New York, March 31—Standing before his congregation on Easter Sunday, the Rev. Dr. Thomas Stiers thanked the choir; he admired the bright flowers that adorned the pulpit; and he told the story of the resurrection, speaking slowly and deliberately, his voice filling the warm air within Riverside Church.
Then he started talking politics.
“How do we live after last Wednesday, a day that marked the fifth anniversary of that terrible, costly war that never should have been waged?” he asked. Stiers then spoke of Jeremiah Wright, the much-maligned pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ and friend of presidential hopeful Barack Obama. It was wrong, he said, for the American media to reduce “a loving pastor” to 60-second video clips. Stiers then turned his attention to Obama.
“He stood before the nation, he addressed the issues, and he showed a path out of the darkness,” he said of the Illinois Senator.
Speaking for only five minutes, Stiers, who is white, addressed the political firestorm surrounding Wright’s sermons and reinforced a point largely missed by the television news stations lambasting the Chicago pastor: for many Americans, blacks in particular, politics and church have always been one and the same.
“Church has always been that one place were blacks could go and feel like they were in control,” said Sarah Cunningham. At 82 years of age, She watched the number of black churchgoers at Riverside rise as both the church and Morningside Heights—a neighborhood near Columbia University on Manhattan’s Upper West Side—were swept up in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Cunningham, who is white, has seen five senior ministers in charge of Riverside. The last permanent one, the Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes, was the first and only black man to hold the position.
“Black churches have always talked as much about politics as religions,” Cunningham said. A retired writer for religious publications, she said she first came to understand this overlap of politics and preaching as a child in rural Tennessee, where whites and blacks attended separate churches. After moving to New York, she watched Riverside’s congregation grow more diverse as the civil rights movement led to a broad shift towards integration. During Rev. Forbes’s tenure, the congregation was roughly 60 percent black, though now it is more evenly balanced, she said.
Stiers and Cunningham’s comments centered on the controversial sermons made by Wright, sermons which threaten to impugn Obama just as he looks to secure the Democratic presidential nomination. On March 18, Obama gave a speech in which he condemned many of Wright’s views.
“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,” Obama said in his speech.
But Obama also sought to frame Wright’s fiery sermons within the context of the black church, a place unfamiliar to a majority of Americans where the hardships of life as a minority sometimes give way to anger and politics. “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,” Obama said. “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.”
By linking Wright’s sermons to the lingering of serious inequalities in the U.S., Obama’s speech went beyond the debate over whether or not video clips of Wright on news programs and the Internet have been taken out of context, deliberately framed to misrepresent the underlying message. But by condemning Wright’s “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,” Obama refused to condone either Wright’s indignation or his linking the war in Iraq to racism in the U.S.
Obama’s carefully qualified relationship with Wright has, therefore, revealed the Senator’s unwillingness to cast himself in the mold of the black preacher-turned-politician. Obama may attend Wright’s sermons, but he does not share his political views or his rhetorical style. Obama may, as Wright himself said in one of his sermons, know “what it’s like to live in a country controlled by rich white people,” but as a presidential candidate, he has yet to fully embrace the sharp-edged oratorical style of Jessie Jackson, Malcolm X or even Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Like Wright, King spoke at Riverside on a number of occasions. On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination, King gave his famous “Beyond Vietnam” speech, in which he called the U.S. “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” He also linked U.S. militarism abroad to the abuse of civil rights for minorities at home, and argued that the U.S. was “on the wrong side of a world revolution.” Though he argued in the speech that his opposition to the war in Vietnam stemmed from the same non-violent principles as his crusade for civil rights, King was roundly criticized for enmeshing moral opposition to segregation with foreign policy.
It is, ironically enough, Wright, not Obama, the leading anti-war candidate, who most closely echoes the style and content of King’s anti-war speeches. In a speech shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Wright worried that the U.S. would respond to the attacks by lashing out at the world. The U.S. was, he argued, caught up in “the insanity of the cycle of violence and the cycle of hatred.”
