill me, whether by dismemberment of my body, burns, broken bones, toxic attack by disease organisms, or mutations of my DNA that cause cancer. All such changes are made possible by the simple “breakability” of all matter, right down to the subatomic level: Anything made of parts can come apart.
Not even God could create out of matter a universe in which this wasn’t true since that would involve a contradiction. As for moral evil (sin), it too will be unavoidable wherever intelligent creatures have free will -- especially ones evolved by Darwinian natural selection, which enforces self-centered behavior, hence, “original selfishness” or original “sin” as the price of survival.
We only exist thanks to the accidental copying errors in our ancestors’ genes that natural selection has preserved, just as we are inclined to sin by the genetically (as well as culturally) encoded selfishness that same selection has enforced. Moral evil has literally evolved out of physical “evil.”
The theological mistake we have made is thinking that God has a choice of whether to tolerate bad stuff in this good universe. But the Creator has no choice: The only alternative to making creatures that would suffer and sin was not to make anything physical at all. Only at the price of walking with us in our sufferings, even sharing them in person (and finally saving us from them in “new heavens and a new earth”), could God create such as us: beings freely capable of a personal relationship with their maker.
And more and more I … sympathize with the crises of faith that a fundamentalist approach to life’s ultimate questions needlessly inflicts on so many of my fellow Christians. The theological upgrade is now available, however, in a growing body of work by evolutionary theologians, and the unfinished business of installing it in all our churches should no longer be postponed.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Catholic University Dedicates One of Gay Architect's Last Designs
On September 25th Houston's University of St. Thomas commemorated the addition to its campus of another landmark design by the late world-renowned archtect Philip Johnson. The landmark is an entrance marker at the northeast corner of the campus, heralding the university as a gateway to Houston's highly regarded Museum District. Johnson completed the landmark's design before his death in 2005.Press releases by the university, speakers at the dedication and media coverage noted that Johnson had also designed the university's Chapel of St. Basil, as well as other Houston landmarks like the Rothko Chapel, Pennzoil Place, Transco Tower (now Williams Tower), and the home of the late arts patron and philanthropist Dominique de Menil. Other Johnson designs in Houston include the Republic Bank Center (now Bank of America Center) and the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture at the Universty of Houston.
Johnson designed numerous famous structures elsewhere. A partial list: his own Glass House in New Canaan, CT; the Seagram Building in New York City, as well the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center; the Boston Public Library; the John F. Kennedy Memorial Plaza in Dallas; the IDS Center in Minneapolis; the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, CA; Comerica Tower in Detroit; Puerto de Europa in Madrid; Das Amerikan Business Center in Berlin; Turning Point in Vienna.
What coverage of the new landmark did not point out is that Philip Johnson was a gay man, who lived with his partner David Whitney for 45 years. Johnson died January 25, 2005, at the age of 98. Whitney died June 12, 2005, at the age of 66. I do not know if Johnson's sexuality or long-term same-sex partnership had any impact on his work. But it is not insignificant that a Catholic University named after St. Thomas Aquinas would have much of its campus and two significant buildings designed by an architect widely known to be gay. At the very least, perhaps the university can teach the official church something about treating gay people with dignity and respect.
Below is an edited version of the university's press release announcing the dedication of the new landmark. The complete text is available at http://www.stthom.edu/Public/Index.asp?0=0&page_id=3618Source_URL=%2FOnline_Newsroom%2FIndex.aqf&Content_ID=7511
“The University of St. Thomas has been blessed with some of the earliest and the latest Philip Johnson designs,” said University President Dr. Robert R. Ivany. “During the middle 1950s, the late Houston arts patron Dominique de Menil brought a virtually unknown Johnson to Houston to design her own home, then to create what would become the Academic Mall here at the University. His influence on Texas, Houston and St. Thomas campus has been a lasting one.”
More than 50 years ago Philip Johnson drew plans for the new University of St. Thomas campus at the behest of philanthropist and art collector Mrs. Dominique de Menil. The first buildings on the Johnson-designed Academic Mall were completed in 1958. On the new Mall, the Jones Hall auditorium/lecture hall as well as the exhibition gallery became the heart of the cultural and artistic activities on campus. The last of the Mall buildings, Malloy Hall, was dedicated in 2001.
Johnson came out of retirement during the mid-1990s to design the Chapel of St. Basil, dedicated in 1997. Located at the north end of the Mall, the Chapel faces the Doherty Library at the south end, an architectural arrangement that represents dialogue between faith and reason. Thus, the architecture embodies the philosophy of UST’s patron, St. Thomas Aquinas. The Philip Johnson design, with classrooms opening onto a lush, green lawn, resembles Thomas Jefferson’s design of the University of Virginia.
Just as Johnson came out of retirement to design the Chapel of St. Basil, the architect also rendered a “landmark” design to herald the University as a gateway to the Houston Museum District.
The Johnson landmark consists of a granite-clad reinforced concrete structure with a studded cross attached at the same angle of repose as the cross in the west wall of the Chapel of St. Basil. The black granite monument, also called a stele, which stands about 36-feet tall and 14-feet wide, alludes to the black granite plane that bisects the campus Chapel. The white granite plaza around the landmark is made of the same material as the plaza in front of the Chapel. Additionally, the landmark has a 17- x 32-foot reflecting pool tiled with a blue glass tile. A water wall, standing 6-feet in height, is erected on the plaza’s west side. The water cascades behind a set of aluminum letters that spell out “University of St. Thomas.”
The site of the Philip Johnson work is named in memory of Edward P. White, a major University of St. Thomas benefactor.
"Make It Right" Plans 150 New Homes for New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward
The following article in New Orleans' Times-Picayune today is posted at http://blog.nola.com/times-picayune/2007/09/lower_9th_ward_project_to_buil.html
Lower 9th Ward project to build 150 homes
By Michelle Krupa Staff writer
In a novel and ambitious effort to return New Orleans homeowners to their own neighborhood, an international consortium of architects led by film star Brad Pitt announced plans Wednesday to develop at least 150 storm-safe, environmentally sound houses in the section of the Lower 9th Ward reduced to rubble by a massive levee breach.
Working lot by lot instead of amassing huge development tracts, the project, dubbed Make It Right, will take applications from homeowners who want to rebuild their own properties with model homes now being designed, said Virginia Miller, a New Orleans spokeswoman for the project.
"Make It Right isn't buying big parcels of land," she said. "We don't have an interest in being a developer. We have an interest in building houses for people."
Unlike other plans, including recovery director Ed Blakely's $1.1 billion blueprint to rebuild the city starting in 17 target zones, Make It Right is not designed around a traditional commercial center, nor does it aim to expand an area already beginning to thrive.
Instead, it focuses squarely on a neighborhood that has become an icon of New Orleans' destruction: the blocks just east of where a powerful storm surge crashed through the Industrial Canal floodwall during Hurricane Katrina, obliterating dozens of homes and reducing hundreds more to piles of splintered rubbish.
Miller said the project area will extend across the 11 blocks between North Claiborne Avenue and the Florida Avenue Canal, and several blocks to the east, though precisely how far is in flux.
With the average home expected to cost between $100,000 and $174,000, planners anticipate most homeowners will be able to contribute some cash for construction but that most will fall about $70,000 short of paying off their new homes, according to a program dossier.
As a result, Make It Right plans to offer forgivable gap loans of as much as $100,000, with the caveat that applicants must have owned a home or lot in the Lower 9th Ward before Katrina. No homeowners who participate in the program will pay more than 30 percent of their gross monthly income on house payments, documents show.
Homeowners will be expected to contribute money from insurance proceeds, savings and Road Home grants, and to investigate their options in the traditional mortgage market. But Miller said a large loan reserve will be available, financed largely by contributions of $5 million each from Pitt and Steve Bing, a film producer and philanthropist who inherited his family's real estate fortune.
In an effort to bolster that initial investment, Pitt went to New York on Wednesday to solicit donations at the official unveiling of Make It Right during a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, an endeavor by former President Clinton to engage world leaders in tackling environmental problems.
Pitt asked participants to match his and Bing's contributions in hopes of raising $20 million for the project, Miller said. She did not know whether they managed to reach that goal.
Like another Lower 9th Ward project that Pitt has spearheaded -- the Global Green USA contest to develop "green" housing and community/retail space in the Holy Cross neighborhood -- Make It Right is rooted in principles of environmentalism, including using solar power for heat, installing energy-efficient appliances and allocating space for recycling and composting.
Home designs for the project also will include features to keep residents safe in a hurricane, including waterproof building materials, roof-level patios that can serve as safe havens and attic storage space for emergency equipment such as food and rafts, documents show.
At the same time, the homes will reflect traditional New Orleans architectural styles, such as shotguns, camelbacks and Creole cottages, and will incorporate high ceilings, front porches and gingerbread details.
Thirteen architects, including five local firms and others of international renown, are working now to develop prototype houses that will vary in size and include yards and parking areas, Miller said.
Though she did not know when designs are due, Miller said project directors will begin working with applicants to begin construction as soon as blueprints are complete.
"One of the missions is to be quick about this," she said, adding that substantial progress should be under way within a year.
In conceiving Make It Right, Miller said Pitt and others sought advice from Lower 9th Ward residents, in part by attending meetings of nine community organizations, including ACORN, Common Ground Relief and All Congregations Together.
Among the chief recommendations they adopted was to work directly with homeowners to rebuild on their own lots, rather than recruiting a major developer to erect new houses or apartments to sell to residents, Miller said. The latter model has driven fears -- so far unsubstantiated -- that large builders will take advantage of the absence of thousands of homeowners to gobble up vacant neighborhoods cheaply, then erect substandard housing.
"They didn't want developers coming in," Miller said.
Tanya Harris, a community organizer with ACORN, said members of the project team, including Pitt, began attending community meetings in March and asked residents to help spread the word about the project to their neighbors.
However, Harris said representatives offered scant details of their plans, one reason she refused their request for a copy of ACORN's contact list.
"They didn't tell us much except that Brad Pitt had a vision," she said. "I'm an organizer, so I need to see numbers in black and white."
Harris said residents were not apprised of the project before it was announced Wednesday in New York. Nevertheless, she said she would not oppose efforts to revive the Lower 9th Ward in ways that respect residents' wishes.
Though Make It Right is not technically part of the Lower 9th Ward target zone identified in Blakely's plan, it was included, though under a different name, in a draft plan created by city's Office of Recovery Management, Miller said.
In the draft, a project called Cherokee Housing would receive $250,000 of $117 million in federal community development block grants that the Louisiana Recovery Authority has earmarked for infrastructure improvements in New Orleans.
Miller suspected the project was given that name because one of the Make It Right partners is the Cherokee Gives Back Foundation, the nonprofit arm of Cherokee Investment Partners, a firm that specializes in remediation and sustainable redevelopment. She stressed that Cherokee is among a cadre of participants that also includes William McDonough, a pioneer of environmental engineering based in Virginia.
Though Miller said she was not aware that project leaders had been in contact with the city or the LRA, City Hall spokesman James Ross said staffers with the recovery office "included $250,000 for site preparation for the project after developers indicated they might need that amount."
Ross said the money can be allocated only after a public bidding process and it is not guaranteed until the award is made. If the sum is not spent for the project, it will be directed to another recovery need, Ross said.
Lower 9th Ward project to build 150 homes
By Michelle Krupa Staff writer
In a novel and ambitious effort to return New Orleans homeowners to their own neighborhood, an international consortium of architects led by film star Brad Pitt announced plans Wednesday to develop at least 150 storm-safe, environmentally sound houses in the section of the Lower 9th Ward reduced to rubble by a massive levee breach.
Working lot by lot instead of amassing huge development tracts, the project, dubbed Make It Right, will take applications from homeowners who want to rebuild their own properties with model homes now being designed, said Virginia Miller, a New Orleans spokeswoman for the project.
"Make It Right isn't buying big parcels of land," she said. "We don't have an interest in being a developer. We have an interest in building houses for people."
Unlike other plans, including recovery director Ed Blakely's $1.1 billion blueprint to rebuild the city starting in 17 target zones, Make It Right is not designed around a traditional commercial center, nor does it aim to expand an area already beginning to thrive.
Instead, it focuses squarely on a neighborhood that has become an icon of New Orleans' destruction: the blocks just east of where a powerful storm surge crashed through the Industrial Canal floodwall during Hurricane Katrina, obliterating dozens of homes and reducing hundreds more to piles of splintered rubbish.
Miller said the project area will extend across the 11 blocks between North Claiborne Avenue and the Florida Avenue Canal, and several blocks to the east, though precisely how far is in flux.
With the average home expected to cost between $100,000 and $174,000, planners anticipate most homeowners will be able to contribute some cash for construction but that most will fall about $70,000 short of paying off their new homes, according to a program dossier.
As a result, Make It Right plans to offer forgivable gap loans of as much as $100,000, with the caveat that applicants must have owned a home or lot in the Lower 9th Ward before Katrina. No homeowners who participate in the program will pay more than 30 percent of their gross monthly income on house payments, documents show.
