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AUGUST 13, 2011 / VOLUME 26 / NUMBER 16
CONTENTS F E AT UR E S
36 Minnesota twins?
COVER STORY The public images of Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann could not be more different: Mr. Nice Guy versus Mrs. Prairie Firebrand. But beneath the surface the two presidential candidates have more in common than being from Minnesota. Those who know them say it would be a mistake to underestimate either one
42 Father of the Tea Party
For decades Ron Paul has held up the lonely libertarian standard in Congress and the primaries. Now, as his non-interventionist foreign policy ideas gain traction, Paul is entering the presidential fray for a third time Reclaiming an idea: Republican candidate Rick Santorum says his mission is to remind Americans about their country’s first principles
48 Fetal attraction
Aborted babies provide the vast majority of fetal tissue used in American medical research. Demand is high, competition for the tissue is strong, and oversight may be taking a back seat
52 ‘Things a dad would do’
: ’s West region winner teaches former gang members about how to live and work as Christian men
58 Working & learning
J S: -
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: Borromeo House helps young pregnant women with few options, but it’s not a place of idle retreat ON THE COVER: Bachmann: Bill Haber/AP; Pawlenty: Scott Olson/Getty Images
48
DISPATCHES 7 News 16 Human Race 18 Quotables 20 Quick Takes REVIEWS 25 Movies & TV 28 Books 30 Q&A 32 Music
25
NOTEBOOK 65 Lifestyle 67 Technology 68 Science 69 Houses of God 70 Sports 71 Money 72 Religion
52
VOICES 4 Joel Belz 22 Janie B. Cheaney 34 Mindy Belz 75 Mailbag 79 Andrée Seu 80 Marvin Olasky
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Joel Belz
OREBS AND ZEEBS
God’s foes seem strong for a time, but they become mere tumbleweed
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sometime in the distant future, but relatively soon. The long succession of such people might prompt you to think that evil is winning. But viewed from another perspective, the very succession of evildoers should be an encouragement to us. One by one by one, arrogant people try to take God’s place. One by one by one, they stub their toes and fail. After hundreds and maybe thousands of efforts, not a single one has come close to taking God’s place. Oreb and Zeeb are good examples. Nor do you need to think of their modern counterparts only as military or political terrorists. Maybe Oreb and Zeeb were the forerunners of Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Charles Darwin, or John Dewey—philosophical terrorists whose destruction has probably surpassed that of the physical variety. And God’s people have always seemed so impotent in the face of the Midianites who were coming to get them. But who knows or is scared of or awed by Oreb and Zeeb these days? They merit a place in Scripture simply so they can be compared to tumbleweed. And the tumbleweed isn’t scheduled to start its ignominious roll only after Jesus returns— although that will certainly happen with finality then. The defeat of such people and influences is going on right now. Some of the names and movements that struck terror in your heart when you were a child are already has-beens. That’s one place where the teaching of Scripture and the news media tend to agree. A
KRIEG BARRIE
in this space I suppose it’s appropriate, and maybe even important, to mention Oreb and Zeeb. Certainly you know whom I mean; I did, after all, identify them in a column here early in . Oreb and Zeeb were the princes of Midian who struck such fear in the hearts of the Israelites during the time of Gideon. As I mentioned, Oreb and Zeeb are mighty in the annals of those who have offended God’s program of righteousness on this earth. They were the Muammar Qaddafis of their day, or the Bashar al-Assads, or the Kim ilSungs, or the Mahmoud Ahmadinejads. Oreb and Zeeb, even if they were easier to spell and to pronounce, were just as terrifying in their time. But more than likely, if you’re a typical reader, you didn’t have a clue about these fellows when I mentioned Oreb and Zeeb. I had to look them up myself in a Bible dictionary after first reading about them in Psalm . Oreb and Zeeb, you see, were sufficiently threatening to God’s people— and to God’s order of things—to merit mention as symbols of the enemy. But in the end, the Psalmist reports, they were no more than tumbleweed. , of course, is not first and foremost a theological journal. That’s why you don’t see in our columns long debates about eschatology. If you aren’t sure whether you’re a premillennialist or a postmillennialist, you’re not likely to find much explicit help on that subject in our pages. (I still identify with one of my college roommates, who went on to become a seminary dean, who told me late one evening that through the day he had listened to “the pre-mils, the a-mils, and the post-mils—and I’m still just an ig-mil.”) Uncertainty about the precise details of the end times, however, is one thing. Ignorance of the broad intention of God’s program is quite another. So let us assert again and again here what His main program is: Jehovah is going to win. The big question for a very long time, of course, has been this: Just when is that triumph going to occur? When is Jesus coming again? How much of His victory will He secure before He comes, and how much waits until after His return? Wherever you come down on those questions, be careful about this: Be sure that what you decide is determined by the evidence you find in the Bible—not by news headlines. And here’s one thing the Bible tells you with certainty. Everybody who raises himself against God gets put down. Not just
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7/27/11 10:21 PM
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Dispatches NEWS HuMAN RACE QUOTABLES QuICK tAKEs
Patriot games
Win McnaMee/Getty iMaGes
NEWS: Debt ceiling debate widens rift between speaker Boehner and tea Party conservatives by Edward LEE Pitts in washington
>>
House Speaker John Boehner had just broken off debt ceiling talks with President Barack Obama on July 22 when Tea Party Nation Founder Judson Phillips blogged to his following, “Boehner’s stand up moment.” “We need to get out and support Boehner,” he wrote. Just five days later, after Boehner had introduced a bill to raise the debt ceiling that included spending cuts, no tax increases, and a guaranteed vote on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, Phillips blogged again: “John Boehner is the sugar daddy of the welfare state,” he wrote. “It does not matter how much Boehner claims to be a conservative, he is not.” With friends like that who needs enemies? As the debt ceiling debate took daily twists and turns ahead of an Aug. 2 deadline on government
default, one phenomenon regularly emerged: The expectations of the Tea Party faithful kept bumping up against the reality of a White House and Senate controlled by liberal Democrats. Boehner’s plan achieved some victories— chiefly tying, for the first time, future increases in the debt limit directly to spending cuts. Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republicans’ most credible voice on fiscal discipline, supported it. But the Tea Party remained unimpressed and wanted more. At a sparsely attended July 27 Tea Party rally on Capitol Hill, speaker after speaker implored Boehner to “hold the line,” meaning no compromise. Captain America, hefting a jumbo-sized U.S. flag, and George Washington also worked the crowd. Earlier in the day, the Tea Party Patriots released a poll saying that 74.1 percent of group members favored or were leaning toward a new House speaker. Usually lockstep conservative groups were divided on Boehner’s plan: Americans for Tax Reform and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce supported it while the Club for Growth and Heritage Action urged conservatives to oppose August 13, 2011
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Dispatches > News
LOOKING AHEAD
Iowa straw poll
Republican candidates will test their mettle in Iowa when the party holds an official straw poll in Ames on Aug. . Two days before the poll, the candidates will have a chance to impress voters in a debate hosted by Fox News at Iowa State University in Ames. Late July polls showed U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann rising (see p. ).