In his weekly sermons, Wright has been a fierce critic of the war in Iraq. In a speech entitled “War on Iraq IQ Test,” he asked: “Which country do you think poses the greatest threat to global peace: Iraq or the U.S.?” and quoted King’s statement that “our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Monday, March 31, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
No Time For My Weight, I'm Watching ESPN
By ordering with a days notice, customers of Mallie's Sports Bar and Grill in suburban Detroit can sit down to enjoy a 134 pound cheeseburger. The Absolutely Ridiculous Burger is now the largest burger commercially sold in America, reports the AP. It comes on a 50 pound bun, takes 12 hours to cook and at least three people to flip. Would you like fries with that? Owner Steve Mallie is waiting for the results to know if he is now the vendor of the largest hamburger in America, topping the 124 pound burger served last year by Denny's Beer Barrel pub in Clearfield, PA.
Down south in Mississippi, another record was broken this year—the first state with over 30% of its population officially obese. Not overweight, but obese. In fact, according to the Trust for America's Health, not a single state reduced its percentage of obese residents during 2007. While the Center for Disease Control is calling obesity in America worse than any plague or epidemic of the Middle Ages, a 134 pound burger is reported with humor—just another crazy record for Guinness. Because they know this is not just a novelty, many news reports also add protocol on ordering the beef feast—24 hours in advance, please. Popular culture appears dangerously disconnected from reality. What's that you say? You have the You Tube clip of Joey Chestnut eating 66 hot dogs in 12 minutes to win the annual ESPN Hot Dog Eating Contest? Finally, Nathan's Yellow Mustard Belt is back in the United States.
Competition is fierce in the United States, and what can be made into a sport often is. Over-indulgence is a time-honored battleground with determined Americans trying to out drink, out buy, and out sex all competitors. However, those competitions are mostly held in the movies and are sporadically mentioned on television. Food, appears to be a different matter. ESPN is the largest cable sports network in America, and the annual contest is held on Independence Day. But eating too many hot dogs is killing us in record—and growing—numbers. What other major cause of death in this country is a nationally televised sport? When was the last cigarette smoking competition? Why haven't the good doctors, government workers, nutritionists and Oprah hammered an aversion of food-binging into our heads like that which we would probably feel if we watched Joey Chestnut smoke 84 Newports in 15 minutes? Gross, right? Right??
Monday, February 25, 2008
Conspiracy weary
Spend a couple of hours with conspiracy theorists and you will have plenty to think about. My opinions haven't moved in to the realm of the obscure, but I have reexamined some of my thoughts about September 11.
No, I don't think the World Trade Center was blown up by a "controlled demolition," I don't think that the Pentagon was struck by a missile, and I don't think that the plane in Pennsylvania was shot down by a US jet. All these claims have been clearly refuted by Popular Mechanics, a group I have more confidence in than any of the eclectic-and often eccentric-mix of "experts" that claim to know the truth.
But I have come to think that this group's desire to convene a new 9/11 Commission is justified. The original commission was completely bogged down by a crooked executive director who met in private numerous times with Karl Rove during the investigation, underfunding (compare its budget of roughly 10 million with the budget for the Lewinsky scandal of 40 million), and a lack of cooperation from government agencies-the most recent example being the discovery of the CIA torture tapes.
Why shouldn't heads roll for the incompetence in the lead up to 9/11? How come Condoleeza Rice can admit in front of the world that a report came across her desk entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States" in August of 2001 and not face any sort of consequences?
It may turn out that I've been too immersed in the conspiracy world and need a week or two to get back to reality. Emotions tend to run high. When talking to the theorists it is clear that the trauma from the day remains evident. The last guy out of the North tower said yesterday in a speech that "we still are an open wound, we need closure."
On the street, some are filled with suspicion and outrage when they consider 9/11 and get in a heated discussion with the conspiracy theorists (one of those discussions when there is agreement but everyone is yelling anyway), other passersby look at the theorists on the street and just hang their heads down, communicating that resurrecting all those emotions is the last thing they could ever want.
