{"id":250,"date":"2009-07-28T00:55:21","date_gmt":"2009-07-28T04:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/evangelicalgateway.wordpress.com\/?p=250"},"modified":"2009-07-28T00:55:21","modified_gmt":"2009-07-28T04:55:21","slug":"morning-report-july-28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/2009\/07\/28\/morning-report-july-28\/","title":{"rendered":"Morning Report, July 28"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

1.\u00a0 A just-released study showed<\/a> that the risk of an accident, while text-messaging, was 23 times greater than when not texting. Although the study focused on truck drivers, it found that those who texted just before accidents typically took their eyes off the road for 5 seconds, long enough at ordinary highway speeds to traverse 300 feet.\u00a0 Think of that the next time you send your teenager away in the car with her cell phone.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 California has an 11.6% unemployment rate, and nearly a million workers have lost their jobs since the beginning of the recession at the end of 2007.\u00a0 The Governator and the state legislature reached a budget compromise, but many say it\u2019s mostly smoke and mirrors.\u00a0 It was once said that \u201cas goes California, so goes America\u201d (or something to that effect).\u00a0 Where that was once a promise, a note of hope for progress and growth, it is now a threat, a fear.\u00a0 Having grown up in California, I have a special concern for the Golden State.\u00a0 And California is constrained by certain political rules (including several propositions restricting the way in which the state can raise funds and spend them) that do not constrain other states or the federal government.\u00a0 Yet California presents a troubling spectacle: a democratic government that seems to have become so dysfunctional that it cannot effectively adapt to changes.\u00a0 Sacramento had become a feeding trough for so many politicians and special interest groups that the legislature spent and spent as though there were no tomorrow, larding up its bills with so much pork and so much waste that some sort of fiscal reckoning become inevitable.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth asking<\/a>: what was it about California that made its legislature so spectacularly unsuccessful at managing its fiscal affairs responsibly?\u00a0 And what might the church have done to encourage better stewardship, or at least to hold politicians accountable?\u00a0 It may have been possible once to wave one\u2019s hand and say, \u201cIt\u2019s only politics.\u201d\u00a0 But now there will be severe cuts in education, health care, welfare and hundreds of lesser social services.\u00a0 These may not all be to the negative; sometimes a cut in funding is just what an organization needs to restore fiscal discipline.\u00a0 But it will be largely to the negative, especially given the swiftness of the change.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 The health care reform debate rages on.\u00a0 Ezra Klein, commentary wunderkind at the Washington Post, has a rather ordinary blog entry<\/a> about framing the debate less in terms of market technicalities (i.e., whether we can afford it) and more in terms of the moral imperative of universal coverage.\u00a0 Yet the comments that follow show how badly Klein misses the point.\u00a0 The first response, from \u201conestring,\u201d begins by repeating Klein\u2019s question: \u201cWhat happened to the moral case for reform?\u00a0 Republican lobbyists, and talk-show personalities are immoral, unethical, sociopaths who believe that what they personally benefit from is what is morally acceptable.\u201d\u00a0 This is typical partisan blather; the other side disagrees, therefore they are evil, uncaring, selfish.<\/p>\n

Yet a later response says that \u201cthe moral case\u2026is as strong as ever,\u201d but we must question what we mean by \u201creform.\u201d\u00a0 Government-run health care is not true reform, argues Steven Hsieh, M.D., and true reform would be market-based.\u00a0 \u201cRights are freedoms of action, not automatic entitlements to goods or services that must be produced by another\u2026Doctors, patients and insurers all have the right to contract according to their best interests without compulsion.\u00a0 Free market reforms would respect those rights.\u201d\u00a0 Or, as another respondent writers, \u201cWho is arguing against universal health care?\u00a0 It seems the debate is over how to cover everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The specifics of this particular argument are not the point.\u00a0 The point is to illustrate that what partisans often portray as a with-us-or-against-us dichotomy (sound familiar?) is usually more a question of method than of purpose.\u00a0 Most conservatives also believe that the poor should be able to receive quality health care, but differ from liberals on the best way in which to make this happen.<\/p>\n

So repeat to yourself over and over: neither party has a monopoly on good ideas and good intentions\u2026or, for that matter, bad ideas and bad intentions.\u00a0 Democrats and Republicans are all human beings, who are more or less the same: some are selfish, some deluded, some downright nuts, but most are more or less reasonable and want to see other people live successful and happy lives.\u00a0 The question is generally about the best way to do that.<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0 Michael Scherer at Swampland reminds us that while we talk about Michael Jackson, Sarah Palin and Henry Louis Gates, the \u201cslow boil\u201d of tensions within Iran rises higher.\u00a0 The entire \u201crepublic\u201d knows that the election was rigged; Moussavi refuses<\/a> to back down, while Ahmadinejad feuds<\/a> with Khamenei and both feud with other clerics.<\/p>\n

