And people say I'm cynical

Got this from some friend via e-mail:

As you may have heard, the Bush Administration said every one of us would
now get a nice rebate.

If we spend the money at Wal-Mart, it will all go to China.
If we spend it on gasoline it will all go to the Arabs.
If we spend it on fruit and vegetables it will all go to Mexico, Honduras,
and Guatemala.
If we purchase a good car it will all go to Japan.
If we purchase electronic gadgets it will all go to Taiwan or Malayasia.

We need to keep that money at home to strengthen our economy here, so the
best way to spend it is for prostitutes and beer, the only truly functional
businesses still in the US.

My name is Elliot Spitzer and I approved this ad...

Rice on Race

Condoleeza has some insight. Here. Interesting.

Big story...if true

America, oil-independent?

Go to the lowest place

We were standing today outside the only abortion clinic in Mississippi singing hymns and taking turns praying for the women and babies in the womb within the facility when it dawned on me: this is morally the lowest place in our state. The lowest of the low. The pits.

The place of slaughter.

And I wondered how much different a place the world would be if sanctified Christians would be found, in force, at the "lowest" places of their communities making clear the love of Christ.

That is not typically what happens, I suspect. But it ought to. Thanks for those of you who show up to such places of trouble, of anguish, of pitiable situations.

Thank-you.

Hillary has a minister problem

Maybe...

The best inside look at the McCain campaign

Even if it is a little friendly. His daughter's...

McCain's pastor

I wondered when someone would bring this up:

John McCain's Phoenix pastor, Dan Yeary, is a folksy patriotic Southern Baptist who opposes abortion and believes homosexuality to be a biblical sin, but says Christians have an obligation to love such sinners.

That puts Yeary, who heads the church attended for the past 15 years by the Republican presidential candidate firmly in the U.S. Southern Baptist mainstream, and in line with the Republican Party.

He offers a sharp contrast to Democratic contender Barack Obama's former preacher Jeremiah Wright, who has stirred controversy with his fiery comments on race and America.

Read books for your history...movies won't cut it

Ten most historically inaccurate movies. Well, yeah.

Tell me this wouldn't freak you out a little

Ha!

Harper for Congress

Gregg Harper vs. Charlie Ross for the Mississippi 3rd Congressional GOP nod.

The winner here easily wins the general, of course. And Ross ought to be the heavy favorite. He is not. Indeed, he will likely lose. For track record, endorsements, and money pale in comparison to what Roger Ailes calls "the magic bullet of politics."

Likeability.

• Gregg Harper goes into every conversation he is a part of wanting to make the other participant feel good; at the least, show them tremendous respect. He has done this across a lifetime. Buy Charlie a copy of "How to Win Friends and Influence People."
  
  
• Gregg knows how to run a campaign without making other people foaming at the mouth mad. Charlie doesn't.
  
  
• Gregg says that he is a Christian and actually comes off as one when you meet him. More important, comes across as one the longer you know him.
  
  
• Gregg has influenced enough people across a lot of years in grassroots politics to build up tremendous word of mouth on his behalf and great energy from people that volunteer for him. Last race all the word of mouth buzz and excitement seemed to be Harper's direction.
  
  
• Gregg does things for you without asking anything in return. But you want to give something back when you have a chance. Having served people in the political realm like that over several years it is no surprise that folks are personally excited about Gregg's candidacy. Many are highly motivated to get out and vote for him on a day few will be getting out and voting for anyone.
  

Now, I actually like Charlie Ross. If elected - and frankly, he could be - he would make a great congressman. He would hit the ground running. But if he doesn't, and I don't think at this point he will, these are the reasons why.

Here's voting for Gregg Harper who has substitute hosted The Matt Friedeman Show for years. Fine Christian, socially and economically conservative, personally savvy and with lots of friends that love the Harpers.

The most stable and prosperous nations

And we are not first!

Check it out.

McCain - shoring up the conservative base

What does John McCain have to do to shore up his base?

Tell me.

Jindal - sounds good to me...

From the WSJ:

Mr. McCain's choice of vice presidential running mate can make or break his candidacy. The party's professional trunk-waving pachyderms and the beltway bozos who think that pragmatism will win the new day are already offering up a list of business-as-usual candidates. But pragmatism is not practical in the long run.

No, this is the time for change, real change. This is a time for someone whom everybody knows to be the rising star of the GOP, the new governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal.