No, I don't think the World Trade Center was blown up by a "controlled demolition," I don't think that the Pentagon was struck by a missile, and I don't think that the plane in Pennsylvania was shot down by a US jet. All these claims have been clearly refuted by Popular Mechanics, a group I have more confidence in than any of the eclectic-and often eccentric-mix of "experts" that claim to know the truth.
But I have come to think that this group's desire to convene a new 9/11 Commission is justified. The original commission was completely bogged down by a crooked executive director who met in private numerous times with Karl Rove during the investigation, underfunding (compare its budget of roughly 10 million with the budget for the Lewinsky scandal of 40 million), and a lack of cooperation from government agencies-the most recent example being the discovery of the CIA torture tapes.
Why shouldn't heads roll for the incompetence in the lead up to 9/11? How come Condoleeza Rice can admit in front of the world that a report came across her desk entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States" in August of 2001 and not face any sort of consequences?
It may turn out that I've been too immersed in the conspiracy world and need a week or two to get back to reality. Emotions tend to run high. When talking to the theorists it is clear that the trauma from the day remains evident. The last guy out of the North tower said yesterday in a speech that "we still are an open wound, we need closure."
On the street, some are filled with suspicion and outrage when they consider 9/11 and get in a heated discussion with the conspiracy theorists (one of those discussions when there is agreement but everyone is yelling anyway), other passersby look at the theorists on the street and just hang their heads down, communicating that resurrecting all those emotions is the last thing they could ever want.
Elan- new Muslim magazine
The title debuted last week on February 22nd. When you read and talk to any member of the team you soon realize that it was launched out of frustration, a frustration with the image of Muslims in the U.S.
Sarah Malaika, a managing editor of Elan, says there is a lot of negative news about Muslims and it’s easy to understand why she and many other Muslims don’t feel represented. “That is why Elan was launched. We feel that there is more out there. We want America to see us as we are: teachers, musicians, physicians, artists.”
E’lan in Arabic, Urdu and Farsi means “announcement” and Sarah Malaika explains that the magazine wants to deliver positive announcements about Muslim-American communities. She also believes the Muslim-Americans are ready for the magazine. “We had a photo shoot last week and people that came were totally excited. We see they are ready for us.”
Elan is written by, for and about young 20-35 year-olds, professional Muslims of both sexes. The magazine subtitle is “Rethink Muslim.” It wants non-Muslims to reconsider their stereotypes about Muslims, “We want them to rethink what they think,” Malaika says.
It is not, however, only about American public opinion, it is also about Muslims themselves. “We also want Muslims to rethink their identity,” Sarah Malaika said. She noticed that since Muslims are such a diverse group, often they don’t know about others from outside their ethnic group.
Starting a new magazine is never easy. Elan already received criticism from more conservative Muslims who accused the magazine of not being religious and modest enough. The magazine is still setting its boundaries. “We have many discussions in the news room about how far we can push boundaries, “ she says in terms of appropriate clothing and writing, but she immediately added, “What we are trying to do has never been done before. We are a magazine for both secular and religious Muslims.”
Sarah Malaika complains that many people, both Muslims and non-Muslims, don’t understand that Elan does recognizes religion and is not necessarily trying to declare itself as a secular magazine. “Islam influenced our culture and we don’t condemn any religious representations. Elan is all-inclusive. We don’t tell people how they should practice their religion,” Malaika says. The magazine ambition is to create an open space for discussion to everyone.
The publisher, Wahid Media Venture, describes its publication as, “a magazine of contemporary Muslim culture”- and it is. The first cover story in the glossy magazine is about Reza Aslan, the Teheran born Muslim American author of “No God but God: The origin, evolution, and future of Islam”. It expresses his vision for the new Muslim American identity.
Elan is produced quarterly and is available at the biggest bookstore chains.
