Take It To The People

British Labor MP Clement Attlee  once walked in to the men's room in the Houses of Parliament while Winston Churchill was using it. Churchill moved as far from Attlee as possible.  Attlee said, "Nervous, Winston?"  Churchill replied, "Of course!  Every time you see something large you wish to nationalize it!"

In 2005-2006, then DNC chair Howard Dean proposed a remarkable plan for the mid-term election: nationalize them.  Calling it "The 50 State Plan", Dean proposed, first getting word out all the way down to the precinct level that as many elections as possible were going to be contested, with that contestation coordinated from the top.  Then, he and other committee members went on a recruiting drive, pitching his idea that the Bush Administration, having gone way too far in Iraq, abandoned Afghanistan, and created an unstable fiscal and economic homefront, provided opportunities for Democratic candidates around the country.

A lot of people thought Dean was nuts.  Not a few folks in the Democratic Party tried to get him either to shut up or step aside.  Dean ignored them and worked and worked and worked and in 2006 the Democratic Party took back the House of Representatives (with some help both from former Rep. Mark Foley [R-Pederasty], and the revelations that House Speaker Dennis Hastert knew Foley like little boys and ignored it] and the United States Senate, winning in places like Virginia and Montana that the Democratic Party just shouldn't have won.

Everyone was grateful for Dean's vision, his energy, his tenacity, and (obviously) his vindication.

This year, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is Party chair.  This year, as we read and watch Republican officials around the country demonstrate the fundamental unfitness of many in the Republican Party to hold any office of public trust - just yesterday, a judge in Texas warned that if Obama is re-elected he's going to surrender the US to the UN; a candidate for sheriff in New Hampshire assured voters he would use deadly force (if it came to it) to prevent elective abortions - the Democratic Party is . . . doing nothing.  The argument should be very similar to one I made the other day: It may well be the case that particular Republicans either in office or seeking office are intelligent, thoughtful, non-loons.  All the same, if we ignore the rampant social pathology within the Republican Party, as demonstrated pretty much every day in news reports and headlines across the country, then we are making a huge mistake.  We need to make clear that folks like Akin and Ryan and Steve King and Judge Head and Ohio's Secretary of State John Husted are not aberrations from some moderate core, the barely tolerated semi-stepchildren who are welcomed within the otherwise sober and staid halls of the Republican Party.  These folks are the beating heart of the Republican Party.  The things they say, the policies they propose, the beliefs the insist are the core of their political life are in step with the rest of the Republican Party.

Which is why they need to be prevented from ever taking an oath of office for anything.

Even now, I believe it isn't too late for Ms. Wasserman- Schultz to devise a strategy to make clear this year's election isn't about issues; it isn't about who wins and loses; shoot, as much as many would wish it were so, it isn't even about Pres. Obama.  No, this year's election, like few in recent memory, centers around one, single question: Are the American people going to elect a group of people to office whose policies have been tried and failed; who do not see women, minorities, and the poor as full moral agents or citizens with any rights worthy of public respect; who deny reality on a daily basis?  While the Democratic Party has many flaws, and while the incumbent is not the one I'd pick as my preferred President, it is clear enough that the Democratic Party is far and away more sane and sound than the Republican Party.

It isn't too late, Ms. Wasserman-Schultz.  A few bucks to create two or three TV spots, a few million more to get them out to TV stations.  Make the case.  Take it to the people.  Be Clement Attlee and nationalize this huge, monstrous reality that the Republican Party just isn't fit to govern.

Constant Vigilance

When asked his opinion of Clement Attlee, Winston Churchill said, "He is a modest man, with much to be modest about."  I feel much the same way about Thomas Jefferson, except Jefferson was not modest.  All the same, he did say one thing to which attention needs to be paid: "Constant vigilance is the price of freedom."  Now, unlike my gun-toting Second Amendment fans, this doesn't mean to be ready lest the UN, under the guise of Agenda 21, come and take our guns from our cold dead fingers.  It means simply this: We need to pay attention to public affairs.  It is sometimes boring, usually venal and small minded, sprinkled with a heavy dose of hilarity precisely because it tends to be so petty.  All the same, it is necessary.

I am an unabashed fan of democracy.  Our particular form, especially.  All the same, far too many of my fellow citizens snooze for three and three-quarters years, waking briefly as the Presidential election season comes around, and wonder for whom they should cast their vote.  Their somnambulism usually brings with it amnesia.  Thus it is that, yet again, Americans are carping about the negative campaign ads "both sides" are running.  The commentariat, usually disdainful of public opinion, loves it when nuggets like this are found amid the detritus of polling, insisting this demonstrates the fundamental fairness of the American people and the base meanness to which our public discourse has sunk.

Here's the thing, folks.

All those ads people are complaining about?  Well, one side uses blatant falsehoods over and over and over and over again in those ads.  They get called on the falsehoods, yet continue to use them.  When I was growing up, when folks deliberately stated something they knew was factually false, it was called "lying".  When people repeatedly lied - that is, repeatedly said things factually inaccurate - they were known as "liars".

With me so far?

Another side is doing two thing: Pointing out said repeated falsehoods.  They are also making it clear that, were the side repeating the falsehoods honest, the American people wouldn't support them, by which I mean vote for them.

For the first time in many years, a Democratic candidate for President is making the very public case that the Republican ticket is not misrepresenting, distorting, being technically accurate while intellectually dishonest, or whatever euphemism currently passes muster.  No.  We have a Democratic candidate who is making it clear over and over again that the Republican candidate's claims about the Democratic candidate are so full of crap, the joints of both the candidates on the Republican candidate squish when they move.

This isn't "negative campaigning".  It is campaigning.  That a Democratic candidate is doing so, with gusto, is something no one has seen in a very long time.  Thus, it is by definition "negative".  Thirty two years ago, when Jimmy Carter made it clear that Ronald Reagan's claims about the budget, about the state of the military under Carter, and about the nature and course of the stagflation through which the US was living were false, the press pretty much ganged up on Carter, scolding him for being mean.  After the first televised Presidential debate, Carter sat back and waited for the press to point out how far from reality many of Reagan's factual claims were.  He is still waiting.

Since then, we've had several gentlemen run for President on the Democratic ticket - Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, John Kerry - who thought that, when faced with nastiness, and false nastiness at that, they could at least rely on the press corps to make clear just how false that nastiness was.  In Barack Obama, we have a Democratic candidate who understands there just isn't a bottom to the Republican crazy barrel.  Rather than wait for someone to make the point that the Republicans are lying nutjobs, he is doing so.

And many think that's just mean.

It isn't mean.  It's politics.  And politics, as dirty and nasty as it can be, is a necessary part of human life.  Making the case that one's opponent is dishonest isn't always noble or uplifting.  It is, however, necessary.

It would be less necessary if more of my fellow citizens paid closer attention in the time between Presidential elections.  Even a half-hour a day, perusing whatever news site you prefer.  I'm not concerned with ideology.  I am concerned with vigilance.  "Constant" doesn't mean devoting one's life to the political arena.  It does, however, mean a daily minimum requirement, kind of like vegetables.

Were it the case that more were vigilant, there would be far less carping about "negative campaigning" and far more celebration that the Democrats, at least during this campaign season, have discovered a spinal cord.

Out On The Porch

My dear, departed friend Steve Creech used to say, "Down here in the South, we don't hide our crazy relatives.  We put 'em out on the porch to entertain the neighbors."  I got thinking about that yesterday as the florid psychotic heart of the GOP displayed itself over the weekend.