Butcher’s birthday
Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro celebrates his th birthday on Aug. , and unlike his previous birthdays, Castro won’t be the leader of the island nation’s Communist Party when he blows out the candles. Castro officially stepped down from his post as party secretary in April after holding the position since .
Elevator contest Scientists World Youth Day
Spain will host the Catholic Church’s World Youth Day events for the second time when festivities kick off in Madrid on Aug. . The archbishop of Madrid will begin the six-day event with an opening Mass in the city’s Plaza de Cibeles. Pope Benedict XVI won’t arrive in Spain until Aug. , but will keynote the final Mass on Aug. .
from around the world will descend on the Microsoft Center in Redmond, Wash., on Aug. to compete in the Space Elevator Conference and Strong Tether competition. Competitors hope to impress with their designs for a space elevator—a hypothetical system of anchoring a cable in space to transport goods and objects without the use of a rocket. Though will award prize money for the best entry, it still calls the idea “audacious and outrageous.”
ABORIGINES: ANDREW SHEARGOLD/GETTY IMAGES • REPUBLICAN DEBATE: JIM COLE/AP • CASTRO: ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • SPACE ELEVATOR: TOM TSCHIDA/AO • YOUTH DAY: ROB GRIFFITH/AP
it. “I can’t do this job unless you’re behind me,” Boehner said to his rank and file members at the height of the uprising. The sticking point for many of the largely Tea Party-backed new House Republicans: A guarantee that the balanced budget amendment proposal (the “crown jewel,” according to one House freshman) not only gets a vote but also passes Congress and heads to the states for final approval. By July , some veteran Republicans had had enough. Sen. John McCain, not a likely candidate for any Tea Party rally but to some the dean of lawmakers, called the demand “worse than foolish” on the Senate floor: “It’s unfair. It’s bizarre.” Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell also reached out to his beleaguered House counterpart by explaining the political realities. “We cannot get a perfect solution, from my point of view, controlling only the House of Representatives,” said McConnell, who remained fearful that Republicans would shoulder the bulk of the blame if calamity followed any default. “We know we can’t get a result without something that can pass a Republican House, a Democratic Senate and be signed by a Democratic president.” Facing the political realities, many House freshmen finally supported the Boehner plan. But it’s remarkable how much the Tea Party has succeeded in changing the debate in Washington: Never before has a debt ceiling increase caused such a brouhaha. Veteran lawmakers from both parties now admit that Washington suffers from an acute spending addiction. But changing the debate is not the same as having the power to pass a bill. Significant structural changes in the way Washington can spend taxpayer dollars will require more than the combined appearance of Captain America and George Washington. It’ll take more conservative victories in November . Christina Latchford, a -year-old from Tampa, Fla., who canceled her flight home from vacation after hearing about the July rally, senses this. “We don’t have a full backbone yet,” she said of conservative lawmakers. She added that the cancellation fees she incurred were worth every penny because “we all have to make sacrifices. This country is a gift we can’t lose.” A
Australian Census
Back in when Australia first had an official national census, the island nation’s population stood at nearly . million inhabitants, excluding Aborigines.. A recent estimate puts Australia’s population more than four times higher with more than million. But government officials will know for sure after Aug. when the nation begins a census a full century after conducting its first.
WORLD AUGUST 13, 2011
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7/19/11 1:22 PM
Dispatches > News
Ready or not
The military may be “certified” but questions about gays in the military remain
The law and the law
CONTROL FROM ABOVE A July report by the Institute of Medicine recommended that insurance companies pay for birth control under government-run healthcare. The recommendation, contained in a report commissioned by the Department of Health and Human Services, could include morning-after drugs like ella and the abortion pill RU-, according to Jeanne Monahan, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Human Dignity: “This is a question of whether the government should mandate every health plan to cover these drugs free of cost . . . many Americans do care, and many religious health plans would care, and they should not be forced to violate their conscience.”
GAY MARRIAGE: DAVID DUPREY/AP • RU-486: CHARLIE NEIBERGALL/AP • CREWS: CHRISTOPHER BERKEY/AP CREDIT
When city halls opened across New York on Sunday, July , to issue the state’s first marriage licenses to homosexual couples, at least one local official didn’t report for duty: Laura Fotusky decided to resign as town clerk of Barker rather than violate her conscience by facilitating gay marriage. Issuing marriage licenses had been part of Fotusky’s duties since becoming town clerk in . She had hoped New York’s gay marriage law—passed by the Republican-led legislature on June —would allow religious exemptions. The Christian, a member of a nondenominational church, said the Bible “clearly teaches that God created marriage between male and female.” But when the law didn’t allow such exemptions, Fotusky resigned: “Basically I had to choose between my God and my job.” The Alliance Defense Fund issued a memo saying the New York Human Rights Law requires employers to accommodate religious exemptions, but Fotusky declined to pursue a lawsuit, saying she didn’t want to financially burden her small town. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo responded to Fotusky’s resignation, saying: “The law is the law, and when you enforce the laws of the state, you don’t get to pick and choose.” Fotusky told her superiors she had a different mandate: “I had to obey God rather than men.”
Long before the lame duck Congress voted to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” () policy last fall, a chaplain at a briefing asked a senior Pentagon official if a biblical worldview on homosexuality would be protected in the post- military. The reply he received was chilling: If you cannot come in line with this policy, then resign your commission. Such stories worry Ron Crews, executive director of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty: “We must continue to have soldiers of faith in the military,” he said. President Barack Obama on July certified that ending the -yearold ban on homosexuals serving openly in the armed forces would not harm military readiness. This long expected final step means that repeal will take effect in days. The military has used the first half of to conduct training seminars for soldiers of all ranks on what to expect, taking soldiers out of combat zones to receive instruction on the new policy permitting openly gay personnel. Crews said these seminars highlight how many unanswered questions remain—like what to do when a heterosexual soldier unwillingly gets assigned a homosexual roommate. For now those will be determined on a case-by-case basis by commanders on the ground. “So a solider at Fort Bragg will get a different answer than a solider at Fort Knox who will get a different answer from a soldier in Afghanistan,” said Crews, a retired chaplain. “This is being pushed by a political agenda from the president on down at the cost of good military order and discipline.” Conservative denominations that endorse chaplains already are giving out their own parameters: Do not share a pulpit with a chaplain who supports homosexuality; do not conduct the military’s “strong bonds” marital counseling program with homosexual couples; and be upfront with soldiers who seek counseling that the chaplain’s advice will be from a biblical perspective. But with so many variables left to commanders’ discretion, the chaplaincy groups trying to navigate the post- military are poston a collision course with homosexual lobbyists.