Sarah Malaika, a managing editor of Elan, says there is a lot of negative news about Muslims and it’s easy to understand why she and many other Muslims don’t feel represented. “That is why Elan was launched. We feel that there is more out there. We want America to see us as we are: teachers, musicians, physicians, artists.”
E’lan in Arabic, Urdu and Farsi means “announcement” and Sarah Malaika explains that the magazine wants to deliver positive announcements about Muslim-American communities. She also believes the Muslim-Americans are ready for the magazine. “We had a photo shoot last week and people that came were totally excited. We see they are ready for us.”
Elan is written by, for and about young 20-35 year-olds, professional Muslims of both sexes. The magazine subtitle is “Rethink Muslim.” It wants non-Muslims to reconsider their stereotypes about Muslims, “We want them to rethink what they think,” Malaika says.
It is not, however, only about American public opinion, it is also about Muslims themselves. “We also want Muslims to rethink their identity,” Sarah Malaika said. She noticed that since Muslims are such a diverse group, often they don’t know about others from outside their ethnic group.
Starting a new magazine is never easy. Elan already received criticism from more conservative Muslims who accused the magazine of not being religious and modest enough. The magazine is still setting its boundaries. “We have many discussions in the news room about how far we can push boundaries, “ she says in terms of appropriate clothing and writing, but she immediately added, “What we are trying to do has never been done before. We are a magazine for both secular and religious Muslims.”
Sarah Malaika complains that many people, both Muslims and non-Muslims, don’t understand that Elan does recognizes religion and is not necessarily trying to declare itself as a secular magazine. “Islam influenced our culture and we don’t condemn any religious representations. Elan is all-inclusive. We don’t tell people how they should practice their religion,” Malaika says. The magazine ambition is to create an open space for discussion to everyone.
The publisher, Wahid Media Venture, describes its publication as, “a magazine of contemporary Muslim culture”- and it is. The first cover story in the glossy magazine is about Reza Aslan, the Teheran born Muslim American author of “No God but God: The origin, evolution, and future of Islam”. It expresses his vision for the new Muslim American identity.
Elan is produced quarterly and is available at the biggest bookstore chains.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
If the Chinese Can Do It ...
After shooting down a rogue satellite that went haywire shortly after its launch, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the good people of America to rest easy; George Bush's vaunted missile defense system works.
Ostensibly, the operation was a $60 million means of keeping the world safe from the "potentially toxic" contents of the satellite's fuel tank. In reality, the move was a chance for the Pentagon to test George Bush's version of Star Wars. New toys are hard to resist, especially when other kids are flaunting their own. Back when the Chinese blew up their own satellite, you could hear the Pentagon pouting, 'How come all the cool toys come out in the far east first?'
But, now that they've showed off their toy a bit, the Pentagon's strutting. "The operation speaks for itself," said Gates. Problem is, it doesn't.
Gail Collins' Op-Ed in the New York Times, a nice lampoon of the whole adventure, raised doubts over whether or not this bit of muscle flexing proved anything, writing:
Offering a possible alternative to the original toxic gas excuse (gas which “If you stay very close to it and inhale a lot of it, it could in fact be deadly" -- Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), Collins suggested another:
Touché, madame.
Adding to the childish nature of the affair, both China and the U.S. have accused the other of treading dangerous ground, risking an arms race in outer space.
It doesn't take a Harvard man to see that an arms race is already underway. I'm pretty sure spending billions of dollars every year on a missile defense system qualifies. As if there wasn't enough nonsense on earth, the U.S. and the Chinese are taking it extraterrestrial.
If a Dem gets elected, missile defense should be among the first programs to get the axe. A debtor nation in a recession, hell, even one in good economic health, can find better ways to spend its coin.
Ostensibly, the operation was a $60 million means of keeping the world safe from the "potentially toxic" contents of the satellite's fuel tank. In reality, the move was a chance for the Pentagon to test George Bush's version of Star Wars. New toys are hard to resist, especially when other kids are flaunting their own. Back when the Chinese blew up their own satellite, you could hear the Pentagon pouting, 'How come all the cool toys come out in the far east first?'