I want to be clear about some things.  First, there are millions of Americans who support the Republican Party for all sorts of reasons.  The party's insistence on fiscal probity; it's claim to support not just socio-economic but socio-moral policies that they believe will make the United States a better country; the party's long-held belief that our common life is enhanced by supporting both small businesses and corporate entities in their business pursuits, encouraging both thrift and investment in order to bring about a general prosperity (these are deeply held American beliefs; de Tocqueville mentioned them as deeply held back in the 1830's); many support particular candidates out of personal knowledge of who that person is.  There are Republican elected officials nationwide who are thoughtful, conscientious, dutiful, hardworking, and dedicated.  There are millions of Republican voters who are so for good reasons, and are themselves intelligent, thoughtful, dedicated persons.

The heart of the public face of the Republican Party, however, is none of these things.  The "base" - and to some extent the principle money folks who support the party - are, in fact, dedicated to a series of policy positions and a vision of the United States that is not only detrimental to the economic health and well-being of the majority of Americans; their views on various matters of social policy are rooted in some of our worst traits: bigotry toward minorities; the dehumanization of women; a view of social stability rooted in the maintenance of the dying WASP status quo.  Even while a voter, or perhaps millions, would not support policies to implement this vision, they will vote "R" on their ballots in the fall for all the great and good reasons outlined above.  What they will receive, however, are elected officials dedicated to implementing a series of policies that are directly contrary to the interests of the voters' intentions (think the election of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, elected to do one thing, but immediately setting out to do another).

When I started doing this whole internet political writing thing, many could pretend that views such as those espoused by Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri were limited to a tiny fringe of the Republican Party.  Indeed, one would never find an elected official of such prominence saying the kinds of things Akin did; instead, it would be a blogger somewhere.  Many liberal bloggers would go after a person who wrote such a thing, insisting this was what Republicans believe, and be chastised because, hey, it's just a blogger, right?

The past couple years have seen far too many high-profile incidents of Republicans expressing their views forthrightly, however, to dismiss as some holdover from the fringes of the right.  The attacks on Sandra Fluke, initiated by Rush Limbaugh but supported by many prominent Republicans, exposed the reality that the right isn't so much opposed to abortion, or even contraception; these are means toward the end of denying women fundamental human agency.  Not believing women have the right to choose how to live their own lives, including how they choose to express their sexuality, they instead go after abortion and contraception, slut-shaming any woman who might dare speak out loud enough for many to hear.

With the elevation of Paul Ryan to the VP spot on the Republican ticket, Medicare became an issue in the Presidential campaign.  Ryan's disingenuousness both about the particular policy he recommended in 2010, as well as his more philosophical position regarding this and other government funded programs is now an important matter.  Over the weekend, Ryan was in Florida, insisting that the plan put forward by Gov. Romney would not endanger benefits for those already in the Medicare system; it would, rather, address systemic issues further down the road.  Except, of course, just today, Romney surrogates have come forward and admitted that current beneficiaries would see cuts, as well.

Finally, there is the matter of race.  Few issues get the Republican base riled up faster than the claim, made by many Democrats and liberals, that a parade of euphemisms and code words hide a deep canyon of racial hostility within their ranks.  Whether it's talk about nonexistent voter fraud or Pres. Obama loosening work requirements in the welfare reform law passed in 1996 (a claim thoroughly debunked; that Romney continues to use it demonstrates a dedication to dishonesty that may well be the only thing he cherishes), these are in fact surrogates for talking about disenfranchising or otherwise limiting the civil and political rights of African-Americans.  Precisely because what many call "the dog whistle" is so difficult to hear, there is a measure of plausible deniability about such claims.

Until the Ohio Secretary of State, the highest ranking official tasked with overseeing elections, admitted that the rigmarole around weekend voting was intended solely to prevent blacks from voting to support Democratic candidates.

I guess I really actually feel we shouldn’t contort the voting process to accommodate the urban — read African-American — voter-turnout machine. Let’s be fair and reasonable.

No longer hiding within the fetid ranks of the right wing blogs and news sites, or couched in code or fancy phrases, it is now clear the Republican Party, feeling it has nothing to lose, is allowing its inner crazy uncle to sit on the porch for the whole world to see.  Florid political psychosis like this is certainly entertaining; it is also a good thing, because now voters can see what the Republican Party really wants to do, what policies it wishes to support, and why.

Remember this in the fall.  The election isn't about serious policy matters; it's about letting the crazy uncle who hears voices and wears burlap shorts to protect himself from aliens make important decisions for all of us.

Not really much of a choice after all.

I Was Wrong

Last year, as the Occupy movement was morphing to a potentially transformative movement, a series of crackdowns across the country, all occurring within days or weeks of one another, effectively ended them.  Previous attempts to shut down Occupy, particularly at its home base in Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, had failed as the protesters simply refused to bow to police pressure.  The string of police actions across the country, however, broke the back of the protests.

Many, including myself, believed that a coincidence this large could not be a coincidence.  While not believing that, as Amanda Marcotte writes in the article to which I'm about to link, Obama is a dictator, I did believe the events were strong circumstantial evidence of coordination from the federal level to end a movement that was critical of the Obama Administration from the Left.  Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request from the right-wing group Judicial Watch, however, there is abundant evidence now available to the public that the reality is just the opposite.  Aforementioned Ms. Marcotte breaks it down for us:

 Judicial Watch, a right wing organization, issued a FOIA request to the DHS to find out if the Obama White House did direct these shut-downs, which Judicial Watch appears to favor. The request centered around Portland’s protests, which are particularly interesting to the right, because there were heavy accusations of criminal misbehavior.

What they discovered with this request what that the administration wasn’t keen on shutting down Occupy. . . .

Marcotte continues with some chastening words for those, like me, who were far too quick to lay blame without any evidence.

[P]art of the problem is that a lot of people on the left have inadvertently absorbed right wing narratives that posit that federal power is somehow always more oppressive than localized power . . .

--snip--

You’d think that people who know their history around, say, the civil rights movement would understand that federal power is often a check on the ability of authoritarians to gain control on a state or local level, and then rain terror on people’s heads. But as Corey notes, this narrative that federal power is automatically more suspect is hard to dislodge, no matter how often we grasp that “states rights!” has its roots in the belief that states should have the power to legalize slavery, enforce segregation, or otherwise deprive people of basic human rights. So when local cops started banging heads, it’s not surprising that eyes drifted towards the White House, because it’s a nice, simple explanation that dispenses with the need for nuance. But it’s the wrong narrative. 

In my defense, Holder's Justice Department has not been very aggressive in pursuing, say, the folks who brought about the financial crisis; they haven't really done anything about the Guantanamo Blight apart from whine about Congressional action that restricts their freedom of action; Justice seems intent on cracking down on medical marijuana growers and distributors in states where such practices are legal.  I guess what I'm saying is that Holder's and Obama's approach to law enforcement hasn't been much different from previous President's, not a hearty history.

So, I was wrong.  The facts are far different than what I thought they were.  Absolved of responsibility for these actions, I think it only fair to make clear just how wrong I and others like me were.  That the Obama Administration made clear they were seeking ways to see the protests continue is laudable; that I believed them to be acting otherwise is a sign of my own frustration with the President, as well as how inescapable some narratives are, even for those who should know better.

The Common Defense

When I was coming of age, it was often said that Social Security was "the third rail" of American politics: touch it and die.  More recently, I have heard Medicare referred to the same way.  Personally, I believe that's crap.  For decades the real third rail of American politics, at least when it comes to money, is the Department of Defense.  Whether knee-deep in the Cold War, a couple small hot wars, restructuring our defense posture vis-a-vis current and potential threats, or even attempts to address our domestic balance of payments, the Pentagon is a holy, untouchable site.

