{"id":1475,"date":"2009-07-23T14:17:01","date_gmt":"2009-07-23T18:17:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/evangelicalgateway.wordpress.com\/?p=154"},"modified":"2009-07-23T14:17:01","modified_gmt":"2009-07-23T18:17:01","slug":"morning-report-july-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/2009\/07\/23\/morning-report-july-23\/","title":{"rendered":"Morning Report, July 23"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

1.\u00a0 President Obama explained<\/a> the reasoning behind his push for health care reform in a prime-time presser last night.\u00a0 He said nothing new, but presented his argument in his usual smooth and eloquent manner.\u00a0 The only surprise came near the end, when he took a question<\/a> on the arrest of Skip Gates in Cambridge, Mass.\u00a0 His response was not surprising in itself; but it was surprising, especially given how carefully controlled his press conferences are (reporters are chosen<\/a> in advance when they intend to ask questions that the administration wants to answer), that he addressed a hot-button topic that distracted from the substantive matter of the moment.\u00a0 The next morning, there is more attention<\/a> in newspapers and television shows to his comments on the arrest than there is to his argument for health care reform.\u00a0 This was not an effective management of the message\u2013and with 50 percent of the public disapproving of his handling of the issue, he needed to be supremely effective in order to get a bill on his desk before the August recess.\u00a0 Meanwhile, as RealClearPolitics<\/a> shows, there is abundant commentary from left and right on the issue.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Speaking of the Henry Louis Gates arrest, I will try to offer a reflection on this later.\u00a0 Yet it largely depends on whom one believes.\u00a0 Since the police report has been leaked<\/a> to The Smoking Gun, one can see that, if the police report is honest and accurate, then there was reasonable basis for a disorderly conduct charge.\u00a0 It may have been \u201cacting stupidly<\/a>\u201d from a PR point of view, yet it\u2019s hard to see where officer Crowley acted in a racist manner.\u00a0 On the other hand, Gates\u2019 account<\/a> is quite different; if *that* account is accurate, then the policeman was certainly out of line\u2013whether it was a clash of egos, and the policemen arrested him because he was irritated by Gates\u2019 behavior, or did so because of racism, is anybody\u2019s guess.\u00a0 The White House is now qualifying<\/a> the President\u2019s comments.\u00a0 For the full account from Gates, see this interview<\/a> at TheRoot.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 The mechanization of warfare in the early 20th century led to the massive, wholesale slaughter of World Wars 1 and 2.\u00a0 Now the robot-ification of warfare could actually reduce the number of casualties in armed conflicts.\u00a0 CNN has an article<\/a> on the trend.\u00a0 The interesting question for me\u2013and the question we always try to ask at this blog\u2013is how Christians ought to think about this development.\u00a0 Presumably we can celebrate that fewer people are put in danger\u2013yet killing could also become even further depersonalized, since it is not one person encountering another on the battlefield but one person, comfortably ensconced in front of a computer halfway around the world, directing a machine to kill someone from afar.\u00a0 If anyone has thoughts on this, please let me know.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 Evidence of the Fall, items #3 and #4: Four boys in Phoenix, aged 9-13, after luring an 8-year-old girl into a storage shed with the promise of chewing gum, raped<\/a> her.\u00a0 All were Liberian refugees.\u00a0 The girl survived, yet child protective services removed her from her home when her parents refused<\/a> to support her, feeling that they had been shamed by their daughter.\u00a0 Let\u2019s pray that this poor girl finds a loving home with parents who appreciate her and can support her as she heals from this horrific experience.\u00a0 Who knows what justice may be when it comes to boys of that age, but we can pray God\u2019s hand will direct the process.\u00a0 On the other hand, may justice fall heavily on the shoulders of three people arrested<\/a> in Ohio for letting rats chew the toes off of a six-week old baby girl.<\/p>\n

(Yet God can bring good out of evil, as this<\/a> story illustrates.)<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 Angelina Jolie, as this interview<\/a> shows, has come a long way from her wayward youth.\u00a0 It\u2019s easy to mock the Hollywood adoption craze, but most of these children (except when you tear them away from their unwilling families, which seemed to be the case with Madonna) do need help, and Jolie has been a very earnest representative for refugees around the world.\u00a0 Sometimes music and movie stars are entirely self-absorbed, and even figures such as Bono and Angelina Jolie surprise me sometimes with their vanities.\u00a0 But these, unlike so many celebrities with a cause, have really educated themselves on the issues and made a substantive impact for good.<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0 Finally, two excellent ministry articles that I found today.\u00a0 The first<\/a> concerns the very difficult matter of ministering to those who are recovering from addiction and similar struggles.\u00a0 The author discusses \u201cthe narrative of ascendancy,\u201d that one becomes Christian and his life steadily improves, versus \u201cthe narrative of descendency,\u201d based on Christ\u2019s descent into death and hell.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>

I would rather speak of the baptismal formula of death and resurrection in Christ, but I think it\u2019s well worth reading.\u00a0 The second<\/a> concerns prison ministries that reach out to the children of the incarcerated.\u00a0 Having spent three years myself in prison ministry, I can tell you that there is no greater service you can do for most prisoners (those who care about their children) than take care of their sons and daughters.\u00a0 Read both.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1.\u00a0 President Obama explained the reasoning behind his push for health care reform in a prime-time presser last night.\u00a0 He said nothing new, but presented his argument in his usual smooth and eloquent manner.\u00a0 The only surprise came near the end, when he took a question on the arrest of Skip Gates in Cambridge, Mass.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMorning Report, July 23 - Philosophical Fragments<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"1.\u00a0 President Obama explained the reasoning behind his push for health care reform in a prime-time presser last night.\u00a0 He said nothing new, but presented\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/2009\/07\/23\/morning-report-july-23\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Morning Report, July 23 - 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