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GAY MARRIAGE: DAVID DUPREY/AP • RU-486: CHARLIE NEIBERGALL/AP • CREWS: CHRISTOPHER BERKEY/AP CREDIT
25 years of When debuted in , balancing federal budgets and deficit reduction schemes consumed the political arena—and print real estate—then as now. The March , , cover story was on the now quaint Gramm-Rudman bill, a piece of then path-breaking legislation to constrain federal spending. Our own financial constraints saw move to newsprint—and pages per week—for a time before again growing to the full-color biweekly editions that a quarter-
century later often run more than pages (plus now online and iPad versions). “It’s easy in launching a new magazine,” wrote founder Joel Belz in that first issue, “to be infected with triumphalism and a sense of self-importance. Most of your neighbors, you know, have never started a new magazine.” But a patient and loyal readership—plus enough famine, persecution, danger, and sword—have kept our small staff busy and our pages (and cups) overflowing. —The Editors
For more on ’s history, visit worldmag.com/articles/; for a complete catalog of covers, go to worldmag.com/covers
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Dispatches > News
‘Blasphemous’
Norway’s church leaders condemn violent rampage
Without country
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souTh suDan: PETE MullER • ChuRCh: Paula BRonsTEIn/GETTy IMaGEs • vICTIMs: vEGaRD M. aas/PREssE CREDIT 3.0/aP
By next spring, more than 1 million south sudanese living in northern sudan will acquire a new identity: foreigner. less than two weeks after south sudan broke from the north on July 9 to become an independent country, northern officials announced they wouldn’t allow southerners living in the north to retain citizenship. Their only options: live as stateless residents or return to south sudan. (leaders in south sudan announced northerners living in the south could pursue dual citizenship.) More than 1.3 million southerners either fled or were forced to go north during the country’s two-decade civil war. as many as 300,000 have returned to south sudan, but more than a million remain in the north, now many for decades. It’s unclear what losing their citizenship might mean, but the Sudan Tribune reported that officials in the north already have terminated employment for southerners working for the northern government or military. some worry that living and working conditions will only grow worse for southerners who stay.
Norwegian pastor Olav Fykse Tveit offered a one-word assessment of Anders Behring Breivik’s claim that Christianity motivated his gruesome massacre of 76 people in Norway on July 22: “blasphemous.” Breivik surrendered to police after committing a horrific two-part rampage— detonating explosives in government buildings in Oslo that killed eight then opening fire on terrified youth at a summer camp on the nearby Utoya Island, killing at least 68, including many teenagers. In a rambling 1,500-word manifesto, Breivik wrote that he was trying to save “European Christendom” from an Islamic takeover by Muslim immigrants. The attacks targeted offices of the ruling Labor Party, which is sympathetic to broadened immigration policies, and youth at an annual Labor Party camp for hundreds of promising young leaders. Norwegian police described Breivik as a “Christian fundamentalist,” but despite a self-designation as a “Christian” on Facebook, the killer bore no resemblance to orthodox Christianity: Promoting “assassinations and the use of weapons of mass destruction,” Breivik embraced a jihadist mentality toward Muslims and expressed disdain for the Protestant church. Political parties that advocate tougher immigration laws in Nordic nations condemned Breivik’s rampage. And church leaders like Pastor Tveit, a Lutheran minister and general secretary of the World Council of Churches, condemned Breivik’s “abuse” of religion to execute the worst attack on Norway since World War II. Norwegian churches held nightly prayer services and vigils for grieving citizens in a country considered one of the least religious in Europe: Though some 90 percent of Norwegians retain church membership—mostly in the Lutheran, official state church—less than 4 percent attend services on Sundays, according to Operation World. In a 2007 interview with the JIHAD: Victims of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist shooting on utoya Convention, Magnar Maeland, a Baptist pastor and former Island; mourners at the general secretary of the Norwegian Baptist Union (NBU), said oslo cathedral (top). many Norwegians were satisfied with traditionalism: “But for us evangelicals, we say it’s not a question of tradition. You need to know Christ.” Baptist churches have grown since then, though the numbers are still small in a country of 4.8 million people: By 2009, about 5,000 Norwegians belonged to 83 Baptist churches. Baptists around the world sent post-attack condolences to the NBU. In a note posted online, members of the Swedish Baptist Union expressed particular sympathy for the loss of so many youth, and quoted Jeremiah 31: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children . . . because they are no more.”
WORLD august 13, 2011
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john yates
by Jamie Dean
Humble giant john stott, 1921-2011
souTh suDan: PETE MullER • ChuRCh: Paula BRonsTEIn/GETTy IMaGEs • vICTIMs: vEGaRD M. aas/PREssE CREDIT 3.0/aP
john yAtes
>>
“All true ChristiAn preAching is expository preaching,” said John Stott, whose determination to open Scripture to thousands led an evangelical revival in Great Britain and influenced Christians worldwide through more than 60 years of preaching and writing. He died outside London at age 90 on July 27. Benjamin Homan, president of John Stott Ministries, told the Associated Press in a phone interview that Stott’s health had deteriorated sharply in recent weeks and he had been in severe pain: “His body was just wearing out.” Stott’s close friends and associates were at his bedside reading Scripture and listening to Handel’s Messiah when he died in the afternoon, according to All Souls Langham Place, the church he attended as a child, then led as curate and rector after he was ordained by the Church of England in 1945. Among his more than 50 books, the best known is Basic Christianity, which has been translated into more than 60 languages and has sold more than 2.5 million copies. His most recent, The Radical Disciple: Some Neglected Aspects of Our Calling, was published in 2010. Few in his audience knew that the well-known scholar was also an expert bird-watcher, who photographed birds all over the world and
By mindy Belz
authored a book on the hobby, Birds, Our Teachers. Stott was considered the leading evangelical expositor of his time. He was a primary framer of the 1974 Lausanne Covenant, a declaration of beliefs and an assertion of evangelicalism as a global movement. The document at the time was considered a milestone in the rise of evangelical Christianity worldwide. Stott was unable to attend the most recent Lausanne Congress, held in Cape Town last year, but sent written greetings and was the subject of a lengthy tribute before nearly 5,000 delegates from around the world. Lausanne Movement executive chair Douglas Birdsall said Stott was going over the most recent Lausanne documents “line by line” when he spoke to him by phone several weeks ago. “Perhaps more than any other person in the last century, John Stott restored confidence in the authority of God’s Word and in the centrality of biblical preaching and teaching,” said Birdsall in a statement released upon Stott’s death. “He inspired many evangelicals around the world to make a robust and clear affirmation of biblical truth while at the same time emphasizing that this must be backed up with a distinctive, godly Christian life.”