And what a governor! Having taken office in January, after winning 54% of the vote in the open-field primary, Mr. Jindal immediately called a special session of the legislature and persuaded them to pass his 64-point agenda for ethics reform. They said ethics reform couldn't be done in Louisiana--a state whose reputation as a cesspool is legendary--but he did it in a two-week session. Now he's calling a second special session to pass the tax cuts necessary to jump-start the post-Katrina economy in his state.

* * *

Do some people think that Mr. McCain is too old at 71? The Constitution does require a backup, no matter how old the President. Mr. Jindal can balance the ticket. At 36, he has the accomplishments you would expect at 47. Mr. Obama, at 47, has the accomplishments you would expect at 36. Mr. Jindal more than meets the constitutional age requirements if he were to accede to the presidency, and has more executive and legislative experience than the two Democrats combined. His nomination would convince the rising generation that there's hope for the young.

Do some think this is an election about experience? Mr. Jindal, who was elected to Rep. David Vitter's seat when Mr. Vitter ran for U.S. Senate in 2004, was re-elected for a second term with 88% of the vote. That's not enough experience? It's as much experience in Congress as Barack Obama has to show for his three years. Oh, and by the way, Mr. Jindal, in his last term, had an American Conservative Union rating of 100, with 96 for both terms. In addition he has consistently taken the No New Taxes pledge proposed by Americans for Tax Reform.

Naive or insulting?

"Thanks for the article you wrote in response to Dobson's lament. My immediate reaction was that the complaints about 'who will take over our empires' made me feel like I do when I hear movie stars whining about how hard their lives are. It is suspect when leaders like Dobson openly lament a lack of successors to manage their enterprises. If they've been sowing good seed, giving away their power to others, nurturing deep family and leadership values and effecting redemptive responses in people, such a cry is not needed. It sounds more like he is saying, 'There's no one here who will do things exactly like we did.' Of course there aren't. Thank goodness.

"And his sense that the generations following him won't make the tough calls or sacrifices? That is either naive or insulting to a growing movement of evangelicals who are younger, more socially engaged, more globally proactive, more risk-taking and more connected to the world around them than the boomers that Dobson represents. If he wants to lament current conditions, he need look no further than his own generation of privilege which has over-reached itself in almost all areas of life."

Milton

Worked for my wife!

Wanna be happy? Marry a man uglier than you...

Abu Ghraib in reverse?

Here.

Life in U.S.-run detention camps in Iraq is so good that a new trend has emerged: Detainees are refusing to leave. Agence France Presse reports:

“In the last three or four months we have begun seeing detainees asking to stay in detention, usually to complete their studies,” Major General Douglas Stone told a news conference in Baghdad.

The US military offers a wide range of educational programmes to the 23,000 or so detainees — adults and juveniles — being held at its two detention facilities. . . Some parents of juvenile detainees, too, have asked that their children remain behind bars so they can continue their schooling. . .

In an even crazier twist, parents are asking if the siblings of detainees can come and be locked up with their brothers so that they, too, can benefit from U.S. education programs. Such a development, of course, calls into question the popular leftist image of detention camps as American-run gulags. But I don’t expect to see any front-page pictures of detainees holding up schoolbooks as a counterpoint to the images of Abu Ghraib.

Do we need "Christian heroes?"

Maybe, but not the kind you think.

The worst generation

Yeah, yeah. But who - what really great generation - raised us?

Nice bit of research

Here.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Money can buy happiness, but only if you spend it on someone else, researchers reported on Thursday.

Spending as little as $5 a day on someone else could significantly boost happiness, the team at the University of British Columbia and Harvard Business School found.

Their experiments on more than 630 Americans showed they were measurably happier when they spent money on others -- even if they thought spending the money on themselves would make them happier.

About Gregg Harper, former guest host of the Matt Friedeman Show

This letter from David Landrum:

Dear Friends and Supporters,

Over the past 5 months, I have campaigned throughout the entire 3rd Congressional District and spent time with some wonderful people. I have also had the opportunity to campaign with all the candidates who initially ran in the Republican Primary.

Throughout the Primary, I have had the opportunity to see firsthand the character and motivation of each candidate. Now that we did not make it to the runoff, I believe I should let you know what I have seen on the campaign trail.

Throughout the debates, forums, and joint appearances, one of my opponents stood out of the crowd. This candidate has the convictions, passion, and the heart to serve the people of the 3rd District, which I think is vital for our next Congressman. This candidate has run a clean campaign and has refused to participate in the typical mudslinging or personal attacks used by other campaigns - either through television commercials or through word of mouth. I respect this candidate as a man of faith with a servant's heart.