Homeowners will be expected to contribute money from insurance proceeds, savings and Road Home grants, and to investigate their options in the traditional mortgage market. But Miller said a large loan reserve will be available, financed largely by contributions of $5 million each from Pitt and Steve Bing, a film producer and philanthropist who inherited his family's real estate fortune.
In an effort to bolster that initial investment, Pitt went to New York on Wednesday to solicit donations at the official unveiling of Make It Right during a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, an endeavor by former President Clinton to engage world leaders in tackling environmental problems.
Pitt asked participants to match his and Bing's contributions in hopes of raising $20 million for the project, Miller said. She did not know whether they managed to reach that goal.
Like another Lower 9th Ward project that Pitt has spearheaded -- the Global Green USA contest to develop "green" housing and community/retail space in the Holy Cross neighborhood -- Make It Right is rooted in principles of environmentalism, including using solar power for heat, installing energy-efficient appliances and allocating space for recycling and composting.
Home designs for the project also will include features to keep residents safe in a hurricane, including waterproof building materials, roof-level patios that can serve as safe havens and attic storage space for emergency equipment such as food and rafts, documents show.
At the same time, the homes will reflect traditional New Orleans architectural styles, such as shotguns, camelbacks and Creole cottages, and will incorporate high ceilings, front porches and gingerbread details.
Thirteen architects, including five local firms and others of international renown, are working now to develop prototype houses that will vary in size and include yards and parking areas, Miller said.
Though she did not know when designs are due, Miller said project directors will begin working with applicants to begin construction as soon as blueprints are complete.
"One of the missions is to be quick about this," she said, adding that substantial progress should be under way within a year.
In conceiving Make It Right, Miller said Pitt and others sought advice from Lower 9th Ward residents, in part by attending meetings of nine community organizations, including ACORN, Common Ground Relief and All Congregations Together.
Among the chief recommendations they adopted was to work directly with homeowners to rebuild on their own lots, rather than recruiting a major developer to erect new houses or apartments to sell to residents, Miller said. The latter model has driven fears -- so far unsubstantiated -- that large builders will take advantage of the absence of thousands of homeowners to gobble up vacant neighborhoods cheaply, then erect substandard housing.
"They didn't want developers coming in," Miller said.
Tanya Harris, a community organizer with ACORN, said members of the project team, including Pitt, began attending community meetings in March and asked residents to help spread the word about the project to their neighbors.
However, Harris said representatives offered scant details of their plans, one reason she refused their request for a copy of ACORN's contact list.
"They didn't tell us much except that Brad Pitt had a vision," she said. "I'm an organizer, so I need to see numbers in black and white."
Harris said residents were not apprised of the project before it was announced Wednesday in New York. Nevertheless, she said she would not oppose efforts to revive the Lower 9th Ward in ways that respect residents' wishes.
Though Make It Right is not technically part of the Lower 9th Ward target zone identified in Blakely's plan, it was included, though under a different name, in a draft plan created by city's Office of Recovery Management, Miller said.
In the draft, a project called Cherokee Housing would receive $250,000 of $117 million in federal community development block grants that the Louisiana Recovery Authority has earmarked for infrastructure improvements in New Orleans.
Miller suspected the project was given that name because one of the Make It Right partners is the Cherokee Gives Back Foundation, the nonprofit arm of Cherokee Investment Partners, a firm that specializes in remediation and sustainable redevelopment. She stressed that Cherokee is among a cadre of participants that also includes William McDonough, a pioneer of environmental engineering based in Virginia.
Though Miller said she was not aware that project leaders had been in contact with the city or the LRA, City Hall spokesman James Ross said staffers with the recovery office "included $250,000 for site preparation for the project after developers indicated they might need that amount."
Ross said the money can be allocated only after a public bidding process and it is not guaranteed until the award is made. If the sum is not spent for the project, it will be directed to another recovery need, Ross said.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Episcopal Bishops Tell Primates What They Will Do--and What They Will Not
As a lead-in to press coverage of the statement issued yesterday by the Episcopal House of Bishops in New Orleans, the Episcopal Church blog epiScope notes today "how many competing interpretations can be made of one document that is only one day old and written in the contemporary language of those reporting on it, with the authors nearby for clarification!" The blog and links to the wide variety of spins are at http://episcopalchurch.typepad.com/episcope/
The following are some paragraphs from the church's official article on the statement. The full article is at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_90460_ENG_HTM.htm
Bishops provide 'clarity' in response to Primates' communiqué
By Pat McCaughan and Mary Frances Schjonberg
September 25, 2007
After nearly a full day of deliberations, the House of Bishops on September 25 agreed overwhelmingly by voice vote to reiterate the 2006 General Convention Resolution B033 that said they would "exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion."
They also pledged not to authorize public rites for same-gender blessings "until a broader consensus emerges in the Communion, or until General Convention takes further action," according to the response.
The final statement adopted by the House of Bishops is being sent immediately via email to the JSC and the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is traveling in Armenia and Syria, a spokesperson for the Anglican Communion said.
Intended to clarify General Convention Resolution B033, the document offered the strongest language thus far about interventions from overseas bishops in local dioceses. "We deplore incursions into our jurisdictions by uninvited bishops and call for them to end," the document said. It also called for "unequivocal and active commitment to the civil rights, safety, and dignity of gay and lesbian persons."
Whether the Primates will find the response satisfactory remains to be seen. The complete text of the bishops' statement is at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_90457_ENG_HTM.htm
The following are some paragraphs from the church's official article on the statement. The full article is at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_90460_ENG_HTM.htm
Bishops provide 'clarity' in response to Primates' communiqué
By Pat McCaughan and Mary Frances Schjonberg
September 25, 2007
After nearly a full day of deliberations, the House of Bishops on September 25 agreed overwhelmingly by voice vote to reiterate the 2006 General Convention Resolution B033 that said they would "exercise restraint by not consenting to the consecration of any candidate to the episcopate whose manner of life presents a challenge to the wider church and will lead to further strains on communion."
They also pledged not to authorize public rites for same-gender blessings "until a broader consensus emerges in the Communion, or until General Convention takes further action," according to the response.
The final statement adopted by the House of Bishops is being sent immediately via email to the JSC and the Archbishop of Canterbury, who is traveling in Armenia and Syria, a spokesperson for the Anglican Communion said.
Intended to clarify General Convention Resolution B033, the document offered the strongest language thus far about interventions from overseas bishops in local dioceses. "We deplore incursions into our jurisdictions by uninvited bishops and call for them to end," the document said. It also called for "unequivocal and active commitment to the civil rights, safety, and dignity of gay and lesbian persons."
Whether the Primates will find the response satisfactory remains to be seen. The complete text of the bishops' statement is at http://www.episcopalchurch.org/79901_90457_ENG_HTM.htm
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
The Night Louis Armstrong Said Eisenhower Had "No Guts"
The article below tells the story, little known today, of September 17, 1957, the night Louis Armstrong said he'd had enough of "The way they are treating my people in the South." The uncharacteristic public outburst by the normally laid-back Armstrong was backed by Sammy Davis Jr., Jackie Robinson, Sugar Ray Robinson, Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt and Marian Anderson. It embarrassed President Eisenhower into enforcing integration of Little Rock's Central High School one week later. Eisenhower sent 1,200 paratroopers to Little Rock to escort nine black students into the school, which led Armstrong to wire the president "God bless you," and inspired Norman Rockwell's iconic work above.The article, in today's print edition of the Houston Chronicle, first appeared in the New York Times. It was posted yesterday at http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/5161213.html
The day Louis Armstrong blew more than his trumpet
Angry words against racism sparked by Little Rock Nine
By DAVID MARGOLICK
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Fifty years ago this week, all eyes were on Little Rock, Ark., where nine black students were trying, for the first time, to desegregate a major Southern high school. The town of Grand Forks, N.D., with fewer than 150 blacks, hardly figured to be a key front in that battle — until Larry Lubenow talked to Louis Armstrong.
On the night of Sept. 17, 1957, two weeks after the Little Rock Nine were first barred from Central High School, the jazz trumpeter happened to be on tour in Grand Forks. Larry Lubenow was a 21-year-old journalism student and jazz fan at the University of North Dakota, moonlighting for $1.75 an hour at The Grand Forks Herald.
Shortly before Armstrong's concert, Lubenow's editor sent him to the Dakota Hotel, where Armstrong was staying, to see if he could land an interview. Perhaps sensing trouble — Lubenow was, he now says, a "rabble-rouser and liberal" — his boss laid out the ground rules: "No politics," he ordered. That hardly seemed necessary, for Armstrong rarely ventured into such things. "I don't get involved in politics," he once said. "I just blow my horn."
But Lubenow was thinking about other things, race relations among them. The bell captain, with whom he was friendly, had told him that Armstrong was quietly making history in Grand Forks, as he had done innumerable times and ways before, by becoming the first black man ever to stay at what was then the best hotel in town.
Lubenow knew, too, that Grand Forks had its own link to Little Rock: it was the hometown of Judge Ronald Davies, who had just ordered that the desegregation plan in Little Rock proceed after Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus tried to block it.
As Armstrong prepared to play that night — at Grand Forks' own Central High School — members of the Arkansas National Guard ringed the school in Little Rock, ordered to keep the black students out. President Dwight D. Eisenhower's meeting with Faubus three days earlier had ended inconclusively. Central High School was open, but the black children stayed home.
Lubenow was first told he couldn't talk to Armstrong until after the concert. That wouldn't do. With the connivance of the bell captain, he snuck into Armstrong's suite with a room service lobster dinner. And Armstrong, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and shorts, agreed to talk. Lubenow stuck initially to his editor's script, asking Armstrong to name his favorite musician. (Bing Crosby, it turned out.) But soon he brought up Little Rock, and he could not believe what he heard. "It's getting almost so bad a colored man hasn't got any country," a furious Armstrong told him. Eisenhower, he charged, was "two-faced," and had "no guts." For Faubus, he used a double-barreled hyphenated expletive, utterly unfit for print. The two settled on something safer: "uneducated plowboy." The euphemism, Lubenow says, was far more his than Armstrong's.
Armstrong bitterly recounted some of his experiences touring in the Jim Crow South. He then sang the opening bar of The Star-Spangled Banner, inserting obscenities into the lyrics and prompting Velma Middleton, the vocalist who toured with Armstrong and who had joined them in the room, to hush him up.
Armstrong had been contemplating a good-will tour to the Soviet Union for the State Department. "They ain't so cold but what we couldn't bruise them with happy music," he had said. Now, though, he confessed to having second thoughts. "The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell," he said. "The people over there ask me what's wrong with my country. What am I supposed to say?"
Lubenow was shocked by what he heard, but he also knew he had a story; he skipped the concert and went back to the paper to write it up. It was too late to get it into his own paper; nor would The Associated Press editor in Minneapolis, dubious that Armstrong could have said such things, put it on the national wire, at least until Lubenow could prove he hadn't made it all up.
So the next morning Lubenow returned to the Dakota Hotel and, as Armstrong shaved, had the Herald photographer take their picture together. Then Lubenow showed Armstrong what he'd written. "Don't take nothing out of that story," Armstrong declared. "That's just what I said, and still say." He then wrote "solid" on the bottom of the yellow copy paper, and signed his name.
The news account ran all over the country. The Russians, an anonymous government spokesman warned, would relish everything Armstrong had said. A radio station in Hattiesburg, Miss., threw out all of Armstrong's records. Sammy Davis Jr. criticized Armstrong for not speaking out earlier. But Jackie Robinson, Sugar Ray Robinson, Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt and Marian Anderson quickly backed him up.
Mostly, there was surprise, especially among blacks. Armstrong had long tried to convince people throughout the world that "the Negro's lot in America is a happy one," Jet magazine, which once called Armstrong an "Uncle Tom," observed, but in one bold stroke he'd pulled nearly 15 million American blacks to his bosom. Any white confused by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s polite talk need only listen to Armstrong, The Amsterdam News declared.
Armstrong's road manager quickly put out that Armstrong had been tricked, and regretted his statements, but Armstrong would have none of that. "I said what somebody should have said a long time ago," he said the following day in Montevideo, Minn., where he gave his next concert.
Armstrong would pay a price for his outspokenness. There were calls for boycotts of his concerts. Ford Motor Co. threatened to pull out of a Bing Crosby special on which Armstrong was to appear. But it didn't really matter.
On Sept. 24, Eisenhower sent 1,200 paratroopers from the 101st Airborne into Little Rock, and the next day soldiers escorted the nine students into Central High School. Armstrong exulted. "If you decide to walk into the schools with the little colored kids, take me along, Daddy," he wired the president. "God bless you."
As for Lubenow, who these days works in public relations in Cedar Park, Texas, he got $3.50 for writing the story and, perhaps, for changing history. But his editor was miffed — he'd gotten into politics, after all. Within a week, he left the paper.