Or, so it seems to many of critics of the budget for the Department of Defense (DoD).  Usually separated from the rest of federal outlays in any discussion - there's DoD, then everything else including non-budgetary entitlements (Social Security and Medicare) and discretionary spending - it seems a thing apart.  Since we live in a country that allows ordinary folks the opportunity to peruse the ways our government spends our money, we have the opportunity to check these things out for ourselves, and looking over recent budget requests as well as appropriations - two very different things, separated by administrative requests in the former case and political realities on the other - we see that we spend way more than we need on all sorts of things, whether the F-22 Raptor, a plane that barely made it to service before pilots demanded it be replaced because it performs so poorly or thinly armored troop carriers such as those used at the beginning of the Iraq invasion, that it would be better not to.  At the same time, it is within the past decade that a serious effort had to be mounted in Congress to raise the pay of military enlisted personnel after it was revealed that many families qualified for federal Food Stamp assistance because the pay was so low.  Indeed, that such a bit of legislation actually became a "fight" shows how odd our approach to spending money for Defense really is.

While it is true our spending on things that go boom and blam is greater than several different combinations of our rivals and allies (it always depends on the year, and the fact that some of these figures are guesses; anything from the next six to the next ten, sometimes as high as fifteen).  These figures are distorted, however, because the United States has a tech-heavy military posture.  We spend money on the most advanced weapons platforms, or retrofit old ones like destroyers and attack submarines and tanks, with all sorts of expensive stuff.  Combined with personnel who receive some of the best training and have been battle-tested over the past decade, we have fewer troops with more sophisticated weapons able to do far more efficiently and deadly.

Budgets aren't just lists of numbers.  Anyone involved in business or public affairs understands they are statements both of principles and priorities.  They also reveal, should one study not just the overall budgetary strategy, but take careful looks at specific outlays (and, in the case of DoD, appropriations), the basic framework within which decisions concerning spending money are made.  In the case of the our defense budget, it should be clear enough that policy makers agree that the United States should remain unchallenged and unrivaled as a world power, from a military point of view.  To that end, spending half a trillion dollars a year just on normal military matters - everything from new ships and planes to food for troops to military housing to the millions of bullets the troops need - but with supplemental requests for troops in the field (since 9/11, our many and varied forward military actions have been "off-book", not handled in the usual budget requests and appropriations, but through supplemental requests) seems not just sensible but necessary.

Is this, however, the military posture the United States needs?  With the Presidential election coalescing around matters of the budget and federal spending, I don't think it inappropriate to ask if this is the military posture the United States can afford?

Complicating these matters - and it is complicated enough with numbers like this; one of the biggest employers of accountants is the Pentagon, because it is increasingly difficult to track this much money - are the politics of appropriation.  Even though we toss vast sums of money each year at the Pentagon, since the end of the Cold War, policy-makers have deliberately sought to pare down the numbers of actual personnel.  Even as the need for more troops and airmen and sailors and Marines increased early in the last decade, there was no movement afoot to increase the actual overall numbers of uniformed personnel.  At the same time needs increased without resources to fill all those needs, our technology didn't stand still, missions expanded, and, of course, occasional oddities of the appropriations process create more problems than their worth.  Wars on two fronts without the needed increase in troop strength and support stretched those troops in uniform to the limit; the weapons of war became overused, wearing out and breaking down even as replacements continue to get pushed back because powerful interests force retention of outdated, outmoded, and sometimes even dangerous weapons platforms (think the Osprey, a plane so dangerous Marines don't like to use it, the Corps and OMB removed it from items requested, yet put back because continuing to build and operate it creates jobs in various Congressional districts).  This parenthetical makes my central point: as much as critics of Pentagon overspending may howl, the fact is various departments, even whole branches, find themselves forced to do twice or three times the work even as money disappears; all the while, hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on things the Pentagon neither wants nor needs.  The money spent keeping the Osprey "flying" (I put that in scare quotes because it doesn't fly very well, and when it stops flying, whoever is aboard is in serious trouble) is removed from other areas of the budget.  It's not even a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul; it's robbing the garbage collectors to build statues of gold, which leaves bigger messes that other people than those who get the gold statues are forced to clean up, except now they don't have the resources with which to do it.

We need to take a good, long look at how military appropriations are done in this country.  We need to take a good long look at what kind of nation do we want to be.  Do we want to be a world power, sending troops hither and yon to fight whatever bad guys we might encounter?  If so, then we need to spend enough, and budget enough, for ALL the resources to do the job.  We can no longer afford to believe it possible to act as a serious military power without giving the services the tools to do the jobs effectively, overtaxing and overstretching in every conceivable fashion.  On the other hand, if we just don't believe we should pay a single red cent in any more taxes, then it is necessary to rethink the various missions we foist upon the military services.  These are choices and discussions and arguments that need to be made.  At the moment, our military is asked to do far too much with (believe it or not) far too little in terms of people, money, physical capital, and very often public and political support (unless it's something flashy like killing bin Laden).  This needs to change.

That would be supporting the troops.  Far better than hanging a flag in your window and a bumper sticker on your car.

Quarantine

It is a theme of this blog that words mean things.  What we say, how we say it - these aren't just quibbles over syntax and grammar but important, as in life-important, matters.

I have learned that "infectious" means something.  Living with a person who has mononucleosis doesn't necessarily mean everyone in the household is going to catch it, too.  However, if you read even the WebMD articles on mono, you discover it is spread through the exchange of bodily fluids.  That's something that husbands and wives do.

While not an official diagnosis - I haven't been to a doctor, but Lisa went last week after a couple weeks of feeling "off" - I'm experiencing the same things Lisa did.  Interestingly, neither hers nor mine in accompanied by "sore throat"; Lisa's doctor told her she's seen several cases without the "classic symptoms" of mono.  The blood test, however, was positive.

One of the overarching effects of mono is lassitude.  That's a fancy way of saying I have all the energy of a slug on downers.  Not just physical, but mental as well.  My brain feels sludgy right now, to be honest; collecting thoughts and expressing them seem immensely difficult.  Since I have obligations later in the day, I believe "saving energy" is the order of the day.  As much as I'd like to write a blog post about the defense budget and Presidential politics, I can't even summon the energy to care.

Rest, plenty of fluids, occasional ibu for symptoms such as mild fever and body aches.  That's what Lisa was prescribed, and I'm planning on following those orders.  As my cousin says, TTFN!

Go Forth And Shut Up: Thinking About The Mission And Evangelism In An Age Of Religious VIolence

After the most recent incidents of anti-Muslim violence in the Chicago metro area, as well as some interesting claims made by friends of mine on Facebook, I have started to think unsettling thoughts about a central tenet of the Christian tradition.  The call placed in the mouth of Jesus at the end of St. Matthew's Gospel to make disciples, baptizing in the name of the Trinity, is the heart of the evangelical, missional imperative that propelled John Wesley and those who live in his tradition.

To ignore the reality that this call has been answered in ways that are little short of cultural and actual genocide, however, is to ignore reality.

Ours is an age my wife described so well last night as she and I talked about this issue: Our world is becoming smaller, and as we come in to contact with others, we are growing less accepting, less tolerant, more prone to lash out at differences rather than live with them.  We live in a world in which it is easier to set up labels for all sorts of groups and individuals rather than deal with each as they are in all their complexity and reality.  Part of that acceptance includes accepting that other people live marvelous, happy, productive, faith-filled lives without accepting, or perhaps even hearing, the Christian Gospel.

Yet, the Great Commission and the evangelical imperative sits there, as much a question mark as exclamation point on our lives.  How can we not live telling our story to the nations?  How can we remain silent about the gift of salvation and freedom that is ours in Christ through the Spirit?

Lisa told me about this guy named Mike Slaughter.  He sponsored some mission work in Sudan.  He isn't doing any proselytizing.  He isn't telling people who are Muslims they worship a demon and are going to hell. He is just helping people, because that is what he feels called to do.  Getting them health care.  Teaching them life skills.  Transforming barren land to fertile land.

Mike Slaughter isn't interested in saving souls, recognizing that the reality of the cross and empty tomb make that God's sole work.  Mike Slaughter isn't interested in telling the world how many converts to Christianity his mission work has produced, because he recognizes that such boasting has nothing to do with God's work.  Mike Slaughter just saw suffering and figured, since no one else was doing something about it, he would get his church involved in doing something about it.