That is why, in the Republican Runoff on April 1st, I am going to be supporting Gregg Harper for Congress and I humbly ask for your consideration to do the same. I have talked with Gregg about the issues that matter to me, and I feel confident he will address these issues as our next Congressman.

If you would like to help Gregg by volunteering for his campaign, donating to his campaign, or if you would just like more information, you can visit his website at www.greggharperforcongress.com or you can call his office at (601) 420.2211.

Again, thank you for your support during our campaign.

Sincerely,

David Landrum

Why aren't we better talking about race

Leave a comment.

My two cents:

• In talking to someone else of another race, we say stupid things. So does the other person. We need to cut each other some slack. Grace.
  
  
• Few of us have declared personal war on segregation. I mean practical segregation...we don't have meals or fellowship or go to church with folks of other races. God wants your personal life integrated. Get moving.
  
  
• Whites too easily dismiss historical wrongs and don't fairly consider contemporary outcomes of those wrongs. Pity.
  
  
• Blacks suspect that whites are too often talking about them when we are not with them.
  
  
• We lack love. Jesus said to love your neighbor. Then he told a race story (Good Samaritan) to show what he meant. That racial divide at the time of Christ was deeper than what blacks/whites have today. Wonder what story Jesus would share today to get the "majority" to hear "minority" perspective.
  
  
• Both sides deny that they have any problems at all on race. Look deep. You have problems. Saying, for instance, that "some of my best friends are black" doesn't dismiss those problems. More likely, it proves you really do have a major blind spot.
  

Reflections on Obama-McCain

Some thoughts:

• By November, it will be a secondary issue, but that issue is race. And independents, who in polling right now are breaking toward McCain, don't want to hear about it.
  
  
• Obama is as bad as most whites - and he is half white - talking about race. Admit it - we don't do a good job in this country discussing race, discrimination, etc.
  
  
• By November, this will only matter to the tune of 2-4 percentage points. Which, of course, is huge.
  
  
• McCain must have thought it some kind of curse when it dawned on him that Obama-Clinton would be getting all the ink after Huckabee pulled out. Betting he has changed his mind on that.
  
  
• Unfortunately for Obama, Jeremiah Wright still keeps lecturing and preaching. There will always be someone in the crowd who will be recording hoping for some red meat statement.
  
  
• Want to bet what Michelle Obama's take on all of this has been in the past few days? What attitude she has been privately demonstrating?
  
  
• The "race" issue has been most adequately "discussed" not by Obama, Wright and the likes of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson but by former representative J.C. Watts, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and current SofS Condoleeza Rice - and they didn't discuss it much at all. They simply performed nobly and well. And...received no credit by black leadership on the left.
  

I knew I was an alien in a foreign land when I viewed this website

And boy, was I never so glad to be alien.

Stunning news! Stunning! Four times more journalists identify themselves as liberal than conservative

I mean, stunning!

Gorbachev has acknowledged his Christianity for the first time

My.

Passover seder

The church I pastor celebrates a Passover seder together. To see what the various elements are, and why this is important, view this.

Reflections on Obama's speech

Regarding Sen. Obama's speech on the Jeremiah Wright fiasco:

• Welcome to the real world of politics. And it will only get more real for Mr. Obama, a newby on the national political scene that the media knows little about and will want to know more (which is why ABC explored this pastoral scenario in the first place).
  
  
• Obama, because of his race and radical positions (abortion, same sex unions, etc.) cannot afford too many missteps. This speech was good, but not nearly so good to make this perception go away.
  
  
• Obama is going to have to get control of wife Michele's verbiage. She can be a loose cannon and play right into the perception that Rev. Wright has had influence on this couple in deleterious ways.
  
  
• Obama is a smooth rhetorician. If this race comes down to mere likeability and captivating delivery McCain is in trouble.
  
  
• The hot white exploratory light of media and opposition research has only just begun.
  Get used to it, on both sides.
  
  
• Wonder what we find out about McCain's religiosity in the next several months. Something, you can count on that.
  

Wright vs. Imus...Explain.

Here.

Shelby Steele on Obama and his pastor problem

Here.

His pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is a challenger who goes far past Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson in his anti-American outrage ("God damn America").

How does one "transcend" race in this church? The fact is that Barack Obama has fellow-traveled with a hate-filled, anti-American black nationalism all his adult life, failing to stand and challenge an ideology that would have no place for his own mother. And what portent of presidential judgment is it to have exposed his two daughters for their entire lives to what is, at the very least, a subtext of anti-white vitriol?