But, now that they've showed off their toy a bit, the Pentagon's strutting. "The operation speaks for itself," said Gates. Problem is, it doesn't.
Gail Collins' Op-Ed in the New York Times, a nice lampoon of the whole adventure, raised doubts over whether or not this bit of muscle flexing proved anything, writing:
Before it fired at the satellite Wednesday night, the military was hesitating about making a shot, citing the possibility of “choppy seas.” Cynics who asked whether this means the nation’s quadrillion-dollar missile defense system only works when the weather is calm were told to stop being ridiculous.
Offering a possible alternative to the original toxic gas excuse (gas which “If you stay very close to it and inhale a lot of it, it could in fact be deadly" -- Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), Collins suggested another:
The Pentagon is afraid the supersecret satellite will fall into the hands of our enemies, revealing the sophisticated new technology that conked out shortly after leaving Earth and utterly failed to accomplish its mission.
Touché, madame.
Adding to the childish nature of the affair, both China and the U.S. have accused the other of treading dangerous ground, risking an arms race in outer space.
It doesn't take a Harvard man to see that an arms race is already underway. I'm pretty sure spending billions of dollars every year on a missile defense system qualifies. As if there wasn't enough nonsense on earth, the U.S. and the Chinese are taking it extraterrestrial.
If a Dem gets elected, missile defense should be among the first programs to get the axe. A debtor nation in a recession, hell, even one in good economic health, can find better ways to spend its coin.
Cindy McCain's America is not Michelle Obama's, and it's Probably not Your's
An essential component of effective leadership is the ability to step outside of your own viewpoint, if only momentarily, to better understand the position of another. This is what is referred to as being "open-minded." Of course, being open-minded doesn't mean that you have to adopt the view of the other, but you need to be able to understand the roots of that other party's actions and views.
An anti-example of this open-mindedness is found in the reaction of many U.S. citizens' to suicide bombers. Rather than try to understand the life circumstances of these desperate individuals -- exploring the role poverty, political repression and foreign intervention played in their decisions-- closed-minded individuals attribute it to a religion and culture which they do not understand, and do not attempt to understand. Dismissive terms like "satanic," "barbaric" and "bloodthirsty" are attached to Islam and that, for many people, is explanation enough; suicide bombers = evil believers in an evil ideology.
That sort of thinking, most often displayed by the right in U.S. politics, extends beyond the "War on Terror," and pervades issues both domestic and international. In its zeal to defend America against its "enemies," both internal and external, it latches onto the quickest, easiest interpretation. A recent comment made by Harvard Law alumnus and model U.S. citizen Michelle Obama, and the subsequent reaction to it, offers a domestic example of this closed-minded approach, substituting political opportunism and jingoism for rational thinking.
The comment from Michelle: "For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country. Not just because Barack is doing well, but I think people are hungry for change."
The reaction was hostile, with many right-wing pundits denouncing Michelle, and by extension her husband, as unpatriotic. The implication is that no true America-loving, God-fearing individual could ever be anything less than proud of America.
Cindy McCain affirmed that when she stood before the cameras and said "I have, and always will be, proud of my country."
Cindy McCain, born into affluence, helped finance her husband's first successful bid for congress, in 1982, with money from her trust fund. In other words, she was born into the (white) world of power and has rested comfortably within it since her birth.
Michelle Obama is an African American female, and based on that alone her relationship to her country is a more complex one. Without a doubt, the roots of Michelle's comment went far beyond the government's treatment of African Americans, but that alone would be grounds for righteous indignation. Should she be incessantly and automatically proud of a government that only in the last 40 years has begun to move towards the self-evident truth that all men are created equal?
The obvious answer is "absolutely not," and that extends to any individual, regardless of their heritage. Those who unquestioningly accept that "U.S. government = Good" not only show an inability to open their minds beyond a narrow world view, they reveal the incompetence of their mental processes.