Now, that kind of mission work is something I can support.  That's the kind of evangelization I can praise to the heavens.  Because it is being the Body of the Living, Resurrected Christ in the world, living in and for the suffering of the world without asking any questions, demanding adherence to any dogma or doctrine, not demeaning how others live their lives.  Rooted in the love that is God, this may be the single model for such work I could find myself supporting.

In an age when far too many people rely on their "religion" to demean, dehumanize, and kill, I'm not sure there is another model that is as incarnational and faithful to the Great Commission as this.

You Want A Debate About The Budget And Deficit?

With the Republican ticket complete and Romney and Ryan out on the State Fair circuit, there is a growing narrative that, of all the things we could talk about, this election may well end up being a referendum on the spending priorities we reflect in our budgets.  There are many people who think this is a bad idea, and I would agree with them if not for the fact that such a discussion might well be the beginning of a different discussion on national priorities.  Unless we get bogged down in Beltway-speak about the horrors of river of red ink in which we are drowning, talking about spending can be a way to talk about what kind of nation we want to be.  The trick, of course, is maneuvering around the Ryan Legend, that he is an intellectual, that he has some kind of economics mojo that blinds the opposition, that any discussion that includes Paul Ryan will actually be a meta-discourse, a talk about talk, rather than a talk about the nuts and bolts of governing and policy.  That the many economists who have taken a look at Ryan's "plan" and cried foul have disappeared from too much of our talk will be part of the problem; the reality that his numbers do not and cannot add up needs to be introduced early, repeated often, and hung around his neck like an albatross.

The line from the Republicans seems to be that Ryan's "budget" reflects a fundamental philosophical choice and distinction from the priorities of the Democrats; thus, we are told, we need to consider these meta-points rather than such silly things as whether or not Ryan's numbers add up.  My preference for dealing with this position is simply to acknowledge it, and move on.  After all, the airy precincts of political philosophy may make David Brooks' heart flutter, but most folks - myself included - are far more concerned with that most American of philosophical questions: What does this mean for me/us?

At the heart of Ryan's budget - the link to his "Roadmap to Prosperity" is a couple posts below, if you're interested in checking it out for yourself - is the firm belief that "entitlement reform" is the philosopher's stone of fiscal probity.  Well, that and reducing federal spending on everything from national parks and recreation through education to health and science research.  Because Ryan just doesn't believe the federal government should be in the business of spending money on things like this - for reasons that boil down, in the end, to "just because!" - he would drastically reduce such outlays with the goal or complete elimination at some point in the mid-term.

Ryan's original plan from two years ago took aim at Medicare.  During the Bush years, Ryan was the architect of a plan to partially privatize Social Security, a plan the died in no small part to the tireless and courageous defense by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.  Discovering that it was Medicare that represented explosive future growth, Ryan proposed something similar: turning what had been a  federally-managed health insurance program in to vouchers participants could use to purchase health insurance on the open market.

The problem with Ryan's plan was that the Affordable Care Act, in one of its many virtues as policy, already attacked the potential explosive growth of Medicare head on.  Now, Republicans had a field day claiming Pres. Obama was "gutting" Medicare.  Romney and Ryan have been out and about in recent days claiming that Obama has "raided" Medicare to "pay for" other policies.  Technically, this is true.  Provisions in the Affordable Care Act use Medicare funds to reduce health care costs over all, in particular for participants in Medicare's prescription drug program, an unfunded mandate passed during the Bush years.  In other words, by tossing more money and participants in the pool, ACA reduces not just the growth of the expense of Medicare, but in so doing reduces health care costs, which will further slow the growth of Medicare spending.

What Ryan proposed, and continues to claim, does nothing to address our overpriced health care system.  He has yet to utter a word about how to reduce health care costs over all, let alone how reducing such costs would reduce the growth in Medicare outlays in the long run.  What ACA does, surely imperfectly and not without limitations, is cut spending by the clever use of federal health care policy while working toward the goal of better, more comprehensive care for all Americans.

Rather than airy realms of philosophy, we see what's in it for us - for all of us - because, unlike Ryan's "plan", Congress passed a law that has been given the President's name that is actually doing something about the deficit, about the growth in federal spending, and addressing the nearly criminal lack of health insurance.  All in one fell swoop.  When Americans are asked their opinion of the various parts of the Affordable Care Act, there is overwhelming support for them; when Americans are asked their opinion of "Obamacare", they are overwhelmingly negative.  When Americans are told the stuff they like is Obamacare . . . they say, "Really?  Wow!"  Because reality trumps political theory every single day.

So, I say, let Ryan talk about the budget and deficits and all sorts of things he thinks are his strengths.

Tomorrow, the real third rail of American politics: The Budget for the Department of Defense.

Anger Management

On Sunday, 51-year-old David Conrad opened fire on a mosque in the Chicago suburb of Morton Grove.  True, it was an air rifle, not a semi-automatic or automatic rifle.  True, he only damaged the building.  According to the Chicago Tribune, Conrad's bail was set at $45,000 and he was ordered to take anger management classes.

Anger management.

One week after a Sikh Temple in nearby Oak Creek, WI; after a Memphis mosque was torched a second time, having almost finished a rebuild after a first arson attack; there was a bottle thrown at a Muslim school in another Chicago suburb, Lombard.

Anger management.

Mr. Conrad doesn't need anger management.  The people responsible for a second arson attack on a Muslim place of worship don't need anger management.  Wade Michael Page didn't need anger management.

The victims need anger management.  Those who look on in disgust and sorrow at how some of us treat our fellow Americans for the crime of being different need anger management.  Those who are tired of the excuses and the defense of the indefensible need anger management.  At what point do the accumulating incidents, the dead bodies sometimes in ones and twos, but like last Sunday in one huge outburst, bring about that "Aha!" moment that maybe, just maybe, we need to do something more than provide anger management classes to the people who commit these hate crimes.

Anger management.

Unbelievable.

Someone's Always Watching, Mr. Mulder

The above quote, from a first-season of the X-Files, should be the unofficial motto of the Internet age.  The recent, somewhat lamented end of the punditry career of Fareed Zakaria because he considered photocopying an art form, is a dull reminder that we no longer need to spend hours in the dim darkness of some library's periodical stacks to discover the many ways some writer thought it possible to pass something previously written by someone no doubt smarter and harder working as something original.

As with plagiarism, so, too, with the words and deeds of politicians.  Despite the attempt by so many to pretend that each day is new and fresh, the fact remains that it takes no effort at all to discover the many ways people seeking our votes are doing so by pretending they have sprouted from the head of Zeus, untouched by time or care.  Mitt Romney's choice of Paul Ryan as his running mate seems to be one of the few things Romney could have done as Republican candidate that would make Democrats happy.  Despite the accolades heaped upon Ryan by Republicans and conservatives, there was joy in Mudville's rival town because Mitty Casey had struck out with his VP pick.

I think there is nothing at all wrong with the fact that the majority of Americans have no idea who Ryan is.  Despite this blog's obsessions, I would not wish most Americans to have the kind of time or inclination to know the name and policy proposals of a seven-term back-bench Republican House member from southern Wisconsin (Janesville is not at all far from our former and current home; I first ate at a Noodles & Co. there on a trip to Madison).  All the same, it is easy as pie (a phrase much loved by my wife, who's pie-baking skills are legendary, yet thinks there is nothing special about them) to discover pretty much everything relevant about the young, handsome Randian disciple who has spent the vast bulk of his life sucking at the public teat for education and employment (yes, I'm going to point out this rather glaring bit of hypocrisy; like so many on the right, his life is an object lesson in not practicing all the things he demands others do to lead an exemplary life).