Margolick, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, is the author of "Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling and a World on the Brink." This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Monday, September 24, 2007
A Medical Security System--For Everyone
Laurence Kotlikoff, an economics professor at Boston University, has a proposal for universal health care that overcomes shortcomings he sees in "the piecemeal reforms that President Bush, most of his would-be successors and our state governors are advocating."
Below are the closing paragraphs of an article that first appeared in the Boston Globe on August 28th. The Houston Chronicle reprinted it on September 23rd, but without proper attribution to the Boston Globe. The complete original is at http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/08/28/we_are_all_uninsured_now/
We are all uninsured now
My solution is called the Medical Security System. It would eliminate Medicare, Medicaid, and (by dropping the tax breaks) employer-based healthcare. The government would give everyone a voucher each year for a basic health plan. The size of the voucher would be based on one's health status. Those in worse health would get bigger vouchers, leaving insurers no incentive to cherry-pick. Furthermore, insurers would not be permitted to refuse a voucher or otherwise deny coverage.
The government would set the total voucher budget as a fixed share of gross domestic product and determine what a basic plan must cover. We would choose our own health plans. If we cost the insurer more than the voucher, he would lose money. If we cost him less, he would make money. Insurers would compete for our business and could tailor provisions, like co-pays and incentives to stop smoking, to limit excessive use of the healthcare system and encourage healthy behavior.
Nothing would be nationalized. Virtually all of the cost would be covered by redirecting existing government healthcare expenditures as well as tax breaks. Doctors, hospitals, and insurers would continue to market their services on a competitive basis.
This is not a French, British, or Canadian solution. It's an American, market-based solution that Republicans should love. It's also a progressive solution that Democrats should love. (Democratic presidential candidate Mike Gravel has endorsed it.) The poor, who are, on average, in worse health, will receive, on average, larger vouchers. The rich will lose their tax breaks.
Why can't a country as rich as ours come up with a system that works? This, in essence, was Justice O'Connor's parting question.
But, in fact, we can. Now if we can just get the big cheeses in the Oval Office or on their way there to start thinking big . . .
Below are the closing paragraphs of an article that first appeared in the Boston Globe on August 28th. The Houston Chronicle reprinted it on September 23rd, but without proper attribution to the Boston Globe. The complete original is at http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/08/28/we_are_all_uninsured_now/
We are all uninsured now
My solution is called the Medical Security System. It would eliminate Medicare, Medicaid, and (by dropping the tax breaks) employer-based healthcare. The government would give everyone a voucher each year for a basic health plan. The size of the voucher would be based on one's health status. Those in worse health would get bigger vouchers, leaving insurers no incentive to cherry-pick. Furthermore, insurers would not be permitted to refuse a voucher or otherwise deny coverage.
The government would set the total voucher budget as a fixed share of gross domestic product and determine what a basic plan must cover. We would choose our own health plans. If we cost the insurer more than the voucher, he would lose money. If we cost him less, he would make money. Insurers would compete for our business and could tailor provisions, like co-pays and incentives to stop smoking, to limit excessive use of the healthcare system and encourage healthy behavior.
Nothing would be nationalized. Virtually all of the cost would be covered by redirecting existing government healthcare expenditures as well as tax breaks. Doctors, hospitals, and insurers would continue to market their services on a competitive basis.
This is not a French, British, or Canadian solution. It's an American, market-based solution that Republicans should love. It's also a progressive solution that Democrats should love. (Democratic presidential candidate Mike Gravel has endorsed it.) The poor, who are, on average, in worse health, will receive, on average, larger vouchers. The rich will lose their tax breaks.
Why can't a country as rich as ours come up with a system that works? This, in essence, was Justice O'Connor's parting question.
But, in fact, we can. Now if we can just get the big cheeses in the Oval Office or on their way there to start thinking big . . .
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Without a New Deal, New Orleans Is Just Casinoville
The following article, which I highly recommend, appeared in this morning's print edition of the Houston Chronicle. The newspaper might like to explain why a shorter version posted on its website omits most of the paragraphs about racial politics and current hurricane readiness. It's at http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/5146894.html
New Orleans sits at critical juncture
Historian says redevelopment hurt by ineptitude and indifference
By ALLAN TURNER
Two years after Hurricane Katrina blasted into the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts to create the costliest natural disaster in the nation's history, New Orleans stands at a crucial crossroads.
In one direction looms a future as a casino-driven adult entertainment mecca, said historian Douglas Brinkley. In the other, the promise of rebirth as a cultural capital and city of stable, close-knit neighborhoods.
Key to the city's fate, said Brinkley, is whether the American public is prepared to commit $50 billion or more to enhancing the city's levees and restoring eroded wetlands that shield the largely below-sea-level city from nature's fury.
"The next president will be the one to make the decision," Brinkley said. "By 2012 — one more administration after this — it will be apparent in which direction New Orleans will go."
Brinkley spoke Tuesday at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. A tenured Rice history professor and institute fellow, Brinkley is the author of The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, which this year won the prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Book Award.
A former professor at New Orleans' Tulane University, Brinkley said redevelopment of the stricken city has faltered through political indifference or ineptitude. "Katrina," he said, "wiped out all the major players."
Mayor C. Ray Nagin, he charged, engaged in "raw buffoonery," indulging in racial politics that limited his ability to address the city's desperate problems. Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco's efforts were hampered by her Democratic Party affiliation.
President Bush, he said, adopted a policy of deliberate inaction. "The situation was too volatile racially for him to handle," Brinkley said. Rather than advising residents of hard-hit, sub-sea-level African-American neighborhoods not to return, Brinkley said, the president tacitly welcomed them back.
"It's disingenuous," Brinkley added, noting neighborhoods like the Lower 9th Ward still lack schools and essential services. Banks, Brinkley said, are reluctant to grant loans for rebuilding in those areas, insurance companies disinclined to write policies.
Furthermore, Brinkley said, Bush has concentrated on fighting a war on terror rather than addressing New Orleans' significant social and ecological concerns. "It is," he said, "an ugly kind of scenario."
With 350 miles of levees needing attention and huge expanses of wetlands needing restoration — 1,900 square miles of wetlands have been lost since the 1930s — nothing less than a New Deal-magnitude public works project can save the Crescent City and coastal Louisiana, Brinkley said.
"I promise you," Brinkley told his audience, "New Orleans is not prepared for even a Category 1 hurricane."
Today, Brinkley said, New Orleans is a city divided not so much by race as by geography. The French Quarter, Garden District and other tourist destinations situated on the river's natural levee largely escaped damage. Neighborhoods in low-lying areas, though, were devastated.
Katrina, a Category 3 storm, struck the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts on August 29, 2005, causing more than $81 billion in damage. New Orleans escaped the storm's initial fury but experienced devastating flooding when canal levees failed.
Without wise restoration and development, Brinkley said, the city could become little more than a string of casinos--an adult tourist destination devoid of its vibrant, neighborhood-fueled culture.
If the Dutch can protect the low-lying cities and the Italians preserve Venice, "why can't we in the U.S. save New Orleans? It asks who we are as a generation," he said.
New Orleans sits at critical juncture
Historian says redevelopment hurt by ineptitude and indifference
By ALLAN TURNER
Two years after Hurricane Katrina blasted into the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts to create the costliest natural disaster in the nation's history, New Orleans stands at a crucial crossroads.
In one direction looms a future as a casino-driven adult entertainment mecca, said historian Douglas Brinkley. In the other, the promise of rebirth as a cultural capital and city of stable, close-knit neighborhoods.
Key to the city's fate, said Brinkley, is whether the American public is prepared to commit $50 billion or more to enhancing the city's levees and restoring eroded wetlands that shield the largely below-sea-level city from nature's fury.
"The next president will be the one to make the decision," Brinkley said. "By 2012 — one more administration after this — it will be apparent in which direction New Orleans will go."
Brinkley spoke Tuesday at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. A tenured Rice history professor and institute fellow, Brinkley is the author of The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, which this year won the prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Book Award.
A former professor at New Orleans' Tulane University, Brinkley said redevelopment of the stricken city has faltered through political indifference or ineptitude. "Katrina," he said, "wiped out all the major players."
Mayor C. Ray Nagin, he charged, engaged in "raw buffoonery," indulging in racial politics that limited his ability to address the city's desperate problems. Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco's efforts were hampered by her Democratic Party affiliation.
President Bush, he said, adopted a policy of deliberate inaction. "The situation was too volatile racially for him to handle," Brinkley said. Rather than advising residents of hard-hit, sub-sea-level African-American neighborhoods not to return, Brinkley said, the president tacitly welcomed them back.
"It's disingenuous," Brinkley added, noting neighborhoods like the Lower 9th Ward still lack schools and essential services. Banks, Brinkley said, are reluctant to grant loans for rebuilding in those areas, insurance companies disinclined to write policies.
Furthermore, Brinkley said, Bush has concentrated on fighting a war on terror rather than addressing New Orleans' significant social and ecological concerns. "It is," he said, "an ugly kind of scenario."
With 350 miles of levees needing attention and huge expanses of wetlands needing restoration — 1,900 square miles of wetlands have been lost since the 1930s — nothing less than a New Deal-magnitude public works project can save the Crescent City and coastal Louisiana, Brinkley said.
"I promise you," Brinkley told his audience, "New Orleans is not prepared for even a Category 1 hurricane."
Today, Brinkley said, New Orleans is a city divided not so much by race as by geography. The French Quarter, Garden District and other tourist destinations situated on the river's natural levee largely escaped damage. Neighborhoods in low-lying areas, though, were devastated.
Katrina, a Category 3 storm, struck the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts on August 29, 2005, causing more than $81 billion in damage. New Orleans escaped the storm's initial fury but experienced devastating flooding when canal levees failed.
Without wise restoration and development, Brinkley said, the city could become little more than a string of casinos--an adult tourist destination devoid of its vibrant, neighborhood-fueled culture.
If the Dutch can protect the low-lying cities and the Italians preserve Venice, "why can't we in the U.S. save New Orleans? It asks who we are as a generation," he said.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Iraqi Wacky: Bush Bequeaths Insanity “Beyond My Presidency”
It would be nice to be able to say something insightful or conclusive or constructive about last week’s national effort to assess where we stand in Iraq. But after wildly divergent reactions from several recognized experts—some at odds with their own previous selves—maybe all we can say with any certainty is that Iraq has made us wacky. In the last seven days, we have witnessed:
George Will, generally an apologist for conservative causes and Bush’s military adventures in Iraq, saying that by conspicuously snubbing Baghdad and visiting only Anbar on his recent Iraq stopover, Bush underscored that the surge failed (as measured by his own and General Petraeus’ standards of success)—leaving no credible military mission there for the United States. Will added that the already-planned troop rotations (back to pre-surge levels + 7,000), a draw-down which Petraeus labeled significant, was way too puny to satisfy the Democrats’ anti-war base.
E.J. Dionne, usually an apologist for liberal causes and the Democrats’ efforts to bring the troops home sooner, saying that the congressional testimony of Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker made enough of a case for progress to give teetering Republicans political cover and prevent most of them from abandoning Bush. Dionne added that House Armed Services Committee Chair Ike Skelton was astute to grasp how Bush had boxed the Democrats in, by denying them Republican votes to cut off war-funding. As Skelton saw, the Democrats’ only hope was for other generals to shout out their fear that the Iraq war is “breaking our Army” and leaving us “unable to deal with other risks to our nation.”
Ellen Goodman, predictably an apologist for liberal causes and the Democrats’ efforts to bring the troops home sooner, saying that Petraeus and Crocker had managed to reduce five years of war to “the tale of two catastrophes”: the war proponents’ vision that things will get horrifically worse if we leave Iraq, vs. the war opponents’ vision that staying the course will only stay the disaster—causing more American warriors to give their lives for a deficient objective—replacing mission creep with “mission shrink.”
Charles Krauthammer, normally an apologist for conservative causes and Bush’s military adventures in Iraq, saying that “Petraeus’ withdrawal recommendations have prevented a revolt of the generals,” by showing them that if he can win over enough Iraqi Sunnis, the U.S. can replace defeat of the original objective, to establish a unified democratic Iraq, with an important replacement objective, tactical victory over “al-Qaida in Iraq.” But never did he acknowledge that there was no “al-Qaida in Iraq” until Bush challenged them to a high-noon duel for the Sunnis’ allegiance, and that now even if we win the duel, al-Qaida can gloat about how many years they bogged us down.
Thomas Friedman, one of the few columnists who can be counted on to remain genuinely moderate and carefully adjust his Iraq position in response to actual facts on the ground, agreeing with David Rothkopf, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment, that in his speech last Thursday evening “In one fell swoop, George Bush abdicated to Petraeus, Maliki and the Democrats.” And so, Rothkopf added: “Bush left it to Petraeus to handle the war, Maliki to handle our timetable and … our checkbook, and the Democrats to ultimately figure out how to end this.”
It seemed no columnist wanted to touch the controversy over the “General Betray Us” ad by MoveOn.org. Questioning the general’s honesty was tacky, and pointless. Instead, MoveOn should have asked if Petraeus, once he got his marching orders in person from the Commander in Chief, could really be expected not to report that the orders had been carried out. The answer was obvious, and it was naïve for anyone to expect otherwise.