What could he have been thinking? Of course he wasn't thinking. He was driven by insecurity, by a need to "be black" despite his biracial background. And so fellow-traveling with a little race hatred seemed a small price to pay for a more secure racial identity. And anyway, wasn't this hatred more rhetorical than real?

Miracle! Obama toast!

Heh.

Obama "pastor" speech

Here.

Senator Barack Obama: A MORE PERFECT UNION
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008/ 10:17:53 ET
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.”

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today – a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”

“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

Only acceptable form of bigotry left...

Last week, the University of Virginia's student paper, The Cavalier Daily, ran a cartoon depicting a naked man smoking a cigarette in bed. Standing beside the bed, a woman in her underwear buttons up her shirt and asks, "Come on God, be honest - Did you really get a vasectomy? I can't let Joseph find out about this." The man replies, "Well, Mary, you're f***ed."

The editors used the week before Holy Week to run this bigoted cartoon belittling Christ and Christians. Just a day earlier, the paper ran a cartoon portraying a crucified Jesus telling jokes onstage.

Send an e-mail to Gov. Kaine and the members of the state college board asking that the university's newspaper show more class, intelligence and tolerance in the cartoons they run, and to stop their anti-Christian bias.

Abortion and mental illness...really

Here.

Women may be at risk of mental health breakdowns if they have abortions, a medical royal college has warned. The Royal College of Psychiatrists says women should not be allowed to have an abortion until they are counselled on the possible risk to their mental health.

This overturns the consensus that has stood for decades that the risk to mental health of continuing with an unwanted pregnancy outweighs the risks of living with the possible regrets of having an abortion.

Obama and Snow in Mississippi

Here.

Scruggs: Guilty

So says, Scruggs.

Obama and His Minister

Oh, my.

And this:

"No going back"

Letter from the radio:

It is like a friend of mine said today: "All the young people out there are going to go for Obama because he is cool in their eyes and being cool is all it takes". I will have to agree with him because this election is probably going to get caught up in our pop culture's perfect storm and that is where 2 full generations that have been brought up in a politically correct public school system that has failed to teach the most basic history of the founding of our country and the sacrifices of its people to keep it free. That along with no one being taught pride and love for America as it was taught when I was a child will make any "cool" figure a possible winner in a presidential election. I was always told when you loose values for 2 generations in a row then there is no going back.

Bless 'em - the Marines at Berkeley

Watch it and laugh, or weep.

Our girls and STDs

Unbelievable. Or not.

CHICAGO (AP) - At least one in four teenage girls nationwide has a sexually transmitted disease, or more than 3 million teens, according to the first study of its kind in this age group.

A virus that causes cervical cancer is by far the most common sexually transmitted infection in teen girls aged 14 to 19, while the highest overall prevalence is among black girls—nearly half the blacks studied had at least one STD. That rate compared with 20 percent among both whites and Mexican-American teens, the study from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

About half of the girls acknowledged ever having sex; among them, the rate was 40 percent. While some teens define sex as only intercourse, other types of intimate behavior including oral sex can spread some infections.

Looking for the ten worst teachers

Here.

Because of "union-defended" labor laws, however, it can be impossible to fire a bad teacher, the Center says. Therefore, the group plans to accept nominations for the "ten worst union-protected teachers in America." It will offer to pay them $10,000 apiece to get out of the classroom for good.

Did prayer oust Spitzer?

Hmmm.

Planned Parenthood Racism Investigation

Anything for a buck

Obama and "We are building a religion"

Churchill, Roosevelt, and McCain

Interesting video by the McCain team.

Homeschooling outlawed in California

OneNewsNow

The actual court ruling

OneNewsNow.com column

Read it all, here.

Will Rogers is reported to have said that as president, Calvin Coolidge didn't do much of anything -- but at the time, that's precisely what we needed to have done.

Edit that a bit and wonder if a presidential candidate could have a bit less confidence in himself and the Beltway crowd, because for our times, that is what we need for the problems that beset us.

Many remembrances of the man have been made public at the recent passing of the great writer William F. Buckley. Among many debating episodes, many recall fondly his encounters with Gore Vidal -- a left/right verbal fisticuffs of the sort that has now become quite common in the media.

A month before the 1968 presidential election, each took a turn to describe the kind of man he would like to see elected. Buckley, eloquent as ever, remarked:

"He shouldn't form too high an opinion of himself. For instance, he should recognize that America is a great deal that has nothing to do with the presidency -- millions of men, women and children who deserve the opportunity to dream their dreams without any reference at all to the man who occupies the White House.