The really big deal, of course, is the so-called "Ryan Budget", which isn't an actual budget but rather a vague mix of ideological talking points, stump-speech pabulum about taxes and government spending, and empty promises called A Roadmap For America's Future (.pdf; the link is to the latest incarnation; I read the original, 2010 document last night, but a skimming read convinced me there really isn't much difference between them).  The first time Ryan sent this pile of words on paper to the House, there was much rejoicing because, as we heard far too often, his plan was bold, his plan was big, his plan was rooted in Big Ideas, his plan demanded Tough Choices.  Ryan quickly gained a reputation as "the intellectual leader" of the House Republicans, the Tea Party (who love Ryan with the kind of hot, sweaty love they seem to reserve for those who are only slightly less crazy than Steve King of Iowa).

Now, Ryan has a degree in Economics, that dismal science.  A Bachelor's degree, in fact, that he soon parlayed in to staff work for various conservative Congress-folk and right-wing "think tanks".  That he has that degree, for some reason, intimidated many from actually looking at his proposals (he did have the Congressional Budget Office score his original plan, but only for the proposed, general, cuts in spending, and they came out and said he would halve the budget deficit by 2020, and there was much rejoicing;  that he was disingenuous enough not to include the massive restructuring of our federal income tax structure into a redistributive windfall for the wealthy was little noted by all those who insisted he was a deficit hawk).  Yet, as Paul Krugman said of Newt Gingrich, that he was a stupid person's idea of a smart person, Paul Ryan is a stupid non-economically literate person's idea of an economist.  Krugman famously did something real economists do, and did some math using Ryan's proposals and announced that a plan called "audacious" by its supporters was, in fact, in Krugman's marvelous phrase, "the audacity of dopes."

When The Washington Post gave Rep. Ryan some space to answer Krugman's column, another real economist, Dean Baker, who writes at the website for the Center for Economic and Policy Research, went through Ryan's op-ed line by line.  While Baker insists that he is "having fun" with Ryan, he ends his own take-down with a line that should be seared in the foreheads of every single political reporter: "[T]o the seniors who would be unable to afford decent health care if Mr. Ryan's plan became law, his sincerity won't make any difference."

Ryan may be a man of ideas.  He may be a real intellectual.  He may sincerely and earnestly believe what he is doing is what's best for the country.  Those who cover him and his work may sincerely and earnestly believe he believes that.  None of them, however, seem to notice that public policy decisions have real world consequences; many of the policy proposals and actions the Republicans in office have made over the past few decades have had horrible consequences for millions of people.

Before I close, I think it worth noting that the above-linked second edition of "the Ryan Budget" was not greeted with enthusiasm by the Republican Party.  They knew it was dead in the water.  They knew it didn't even have the virtues of blue smoke and mirrors needed to cloud the minds of political reporters.  While touted by many who should know better and quite a few who didn't take the few minutes necessary to discover the truth as someone willing to make "tough choices", in fact, other than destroying Medicare and making sure the middle class support the rich through the tax code, Ryan has yet to specify a single program anywhere in the budget that he would actually cut.  He insisted his would not be across the board sequestration.  Yet he has not said, "Well, I'll get rid of Pell Grants and the F-35 Fighter and the National Park Service."  Because Ryan is many things, but he is neither an economist nor a particularly brave or daring soul.  In fact, he's a bit gutless, whining about how mean Pres. Obama was when the President pointed out that Ryan's proposed wardrobe for the Republican Emperor was empty.

I know there are many on the right who swoon at his smile, those big, deep-set steely blues capturing their hearts.  That's fine; he wouldn't be on the ticket if this weren't true.  All the same, many if not most Democrats are celebrating Mitt's pick.   Despite, and because, Ryan is an unknown quantity for most voters, he has a vast record available to mine for all sorts of nuggets.  This same information, lucky for us, is now available for all to see.  Ezra Klein managed to create a one-stop-shopping spot for all things Paul Ryan.

Remember, someone is, indeed, always watching.

The Mark Of Cain

While considered suburban, with my mailing address Elgin, the western half of Kane County is decidedly rural.  Our house is surrounded by horse farms and corn fields that stretch to the west and south through much the rest of Illinois to Iowa, Nebraska, and beyond.  Our quiet countryside looks much as it has, by and large, for much of the 20th century.  The parsonage is about four miles south and west of the church on a pleasant drive past acres of corn, the tiny town of Plato Center just down the road.

If we decide to head to the slightly larger yet still tiny town of Burlington, we head in the other direction.  Driving up Burlington Road, we drive past a Buddhist Temple/Monastery.  In the winter, it's quite a sight, the monks in their orange robes out shoveling the long, sloped driveway.

If we want to make our way to Hampshire or Huntley or even Woodstock, we head up IL Rte 47, one of those razor-straight Illinois roads that still amaze at just how straight they are.  About three miles north and west at the intersection of Plank Road and 47, sits the Temple Shirdi Sai of Chicago and the Suburbs.  Each week, the parking lot and surrounding roads are jammed with cars as believers from around the Metro area make their way to what looks like an old country church to worship their God, remember their prophet, and to celebrate their community and its devotion to service for God with one another.

Now, Oak Creek, Wisconsin isn't very far from where we live, either.  It would probably take about an hour and a half to get to this Milwaukee suburb, maybe more if the interchanges are jammed up.  I have to wonder what these rural enclaves of very different faiths are thinking today, one week after Wade Michael Page shot six people before turning the gun on himself.  It hasn't been enough for domestic terrorists that Christian churches provide opportunities for them to act out their violent fantasies.  Now a small group of peace-loving, God-fearing non-Christians  have found themselves quite literally in the crosshairs of white supremacists.

I have been thinking about our local outposts from world religious expression quite a bit over the past week. I've been thinking about the many ways our country still cradles the wounds inflicted upon us by terror in the name of the God called All-Merciful.  I've been angry that small-minded ideologues have been screeching at any attempt to label an act of racist terror, well, an act of racist terrorism.  Before the bodies had even cooled last week, as it became clear the killer wasn't just some depressed nutjob but a racist reveling in armchair Armageddon who, reaching a point in his life where he had nothing left to lose, got out of his chair with his gun in his hand, we heard not from average Americans or thoughtful commentators but from the right.  Their refrain, yet again, is the same as it has always been: Do not place responsibility for yet more right-wing violence on the rhetoric of the right.  Do not mention the DoJ report that cited right-wing domestic terrorism as the greatest terror threat facing the United States.  And please don't, whatever you do, bring up the matter of guns.

We also saw and read many news organizations struggle to state the obvious as headline after headline seemed to purse its lips in confusion as journalists sought a motive for the killing.  That Page was a racist; with ties to groups linked to other acts of violence; that Page had recently been through a series of personal shocks that left what few ties to others he might have had lying in tatters; none of these things seemed to matter for some, at least, of those whose job is to tell us what was abundantly clear from the evidence.

That ours is a violent, hate-filled land is clear from the abundant evidence.  That hatred is aimed at any difference, real or perceived.  The violence can be as simple as the sneered epithet, the casual threat, or the on-going dehumanization of any persons whose lives don't fit in with an ideology.  It might express itself in a beating, the trashing of a place of worship, or intimidation.  Bodies pile up, one or two at a time, whether they're young gay men and women whose lives are destroyed by others or even themselves; people of color who find themselves committing the national crime of living while black; Muslims who wish only to build houses of worship to Allah that continue to be burned down.

Our failure to look at the mass grave, into which we continue to toss bodies on an almost daily basis, is mute testimony to our refusal to deal with this sickness that pervades our land.  It is also evidence of our refusal to hear the blood of our brothers and sisters as it cries out to us from the ground.  Until we are willing to name this murderous impulse as part of our collective heritage; until we are willing to do actual work to prevent our fellow Americans from adding to the pile of corpses; until we can look in the face of Wade Michael Page and see our reflection staring back at us; until these things happen, we shall continue to read and hear of more mass killings.  Until then, we should note the mark of all our foreheads, denoting our failure as siblings to our fellow Americans, a failure that, yet again, has ended in death.