If they agree on nothing else, just about everyone fears that Bush has now succeeded in prolonging the war “beyond my presidency.” And if it is the Democrats who extract us from Iraq in 2009, the Republicans can spend the next few decades blaming them for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. They learned that trick after Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger followed the country’s will and withdrew from Vietnam. They have no reason to think it won’t work again.
Speaking of the president’s stubborn drive to mitigate his Iraq failure any way he can, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said over the weekend that Bush “must think we’re all idiots.” Perhaps. But so far history is proving him right: so long as we allow him to continue as idiot-in-chief, we give the world every reason to doubt our competence, and our sanity.
Bush did not look well yesterday, nominating former judge Michael Mukasey as attorney general, to replace the disgraced Alberto Gonzales. I have found no references to it on Google or several blog search engines. But the president’s voice sounded weak, he slurred more words than he has in years, and he looked physically ill. His manner could also be read as mentally unbalanced, even paranoid. Maybe he was just choking on too much crow, swallowing a nominee the Democrats can live with instead of spitting yet another conservative ideologue in their faces.
Of course, it might be that six years of duplicity and deception have finally taken their toll. But having a president paralyzed by guilt to the point of disability is really not in our best interests. The best option would still be for him to face reality, and move on. Today. Things will only get wackier if he makes us wait until 2009.
George Will, generally an apologist for conservative causes and Bush’s military adventures in Iraq, saying that by conspicuously snubbing Baghdad and visiting only Anbar on his recent Iraq stopover, Bush underscored that the surge failed (as measured by his own and General Petraeus’ standards of success)—leaving no credible military mission there for the United States. Will added that the already-planned troop rotations (back to pre-surge levels + 7,000), a draw-down which Petraeus labeled significant, was way too puny to satisfy the Democrats’ anti-war base.
E.J. Dionne, usually an apologist for liberal causes and the Democrats’ efforts to bring the troops home sooner, saying that the congressional testimony of Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker made enough of a case for progress to give teetering Republicans political cover and prevent most of them from abandoning Bush. Dionne added that House Armed Services Committee Chair Ike Skelton was astute to grasp how Bush had boxed the Democrats in, by denying them Republican votes to cut off war-funding. As Skelton saw, the Democrats’ only hope was for other generals to shout out their fear that the Iraq war is “breaking our Army” and leaving us “unable to deal with other risks to our nation.”
Ellen Goodman, predictably an apologist for liberal causes and the Democrats’ efforts to bring the troops home sooner, saying that Petraeus and Crocker had managed to reduce five years of war to “the tale of two catastrophes”: the war proponents’ vision that things will get horrifically worse if we leave Iraq, vs. the war opponents’ vision that staying the course will only stay the disaster—causing more American warriors to give their lives for a deficient objective—replacing mission creep with “mission shrink.”
Charles Krauthammer, normally an apologist for conservative causes and Bush’s military adventures in Iraq, saying that “Petraeus’ withdrawal recommendations have prevented a revolt of the generals,” by showing them that if he can win over enough Iraqi Sunnis, the U.S. can replace defeat of the original objective, to establish a unified democratic Iraq, with an important replacement objective, tactical victory over “al-Qaida in Iraq.” But never did he acknowledge that there was no “al-Qaida in Iraq” until Bush challenged them to a high-noon duel for the Sunnis’ allegiance, and that now even if we win the duel, al-Qaida can gloat about how many years they bogged us down.
Thomas Friedman, one of the few columnists who can be counted on to remain genuinely moderate and carefully adjust his Iraq position in response to actual facts on the ground, agreeing with David Rothkopf, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment, that in his speech last Thursday evening “In one fell swoop, George Bush abdicated to Petraeus, Maliki and the Democrats.” And so, Rothkopf added: “Bush left it to Petraeus to handle the war, Maliki to handle our timetable and … our checkbook, and the Democrats to ultimately figure out how to end this.”
It seemed no columnist wanted to touch the controversy over the “General Betray Us” ad by MoveOn.org. Questioning the general’s honesty was tacky, and pointless. Instead, MoveOn should have asked if Petraeus, once he got his marching orders in person from the Commander in Chief, could really be expected not to report that the orders had been carried out. The answer was obvious, and it was naïve for anyone to expect otherwise.
If they agree on nothing else, just about everyone fears that Bush has now succeeded in prolonging the war “beyond my presidency.” And if it is the Democrats who extract us from Iraq in 2009, the Republicans can spend the next few decades blaming them for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. They learned that trick after Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger followed the country’s will and withdrew from Vietnam. They have no reason to think it won’t work again.
Speaking of the president’s stubborn drive to mitigate his Iraq failure any way he can, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said over the weekend that Bush “must think we’re all idiots.” Perhaps. But so far history is proving him right: so long as we allow him to continue as idiot-in-chief, we give the world every reason to doubt our competence, and our sanity.
Bush did not look well yesterday, nominating former judge Michael Mukasey as attorney general, to replace the disgraced Alberto Gonzales. I have found no references to it on Google or several blog search engines. But the president’s voice sounded weak, he slurred more words than he has in years, and he looked physically ill. His manner could also be read as mentally unbalanced, even paranoid. Maybe he was just choking on too much crow, swallowing a nominee the Democrats can live with instead of spitting yet another conservative ideologue in their faces.
Of course, it might be that six years of duplicity and deception have finally taken their toll. But having a president paralyzed by guilt to the point of disability is really not in our best interests. The best option would still be for him to face reality, and move on. Today. Things will only get wackier if he makes us wait until 2009.
Friday, September 14, 2007
The Last Archbishop of Canterbury?
The cover story of the National Catholic Reporter’s 9/14/07 edition is “Anglican Schism? Archbishop Rowan Williams strives to preserve the communion.” With it is a sidebar, “The Anglican crisis in brief,” by the NCR staff. Links to the two articles:
http://www.ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2007c/091407/091407a.php
http://www.ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2007c/091407/091407h.php
The cover story was authored by John Wilkins, former editor of The Tablet, the British Catholic weekly. He shares valuable first-hand knowledge of the Anglican crisis as viewed from London, and of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s efforts to resolve it.
Both articles are helpful and thought-provoking, providing excellent historical background on how the Anglican Communion arrived at the crossroads its members now face—but also reinforcing my earlier conclusion that Williams is misguided in his compulsion to lead the Communion away from what has been its unique role among the Christian churches.
Once again, it appears that the only way Williams can envision saving the Communion is to capitulate to a group of Anglican biblical fundamentalists determined to turn it into something else. In so doing, the current shepherd of Augustine’s see risks becoming the last Archbishop of Canterbury, at least as that office has functioned historically. For centuries his office has upheld and embodied an ecclesiology available nowhere else within Christianity. If the Christians of the Anglican Communion allow it to be lost, is there any Christian body that can revive it?
The irony is that as a theologian, Williams knows better. He is largely in sympathy with those in the U.S. Episcopal Church who see the blessing of same-sex couples and the ordination of openly gay bishops as (paraphrasing John Wilkins) legitimate prophetic actions in the cause of justice and human rights. Wilkins reports that “As a theologian in the 1980s Williams himself was one of those questioning the Christian tradition on homosexuality.”
Having done that scholarship personally, Williams is in a better position than many Anglican bishops (and most Catholic bishops) to know that the anti-gay position taken by Archbishop Peter Akinola and others of the ‘Global South’ is bogus: the univocal scriptural grounding that it claims does not in fact exist; and the litmus test of orthodoxy that it tries to impose on the U.S. Episcopal bishops is not orthodox at all.
Wilkins says that despite this, Williams believes he must suppress his own scholarship and that of other reputable Christian theologians, because (he quotes Williams) “‘there are no arguments that are winning the majority of Christendom over to a new position’ that would amend or reverse the consistently negative Christian tradition on homosexual practice. He distinguishes sharply between questions a theologian may ask and actions or decisions a church or a bishop may take.”
Williams may be right about “the majority of Christendom.” Although there are secular majorities and other Christian churches, mainly in North America and Western Europe, who have in fact adopted the new position, the preponderance of Christians and Christian officials worldwide probably has not.
But is that an adequate reason to forbid a self-governing Anglican province like the U.S. Episcopal Church from adopting the new position? And, just as crucially for Anglican ecclesiology, is it an adequate reason to allow the Nigerian Province and its affiliates among ‘Global South’ bishops to mandate allegiance to the lie that the new position lacks a basis in solid, conscientious biblical analysis?
For the sake of the truth and the continuation of the Anglican Communion, what the Archbishop of Canterbury needs to be upholding is the right of an Anglican Province to follow a position which is scripturally defendable. He has in fact done this on the issue of ordaining women as priests and bishops, even though some of the same biblical fundamentalists assert that the Bible forbids such ordinations. Why does he not see the same principle at stake in the Episcopal Church’s desire to bless gay unions and gay bishops?
It is entirely likely that, if Williams did support the Episcopal Church, the bishops of the ‘Global South’ would accuse him of heresy, declare the Communion over and establish their own orthodox church with Akinola as presiding bishop (or pontiff, perhaps?). But in that case, it would be Akinola and company who had left the Communion. A remnant of the Communion and of Anglican ecclesiology would still survive.
That remnant would remain in Communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who would continue to uphold the right of self-governing Anglican provinces to pursue diverse, scripturally valid theologies. Yes, this would be a smaller Anglican Communion than Williams inherited. But it would remain a truly Anglican Communion, and “not just the loosest possible federation of local churches” that Williams fears.
Whatever Williams does, Akinola’s campaign to discredit the U.S. Episcopal Church, and to some extent the Archbishop of Canterbury, has already diminished the Anglican Communion. Rather than cower before Akinola’s relentless, fanatical brow-beating, Williams needs to gather the courage of his own scholarship and his own impressive spirituality, and go all out to keep Anglican ecclesiology alive.
Wilkins says that when Williams finds the controversy “eroding and exhausting,” he gains comfort and hope from the prayerful community in which he lives at Lambeth Palace: “Every morning … I have an opportunity to remind myself that what matters is not the Church of England or the Anglican Communion but the act of God in Jesus Christ for the salvation of the world. When I am inclined to think that the whole thing is falling apart and that I am making a more than usually bad job of it, the transforming thing has got to be, and in my experience always is, renewing a sense of gratitude. Whether the Church of England survives or not, whether the archbishop of Canterbury survives or not, Christ still died on the cross and rose again, and that’s enough to keep you going for quite a few lifetimes.”
The Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury deserve to survive, and Anglican ecclesiology with them. But that is possible only if Rowan Williams dedicates himself to pursuing and upholding what he knows to be true. Trying to pacify those who preach falsehood can have no good outcome. In doing so, he risks dooming his heritage and leaving a legacy of ashes.
http://www.ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2007c/091407/091407a.php
http://www.ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2007c/091407/091407h.php
The cover story was authored by John Wilkins, former editor of The Tablet, the British Catholic weekly. He shares valuable first-hand knowledge of the Anglican crisis as viewed from London, and of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s efforts to resolve it.
Both articles are helpful and thought-provoking, providing excellent historical background on how the Anglican Communion arrived at the crossroads its members now face—but also reinforcing my earlier conclusion that Williams is misguided in his compulsion to lead the Communion away from what has been its unique role among the Christian churches.
Once again, it appears that the only way Williams can envision saving the Communion is to capitulate to a group of Anglican biblical fundamentalists determined to turn it into something else. In so doing, the current shepherd of Augustine’s see risks becoming the last Archbishop of Canterbury, at least as that office has functioned historically. For centuries his office has upheld and embodied an ecclesiology available nowhere else within Christianity. If the Christians of the Anglican Communion allow it to be lost, is there any Christian body that can revive it?
The irony is that as a theologian, Williams knows better. He is largely in sympathy with those in the U.S. Episcopal Church who see the blessing of same-sex couples and the ordination of openly gay bishops as (paraphrasing John Wilkins) legitimate prophetic actions in the cause of justice and human rights. Wilkins reports that “As a theologian in the 1980s Williams himself was one of those questioning the Christian tradition on homosexuality.”
Having done that scholarship personally, Williams is in a better position than many Anglican bishops (and most Catholic bishops) to know that the anti-gay position taken by Archbishop Peter Akinola and others of the ‘Global South’ is bogus: the univocal scriptural grounding that it claims does not in fact exist; and the litmus test of orthodoxy that it tries to impose on the U.S. Episcopal bishops is not orthodox at all.
Wilkins says that despite this, Williams believes he must suppress his own scholarship and that of other reputable Christian theologians, because (he quotes Williams) “‘there are no arguments that are winning the majority of Christendom over to a new position’ that would amend or reverse the consistently negative Christian tradition on homosexual practice. He distinguishes sharply between questions a theologian may ask and actions or decisions a church or a bishop may take.”