Known as “Uncle John” to the many people he worked with, Stott was a lifelong bachelor who funneled his book royalties into scholarships, especially for students from developing countries, many of whom went on to lead evangelical movements where they lived. Said Birdsall: “He leaves friends everywhere.” His friends were not limited to Christian circles. After a 2004 article about Stott authored by David Brooks ran in The New York Times, singer Paul Simon asked Brooks to introduce him to Stott. The two eventually had tea together for several hours in Stott’s modest two-room apartment. Simon began by complaining about specific members of the religious right, until Stott interrupted him to say, “I am more interested in what you think of Jesus Christ.” Simon later phoned Brooks to thank him for the introduction. When one spent time with Stott, said Michael Cromartie, who directs the Evangelical Studies Project at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and was a friend of over 30 years, “he made you feel you had been friends, and were going to be friends, all your life. And so he was . . . no pretense, no ego, never in a hurry, always eager to know, ‘How are you doing, my brother?’ He was, quite simply, the most Christ-like man I have ever met.” A —with reporting by Mickey McLean and Associated Press August 13, 2011
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Dispatches > News
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spotlights the state’s dueling efforts to preserve its pristine wildernesses and extract its natural resources. Exxon representatives blanketed radio stations in Montana, explaining how many people the company had hired for cleanup, and assuring locals that the company wouldn’t lay off anyone at the refinery in Billings, even though the oil wasn’t flowing. Exxon said it has sent employees to visit over Montanans affected by the spill to answer questions about the claims process and cleanup. Because the spill happened when the river was flooding, some farmers lost crops as oil spread from the riverbanks and coated plants. But the floodwaters also helped dilute the oil. Scott Bosse floats down the Yellowstone River every week, and he pulled up pictures on his laptop of his wife on the banks of the postcard-ready river as he sat in his Bozeman office. Back in , when he was , he worked for a commercial fishing business that was forced to shut down following the Exxon-Valdez oil spill. He remembers sitting on the Alaska beach surrounded by tall bonfires of oiled wood, seaweed, and dead animals. “That spill changed my life,” he said. “I trusted corporations to do more.” Bosse went to work on the cleanup in Alaska. Now based in Bozeman, he works for the conservation group American Rivers as its Northern Rockies
director. The Yellowstone River spill is serious, he said, but “not an ecologically devastating spill.” His experience with Exxon in was that the cleanup efforts were for show because oil is so difficult to clean up. “Prevention is the name of the game,” he said. Bosse pointed at a map of Montana covering a wall in his office, noting that oil and gas pipelines cross rivers or lakes in places across the state. Over the next few months the State Department is considering approving a new billion oil pipeline, called Keystone XL, which would run from Alberta, Canada, to Texas—and would cross under the Yellowstone River, Bosse said. The State Department has to approve the pipeline because it originates outside the United States. TransCanada, which would build the pipeline, filed an application for the pipeline’s permit back in and expects final approve before the end of the year. High-profile environmental groups in Washington are using the Yellowstone spill to argue that the State Department shouldn’t approve the pipeline at all. TransCanada has said it will bury the pipeline deeper than the -year-old Exxon line and make pipe walls thicker. But Bosse hopes legislative bodies at the state and national level will impose more safety regulations on pipelines. The cost of digging deeper is a “rounding error,” he said, thanks to developments in technology.
RIVER PHOTOS: JULIE JACOBSON/AP CREDIT
under the churning waters of the Yellowstone River near Laurel, Mont., on July , won’t be clear until the river subsides this coming fall, but the working theory is that the floodstage river scoured down to a buried Exxon oil pipeline, busting open the pipe with a barrage of boulders and logs. The Yellowstone River is the longest free-flowing river in the lower states, meaning it has no dams along its length and thus scours its bed more. Two toads, a garter snake, and a warbler have received treatment so far from the spill. A few more oiled birds have been sighted needing treatment. No one knows the exact amount of oil that poured into the river before the company shut the pipeline off—initial estimates landed on , barrels of oil. Last year’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, by contrast, released millions of barrels. “It’s probably not an environmental disaster,” said Jerry Johnson, an ecologist and a professor of political science at Montana State University in Bozeman, about miles from the spill. “It’s political windfall.” An idyll for fly-fishers, rafters, and kayakers, the river is a bad setting for Exxon to have a spill, even a small one, from a public-relations standpoint. According to Montana conservationists, it is the first significant oil spill in Montana in recent memory, and
BY EMILY BELZ in Bozeman, Mont.
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Tourism is a bigger sector in Montana’s economy than energy, so preserving pristine rivers and forests is economically important. The Yellowstone River originates in Yellowstone National Park, which draws millions of visitors every year, and traverses miles across Montana to North Dakota, where it joins the Missouri River. “[Tourists] are thinking to themselves, ‘, not going fishing in Montana this summer,’” Bosse said. “I think Montanans want to strike a balance between energy development and
conserving our most special places.” State residents also want energy development to happen “on our terms,” he said. Johnson, the Montana State University professor, recalled that industries have worked with the environmental community in the past. When a timber company logged Mount Ellis, an ,-foot peak near Bozeman, the company consulted with community and environmental groups and logged
IN THE BLACK: Farmland saturated with both floodwaters and oil near Laurel, Mont.