For Hire!

I just sent the following email:

Mr. Stengel,

With the public announcement of Fareed Zakaria's suspension both from your own publication and CNN, I am writing to offer my services as a replacement columnist.  Having written daily on my web log, "What's Left In The Church", for over six and a half years, without ever once writing anything not my own words without attribution, I believe I come fully qualified not only as having proved I can produce the work required.  I can do so without any fear I might be yet another mainstream journalist/commentator caught in the plagiarism trap.

Hiring a blogger would also reduce your costs, as I would work for far less than I am sure you paid Mr. Zakaria.  Needing only to produce a single piece of writing once a week, I believe an initial fee of $100 per column would be more than adequate compensation.  That would, of course, be subject to review based upon reader response, the links from any columns I would write to other columnists, bloggers, and internet users.

Furthermore, hiring a blogger would mean little in the way of training on the mechanics of writing on the internet.  Since I do so every single day, I am well aware of how to use a variety of platforms, and would feel right at home almost immediately.

Finally, hiring a blogger would give Time immediate visibility and publicity.  It would attract a new and desired cohort to your readership as people might well check and see what, precisely, I might do for and in your venerable magazine.  It would create the kind of marketing buzz too few publications now have, as you made a daring move to include new voices more familiar with new technologies as well as various traditions already existing within the communities that discuss politics on the Internet.

The only requests I would make are two.  First, I would require complete editorial freedom as regards topics and approach.  While I certainly respect the right of editorial oversight regarding style, word limit, and appropriateness, I believe we as a nation are best served by as wide an array of viewpoints as possible.  With that in mind, I would only ask that I not be asked to approach subjects from any particular point of view.  Second, for the sake of my family, I would need to work from my home in rural Elgin, IL.  While the occasional visit to the offices in New York City would certainly be necessary, I see little reason to uproot my family and move to the New York Metropolitan Area.  The advent of the internet would seem to me to let this be the easier of the two requests I am making.

As of today, August 11, 2012, I have published 3,585 post at the following site: http://whatsleftinthechurch.blogspot.com  You may look through them at your leisure.  Consider these my clippings in my application.  Thank you in advance for your consideration.  If you have any questions, feel free to contact me via my email address, gksafford@yahoo.com, or my personal cell phone number, (XXX) XXX-XXXX.

Sincerely,

Geoffrey Kruse-Safford

Yes, I really did send this off to Time.  No, I don't expect them to take it seriously.

I Ain't Afraid Of No Ghosts

Just in time for my usual late-summer/early-autumn foray in to my self-indulgent ghost post, along with sparing me the effort of working too hard here so I can get a whole lot of far more difficult writing done elsewhere, I want to relate an incident that occurred at casa Kruse-Safford last Wednesday night.

It was about ten p.m., and I had gone to the garage to make sure all the animals were inside for the evening.  I noticed the driver-side rear door of my car was open.  My first reaction was frustration with our younger daughter for not closing it.  Then, I realized that when she'd exited the car earlier that day, she had gone out the passenger side, because it's closer to the door from the garage to the house.  I then wondered why it was hanging open - not far, mind you, but clearly open, with the dome light shining bright - and figured my wife was perhaps rooting around in the back seat for something.  What, I couldn't possibly imagine.  Furthermore,  it was light enough and clear enough that if anyone was over there, I would have seen them.  There was no one there.

Still, I figured someone had to be over there, so I took a couple steps toward my car and called out my wife's name.

That's when the car door closed.  On its own.

Like most garages, ours is an acoustic nightmare.  The smallest sound becomes amplified by repeated echoing off the wood walls and concrete floor.  Not just the sight of the door closing but the audible "fwump" as it did so, with the automatic door locks engaging and the tail lights flickering to signal the car was now locked - all of that was both clearly visible and audible.  I stood still for a moment, and I won't deny a certain ill sensation in my gut.  Not so much frightened, I will admit to being more than a little unnerved by the experience.

Which didn't stop me from walking over and seeing who might have closed my door.  As I wrote above, the garage was lit well enough that another human being would have been clearly visible.  I saw no one.  All the same, there has been a rash of break-ins in our general area in recent weeks, so it was at least possible someone was checking out my dented, six-year-old Kia for any goodies it might contain (all the while ignoring the tens of thousands of dollars of DJ equipment stored out there, my wife's car, the other contents of the garage like lawn and garden tools) and I walked the five or so steps from where I had stood just behind my wife's car behind my own and looked down the driver side toward the front of my car and the rear wall of the garage.

No one.  No sound of someone trying to scuffle away.  No shadow of someone crouching behind the front end of my car.  I looked left and right, and I saw nothing.  There was no one in the garage except me.  I tried the handle of my car and, just as the lights indicated, it was locked (a safety feature on the Kia I happen to like; I don't have to engage the remote locks if the rear doors close after the front doors because they do so automatically).  Except, I hadn't locked my car when I got out of it that afternoon, and I had seen the rear door close and the lights flash indicating that the door locks had engaged.

I stood for another moment, looked around the garage again, then went in the house.  I locked the door behind me - again, something I do every night; we live in the middle of nowhere but safety first and all that - and, seeing Lisa at the kitchen sink doing some late-night dishes, said, "That was the freakiest thing I've ever seen," and proceeded to tell her what had just happened.

Lisa was more put out by the events I related than I was, to be honest.  Getting over the initial surprise of seeing something happen that shouldn't happen, I became, in a day or two, more intrigued by it than anything.  While I haven't started setting up cameras in the garage or returning each night at the same time, I would enjoy seeing it, or something similar, happen again.  Singular events such as this, while interesting, mean little. As I told my youngest sister on the phone, it's just a car door closing.  I do not for one moment believe our house haunted (although, if it were, that would be awesome; more on that in a moment).

I have come to the conclusion that, whatever the phenomena we label "hauntings" might be, there is little of which to be scared.  If, indeed, they are the physical manifestations of some non-physical remnant of human beings, then at worst they are little more than attention-getting devices.  Were our house haunted, it wouldn't be something about which to tremble.  On the contrary, it would demonstrate that someone loved this place enough to hang out after they were "gone" (whatever that might mean), indicating an emotional attachment linked to fond memories and pleasant experiences.  Far from finding such a thing frightening, I find solace in the fact that others who once lived in the space my family now occupies had such an attachment.  It bodes well for my family's sojourn here.

For what it's worth, that's what happened and how I feel about what happened.  It isn't something about which I worry or brood.  It isn't something that scares me, prevents me from going to the garage, makes me jump at each little bump and knock our very noisy house makes.  Should such an event or a similar such occur, it would mean for me that something might just want to let someone know it's still out and about, which I might well acknowledge with joy.

Last night, Lisa and I were waiting for Moriah to get home from a party.  We were sitting and watching Season 8 of NCIS on DVD.  The episode in which recurring character Mike Franks is murdered was on.  In a flashback, Franks and Gibbs are talking about the possibility that we see ghosts.  In a piece of writing that I find really beautiful, Franks says, "We see them.  Our lives are filled with them, not just the ones we kill, but the ones we remember.  That's why, wherever I go, I make sure the space is filled with lots of naked women."  The last part is a good line, but I like so much the idea that our lives are, indeed, filled with the spirits of those who have shared our lives at one time or another; the ghosts of our lives aren't just those who have died, but who have passed from our lives to whatever came next for them.  Lingering in our hearts and minds, we keep them close as we knew them in order to keep that part of our lives real.  It also serves to keep them alive as well, even if an arrested, attenuated life.

To live surrounded by such would not be a burden.  It wouldn't be frightening.  I wouldn't consider it a threat to my family.  I would welcome such experiences as part of the wonder and mystery that is our world, a celebration of life-in-death that, after all, resonates with my own Christian faith quite well.  Still, what happened isn't anything at all like that.  It was a car door closing.  Intriguing, to be sure, yet hardly anything to cast me running and screaming like a little girl from my own garage.