Williams may be right about “the majority of Christendom.” Although there are secular majorities and other Christian churches, mainly in North America and Western Europe, who have in fact adopted the new position, the preponderance of Christians and Christian officials worldwide probably has not.
But is that an adequate reason to forbid a self-governing Anglican province like the U.S. Episcopal Church from adopting the new position? And, just as crucially for Anglican ecclesiology, is it an adequate reason to allow the Nigerian Province and its affiliates among ‘Global South’ bishops to mandate allegiance to the lie that the new position lacks a basis in solid, conscientious biblical analysis?
For the sake of the truth and the continuation of the Anglican Communion, what the Archbishop of Canterbury needs to be upholding is the right of an Anglican Province to follow a position which is scripturally defendable. He has in fact done this on the issue of ordaining women as priests and bishops, even though some of the same biblical fundamentalists assert that the Bible forbids such ordinations. Why does he not see the same principle at stake in the Episcopal Church’s desire to bless gay unions and gay bishops?
It is entirely likely that, if Williams did support the Episcopal Church, the bishops of the ‘Global South’ would accuse him of heresy, declare the Communion over and establish their own orthodox church with Akinola as presiding bishop (or pontiff, perhaps?). But in that case, it would be Akinola and company who had left the Communion. A remnant of the Communion and of Anglican ecclesiology would still survive.
That remnant would remain in Communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who would continue to uphold the right of self-governing Anglican provinces to pursue diverse, scripturally valid theologies. Yes, this would be a smaller Anglican Communion than Williams inherited. But it would remain a truly Anglican Communion, and “not just the loosest possible federation of local churches” that Williams fears.
Whatever Williams does, Akinola’s campaign to discredit the U.S. Episcopal Church, and to some extent the Archbishop of Canterbury, has already diminished the Anglican Communion. Rather than cower before Akinola’s relentless, fanatical brow-beating, Williams needs to gather the courage of his own scholarship and his own impressive spirituality, and go all out to keep Anglican ecclesiology alive.
Wilkins says that when Williams finds the controversy “eroding and exhausting,” he gains comfort and hope from the prayerful community in which he lives at Lambeth Palace: “Every morning … I have an opportunity to remind myself that what matters is not the Church of England or the Anglican Communion but the act of God in Jesus Christ for the salvation of the world. When I am inclined to think that the whole thing is falling apart and that I am making a more than usually bad job of it, the transforming thing has got to be, and in my experience always is, renewing a sense of gratitude. Whether the Church of England survives or not, whether the archbishop of Canterbury survives or not, Christ still died on the cross and rose again, and that’s enough to keep you going for quite a few lifetimes.”
The Church of England and the Archbishop of Canterbury deserve to survive, and Anglican ecclesiology with them. But that is possible only if Rowan Williams dedicates himself to pursuing and upholding what he knows to be true. Trying to pacify those who preach falsehood can have no good outcome. In doing so, he risks dooming his heritage and leaving a legacy of ashes.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Hurricane Humberto Sets a New Record!
Houston dodged a storm that might have stalled over most of its metro area, dumping as much as 10-15 inches of rain in some locales, already saturated by our wettest summer since 1942. Instead, Tropical Storm Humberto moved up the coast, strengthened to a Category 1 hurricane, and came ashore in the vicinity of Beaumont-Port Arthur, virtually the same area as Hurricane Rita two years ago. The only impact closer to Houston was in areas from Port Bolivar and Crystal Beach to High Island.
In the National Hurricane Center's 11:00 a.m. update today of its discussion of Hurricane Humberto, "Forecaster Franklin" may be the first to note that in its own unique way Humberto set a new record: its wind speed increased by 45 knots in 18 hours. The forecaster continues: "TO PUT THIS DEVELOPMENT IN PERSPECTIVE...NO TROPICAL CYCLONE IN THE HISTORICAL RECORD HAS EVER REACHED THIS INTENSITY AT A FASTER RATE NEAR LANDFALL."
He adds sardonically, "IT WOULD BE NICE TO KNOW ... SOMEDAY ... WHY THIS HAPPENED."
Perhaps as other experts take note of what he observed, someone will find the answer.
The full text of Forecaster Franklin's update is at http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2007/al09/al092007.discus.006.shtml?
Note: A subsequent AP article identified James Franklin as senior hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center and translated the record wind speed increase from 45 knots to 50 mph, i.e., from 35 mph to 85 mph in 18 hours.
In the National Hurricane Center's 11:00 a.m. update today of its discussion of Hurricane Humberto, "Forecaster Franklin" may be the first to note that in its own unique way Humberto set a new record: its wind speed increased by 45 knots in 18 hours. The forecaster continues: "TO PUT THIS DEVELOPMENT IN PERSPECTIVE...NO TROPICAL CYCLONE IN THE HISTORICAL RECORD HAS EVER REACHED THIS INTENSITY AT A FASTER RATE NEAR LANDFALL."
He adds sardonically, "IT WOULD BE NICE TO KNOW ... SOMEDAY ... WHY THIS HAPPENED."
Perhaps as other experts take note of what he observed, someone will find the answer.
The full text of Forecaster Franklin's update is at http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2007/al09/al092007.discus.006.shtml?
Note: A subsequent AP article identified James Franklin as senior hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center and translated the record wind speed increase from 45 knots to 50 mph, i.e., from 35 mph to 85 mph in 18 hours.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Papal Triumphalism: Another Last Gasp of Catholic Dogmatism
In the cover story of the National Catholic Reporter’s print edition August 31st columnist John L. Allen Jr. characterized the papacies of John Paul II and Benedict XVI as “The Triumph of Evangelical Catholicism.”
The article is at http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2007c/083107/083107a.php
While Allen usually is a keen observer of all things Vatican, I think labeling Catholicism since 1978 (the election of JP2) 'evangelical' is mistaken in several ways. A more accurate description of the period is another last gasp of Catholic dogmatism.
One quibble is with use of the term ‘triumph.’ However we characterize the policies of the last two popes, should we be so quick to concede them lasting dominance?
Allen’s sidebar, “Liberal Catholicism endures in pastoral church,” quotes Richard Gaillardetz, a theologian at the University of Toledo, Ohio. Gaillardetz argues that in the U.S. Vatican II’s theology remains “a pastoral phenomenon…alive in parishes that have a flourishing catechumenate, vibrant liturgies, thoughtful and relevant preaching, and multiple lay ministerial opportunities,” as well as “in a growing number of intentional Christian communities that are determined to keep alive a vision of the church that they associate with Vatican II.” This suggests that the most involved U.S. Catholics have not assented to attempts by the last two popes to reverse Vatican II.
Both articles agree that those Allen dubs Catholic evangelicals are still a minority in the church, albeit an energetic and vocal one. The sidebar also notes a 2005 survey by William d’Antonio, James D. Davidson, Dean R. Hoge and Mary L. Gautier, which found that it was U.S. Catholics 65 or older who agreed most fervently that the Catholic church has “more truth” than other religions (61%, as opposed to 43% of those 26 or younger). This suggests enthusiasm for the papal position among a segment of the Catholic laity who were always fearful of Vatican II’s changes and who long for the self-deceptive certainty of an earlier Catholicism. Triumphalism, yes; but not exactly a church-wide triumph.
What can be said is that the last two popes have been successful at appealing to this segment of the laity and at re-populating the ranks of bishops and cardinals (the bishops who elect the pope) with like-minded theological neanderthals. Given their dedicated fanaticism, papal thinking is clearly in charge of the official church. It will take a fluke like the election of Pope John XXIII, who convoked Vatican II, to reverse that. But should we rush to conclude that the Spirit who shook up the church in the 1950s and 60s is incapable of doing so again?
My largest concern, though, is to resist applying the label ‘evangelical’ to recent papal thinking and its adherents. Only by giving ‘evangelical’ a novel Catholic meaning it never had before can Allen make the label work. But his usage so evacuates the term of its normal content that it confuses rather than clarifies the enormous reversal the last two popes have tried to pull off.
Papal thinking is clearly not evangelical in three of the four senses Allen ascribes to Protestants: “the Bible alone as the touchstone of faith, …personal acceptance of Jesus as opposed to salvation through externals such as sacraments, and strong missionary energies premised on the idea that salvation comes only from Christ.”
The traditional Catholic emphasis, which the recent popes consciously seek to revive, is that the Bible is normative only as interpreted by the official church, valid sacraments make Catholicism the only true church because other ecclesial communities lack them, and there is no salvation that is not mediated by the Catholic church.
Again, this is the Catholic triumphalism which prevailed from the Counter-Reformation through the 1950s. Allen tries to call the papal return to it ‘evangelical.’ But he can do this only by saying that the Catholic evangelical agenda hinges on “authority, the centrality of key doctrines, and Christian exclusivity.” I agree that these are among the chief preoccupations of JP2, Benedict XVI and their loyalists. But their project is to revive the Catholic dogmatism which Vatican II rejected and relativized. Why on earth call that project ‘evangelical’?
Calling the papal policies ‘Catholic fundamentalism’ would be more accurate, but Allen eschews that label—on the grounds that Benedict recently jettisoned limbo! This rationale is amusing, but misplaced. Despite its prevalence in Roman catechisms, limbo was never an official component of Catholic dogmatism. By focusing on a peripheral theological hypothesis that Benedict termed obsolete, Allen takes the spotlight away from the long list of surpassed dogmas that the last two popes have tried to reassert.
Their efforts are fundamentalist in the same sense as those of the evangelical right in the United States—except that they want to be fundamentalistic about the authority of the pope rather than the authority of selected biblical passages that conform to their ideology.
The bishops at Vatican II grasped what Alfred North Whitehead concluded emphatically in his philosophical work in the 1920s and 30s: religion cannot be sustained by resorting to ‘the dogmatic fallacy,’ the belief by any system of thought that “the principles of its working hypotheses are clear, obvious, and irreformable.” Because reality is always growing and our generalizations about it are always partial, Whitehead denied that such finality was ever possible.
In dozens of areas of Catholic belief and practice, the bishops of Vatican II agreed. Confident that they were responding to the deepest urgings of God’s Spirit, they agreed with Luther that Christianity’s defining characteristics—its teachings, its liturgy, its structures—must be semper reformanda, always subject to change, based on the endless interplay of scripture, tradition and contemporary experience.
It is this philosophical and evangelical conviction that John Paul II and Benedict XVI have energetically opposed. To call their approach ‘evangelical’ is to distort the term, and to radically mischaracterize the harm they have done. As a struggle against the creative advance of reality as a whole and Christianity in particular, it cannot ultimately succeed. Let’s not give it sham credibility by diluting and cheapening what ‘evangelical’ means.
The article is at http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2007c/083107/083107a.php
While Allen usually is a keen observer of all things Vatican, I think labeling Catholicism since 1978 (the election of JP2) 'evangelical' is mistaken in several ways. A more accurate description of the period is another last gasp of Catholic dogmatism.
One quibble is with use of the term ‘triumph.’ However we characterize the policies of the last two popes, should we be so quick to concede them lasting dominance?
Allen’s sidebar, “Liberal Catholicism endures in pastoral church,” quotes Richard Gaillardetz, a theologian at the University of Toledo, Ohio. Gaillardetz argues that in the U.S. Vatican II’s theology remains “a pastoral phenomenon…alive in parishes that have a flourishing catechumenate, vibrant liturgies, thoughtful and relevant preaching, and multiple lay ministerial opportunities,” as well as “in a growing number of intentional Christian communities that are determined to keep alive a vision of the church that they associate with Vatican II.” This suggests that the most involved U.S. Catholics have not assented to attempts by the last two popes to reverse Vatican II.
Both articles agree that those Allen dubs Catholic evangelicals are still a minority in the church, albeit an energetic and vocal one. The sidebar also notes a 2005 survey by William d’Antonio, James D. Davidson, Dean R. Hoge and Mary L. Gautier, which found that it was U.S. Catholics 65 or older who agreed most fervently that the Catholic church has “more truth” than other religions (61%, as opposed to 43% of those 26 or younger). This suggests enthusiasm for the papal position among a segment of the Catholic laity who were always fearful of Vatican II’s changes and who long for the self-deceptive certainty of an earlier Catholicism. Triumphalism, yes; but not exactly a church-wide triumph.
What can be said is that the last two popes have been successful at appealing to this segment of the laity and at re-populating the ranks of bishops and cardinals (the bishops who elect the pope) with like-minded theological neanderthals. Given their dedicated fanaticism, papal thinking is clearly in charge of the official church. It will take a fluke like the election of Pope John XXIII, who convoked Vatican II, to reverse that. But should we rush to conclude that the Spirit who shook up the church in the 1950s and 60s is incapable of doing so again?
My largest concern, though, is to resist applying the label ‘evangelical’ to recent papal thinking and its adherents. Only by giving ‘evangelical’ a novel Catholic meaning it never had before can Allen make the label work. But his usage so evacuates the term of its normal content that it confuses rather than clarifies the enormous reversal the last two popes have tried to pull off.