in a way that protected the “viewshed,” or its scenic beauty, he said. The broken Exxon pipeline appears to have complied with current regulations, which require pipelines to be buried five feet under a river. Exxon has said it will be burying the replacement pipe feet under the river. John Baden, founder of the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, also based in Bozeman, served on President Reagan’s National Petroleum Council. He thinks environmental groups are using the spill as an excuse to push new, unnecessary regulations. The spill was not a consequence of neglect or malfeasance on Exxon’s part, Baden said, but one example of the “distribution of risk across a vast system.” Oil companies have “tons of pipelines” crisscrossing the country, he said, and environmentalists in Montana are making political hay off a system they rely on “to fill up their Subarus.” But in mid-July even the chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Republican Fred Upton, said he will introduce legislation to update pipeline regulations, requiring deeper pipelines under rivers and better shut-off valves—mirroring Democratic legislation currently in the Senate. Upton represents Kalamazoo, Mich., where another pipeline broke last year and poured , barrels of oil into the Kalamazoo River, one of the worst spills in the Midwest in recent history. Oil spills from pipeline breaks are rare, but the succession of two high-profile breaks in the last year has pushed Congress to take action. “A disaster always motivates Congress,” said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., the chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which will be pushing the legislation alongside the Energy and Commerce Committee. A AUGUST 13, 2011
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Dispatches > Human Race ACCUSED
More than a year after an accident at her bachelorette party left Rachelle Friedman, , paralyzed, she made it down the aisle on July and married fiancé Chris Chapman, . Last May, Friedman and her bridesmaids were celebrating when Friedman’s best friend playfully pushed the bride-tobe into a pool. Friedman’s head struck the pool floor, injuring her spinal cord. Despite the tragedy, Friedman and Chapman remained upbeat about the future. “We’re definitely built to last,” Chapman said last November. “She was and is my best friend. I cannot wait to marry her.”
RULED
SUED Jim and Mary O’Reilly, owners of the Wildflower Inn in Lyndonville, Vt., are facing a lawsuit after they declined to host a wedding reception for Katherine Baker and Ming Linsley. The O’Reillys told the lesbian couple they do not host gay receptions because of their Catholic beliefs. The lawsuit accuses the O’Reillys of violating Vermont’s Fair Housing and Public Accommodations Act, which bars lodging sites from denying service to patrons based on sexual orientation. The inn’s updated website says the venue is “no longer hosting weddings or special events.”
IDENTIFIED authorities have arrested a man they say worked as a Pakistani agent while trying to influence U.S. policy against India’s interest in Kashmir, a disputed region between India and Pakistan. Lobbyist and U.S. citizen Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, , directed the Kashmiri American Council, which received millions of dollars from the Pakistani government to promote Pakistan’s interest in the region. Some of the funds were distributed as campaign donations to members of Congress and presidential candidates.
The Ohio Supreme Court ruled last month in a samesex custody battle that the child’s biological birth mother does not have to share parental rights with her former partner. Although Michelle Hobbs shared parental duties and was the child’s guardian during the relationship, the justices found that Kelly Mullen never created a permanent shared custody agreement with Hobbs, and therefore any previous arrangements were revocable.
UNRAVELED The discovery last year of a decades-old train ticket led Illinois authorities to press charges last month against a Seattle man suspected in the abduction and murder of a -year-old girl. Jack Daniel McCullough, , who was a person of interest at the time of the kidnapping, had told investigators he left town by train the day Maria Ridulph disappeared, but his alibi began to unravel after a former girlfriend reportedly found his unused ticket dated for the same day.
MAHANEY: HANDOUT • LINSLEY & BAKER: TOBY TALBOT/AP • FRIEDMAN: MARTHA MANNING PHOTOGRAPHY/AP • McCULLOUGH: SYCAMORE POLICE DEPARTMENT/AP • FAI: ROSHAN MUGHAL/AP • RIDULPH: CHICAGO TRIBUNE/MCT/LANDOV CREDIT
Maryland pastor and Sovereign Grace Ministries leader C.J. Mahaney began a leave of absence June after facing accusations including pride, deceit, and hypocrisy. “These charges (from former pastors and leaders in Sovereign Grace) are serious and they have been very grieving to read,” said Mahaney, who plans to use the time away to receive counselling. The Sovereign Grace Ministries board said because the charges are also directed at the ministry, it will undergo review by an independent panel.
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Dispatches > Quotables
“I decided I wasn’t going to just be a provider, I was going to be an activist.” Abortionist LEROY CARHART on the “tenacity” he feels for performing late-term abortions and training other doctors to do so.
“When we did it without fries, there was a huge disappointment factor.” JAN FIELDS FIELDS, president of McDonald’s USA, on customer reaction to Happy Meals without french fries. A redesigned Happy Meal is going to have fewer fries and a serving of fruit or vegetables.
“This is the most humble day of my life.” RUPERT MURDOCH, facing questioning before members of Parliament on July in a widening scandal over illegal phone hacking that has resulted in the arrest of numerous employees, including Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News International, which runs the British newspaper operations of Murdoch’s News Corp.
“It’s nice to be able to touch, feel, and hold the books before you look online.” TANYA DUNCAN of Brookline, Mass., on her practice of looking for books at a Borders bookstore but then going online to buy them. The struggling bookstore chain announced July that it will close all of its stores by this fall. (See p. .)
“What’s amazing is that in a country of 1.3 billion, I can’t find a point guard.” BOB DONEWALD JR., American coach of China’s national basketball team, on a lack of system for developing basketball players in the country that produced retiring superstar Yao Ming.
MURDOCH: LOUIS LANZANO/AP • GOODELL: JIM MONE/AP • CARHART: NATI HARNIK/AP • McDONALD’S: BILL PARRISH PHOTOGRAPHY/PRNEWSFOTO/AP • BORDERS: KRISTOFFER TRIPPLAAR/SIPA PRESS/AP • DONEWALD: THANASSIS STAVRAKIS/AP CREDIT
National Football League Commissioner ROGER GOODELL on a July agreement between owners and the Players Association that ended a -day lockout.
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“It is time to get back to football. That’s what everybody here wants to do.”
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Murdoch: Louis Lanzano/ap • GoodeLL: JiM Mone/ap • carhart: nati harnik/ap • McdonaLd’s: BiLL parrish photoGraphy/prnewsFoto/ap • Borders: kristoFFer trippLaar/sipa press/ap • donewaLd: thanassis stavrakis/ap CREDIT
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Dispatches > Quick Takes
With his scheme running on fumes, authorities finally caught up with the so-called “Bentley Bandit” in Sulpher, La., on July . U.S. Marshals had been tracking -year-old Justin William Durbin for months after the Oklahoma native had gained a reputation for stealing luxury cars from auto dealerships and then vanishing. Marshals investigating Durbin explained that the Oklahoma car thief would go into car dealerships driving an expensive car, then test drive an even more expensive car and never return. When authorities traced Durbin to southwest Louisiana, he was driving a Bentley stolen from a dealership in Florida. After a chase ended with Durbin crashing the Bentley in Sulpher, La., the -year-old fled on foot only to be captured several hours later. Neither local authorities nor marshals would say how many cars Durbin had stolen, but they did indicate he was wanted in at least seven states.