Scherer blames<\/a> this on \u201cAmerica\u2019s Adderall-addled attention span,\u201d yet there is a chicken-and-the-egg problem here.\u00a0 Which came first: MTV and hyper-edited news, or the MTV generation and its inability to handle lengthy discussions of complicated subjects?\u00a0 I blame the media\u2026and lack of prayer, but not in the way you might suspect.\u00a0 For prior generations, prayer both within and without of the confines of the church was the training ground for attention\u2013the ability to harness one\u2019s mental powers and focus them on a single subject for an extended period of time.\u00a0 In the pagan cultures of Greece and Rome, recitations of epics and speeches could serve a similar purpose, yet in Christian culture we have abandoned long-form prayer and lost the ability to train our attentions on complex subject matters.<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0 Just when you thought a consensus was emerging\u2013poof! and it\u2019s gone.\u00a0 As more information emerged about the Crowley v. Gates encounter, it was beginning to seem<\/a> as though it was Gates and not Crowley who had made a judgment on another human being on the basis of the color of his skin.\u00a0 Gates probably assumed that profiling was involved in bringing the officer to his door\u2013whether by the officer himself, or by another person who had seen black men trying to force open a door\u2013and this upset him.\u00a0 As we now know, the 911 caller could not see the skin color of the two men, was concerned due to a recent spate of break-ins, and made no mention of race in her call.\u00a0 Officer Crowley has served an exemplary career, and was chosen by an African-American police commissioner to teach a racial profiling class to other policemen.\u00a0 Gates was galled, for instance, that Crowley asked him to step outside, yet this is standard operating procedure for officers who do not want to step into an environment where they might find themselves surrounded.\u00a0 (And to those who object that Gates was obviously <\/em>not a criminal because he did not dress like one, well, firstly you would not make much of a cop, and secondly you are now asserting that policemen should <\/em>profile.)\u00a0 Gates was also galled that Crowley, once inside, followed him into the kitchen, as though a policeman, faced with a potential burglar, is supposed to let him wander through the house and out of view.\u00a0 In other words, for reasons that make no sense in retrospect, Gates assumed that Crowley had come to his door because of racial profiling and was continuing to harass him for racial reasons.<\/p>\n

It was still, arguably, excessive of Crowley to arrest Gates for haranguing him (cursing, accusing him of racism, insulting his mother, etc.)\u00a0 Yet there\u2019s no reason to believe that it was racism rather than personal pique that led Crowley to arrest him.\u00a0 Some have bent over backwards to exonerate Gates; of course one would be upset after returning from a very long flight only to find the door jammed, and then to be disturbed when at last one is ready to rest, etc.\u00a0 Yet why do we not also give Crowley the benefit of the doubt?\u00a0 Perhaps he too was having a difficult day, or never reacts well to mother insults, or had long ago decided not to establish a precedent of putting up with harassment of police officers and those who made public spectacles of their scorn for them.<\/p>\n

Well, enter Eugene Robinson.\u00a0 Since Robinson lived in Cambridge \u201cfor a year,\u201d he claims to have it figured out: \u201cApparently, there was something about the power relationship involved \u2014 uppity, jet-setting black professor vs. regular-guy, working-class white cop \u2014 that Crowley couldn\u2019t abide.\u201d\u00a0 Hmm.<\/p>\n

I know what was not <\/em>going through officer Crowley\u2019s mind as he approached the yellow-paneled home on Ware Street near where I used to live, because Crowley did not know that an African-American was involved.\u00a0 Yet I don\u2019t know what was going through Crowley\u2019s mind when he decided to arrest Gates\u2013and neither do you\u2013and neither does Eugene Robinson.\u00a0 This too is a part of the stain of America\u2019s racism, that racism is imputed even where it may not exist.\u00a0 Who is the one casting judgment on an individual on the basis of his belonging to a particular racial (and class) group?\u00a0 Isn\u2019t it now Eugene Robinson?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1<\/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-250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nMorning Report, July 28 - Philosophical Fragments<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"1\" \/>\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\/28\/morning-report-july-28\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Morning Report, July 28 - Philosophical Fragments\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/2009\/07\/28\/morning-report-july-28\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Philosophical Fragments\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-07-28T04:55:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Timothy Dalrymple\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Timothy Dalrymple\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/2009\/07\/28\/morning-report-july-28\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/2009\/07\/28\/morning-report-july-28\/\",\"name\":\"Morning Report, July 28 - Philosophical Fragments\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2009-07-28T04:55:21+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2009-07-28T04:55:21+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/#\/schema\/person\/de8c9a4caf0177191808914f83826310\"},\"description\":\"1\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/2009\/07\/28\/morning-report-july-28\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/2009\/07\/28\/morning-report-july-28\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/2009\/07\/28\/morning-report-july-28\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Morning Report, July 28\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/\",\"name\":\"Philosophical Fragments\",\"description\":\"Daily Thoughts on Faith, Culture and Politics from Timothy Dalrymple\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/#\/schema\/person\/de8c9a4caf0177191808914f83826310\",\"name\":\"Timothy Dalrymple\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/philosophicalfragments\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53a368bbc8d116657d6af168549f2add?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53a368bbc8d116657d6af168549f2add?s=96&d=identicon&r=pg\",\"caption\":\"Timothy Dalrymple\"},\"description\":\"Timothy Dalrymple was raised in non-denominational evangelical congregations in California. 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