Papal thinking is clearly not evangelical in three of the four senses Allen ascribes to Protestants: “the Bible alone as the touchstone of faith, …personal acceptance of Jesus as opposed to salvation through externals such as sacraments, and strong missionary energies premised on the idea that salvation comes only from Christ.”
The traditional Catholic emphasis, which the recent popes consciously seek to revive, is that the Bible is normative only as interpreted by the official church, valid sacraments make Catholicism the only true church because other ecclesial communities lack them, and there is no salvation that is not mediated by the Catholic church.
Again, this is the Catholic triumphalism which prevailed from the Counter-Reformation through the 1950s. Allen tries to call the papal return to it ‘evangelical.’ But he can do this only by saying that the Catholic evangelical agenda hinges on “authority, the centrality of key doctrines, and Christian exclusivity.” I agree that these are among the chief preoccupations of JP2, Benedict XVI and their loyalists. But their project is to revive the Catholic dogmatism which Vatican II rejected and relativized. Why on earth call that project ‘evangelical’?
Calling the papal policies ‘Catholic fundamentalism’ would be more accurate, but Allen eschews that label—on the grounds that Benedict recently jettisoned limbo! This rationale is amusing, but misplaced. Despite its prevalence in Roman catechisms, limbo was never an official component of Catholic dogmatism. By focusing on a peripheral theological hypothesis that Benedict termed obsolete, Allen takes the spotlight away from the long list of surpassed dogmas that the last two popes have tried to reassert.
Their efforts are fundamentalist in the same sense as those of the evangelical right in the United States—except that they want to be fundamentalistic about the authority of the pope rather than the authority of selected biblical passages that conform to their ideology.
The bishops at Vatican II grasped what Alfred North Whitehead concluded emphatically in his philosophical work in the 1920s and 30s: religion cannot be sustained by resorting to ‘the dogmatic fallacy,’ the belief by any system of thought that “the principles of its working hypotheses are clear, obvious, and irreformable.” Because reality is always growing and our generalizations about it are always partial, Whitehead denied that such finality was ever possible.
In dozens of areas of Catholic belief and practice, the bishops of Vatican II agreed. Confident that they were responding to the deepest urgings of God’s Spirit, they agreed with Luther that Christianity’s defining characteristics—its teachings, its liturgy, its structures—must be semper reformanda, always subject to change, based on the endless interplay of scripture, tradition and contemporary experience.
It is this philosophical and evangelical conviction that John Paul II and Benedict XVI have energetically opposed. To call their approach ‘evangelical’ is to distort the term, and to radically mischaracterize the harm they have done. As a struggle against the creative advance of reality as a whole and Christianity in particular, it cannot ultimately succeed. Let’s not give it sham credibility by diluting and cheapening what ‘evangelical’ means.
Friday, August 24, 2007
CNN Viewers Prove Much More Encouraging Than "God's Warriors"
It’s truly heartening that the statements by CNN.com readers and the follow-up comments by others contain almost none of the ridiculous claims voiced with such misplaced fervor by all of “God’s Warriors”—Jewish, Islamic or Christian—portrayed so accurately by Christiane Amanpour in her outstanding six-hour analysis. The feedback is available at http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/23/faith.reader.feedback/index.html
As observed by several insightful commentators, what is fundamentally under attack is not religion but what may be the United States’ best gift to the world, the wall of separation between church and state enshrined in our Constitution’s First Amendment. The Founders had experienced state religion, sects that claimed to have the only truth about God, and persecution by religionists in God’s name. The First Amendment religion clauses were crafted specifically and consciously to keep those abuses from happening here.
The blood-thirsty insistence by “God’s Warriors” that they must destroy anyone who disagrees with them is the strongest present-day confirmation that that the wall of separation is the perfect antidote to intolerant self-worship masquerading as faith—and that the sooner it is adopted in every nation on earth, the safer the world will be.
Nowhere is it more urgent than in Jerusalem, where the three major religions need to affirm together that all of their claims have some historical justification, and that the only way they can enjoy their own claims is by allowing the other two religions to enjoy theirs in the same time and space.
As observed by several insightful commentators, what is fundamentally under attack is not religion but what may be the United States’ best gift to the world, the wall of separation between church and state enshrined in our Constitution’s First Amendment. The Founders had experienced state religion, sects that claimed to have the only truth about God, and persecution by religionists in God’s name. The First Amendment religion clauses were crafted specifically and consciously to keep those abuses from happening here.
The blood-thirsty insistence by “God’s Warriors” that they must destroy anyone who disagrees with them is the strongest present-day confirmation that that the wall of separation is the perfect antidote to intolerant self-worship masquerading as faith—and that the sooner it is adopted in every nation on earth, the safer the world will be.
Nowhere is it more urgent than in Jerusalem, where the three major religions need to affirm together that all of their claims have some historical justification, and that the only way they can enjoy their own claims is by allowing the other two religions to enjoy theirs in the same time and space.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Selective Grief: Why We Prefer Spectacular Deaths to Preventable Ones
Meghan Daum, a weekly columnist for the Los Angeles Times, notes that about a million people die every week. But rather than focus on the big killers that could be reduced by better public policy, planning, funding and research—e.g., U.S. deaths from heart disease at one every 36 seconds, or cancer at 42,000 a month, or vehicle accidents at 3,500 a month—we obsess on news stories about plane crashes, bridge collapses and mine cave-ins. Our attention span also favors those who die "too soon" and in our own country, over larger catastrophes suffered by grown-ups or abroad. She suggests we do this because the real risks hit so close to home that most of us do our utmost to put them out of our minds entirely.
The complete column below is also available at http://www.meghandaum.com/latimes_column_2007.htm
Death by numbers
We're obsessed with plane crashes and bridge collapses, yet we pay little attention to the stuff that kills the rest of us.
August 18, 2007
On any given day, an average of 148,000 people will die.
That means over a million people have died in the last week. Nearly 5 million have died since around this time last month, which, incidentally, was exactly when we were briefly bombarded with the news that 199 people were killed in a Brazilian airliner crash.
Other deaths and possible deaths we've heard about since then include the 11 victims found so far in the Interstate 35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis; the six miners missing and three rescuers killed in a Utah coal mine; hundreds dead in the earthquake in Peru.
To a somewhat lesser extent, we've also heard about 100-plus troops and the 2,000-plus civilians reportedly killed in the Iraq war in the last month. There was also news of the passing of several celebrities, including evangelist Tammy Faye Messner, talk-show host Merv Griffin and baseball's Phil Rizzuto.
For all the ink, video footage and treacly Larry King segments devoted to these deaths, it should come as no surprise that they represent a fraction of a fraction of the number of people who have died since around the last time a new moon appeared in the sky.
Based on estimates from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there were about 3,500 automobile-related deaths during that monthlong period. U.S. cancer deaths hover around 42,000 a month. As for heart disease, the American Heart Assn. tells us that someone dies of cardiovascular disease every 36 seconds. And that's just in this country.
As staggering as these numbers are, they don't seem to scare or interest us nearly as much as things like plane crashes, mountain lion attacks, deadly roller coaster mishaps or avian flu. And because the news media is savvy about (and complicit in) our fears and fascinations, we are fed an endless supply of death news that has little to do with how most people actually die. Nonetheless, death by falling asteroid seems infinitely more real than death by cholesterol.
Call it selective fear, selective mourning. It may be an act of denial, but it's also an act of self-protection. Figures from the National Center for Health Statistics suggest that the lifetime odds of dying in a plane crash are about 1 in 20,000. Those same figures put the chances of dying in a car accident about 1 in 100. So why, when our plane is taxiing down the runway, do many of us still indulge in various acts of magical thinking (if we can name the last 12 presidents the wing won't fall off) even after blithely getting in our cars and making what is, statistically speaking, the far more perilous drive to the airport?
The most obvious answer is that the real risks (and, by extension, the multitude of daily tragedies those risks engender) simply hit too close to home. We don't think about car accidents and heart disease not because we think it won't happen to us but because we suspect or even assume it will. Given the inevitably, our response is to put it out of our minds entirely.
All that freed-up mental space leaves plenty of room to obsess about the proverbial lightning strike. Take the case of the Minneapolis bridge collapse. Yes, it was the kind of visually intense story that television news can't get enough of, and, yes, death toll estimates were initially as high as 80. But within a few days, it seemed clear that far fewer people had died. And although that doesn't make the bridge collapse (or, for that matter, the subsequent Utah mine collapse) any less of a tragedy, it does make you wonder what other stories were bumped from the headlines in favor of breathless, around-the-clock coverage of the search-and-rescue operation, the victims' families and the ensuing presidential visit.
Death doesn't discriminate, but at least when it comes to the deaths of strangers, neither is it immune to certain hierarchical precepts. A cursory glance at what we pay most attention to suggests that grand spectacle rules the day. Sinking ferryboats trump bus accidents, but plane crashes, with their unspeakable, almost supernatural brand of horror, are the most riveting of all.
Young victims, naturally, hold more emotional currency than their adult counterparts, making the school bus crash a far better candidate for selective mourning than the commuter train derailment, which is in turn far more captivating than the deadly highway pileup.
Mammoth disasters like the Indian Ocean tsunami aside, small-scale blight on home soil will almost always catch more eyeballs than larger events far away. As the death toll in Peru soared past 500, on TV at least, it was the Utah mine tragedy we couldn't get enough of.
Meanwhile, 3,000 people, mostly sub-Saharan African children, will die today of malaria with nary an Associated Press story to spread the news.
We care, but the diseases and the car wrecks that kill thousands of us every day are so common that they're the opposite of news. They're also usually too frightening to contemplate. Freak accidents, in contrast, are freakishly comforting.
© Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times
The complete column below is also available at http://www.meghandaum.com/latimes_column_2007.htm
Death by numbers
We're obsessed with plane crashes and bridge collapses, yet we pay little attention to the stuff that kills the rest of us.
August 18, 2007
On any given day, an average of 148,000 people will die.
That means over a million people have died in the last week. Nearly 5 million have died since around this time last month, which, incidentally, was exactly when we were briefly bombarded with the news that 199 people were killed in a Brazilian airliner crash.
Other deaths and possible deaths we've heard about since then include the 11 victims found so far in the Interstate 35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis; the six miners missing and three rescuers killed in a Utah coal mine; hundreds dead in the earthquake in Peru.
To a somewhat lesser extent, we've also heard about 100-plus troops and the 2,000-plus civilians reportedly killed in the Iraq war in the last month. There was also news of the passing of several celebrities, including evangelist Tammy Faye Messner, talk-show host Merv Griffin and baseball's Phil Rizzuto.
For all the ink, video footage and treacly Larry King segments devoted to these deaths, it should come as no surprise that they represent a fraction of a fraction of the number of people who have died since around the last time a new moon appeared in the sky.
Based on estimates from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there were about 3,500 automobile-related deaths during that monthlong period. U.S. cancer deaths hover around 42,000 a month. As for heart disease, the American Heart Assn. tells us that someone dies of cardiovascular disease every 36 seconds. And that's just in this country.
As staggering as these numbers are, they don't seem to scare or interest us nearly as much as things like plane crashes, mountain lion attacks, deadly roller coaster mishaps or avian flu. And because the news media is savvy about (and complicit in) our fears and fascinations, we are fed an endless supply of death news that has little to do with how most people actually die. Nonetheless, death by falling asteroid seems infinitely more real than death by cholesterol.
Call it selective fear, selective mourning. It may be an act of denial, but it's also an act of self-protection. Figures from the National Center for Health Statistics suggest that the lifetime odds of dying in a plane crash are about 1 in 20,000. Those same figures put the chances of dying in a car accident about 1 in 100. So why, when our plane is taxiing down the runway, do many of us still indulge in various acts of magical thinking (if we can name the last 12 presidents the wing won't fall off) even after blithely getting in our cars and making what is, statistically speaking, the far more perilous drive to the airport?
The most obvious answer is that the real risks (and, by extension, the multitude of daily tragedies those risks engender) simply hit too close to home. We don't think about car accidents and heart disease not because we think it won't happen to us but because we suspect or even assume it will. Given the inevitably, our response is to put it out of our minds entirely.
All that freed-up mental space leaves plenty of room to obsess about the proverbial lightning strike. Take the case of the Minneapolis bridge collapse. Yes, it was the kind of visually intense story that television news can't get enough of, and, yes, death toll estimates were initially as high as 80. But within a few days, it seemed clear that far fewer people had died. And although that doesn't make the bridge collapse (or, for that matter, the subsequent Utah mine collapse) any less of a tragedy, it does make you wonder what other stories were bumped from the headlines in favor of breathless, around-the-clock coverage of the search-and-rescue operation, the victims' families and the ensuing presidential visit.
Death doesn't discriminate, but at least when it comes to the deaths of strangers, neither is it immune to certain hierarchical precepts. A cursory glance at what we pay most attention to suggests that grand spectacle rules the day. Sinking ferryboats trump bus accidents, but plane crashes, with their unspeakable, almost supernatural brand of horror, are the most riveting of all.