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KENYA BEES: LUCY KING/AP • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • FLOWER MOUND HOUSE: HANDOUT • DURBIN: LOUISIANA STATE POLICE/AP CREDIT
Police in Austria may do well to search for a semi-truck trailer bandit at a hot dog stand. That’s because when the bandit (or bandits) made off with a trailer northwest of Vienna on July , he also captured its cargo: tons of mustard and ketchup. Local police say they can’t imagine the thief was in it for the condiments, but noted that the trailer was worth just over ,.
Who says you can’t find affordable housing? A North Texas man, armed with knowledge of obscure parts of Texas property law, has apparently taken ownership of a , suburban Dallas home for just . Neighbors in a Flower Mound, Texas, community said the home’s original owners walked away from their mortgage and left their house more than a year ago. Then, in the midst of foreclosure procedures, the mortgage company went out of business. After brushing up on a legal concept known as adverse possession, Kenneth Robinson filed of paperwork with Denton County and moved into the abandoned home on June . The original owners could boot him out, but not before paying off the entire mortgage. The bank could send him packing too, but not without a complicated and drawn-out lawsuit. And if Robinson manages to squat at the house for three years without legal challenge, he can file an outright ownership claim.
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7/26/11 11:23 PM
PIGEON: ANTHONY QUINTANO • WERNER: DIANE WERNER • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • JUGGLING: KIICHIRO SATO/AP • HORTON: LACIE WILLIAMSON/THE SACHEM CREDIT
For Kenyan farmers struggling to protect their crops, scientists are offering a near-perfect solution: bees. With elephant populations rising in Kenya over the past years, farmers have increasingly found their crops decimated as the hungry animals break through barriers to feast on tomatoes, potatoes, and maize. In , a team of University of Oxford researchers investigated whether a boundary dotted with beehives could prevent elephants, which are naturally afraid of the insects, from crossing over. In the test, only one bull elephant in attempted raids penetrated the beeline. The scientists, who only recently published their findings in the African Journal of Ecology, claim that beehives suspended from a wire fence every yards or so should not only be sufficient to prevent almost all elephant raids, but would also provide African farmers with additional income when they sell the honey.
KENYA BEES: LUCY KING/AP • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • FLOWER MOUND HOUSE: HANDOUT • DURBIN: LOUISIANA STATE POLICE/AP CREDIT
PIGEON: ANTHONY QUINTANO • WERNER: DIANE WERNER • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • JUGGLING: KIICHIRO SATO/AP • HORTON: LACIE WILLIAMSON/THE SACHEM CREDIT
LONG WAY DOWN A -story fall was not enough to harm one New York City kitty. Cat owner and Upper West Side resident Barry Myers reported that his cat, a -year-old named Gloucester, slipped out of a crack in a window of his th-floor apartment in Manhattan and fell to the street below while Myers was vacationing in Cape Cod. Myers’ cat sitter discovered Gloucester at street level unconscious and rushed him to a veterinary hospital. But after examining the cat, vets said the elderly feline had survived the extreme fall without broken bones, internal injuries or even any scrapes. The height of the fall might have actually saved Gloucester: A study of New York cat falls found that cats falling from seven stories and below suffered worse injuries than cats falling from above seven stories.
Some pigeons fly across the Hudson River. Tony the pigeon takes the ferry. Crew members aboard the Thomas Jefferson ferry from Manhattan to Weehawken, N.J., say one special pigeon has, for the past three years, boarded their ferry in Manhattan, ridden all the way to New Jersey, and made sure to get on board for the return trip too. “Three years ago, this pigeon shows up and starts going through the cabin and eating crumbs,” a senior deck hand told the New York Daily News. “Next thing you know, he’s here every day at the exact same time. And he does more work cleaning than my partner.”
In a single day, Justin Werner improved his breathing and sleeping, and even managed to find his way into the Guinness World Records. On Jan. , the Topeka, Kan., -year-old went in for a tonsillectomy. Werner knew his tonsils were big—just not this big. Once removed, doctors measured his tonsils at . inches long and . inches wide—almost twice the size of what Guinness claimed the world’s largest tonsils to be. “The day after I got them out, there was no snoring at all,” Werner said. “Haven’t had a sore throat since.” And just recently, Guinness confirmed the measurements and moved his tonsils to the top of its list.
Good news for acrobatic, fortune-telling jugglers in the Chicago area: Commissioners for the Cook County Forest Preserves on July rescinded a number of old laws that forbade fortune telling, juggling, and acrobatics in the county’s vast forest preserves. Commissioners also voted off the books an ordinance that prohibited known thieves, pickpockets, and con men from loitering in the parks. “Someone convicted of a felony, for one, we wouldn’t know—and we wouldn’t want to engage in any profiling,” agency attorney Dennis White told the Chicago Sun-Times.