The Soundtrack Of Your Life

It's been a crazy summer here at casa Kruse-Safford.  My ten day sojourn back at my Ancestral Villa was an unexpected break for me even as the rest of my family puttered about their busy lives.  The recovery of our equanimity has been slow, not aided by an impending trip by Lisa and Miriam to southern Illinois to visit Lisa's 98 year old paternal grandmother, in hopes of beginning the discussion that might bring her to live out her remaining years with us.  For someone for whom stability and routine seem necessary for psychological balance, the past five or six weeks have been a life-lesson in the need to cope with the sudden and rapid succession of change.

I was inspired to do this, in part, because I read Scott McLemee's review of The Mind's Ear, with his invocation of the soundtrack that accompanies reading any particular philosopher.

In order to help myself a bit, I'm thinking of reworking my "Thoughts on America" series of posts into a set of two or three more coherent, clear, and slightly longer essays with the intention of offering the final product for publication.  I was re-reading them yesterday, and despite many flaws, I think there are many more virtues there.  This will require a bit more work, so at least for today, rather than exhaust my brain on yet another blog post (I was actually considering highlighting yet another Romney campaign goof but the poor guy has suffered enough, I think) I thought I'd do something light and fun.

Moriah is taking AP American History, which includes quite a bit of summer work, both reading and writing. She has been dutiful and consistent, working through each day, the ear buds firmly attached to her iPhone as she does her work with the music that keeps her happy.  Lord knows I can't complain about that.  Doing homework to music was a necessity in my youth; I would put an album on the turntable, sometimes agonizing over which record to play.

Last night at dinner, Moriah confessed that she "didn't like" Bob Marley, although the only song she knew by name, "Three Little Birds", was one she did like.  I then told the story of sitting around the dining room table in my childhood home with my mother, my sister, and my niece, playing some of the songs I'd loaded on my iPhone.  The first one I played was Opeth's "Heir Apparent".

Moriah countered with her current near-obsession, the British boy band One Direction.

Miriam parried this with K. T. Tunstall's "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree".

Back at my childhood home, I also played for my sister Amos Lee's "Violin", because I know that's the kind of thing she would love.

And I played "Poetry Man" by Phoebe Snow for my family last night.

This diverse set of music reminded me of the wonderful differences among even those who share so much.

I should note that some music I reserve for special occasions.  Early mornings, in particular, seem fitted to jazz, the music of Vangelis, and other such things.  I can listen to Joni Mitchell and CSNY for hours on end during high spring, but that music seems ill-suited for late summer/early fall when different songs make their appearance (my personal favorite as summer winds in to autumn is October Project, a short-lived pop group featuring the marvelous lead singer Mary Fahl.  Her recording of an old Arabic wedding song is stunning.

What sets your mood, not just for a day, but perhaps for a season?  What keeps you going while you're reading or sitting at your desk either at the office or home?  What music, whether long ago or just the past hour, passed through your ears making you smile, keeping you going?

A Thousand Words, At Least

As a follow on to this post . . .

I know it won't shut anyone up, but a nice dose of reality warms the soul.

When Accountants Run The Churches

I almost wrote about this story yesterday, but needed to get that overview of Romney-Thus-Far off my chest.  To say I was appalled is to add a mild descriptor to my reaction.

The General Board of Global Ministries' independent audit committee recommended at its annual meeting that the agency suspend funding to the United Methodist East Africa Annual Conference (EAAC).

In a report submitted to Global Ministries, the auditors noted that they had conducted three internal audits of the treasury of the EAAC in Kampala, Uganda, since April 2011. The most recent audit was as complete as possible with the available records. It was conducted during a two-week period ending June 30, 2012, and covered projects funded from 2009, 2010, and 2011.

The report stated in its recommendation "that all funds for the conference be suspended indefinitely, until such time as the EAAC is prepared to accept responsibility to be accountable and all internal controls have been put in place."

--snip--

 The projects reviewed and affected by the suspension of funds include, among others, Humble United Methodist School, Humble United Methodist Vocational High School, Hope for Africa Children's Choir Music Academy, Mukono and Namunkanaga HIV/AIDS and Malaria Awareness, Trinity United Methodist Church in Wanyange, United Methodist Women Center in Jinja, and the United Methodist Empowerment Center of Jinja.

The audit report was emailed to Bishop Daniel Wandabula, who leads the EAAC. The Global Ministries audit committee will continue to seek resolution on the outstanding issues.

Global Ministries accepted the independent audit committee's recommendation and has suspended all funding to the EAAC effective immediately.

I wasn't sure about the boundaries, but the East Africa Annual Conference, according to the United Methodist Church's website,  include the nations of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, and Uganda, with Episcopal offices in Uganda's capital of Kampala.

So . . . because the conference exists across the boundaries of nations living with varieties of internal strife, despotism, civil war and secession, the threat of the spread of militant Islam and terrorist groups (the northeast of Kenya, bordering the near non-state of Somalia, is pretty much an armed camp as Kenya defends itself from the radicals trying to move south), the ravages of neo-colonialism, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, endemic corruption, official neglect from their putative First World allies; for all these reasons, the United Methodist Church, in its infinite wisdom is going to punish United Methodist Christians who live and work in these countries.

It was a Capt. Renault moment for those auditors, announcing themselves "shocked! shocked!" that there might be problems with financial audits in countries with the abundant problems listed above.  Which, obviously, should not be read as a defense of any potential malfeasance on the part of church officials; since none is alleged that doesn't seem to be the problem.  Rather, the problem is the Conference doesn't have, according to their own auditors, "internal controls".  Without specifics, I'm guessing that means applying the rules for fiduciary responsibility contained in the United Methodist Discipline.

The list of ministries effected by the abrupt end of funding is not only long, but diverse, some of which address the most pressing problems across national boundaries.

In 1 Corinthians, chapter 9, St. Paul defends his ministry, apostleship, and his right to chastise the Corinthian congregation from a variety of attacks laid upon him by the nitpickers who insist he has no right or reason to act the way he has.  In the course of his defense, he insists that, rather than rely upon the abundant and contrary claims of human authority, he rests solely upon what he calls "the law of Christ" (in contrast, specifically in the text, to what he calls "the law of God").  He describes himself as willing to be all things to all people in order to do the one thing to which he has been called - spread the Gospel.

Rather than focus on the first part of the chapter, I think we should remember this last part in our dealings with settings and contexts with which we are unfamiliar.  Rather than cut off funding, wouldn't it be wonderful if GBGM decided to be all things to all people, so the gospel could be preached and lived in the nations of east Africa?  Wouldn't it be nice if it found ways to work with and around local conditions that create barriers for the kinds of accountability controls other areas consider necessary?  Rather than demand the churches in east Africa conform to a set of standards that would be impossible to apply, wouldn't it be nice if GBGM thanked the accountants for their work, sat down with the Bishop and the pastoral and lay leadership in east Africa and said, "What do we need to do in order more effectively to do the work of the United Methodist Church?"

That would take humility, though.  And wisdom.  A smattering of cunning, certainly, as well as a heaping dose of leadership.  This year has demonstrated an abundant lack of these virtues among "the leadership" of the United Methodist Church.  So, we surrender the ministry of the church in east Africa to the bean counters (I keep picturing the teacher in the film version of Pink Floyd's The Wall for some reason).  Rather than work with them both to get them the funds they need to do their work but also to start to put in place those "internal controls" about which they seem so concerned, we're just going to punish the churches and the people they serve.

Hallelujah.

The Romney Campaign

I think we should take stock of the presumptive Republican nominee for President and his campaign over the previous couple weeks.