If Cindy McCain has always been proud of the country, it's because she doesn't know the country. She knows the U.S. that George Bush knows, or that Ted Kennedy knows. The difference between her and Ted, however, is that she is unable, or unwilling, to put herself in the position of others who may not have enjoyed the same privileges. Her life's trajectory has presented her with one side of America, the sunny side, and she either A) hasn't thought to look around the corner, or B) looked around the corner and processed nothing of what she saw.
Anyone who deals in absolutes is either naive, or lying. With Cindy's recent statement "I have always been proud of my country," , and John's promise "I will never, ever let you down," we know that they both fall into one, or both, of those categories.
What I want in a leader, a first lady, and in each and every citizen, is a critical mind, one that does not accept party lines and national mythologies. I want someone who is able to transcend their race, their religion, their political ideologies, if only briefly, in order to get a better understanding of the situation at hand. Our misguided foreign policy over the last 8 (last 150?) years shows the need for exactly that.
An anti-example of this open-mindedness is found in the reaction of many U.S. citizens' to suicide bombers. Rather than try to understand the life circumstances of these desperate individuals -- exploring the role poverty, political repression and foreign intervention played in their decisions-- closed-minded individuals attribute it to a religion and culture which they do not understand, and do not attempt to understand. Dismissive terms like "satanic," "barbaric" and "bloodthirsty" are attached to Islam and that, for many people, is explanation enough; suicide bombers = evil believers in an evil ideology.
That sort of thinking, most often displayed by the right in U.S. politics, extends beyond the "War on Terror," and pervades issues both domestic and international. In its zeal to defend America against its "enemies," both internal and external, it latches onto the quickest, easiest interpretation. A recent comment made by Harvard Law alumnus and model U.S. citizen Michelle Obama, and the subsequent reaction to it, offers a domestic example of this closed-minded approach, substituting political opportunism and jingoism for rational thinking.
The comment from Michelle: "For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country. Not just because Barack is doing well, but I think people are hungry for change."
The reaction was hostile, with many right-wing pundits denouncing Michelle, and by extension her husband, as unpatriotic. The implication is that no true America-loving, God-fearing individual could ever be anything less than proud of America.
Cindy McCain affirmed that when she stood before the cameras and said "I have, and always will be, proud of my country."
Cindy McCain, born into affluence, helped finance her husband's first successful bid for congress, in 1982, with money from her trust fund. In other words, she was born into the (white) world of power and has rested comfortably within it since her birth.
Michelle Obama is an African American female, and based on that alone her relationship to her country is a more complex one. Without a doubt, the roots of Michelle's comment went far beyond the government's treatment of African Americans, but that alone would be grounds for righteous indignation. Should she be incessantly and automatically proud of a government that only in the last 40 years has begun to move towards the self-evident truth that all men are created equal?
The obvious answer is "absolutely not," and that extends to any individual, regardless of their heritage. Those who unquestioningly accept that "U.S. government = Good" not only show an inability to open their minds beyond a narrow world view, they reveal the incompetence of their mental processes.
If Cindy McCain has always been proud of the country, it's because she doesn't know the country. She knows the U.S. that George Bush knows, or that Ted Kennedy knows. The difference between her and Ted, however, is that she is unable, or unwilling, to put herself in the position of others who may not have enjoyed the same privileges. Her life's trajectory has presented her with one side of America, the sunny side, and she either A) hasn't thought to look around the corner, or B) looked around the corner and processed nothing of what she saw.
Anyone who deals in absolutes is either naive, or lying. With Cindy's recent statement "I have always been proud of my country," , and John's promise "I will never, ever let you down," we know that they both fall into one, or both, of those categories.
What I want in a leader, a first lady, and in each and every citizen, is a critical mind, one that does not accept party lines and national mythologies. I want someone who is able to transcend their race, their religion, their political ideologies, if only briefly, in order to get a better understanding of the situation at hand. Our misguided foreign policy over the last 8 (last 150?) years shows the need for exactly that.
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