The next time Boston Bruins winger Nathan Horton gets a day with the ’s Stanley Cup, he’ll make sure to take the airline’s advice and arrive well ahead of departure. Horton, in accordance with the traditional perks of being a member of a Stanley Cup–winning team, tried to take the trophy from Boston to Dunnville, Ontario, for a victory parade. Horton checked the large cup, but when he went to claim his unique luggage, he couldn’t find it. After asking JetBlue, he learned that because he checked the Stanley Cup so close to takeoff, the silver trophy had to be delayed to the next flight—forcing Dunnville to delay its parade and robbing Horton of scarce time with the one-of-a-kind sports relic. AUGUST 13, 2011
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Janie B. Cheaney
MADE FOR EACH OTHER Computerized matchmaking can easily miss the point of marriage
H
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KRIEG BARRIE
-- a match may be, we older married folks can at least be glad we’re not having to choose a mate all over again. Meeting up today is complicated—even among Christian young people, as ’s June cover story demonstrated. Church socials and singles hangouts just don’t cut it anymore. One in six new marriages results from an internet dating site, but results are not yet in as to whether computer matching is more successful than the traditional kind. “Looking For Someone,” a recent article in The New Yorker, is a fascinating survey of how some of these programs work. OK Cupid asks subscribers to submit and answer questions that are supposed to give clues to individual personality; more questions answered over time yield a clearer picture of subjects and their ideal mates. Match.com uses algorithms to distinguish stated preferences from revealed preferences (what one actually seems to like, as opposed to what one says he or she likes) and sorts the data to find others who responded in similar ways. Since the goal of the unabashedly Christian eHarmony is successful marriages, the approach leans more toward sociological research than mathematical formulas. The eHarmony “relationship lab” in California recruits couples to talk about themselves and their marriage while under observation by trained professionals behind two-way glass. This is intended to help researchers identify strengths and weaknesses in the couple’s composition and apply what they learn to other prospective partners. In a hurried and fractured world, scientific matching can help simplify a complicated issue. If you asked your single friends about their experiences with reputable online dating services, you would probably get about as many positive responses as negative. But there are two problems with an over-reliance on computer matching. The obvious one is that we’re notorious liars about ourselves, especially online, and understandably so. Suppose you were a single guy reading this
profile: “Closer to than , '", lb. Like old movies, spend too much time watching. Great sense of humor that few appreciate. Love moonlight walks among the beach—theoretically . . .” You might admire the honesty but wouldn’t click on the picture. The second problem is that no personality profile can predict how one will respond to an unforeseen crisis. Too many young people are haunted by their parents’ divorce, a seminal tragedy over which they had no control. Fear governs their choice of a mate, and the fear of failure is almost as great as that of being alone. Susan Gregory Thomas, in a new memoir, writes of being so terrified of putting her children through the divorce trauma she suffered that she and her boyfriend dated for eight years— eventually moving in together—to be sure that they were compatible before marrying. But after years of marriage and children they had drifted so far apart they divorced anyway. Probabilities and playing house cannot placate the great unknown future. However they get there, whether on a whim or a questionnaire, when a man and woman come to the altar they’re going to make wild promises that would give pause to a riverboat gambler. “Twenty-nine dimensions of compatibility” can’t predict the shaping of character in the crucible of crisis, especially if the crisis is the marriage itself. Marriage is God’s greatest sanctification tool, and if we’re too intent on finding our soul mate, we could miss His greater purpose in conforming every individual believer to the image of His Son. What matters is not so much the algorithm, but the analogue: as Christ loved the Church. What ultimately matters in a Christian marriage is not a tailorish concern for fit and measure, but how intent man and wife are on modeling the greater mystery. For God also makes wild promises that have absolutely nothing to do with compatibility. Ezekiel is the picture of a spectacular mismatch that He did not abandon, and never will. So choose your mate with care, but don’t be afraid. Even if you miss your perfect match, God will sort you out. A Email: jcheaney@worldmag.com
7/27/11 9:59 AM
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Reviews MOVIES & TV BOOKS Q&A MUSIC
Star-spangled hero MOVIE: Story line aside, Captain America maintains an admirable patriotism with no sign of Hollywood cynicism BY MEGAN BASHAM
PARAMOUNT PICTURES & MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT
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“ ’ . . .” So sings John Lennon in the secular humanist anthem “Imagine,” and so schemes the villain in Marvel’s latest superhero movie, Captain America: The First Avenger. “I’ve been to the future and there are no flags,” Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) taunts the steely-eyed, lantern-jawed Captain (Chris Evans). “Not in my future,” our hero replies before attacking his foe with red, white, and blue fury (as I don’t want to be accused of spoiling, I won’t say who turns out to be right). It’s a strangely philosophical statement in a movie that is mostly made up of gratuitous action and cheeky fun. You could argue that it wouldn’t be possible to make a Captain America movie without full-throttled patriotism, and that’s true. But it would be easy—even expected—to stick to the comic book’s script of Nazi-crushing rather than include a villain with designs to erase all national boundaries. Only months ago Superman proved his intellectual growth by throwing off the shackles of country and becoming a citizen of the world. Other, almost imperceptible, bits of dialogue cast a disorientingly Reaganesque light onto the proceedings. Early on, Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci), the scientist responsible for Captain America’s super strength, explains that by taking up the American cause in war, his test subject will become a force for peace. Later an Asian growls in a flat California accent, “I’m from Fresno, idiot.” The implication: The strength of the melting pot comes from the melting. Am I making too much of fleeting comments in a movie packed with cartoonish costumes, elaborate set design, and things that go bang in the sky? Maybe. But to see the “I Want You” Uncle Sam poster used in a major studio production in a non-ironic way is so remarkable, it bears reflection. Email: mbasham@worldmag.com
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Reviews > Movies & TV
use me” cynicism or “I’m too good for this” egotism. He feels a little silly, but he does his part stalwartly until someone convinces him his abilities would be better applied elsewhere. There hasn’t been a superhero like this in a long time. And when the boys of 1940s America run off with trashcan lids painted in star-spangled colors to emulate their idol, we hope the boys of 2011 will feel similarly inspired. While the Captain’s admirable qualities carry through till the end, the movie’s energy does not. The first half, where skinny, asthmatic Steve Rogers finally
this genre pays the ticket price for precisely this same old ride, and they’ll walk away feeling they got their money’s worth. Also part of a tiresome pattern—a smattering of language that makes an otherwise perfect dad-andson day at the movies a little questionable and gives the film a PG-13 rating. Still, parents of comic book fans could do much, much worse. In a genre where alienation, self-doubt, and torment have replaced loyalty, bravery, and duty as the markers of heroism, Captain America stands as a new beacon of pride in the American way. A
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MOVIE
Crazy, Stupid Love by Rebecca Cusey