He went on a foreign trip in which he insulted his British hosts, alienated millions of Palestinian and Arabs with a declaration that he will reverse decades of American policy on the status of Jerusalem, and managed to make it through Poland with the endorsement of an aging and unpopular former President.  In a year in which the single biggest issue voters care about is the economy, one would have thought such a trip might have been far more low key.  Instead, he managed to display a kind of ineptitude that was both glorious and appalling at the same time.

He returned home and, almost immediately, opened up two attacks upon President Obama that are demonstrably false.  First there was the whole Ohio voting suit.  The past couple days have seen him go after waivers the Obama Administration has granted to states on the administration of welfare funds and programs, waivers for which he applied when governor of Massachusetts.  Both stories, resulting in vigorous pushback from the parties involved, the press, and the Obama campaign, demonstrate - if any more demonstration was needed - how beholden Romney feels himself to the crazy wing of the Republican Party.

At the same time all this has been going on, his increased visibility has certainly changed the poll numbers.  Now, I have said in the past that I'm not a big fan of polling.  I'm not.  Recently participating in a phone poll conducted by Rasmussen, I can testify to the odd nature of contemporary polling practice and procedure, while I wonder at the statistical methods such companies use to evaluate the rather odd results that must flow from such a stilted way of conducting public surveys.  In any case, with all these caveats and warnings, the evidence from polling data, taken with as many grains of salt as one might think necessary, is clear: The more folks hear and see Romney, the less they like him.  His negatives have hit record highs, his personal approval numbers are in George W. Bush territory, and President Obama has taken a lead not only in those "swing states" that are so dearly loved by political reporters.  The President has a near-statistically significant lead nationally, with a huge majority in potential Electoral College votes.

With the Republican National Convention shaping up to highlight some of the most unpopular Republican elected officials - Nikki Hailey from South Carolina, Rick Scott from Florida, and John Kasich from Ohio - Party chair Reince Priebus (I had to check Google on the spelling) has made it clear he wants the single least popular Republican celebrity, Sarah Palin, to speak, something many of us would endorse.  Nothing would demonstrate the total disconnect from reality that effects the Republican Party like having Palin in a primetime speaking spot.  I read somewhere yesterday the Republicans are gearing up for a repeat of 1992, when they gave Pat Buchanan primetime and it destroyed the Bush campaign.

There is a whole lot of chatter about the effect outside money will have on the Presidential race, and it is true enough that the Republicans have a clear lead on this front.  All the same, while this might effect down-ballot races, I'm puzzled as to how Romney, so beholden to that part of the electorate that believes Pres. Obama is a socialist born in Kenya, raised by Marxist tutors and paling around with domestic terrorists, recovers from a display of their florid psychosis.

None of this should be taken as an attack upon those voters who call themselves Republican but are not ready for their dose of Thorazine.  It is, however, a warning.  There might well be many attractive Republican candidates for any number of offices, from US Congress to county coroner that deserve election.  At the national level, however, the Republican Party has become less a body uniting a coalition of groups in order to govern the nation by developing particular policies, and more a conglomerate of wealthy, powerful individuals who exploit fear and social and economic unease to ensure their continued wealth and power.  While the Democrats are beholden to many of these same groups, the money trail this year is pretty clear; the folks who write the big checks think the Republicans are stupid enough to ignore the many ways they will be screwed by Republican policies.

Romney cannot escape this reality.  That's why, as people learn more about him, Obama takes a clear lead.  The stars just aren't in their courses for the guy this year, I guess.

Gaze In Wild Wonder (UPDATE)

Depressed and saddened by the contraction of our national vision, the meanness and occasional idiocy of our politics, and the devout desire to remember our greatness as a country lies not in the banalities of commercial life but our ability to achieve what many thought impossible, I wrote this post back on June 11.

All we are currently offered by way of some consoling vision is the comfort of material gain.  We see so many threats around the globe, we no longer believe it possible to do much more than keep them at some arm's length, staving off the eventual disaster.

We have become more than cowardly.  We, as a people, have become blind.  We have lost the ability even to celebrate that which is best about all of us as a people.  We stagger through our days, hoping only that the collapse will come tomorrow, grateful at the end of each day that we have reached it safely.

In the middle of Sunday night, the Mars rover, Curiosity, made its marvelous, maddening, successful descent to the surface of the fourth planet, using a robotic sky crane that lowered the one-ton vehicle to the surface on its own smarts.  Among the first photos they snapped was this one from its forward looking hazard cameras.

In the distance lies the mountain at the center of the crater in which Curiosity sits, and to which it is going to travel.  The plan is to sample the old rocks at the bottom, to see if there are any traces of organic compounds, a sign that, at the very least, conditions once existed that offered the possibility of Martian microbial life.  Knowing the planet was once warmer, the atmosphere denser, allowing running water to run long enough to cut deep channels across the planet's surface, we continue to wonder if we may have once had some kind of neighbors in the solar system.

I do not think it wrong to take a moment to celebrate our vicarious return to Mars on a parochial, national level.  True enough, from the Martian perspective, what is the United States?  Yet, among the residents of the third rock, who else has flung orbiters and landers and rovers to snap a photo or two, to taste the Martian wind and sand, to do what needs to be done to answer the question that may be the most fundamental question we human beings ask: Are we alone in the Universe?

We Americans are living in troubled times.  Mass death, global warming, drought, civil war abroad, the stupidity of our politics at home that mocks those who have set aside their lives to defend our land and way of life, and the sense that we just can't do even the most basic tasks of self-governance: these are the realities that seem to mock our public life.  Curiosity, its engines getting ready to fire up and head out on its slow, deliberate journey across the bottom of a crater on another world, reminds us that this litany of national failure doesn't tell the whole picture.  We are a people who do indeed know how to do great things, marvelous things, wonderful things that make us all gaze in wonder at new places no one has ever seen, discovering things no one has ever known.

Over the next several days, as the first color, panoramic images come back from the many cameras on Curiosity, we all should stand and cheer ourselves.  In a time when we think we can no longer accomplish much of anything, Curiosity's pictures remind us that we do the spectacular quite well.

UPDATE:  JPL managed to piece together the following video from 297 still images Curiosity snapped as it descended.  It is truly spectacular.

On Those 15 Vet Groups In Ohio

This is kind of an update on my post Saturday on the lie going around that the President of the United States wants to restrict military voting rights in Ohio.  It seems Mitt Romney has joined the FAILelujah Chorus, displaying the kind of principled idiocy I haven't seen since Emily Latella's op-ed's on Saturday Night Live.

I'm sure by now there are folks who are saying, "Well, if Obama isn't trying to restrict military voting, then why are there 15 vet groups petitioning the court against the lawsuit?"

All I can say, yet again, is read the motion.

[I]n the event this Court concludes that Ohio’s current statutory scheme is unconstitutional, Defendants reasonably can be expected to seek to minimize the resulting expense to the State, disruption to the electoral process, and additional burden on election workers, see Blackwell, 467 F.3d at 1008, such as by asking this Court to reduce or eliminate the additional days of early voting for military voters. Plaintiffs, in turn, intend to seek an expansion of the early voting period through Election Day for all voters, which may impose substantial financial and logistical burdens on the State.(Italics added)

Those fifteen groups are merely petitioning to intervene in the case because they feel a ruling seeking, as they note quite clearly in the italicized portion above, to expand early voting to all citizens, might result in Ohio removing the early voting privileges for all Ohio residents, military or civilian.  The groups are intervening only to ensure that doesn't happen.

The above linked story on Mitt Romney's attempt to make up down on this case includes the following tidbit:

On Friday, the Obama Campaign actually signed a brief to the court that backed the petition of those groups – welcoming them into the case, because the Obama campaign says it wants to ensure that military voters aren’t kept from early voting.

I do so hope Romney continues to insist that the sky is green and grass blue on this matter, because it will demonstrate just how beholden he has become to the crazy wing of the Republican Party.