Young victims, naturally, hold more emotional currency than their adult counterparts, making the school bus crash a far better candidate for selective mourning than the commuter train derailment, which is in turn far more captivating than the deadly highway pileup.
Mammoth disasters like the Indian Ocean tsunami aside, small-scale blight on home soil will almost always catch more eyeballs than larger events far away. As the death toll in Peru soared past 500, on TV at least, it was the Utah mine tragedy we couldn't get enough of.
Meanwhile, 3,000 people, mostly sub-Saharan African children, will die today of malaria with nary an Associated Press story to spread the news.
We care, but the diseases and the car wrecks that kill thousands of us every day are so common that they're the opposite of news. They're also usually too frightening to contemplate. Freak accidents, in contrast, are freakishly comforting.
© Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times
Monday, August 20, 2007
U.S. Infrastructure: The Free Ride Is Over!
In the wake of the Minnesota bridge collapse, editorial cartoons like this highlight one reason why the wealthiest country on earth counts a staggering 75,621 “structurally deficient” bridges.
Along with other significant parts of our infrastructure (like the old steam pipes under New York City, the levees in New Orleans, and airport capacity in several cities), our highways and bridges are suffering from decades of under-funding and neglect.
But there is a bigger culprit. Our infrastructures are decaying and getting dangerous because for 30 years American voters have bought the myth that we can enjoy a safe, efficient, economically productive public order without really paying for it. So many taxes have been cut at the federal, state and local levels that no government has the resources to cover basic cash flow, let alone the basic capital maintenance and improvements necessary to keep infrastructures from crumbling.
Nine years ago, an analyst for the libertarian Cato Institute, a long-time cheerleader for 20th-century U.S. conservatism, said the conservative movement was born June 6, 1978, when California’s voters passed Proposition 13. See http://www.cato.org/dailys/7-30-98.html.
The initiative said “The maximum amount of any ad valorem tax on real property shall not exceed One percent (1%) of the full cash value of such property.” It reduced California’s property tax revenue by 57%. And it virtually prohibited any future revision—requiring a 2/3 vote of both houses of the state legislature before any new state tax could be enacted.
Under the conservative mantra “That government is best which governs least,” Proposition 13’s spirit and practice have permeated American politics ever since. The sad state of our infrastructures nationwide is ample testimony to Proposition 13’s failure to provide for government’s most basic responsibilities.
Three things are obvious. A course correction is long overdue. Billions are needed to address just the highway problems we face. And no government in the United States is collecting enough revenue to begin the most urgent repairs.
The least painful quick-fix I’ve seen lately is a proposal by columnist Neal Peirce to levy a federal excise tax on the purchase of any new vehicle, calculated on road wear-and-tear based on weight-per-wheel. His proposal is at http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/5064993.html
This excise tax would have minimal negative impact on the economy or even motor vehicle sales. Peirce argues that the tax should average at least several hundred dollars per vehicle—“chump change in the prices haggled over each new vehicle. But the revenue would be a sure generator of needed billions for the roadways.”
Such a ”Big New Tax” would avoid the political pitfalls of “the long-battered gas tax.” He says it was Congress’ awful record on transportation funding and irresponsible transportation earmarks that enabled President Bush to dismiss the recently proposed 5-cent-a-gallon increase in the gasoline tax. Peirce would dedicate the revenue from an excise tax on vehicles to a bridge and road safety repair fund, then supplement it with other user-fees for other critical infrastructure needs.
He would agree that the free ride started by Proposition 13 has come to an end. And he has fightin’ words for those who deny it: “To the visceral anti-taxers, I say: Wake up, smell the coffee. If you don’t want to pay for roads, stop driving.”
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Christians and U.S. Military Treat Gays Shamefully—And Cheer Each Another On
In a print editorial today, the Houston Chronicle decries the shameful treatment of two gay Desert Storm veterans and their families by a Dallas-area Baptist mega-church—and says their public humiliation by the church only compounds how the U.S. military disrespects the service of gay people with its Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy.
One of the men, 46-year old Cecil Sinclair, died while awaiting a heart transplant. Sinclair’s brother was a janitor at the church and a member of the congregation. High Point Church reached out to Cecil during his illness. While he was hospitalized, a church minister met Paul Wagner, his gay life partner and a member of the armed forces for 16 years. The church scheduled the funeral, aware that the Turtle Creek Chorale, a Dallas gay men’s chorus, would sing.
But the day before the funeral, after Sinclair’s obituary ran, Pastor Gary Simmons abruptly cancelled the memorial service.
The Chronicle, not persuaded that any reason given by the church justified its action, said High Point’s treatment of the men and their families “ranged from bumbling to insulting.” Acknowledging that the church had a right to reject gays on religious grounds, the editorial said “such disrespect toward a U.S. veteran is galling.”
Yet it noted that the military’s own disrespect for its gay and lesbian service-members encourages such treatment elsewhere. Despite recent polls showing that 79% of Americans believe that openly gay people should be allowed to serve, and even 49% of Republicans in favor of repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the military continues to enforce the policy. The policy has deprived the armed forces of thousands of gay specialists in languages and technology vital to prosecuting the war against terrorists: rather than strengthening the nation’s safety, it has weakened it.
The Chronicle concludes: “Officials at High Point Church may not see the full humanity of gay men and women. But other Americans, increasingly, appreciate their contributions, especially in the military. The fitting tribute is to let them serve in the armed forces without having to keep their nature and identity a secret.”
The editorial is at http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/5054460.html
The newspaper’s call for an end to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is commendable. Its condemnation of the church’s behavior does not go nearly far enough.
From the perspective of constitutional law, the church’s right to oppose same-sex partners is unassailable. But by any standard, the church’s behavior is unkind and, by the standards Jesus preached, blatantly uncharitable. Furthermore, it rests on erroneous interpretations of biblical texts and a theology that is several decades out of date.
I addressed those theological deficiencies in postings on 3/12/07, 3/23/07, 5/14/07, 5/16/07 and 6/5/07, as well as in a chapter of my Ph.D. dissertation at http://home.comcast.net/~creativeadvance/P2Ch2.pdf
Those open to listening to that analysis and argument might find them persuasive. Those who revere ideology over fact and truth will persist in behavior like that of High Point Church, no matter what anyone says.
One of the men, 46-year old Cecil Sinclair, died while awaiting a heart transplant. Sinclair’s brother was a janitor at the church and a member of the congregation. High Point Church reached out to Cecil during his illness. While he was hospitalized, a church minister met Paul Wagner, his gay life partner and a member of the armed forces for 16 years. The church scheduled the funeral, aware that the Turtle Creek Chorale, a Dallas gay men’s chorus, would sing.
But the day before the funeral, after Sinclair’s obituary ran, Pastor Gary Simmons abruptly cancelled the memorial service.
The Chronicle, not persuaded that any reason given by the church justified its action, said High Point’s treatment of the men and their families “ranged from bumbling to insulting.” Acknowledging that the church had a right to reject gays on religious grounds, the editorial said “such disrespect toward a U.S. veteran is galling.”
Yet it noted that the military’s own disrespect for its gay and lesbian service-members encourages such treatment elsewhere. Despite recent polls showing that 79% of Americans believe that openly gay people should be allowed to serve, and even 49% of Republicans in favor of repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the military continues to enforce the policy. The policy has deprived the armed forces of thousands of gay specialists in languages and technology vital to prosecuting the war against terrorists: rather than strengthening the nation’s safety, it has weakened it.
The Chronicle concludes: “Officials at High Point Church may not see the full humanity of gay men and women. But other Americans, increasingly, appreciate their contributions, especially in the military. The fitting tribute is to let them serve in the armed forces without having to keep their nature and identity a secret.”
The editorial is at http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/5054460.html
The newspaper’s call for an end to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is commendable. Its condemnation of the church’s behavior does not go nearly far enough.
From the perspective of constitutional law, the church’s right to oppose same-sex partners is unassailable. But by any standard, the church’s behavior is unkind and, by the standards Jesus preached, blatantly uncharitable. Furthermore, it rests on erroneous interpretations of biblical texts and a theology that is several decades out of date.
I addressed those theological deficiencies in postings on 3/12/07, 3/23/07, 5/14/07, 5/16/07 and 6/5/07, as well as in a chapter of my Ph.D. dissertation at http://home.comcast.net/~creativeadvance/P2Ch2.pdf
Those open to listening to that analysis and argument might find them persuasive. Those who revere ideology over fact and truth will persist in behavior like that of High Point Church, no matter what anyone says.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Bush to 'Turd Blossom:' "If I Had Another Brain, It'd Be Lonesome"
One biographer called Karl Rove "Bush's brain." But The Nation, which prides itself on imparting "Unconventional Wisdom Since 1865," says W got closer when he named Rove 'Turd Blossom,' and Rove shouldn't leave till he cleans up after himself. Following are some paragraphs of The Nation's article at http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?pid=222612
Certainly, a White House aide who has engaged in the sort of political and policy chicanery that Rove has perpetuated ought to lose the right to collect a paycheck from U.S. taxpayers. Take your pick: the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. attorney scandal, the Valerie Plame leak, inaction on global warming, injecting politics into federal agencies to a new degree, suppressing government science, the stem cell veto, tax cuts for the wealthy, politicizing the war on terror.
But leaving is too good for Rove. He was Bush's partner in the Iraq war, yet he (like other Bush aides, including, most recently, Dan Bartlett) are abandoning ship before the fight is done. Rove has argued that the Iraq war is essential for the survival of the United States (that is, for all of our families). So how can he walk away with the war not won?
In June 2006, Rove gave a speech to New Hampshire Republicans and blasted Democrats for advocating "cutting and running" in Iraq. He said of the Democrats, "They may be with you for the first shots. But they're not going...to be with you for the tough battles." But isn't Rove now doing the same on a personal scale? He is departing the White House when the going in Iraq is as tough as it ever was.
In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote of Tom and Daisy, "They were careless people...they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back to their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."
Rove is certainly more careful than Fitzgerald's characters--careful when it comes to politics and doing whatever is necessary to win. But with Bush, he recklessly steered this country into a debacle in Iraq that has caused the death of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and that has ruined the United States' reputation abroad.
Bush, Rove, Dick Cheney and the rest did so with little understanding and with insufficient planning, and they sold the war to the public with bad information and blatant misrepresentations. (Rove was part of the White House Iraq Group that devised the prewar messaging.) Rove deserves not reward but punishment. A fitting sentence would be for Rove to stay to the bitter end so he can sweep up the turds he is now leaving behind.
Of course, if Karl hits the road as planned, we can always treasure his send-off from The Daily Show. You can enjoy it at http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/08/14/the-daily-show-bids-farewell-to-turd-blossom/
Certainly, a White House aide who has engaged in the sort of political and policy chicanery that Rove has perpetuated ought to lose the right to collect a paycheck from U.S. taxpayers. Take your pick: the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. attorney scandal, the Valerie Plame leak, inaction on global warming, injecting politics into federal agencies to a new degree, suppressing government science, the stem cell veto, tax cuts for the wealthy, politicizing the war on terror.
But leaving is too good for Rove. He was Bush's partner in the Iraq war, yet he (like other Bush aides, including, most recently, Dan Bartlett) are abandoning ship before the fight is done. Rove has argued that the Iraq war is essential for the survival of the United States (that is, for all of our families). So how can he walk away with the war not won?
In June 2006, Rove gave a speech to New Hampshire Republicans and blasted Democrats for advocating "cutting and running" in Iraq. He said of the Democrats, "They may be with you for the first shots. But they're not going...to be with you for the tough battles." But isn't Rove now doing the same on a personal scale? He is departing the White House when the going in Iraq is as tough as it ever was.
In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote of Tom and Daisy, "They were careless people...they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back to their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made."
Rove is certainly more careful than Fitzgerald's characters--careful when it comes to politics and doing whatever is necessary to win. But with Bush, he recklessly steered this country into a debacle in Iraq that has caused the death of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and that has ruined the United States' reputation abroad.
Bush, Rove, Dick Cheney and the rest did so with little understanding and with insufficient planning, and they sold the war to the public with bad information and blatant misrepresentations. (Rove was part of the White House Iraq Group that devised the prewar messaging.) Rove deserves not reward but punishment. A fitting sentence would be for Rove to stay to the bitter end so he can sweep up the turds he is now leaving behind.
Of course, if Karl hits the road as planned, we can always treasure his send-off from The Daily Show. You can enjoy it at http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/08/14/the-daily-show-bids-farewell-to-turd-blossom/
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Earth to Earthlings: Your Birthing Disorder Must End
It’s time to reiterate my post of April 3, 2007, “Global Birthing Fuels Global Warming,” but with new data and a more pointed thrust. Key points were:
1. For decades, population growth has continuously outpaced our technological ability to produce and deliver a long list of basic necessities to every person on earth.
2. Obvious remedy: “reduce the pace of adding bodies to the planet until we learn how sustain the lives of the ones we already have.”
3. Chief obstacle: refusing to factor climate change into its opposition to “artificial contraception,” the Catholic Church today is the primary global proponent of overpopulation, thereby giving population growth mistaken priority over planetary survival.