The best-run country in the world is Switzerland. And I have often amused myself while there by asking casually what is the name of the president of Switzerland. Inevitably, there is an embarrassed silence -- no one can remember his name."

Think of it -- a president committed to being forgotten. A person willing to set America free from what Ronald Reagan called "that little intellectual elite" in Washington -- set free to prosper, operate largely independent of intrusive government with the opportunity to live purposeful lives ... and not forced to think themselves fitfully yoked to an egomaniac in search of a legacy in future history books.

What a hoot - Obama blames the media

Here.

Its a mad, mad, mad world

Read the whole post.

A while back I mentioned Harvard's decision to ban men from its pool and fitness center six times a week in the interests of "accommodating" Muslim women. Our pal Michael Graham picks up the theme:

In the old days, Harvard would have laughed if some Catholic or evangelical mother urged “girls-only” campus workouts in the name of modesty. Today, Harvard happily implements Sharia swim times in the name of Mohammed.

At Harvard, that’s called progress.

Well put. And thus "progress" comes full circle. In Minneapolis last year, the airport licensing authority, faced with a mainly Muslim crew of cab drivers refusing to carry the blind, persons with six-packs of Bud, slatternly women, etc, proposed instituting two types of taxis with differently colored lights, one of which would indicate the driver was prepared to carry members of identity groups that offend Islam. Forty years ago, advocating separate drinking fountains made you a racist. Today, advocating separate taxi cabs or separate swimming sessions makes you a multiculturalist.

Much sound, little substance

Matt

While I was waiting for a doctor's appointment today I had the opportunity to hear Obama Speak for about 15 minutes. His mouth moved a lot and a whole lot of words about changes that need to happen, but he never said one peep about what he was really saying. It was much ado about nothing. The problem is that so many people are buying into him without any knowledge of what he really means.

The most definitive he has been is his misleading statements about the Sermon on the Mount. Apparently he never learned in his catechism growing up that God does not contradict himself. God quite clearly spoke on the issue of homosexuality in Leviticus 18:22. His word stands immutable. To misquote, add or subtract is a serious problem. We need to start asking Obama for details. Let's hope McCain will hold his feet to the fire.

In Christ,

Steve

She could win 16 straight and still lose

Jonathan Alter on how Hillary Clinton is "toast."

Open letter to Sen. Obama

Read it all, here.

You have asked me to vote for you. In turn, may I ask you three simple questions? They are straightforward questions of fact about abortion. They are at the heart of the debate. In fairness, I believe that you owe the people you would lead a good-faith answer to each:

1. The heart whose beating is stilled in every abortion — is it a human heart?

2. The tiny limbs torn by the abortionist’s scalpel — are they human limbs?

3. The blood that flows from the fetus’s veins — is it human blood?

If the stopped heart is a human heart, if the torn limbs are human limbs, if the spilled blood is human blood, can there be any denying that what is killed in an abortion is a human being? In your vision for America, the license to kill that human being is a right. You have worked to protect that “right” at every turn. But can there be a right to deny some human beings life or the equal protection of the law?

Of course, some do deny that every human being has a right to life. They say that size or degree of development or dependence can make a difference. But the same was once said of color. Some say that abortion is a “necessary evil.” But the same was once said of slavery. Some say that prohibiting abortion would only harm women by driving it underground. But to assume so is truly to play the politics of fear. A compassionate society would never accept these false alternatives. A compassionate society would protect both mother and child, coming to the aid of women in need rather than calling violence against their children the answer to their problems.

Can we become a society that does not sacrifice some people to help others? Or is that hope too audacious? You have said that abortion is necessary to protect women’s equality. But surely we can do better. Surely we can build an America where the equality of some is not purchased with the blood of others. Or would that mean too much change from politics as usual?

Can we provide every member of the human family equal protection under the law? Your record as a legislator gives a resounding answer: No, we can’t. That is the answer the Confederacy gave the Union, the answer segregationists gave young children, the answer a complacent bus driver once gave a defiant Rosa Parks. But a different answer brought your father from Kenya so many years ago; a different answer brought my family from Egypt some years later. Now is your chance, Senator Obama, to make good on the spontaneous slogan of your campaign, to adopt the more American and more humane answer to the question of whether we can secure liberty and justice for all: Yes, we can.

Obama on abortion, Paul, and the Sermon on the Mount

Hmmm.