A recent column by Neal Peirce of the Washington Post and the Center for Local and State Solutions raises the question: is any growth in world population compatible with halting catastrophic climate change?
Peirce’s column is available at http://www.napawash.org/resources/peirce/peirce_7_15_07.html
Peirce was reporting on a global Urban Summit, assembled by the Rockefeller Foundation at the start of July in Bellagio, Italy. He highlighted presentations by Joel Cohen, head of the Laboratory of Populations at Rockefeller and Columbia Universities, and by Stephen Shepherd and colleagues at Williams College.
Cohen’s analysis:
World population in 1950: 2.2 billion, spread mostly across rural areas.
World population today: 6.6 billion, half crowded into cities characterized increasingly by slums, endangered water and sewer systems, local misery and potential pandemics.
World population by 2050 at present birthrates: 11.7 billion.
Even if we reduced birthrates and added only 2.5 billion people by 2050: the world will have to build one city of 1 million every week for the next 43 years.
Does anyone imagine that is remotely possible?
Novel techniques used by Sheppard and his colleagues yielded even more dire conclusions about specific cities. Comparing Landsat satellite images of 120 world cities taken in 1990 and 2000, and matching the images with census data from each city, they were able to pinpoint a very troubling pattern of growth.
The most significant pattern is not the increase of slum-dwellers in the city centers, but the exponentially greater relentless expansion of urban peripheries. Comparing “infill” of the space inside existing cities with “outspill” that expanded the cities’ geographic areas, they found seven times more outspill.
For example, just to keep pace with current rates, Sao Paolo, Brazil, would have to add 7.5 square miles of new development every year. Shanghai would have to add twice as much.
Debate about whether public policy should prefer infill or outspill has been going on in major U. S. cities for decades. Sheppard’s analysis suggests, however, that no matter how much we make it a priority to improve the quality of life in city centers, global population pressures will keep pushing cities to enlarge their limits exponentially faster.
It is painfully obvious that technology is nowhere near an ability to handle the additional global warming that will result if we attempt to provide food, water, sewers, waste disposal, electricity, air conditioning, transportation, flood control etc. to such rapidly expanding cities. The Minnesota bridge collapse left no doubt: even the richest country on earth cannot keep up with the infrastructure maintenance and repair required to sustain the cities it already has. There is no way we can bite off more.
Overpopulation contributes negatively to global warming more directly and immediately than any other human activity. Until technology catches up enough to provide basic necessities without making global warming worse, the burden is on those who favor population growth to show how any increase in global population can be justified—scientifically, politically or morally.
According to Genesis 1:28 (Jerusalem Bible translation), God’s injunction to humanity’s first parents was “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth…” Measured by global warming and the very direct ways that population growth worsens it, the earth today is beyond the number of humans it can accommodate. We must ask ourselves seriously if the humanity can survive unless we begin taking steps to put the global population on hold.
It’s news to no one that there are acts of sexual coupling that are not open to the reproduction of children—and that those which biologically can produce offspring are still subject to responsible human control. In light of global warming, insisting that there is some divine or “natural law” mandate that every sexual act must be open to the creation of new life is utter nonsense. Even the Catholic Church has recognized that human sexuality has other ends. At this point in the evolution of our planet, those other ends need to be given higher priority—and be valued more highly—than having offspring.
Perhaps the nations of the world need to consider if the Chinese were not onto something when they provided disincentives to having large families. The Chinese policy was too draconian in content and execution. But already with the largest national population in the world, they were first to recognize what is becoming more obvious globally: there are finite limits to a population size that technology and the planet can sustain.
If nothing else, nations might want to ask if using tax laws to encourage more children is any longer a defendable idea. At the very least, no concrete decision to increase global population should ever be applauded as fashionable, patriotic, ecologically sound or even preserving the human race. At this point in history, population growth accomplishes nothing positive.
The planet is telling us that our natural instinct to perpetuate our families has been perverted into a birthing disorder. Either we eliminate it, or it will eliminate us.
1. For decades, population growth has continuously outpaced our technological ability to produce and deliver a long list of basic necessities to every person on earth.
2. Obvious remedy: “reduce the pace of adding bodies to the planet until we learn how sustain the lives of the ones we already have.”
3. Chief obstacle: refusing to factor climate change into its opposition to “artificial contraception,” the Catholic Church today is the primary global proponent of overpopulation, thereby giving population growth mistaken priority over planetary survival.
A recent column by Neal Peirce of the Washington Post and the Center for Local and State Solutions raises the question: is any growth in world population compatible with halting catastrophic climate change?
Peirce’s column is available at http://www.napawash.org/resources/peirce/peirce_7_15_07.html
Peirce was reporting on a global Urban Summit, assembled by the Rockefeller Foundation at the start of July in Bellagio, Italy. He highlighted presentations by Joel Cohen, head of the Laboratory of Populations at Rockefeller and Columbia Universities, and by Stephen Shepherd and colleagues at Williams College.
Cohen’s analysis:
World population in 1950: 2.2 billion, spread mostly across rural areas.
World population today: 6.6 billion, half crowded into cities characterized increasingly by slums, endangered water and sewer systems, local misery and potential pandemics.
World population by 2050 at present birthrates: 11.7 billion.
Even if we reduced birthrates and added only 2.5 billion people by 2050: the world will have to build one city of 1 million every week for the next 43 years.
Does anyone imagine that is remotely possible?
Novel techniques used by Sheppard and his colleagues yielded even more dire conclusions about specific cities. Comparing Landsat satellite images of 120 world cities taken in 1990 and 2000, and matching the images with census data from each city, they were able to pinpoint a very troubling pattern of growth.
The most significant pattern is not the increase of slum-dwellers in the city centers, but the exponentially greater relentless expansion of urban peripheries. Comparing “infill” of the space inside existing cities with “outspill” that expanded the cities’ geographic areas, they found seven times more outspill.
For example, just to keep pace with current rates, Sao Paolo, Brazil, would have to add 7.5 square miles of new development every year. Shanghai would have to add twice as much.
Debate about whether public policy should prefer infill or outspill has been going on in major U. S. cities for decades. Sheppard’s analysis suggests, however, that no matter how much we make it a priority to improve the quality of life in city centers, global population pressures will keep pushing cities to enlarge their limits exponentially faster.
It is painfully obvious that technology is nowhere near an ability to handle the additional global warming that will result if we attempt to provide food, water, sewers, waste disposal, electricity, air conditioning, transportation, flood control etc. to such rapidly expanding cities. The Minnesota bridge collapse left no doubt: even the richest country on earth cannot keep up with the infrastructure maintenance and repair required to sustain the cities it already has. There is no way we can bite off more.
Overpopulation contributes negatively to global warming more directly and immediately than any other human activity. Until technology catches up enough to provide basic necessities without making global warming worse, the burden is on those who favor population growth to show how any increase in global population can be justified—scientifically, politically or morally.
According to Genesis 1:28 (Jerusalem Bible translation), God’s injunction to humanity’s first parents was “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth…” Measured by global warming and the very direct ways that population growth worsens it, the earth today is beyond the number of humans it can accommodate. We must ask ourselves seriously if the humanity can survive unless we begin taking steps to put the global population on hold.
It’s news to no one that there are acts of sexual coupling that are not open to the reproduction of children—and that those which biologically can produce offspring are still subject to responsible human control. In light of global warming, insisting that there is some divine or “natural law” mandate that every sexual act must be open to the creation of new life is utter nonsense. Even the Catholic Church has recognized that human sexuality has other ends. At this point in the evolution of our planet, those other ends need to be given higher priority—and be valued more highly—than having offspring.
Perhaps the nations of the world need to consider if the Chinese were not onto something when they provided disincentives to having large families. The Chinese policy was too draconian in content and execution. But already with the largest national population in the world, they were first to recognize what is becoming more obvious globally: there are finite limits to a population size that technology and the planet can sustain.
If nothing else, nations might want to ask if using tax laws to encourage more children is any longer a defendable idea. At the very least, no concrete decision to increase global population should ever be applauded as fashionable, patriotic, ecologically sound or even preserving the human race. At this point in history, population growth accomplishes nothing positive.
The planet is telling us that our natural instinct to perpetuate our families has been perverted into a birthing disorder. Either we eliminate it, or it will eliminate us.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Bush Threatens to Undermine New Orleans--Again
WWL-TV in New Orleans reports that, once again, President Bush is back-sliding on his promise that the federal govrnment would ensure the city's recovery from Hurricane Katrina. Now, for reasons clear to no one, he threatens to veto a bill that would devote $4 billion to infrastructure improvements to reduce the threat of new flooding. The outrage of Louisiana officials--including David Vitter--is well justified. Perhaps Bush should publish a list of promises he has kept. It would be a very short one.
This article, originally from the Associated Press, is at http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/wwl080207tpbushveto.d5887200.html
Louisiana officials angry over Bush veto threat
August 2, 2007
BATON ROUGE, La. - Louisiana officials reacted angrily to President Bush's threat to veto a $20 billion water projects bill unless lawmakers remove the billions added for new plants and new costs shifted onto the federal government.
The bill was passed overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives Wednesday night.
"I am stunned by the President's WRDA veto threat," Republican Senator David Vitter said. "And I have one basic response -- I will enthusiastically work to override his veto."
Vitter pointed out that levees buckled under the intense storm surge of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the bill contains the means to "update, improve, and streamline bureaucratic stonewalls within the Army Corps of Engineers."
Gov. Kathleen Blanco said she wholeheartedly agreed with Vitter's viewpoint.
Louisiana has waited seven years for the projects in the bill to help with coastal restoration and hurricane protection projects, Blanco said.
"With many coastal residents still rebuilding after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita -- still vulnerable to future storms, I fail to understand how President Bush can choose to abandon their protection," Blanco said. "I urge our Louisiana Delegation to stand together and fight for Louisiana's future. Mr. President, our people are still suffering, and this WRDA bill shows them there is hope for the future. I ask you, do not dash their hopes."
In addition to water projects throughout the country, the bill includes authorization for over $2 billion in projects for south Louisiana, including full authorization for the Morganza-to-the-Gulf hurricane and storm protection system, $1.9 billion for a comprehensive federal coastal restoration plan, closure of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, and channel deepening at the Port of Iberia, Rep. Charlie Melancon pointed out.
"By saying no to Morganza, the President is ignoring the 120,000 Americans in Terrebonne and south Lafourche who currently have no defense against storms and are like sitting ducks in the path of the next killer hurricane," Melancon said. "By saying no to closing MRGO, the President is ignoring the people of St. Bernard and New Orleans who had their homes and communities destroyed in large part because of this hurricane superhighway. And by saying no to the almost $2 billion in coastal restoration projects this bill authorizes, the President is ignoring all of the people of south Louisiana, and the vital role they play supplying this country with energy, seafood, and other resources."
This article, originally from the Associated Press, is at http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/wwl080207tpbushveto.d5887200.html
Louisiana officials angry over Bush veto threat
August 2, 2007
BATON ROUGE, La. - Louisiana officials reacted angrily to President Bush's threat to veto a $20 billion water projects bill unless lawmakers remove the billions added for new plants and new costs shifted onto the federal government.
The bill was passed overwhelmingly in the House of Representatives Wednesday night.
"I am stunned by the President's WRDA veto threat," Republican Senator David Vitter said. "And I have one basic response -- I will enthusiastically work to override his veto."
Vitter pointed out that levees buckled under the intense storm surge of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the bill contains the means to "update, improve, and streamline bureaucratic stonewalls within the Army Corps of Engineers."
Gov. Kathleen Blanco said she wholeheartedly agreed with Vitter's viewpoint.
Louisiana has waited seven years for the projects in the bill to help with coastal restoration and hurricane protection projects, Blanco said.
"With many coastal residents still rebuilding after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita -- still vulnerable to future storms, I fail to understand how President Bush can choose to abandon their protection," Blanco said. "I urge our Louisiana Delegation to stand together and fight for Louisiana's future. Mr. President, our people are still suffering, and this WRDA bill shows them there is hope for the future. I ask you, do not dash their hopes."
In addition to water projects throughout the country, the bill includes authorization for over $2 billion in projects for south Louisiana, including full authorization for the Morganza-to-the-Gulf hurricane and storm protection system, $1.9 billion for a comprehensive federal coastal restoration plan, closure of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, and channel deepening at the Port of Iberia, Rep. Charlie Melancon pointed out.
"By saying no to Morganza, the President is ignoring the 120,000 Americans in Terrebonne and south Lafourche who currently have no defense against storms and are like sitting ducks in the path of the next killer hurricane," Melancon said. "By saying no to closing MRGO, the President is ignoring the people of St. Bernard and New Orleans who had their homes and communities destroyed in large part because of this hurricane superhighway. And by saying no to the almost $2 billion in coastal restoration projects this bill authorizes, the President is ignoring all of the people of south Louisiana, and the vital role they play supplying this country with energy, seafood, and other resources."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