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It takes talent to make us love the schmuck. Steve Carell has this talent. He has made a career celebrating the middle-aged loser, the clueless boss with a heart of gold, and the boring but wonderful husband. In Crazy, Stupid Love, Carell is Cal, a husband and father stunned by his wife’s (Julianne Moore) affair and request for a divorce. Drowning his sorrows at a bar, he meets Jacob (Ryan Gosling), a smooth ladies’ man with the moves to take a different woman home every night. Jacob conducts a reverse Eliza Doolittle makeover on Cal, turning him into an older, richer version of Jacob himself. Just as the transformation succeeds, Jacob meets Hannah (Emma Stone), a woman who makes him rethink his love-’em-and-leave-’em lifestyle. Broken-hearted Cal, however, finds no solace in the arms of other women. His heart still beats for his wife. It sounds like another raunchy sex comedy, but the film endorses fighting for married love through all the boredom, difficulty, and heartbreak of the middle-aged years. Cal’s heartbreak permeates every scene, and Moore and Carell build chemistry to match younger actors. Their characters’ love is special, not just for the sake of the children or the institution of marriage, but inherently beautiful in itself. The film does have its problems. A story line involving Cal’s son and the babysitter becomes increasingly creepy. The film implies scores of sexual situations and depicts more at its PG-13 rated level. And because the first two acts are beautifully acted, insightfully written, and sweetly funny, the preposterous and clichéridden final act comes as a huge disappointment. CRAZY HEART: gosling and Madcap coincidences and an carell; carell and moore (top). emotional speech in an unlikely situation ruin the tender tone the film worked so hard to achieve. These weaknesses are unfortunate because we need more films that portray married love as wonderful, beautiful, and worth the struggle. See all our movie reviews at worldmag.com/movies
7/28/11 10:13 AM
AnOThER EARTh: Fox seArchlight Pictures • wORLD On A wIRE: Wdr Films
achieves his dream of being admitted to the Army, is full of heart, wit, and nostalgia. The second half falls victim to typical comic-based monotony. A series of battles and victories flashes by so quickly, there’s no time for tension to build but plenty of time for boredom to do so. Secondary characters who are apparently significant to the comic’s world are introduced, yet we’re given no reason to care about them. And the love affair, squeezed in between the action and special effects, is so underdone it can’t help but come off cheesy. That said, half the audience for
CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE: WArner Bros. Pictures • CAPTAIn AmERICA: PArAmount Pictures & mArvel entertAinment
Also remarkable is the character of Steve Rogers, Captain America’s scrawnybut-scrappy alter ego. Courageous but meek, thoughtful but unconflicted, charming but virtuous, he bears almost no resemblance to his current caped colleagues. There have been plenty of naïve superheroes of the Superman ilk, but Captain America isn’t naïve (how can he be, he’s a Brooklyn boy), he’s humble, and there’s a canyon of difference between the two. Even when called on to dance in tights to sell war bonds, Steve never arrives at “how dare the government
MOVIE
Another Earth by Rebecca Cusey
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At first glAnce, Brit Marling seems to be just another Hollywood beauty. Typecasting her, though, would be a mistake. She not only stars in the heady, smart, independent sci-fi film Another Earth, she co-wrote it. Plus, she’s a bit of a philosopher. “Everybody is trying to get at the source of ‘Who are we and what are doing here?’” she told me when we talked in Washington, D.C. “Science goes at one angle. Religion, theology goes at another, philosophy at another and everyone’s trying to arrive at the same place.” “And art is trying to take it all together,” chimed in Mike Cahill, her co-writer and director. In Another Earth, winner of the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, Marling plays Rhoda, a smart young woman whose lofty astrophysics dreams are shattered when she drunkenly crashes into a family sedan, killing the wife and children of John Burroughs (William Mapother). Rhoda emerges from prison with a deep sense of responsibility to help the man she devastated. Her passion for space, however, is heightened by the
sudden emergence of a second earth hanging in the sky. Identical in nearly every detail, a duplicate Rhoda and John live on that distant planet. “Everybody can relate to this idea of a second chance or alternate outcome,” said Marling. “There’s this choice that they made and that they wonder if it had been different what would have happened.” A deep sense of sadness surrounds Rhoda and John, giving the movie a melancholy tone. With a focus on their grief and the alternate planet used as a philosophical discussion launcher, the film moves slowly. That’s fine with Marling and Cahill, because the movie explores ideas instead of launching explosions. To them the questions of science echo the questions of the human heart. “We want to know if in the cosmos we are alone,” Cahill said, “but we also want to know as individuals if we are alone.” Rated Pg-13, the movie has some disturbing images of the crash and a sexual scene.
MOVIE
World on a Wire >>
AnOThER EARTh: Fox searchlight Pictures • wORLD On A wIRE: Wdr Films
CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE: Warner Bros. Pictures • CAPTAIn AmERICA: Paramount Pictures & marvel entertainment
by Alisa Harris
Box office Top 10 For the weekend oF july 22-24, according to Box oFFice Mojo
cautIOns: Quantity of sexual (S), violent (V), and foul-language (L) content on a 0-10 scale, with 10 high, from kids-in-mind.com
S V L 1̀ 2̀ 3̀
4̀ 5̀ 6̀ 7̀ 8̀ 9̀ 10 `
Captain America: The First Avenger* PG-13 ...3 6 4 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2* PG-13 ...........3 7 3 Friends with Benefits r ... not rated Transformers: Dark of the Moon* PG-13 .....5 7 5 Horrible Bosses r .................7 6 10 Zookeeper PG...........................4 4 3 Cars 2* G ......................................2 4 1 Winnie the Pooh G .............. 0 1 1 Bad Teacher r..........................7 3 8 Midnight in Paris* PG-13 ....4 2 4
*Reviewed by world
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Just As everyone has finished philosophizing over whether Facebook friends are real friends or illusions, a new social media outlet is birthed and we are putting both our real and virtual friends into virtual circles meant to mimic the real world. Although we suppose this reality-blurring to be a new dilemma, World on a Wire took up the theme in 1973, when computers filled up a room and people dialed on phones that were anchored to walls. And as legendary German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder ably showed, Aristotle and Plato pondered the same sort of question centuries ago: What is illusion, and what is real? In this two-part miniseries recently released in American theaters, the government has created Simulacron, a computer program that has engineered a virtual world filled with “identity units” who behave and live and think like humans. Dr. Fred Stiller (Klaus Löwitsch) takes over the project when the former director, Henry Vollmer (Adrian Hoven), dies suddenly, leaving hints that he has uncovered an unsettling secret. Then Guenther Lause (Ivan Desny) vanishes right before telling Stiller this secret, as if someone deleted him with the push of a button. In Fassbinder’s open and brilliantly constructed set, the viewer looks in on the characters as if seeing them behind glass, like a programmer would look down at the simulated world he created. The characters’ images are repeatedly reflected in mirrors and glass, which skews the viewer’s perspective and recalls the opening scene, when Vollmer orders a stuffy government official to look in a mirror and contemplate whether he is real or merely a reflection of how others see him. In Christian theology, we “see through a glass, darkly” at what is real and believe that this world is a pale shadow of a world more real. In World on a Wire, this sensibility destabilizes those who grasp it. That’s partly because of who is in charge—a megalomaniac—and the unanswered question of whether one can reach a world that’s real. august 13, 2011
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Reviews > Books
Tasting, swallowing, chewing
Books that keep you walking fast on the treadmill BY MARVIN OLASKY
SHORT AND LONG
not recommend these except as an aid to exercise. If you want a Christian book that can make you walk fast, Fire Breathing Christians by Scott Buss (Rvolution Press, ) will do nicely. In chapters like “The Rise of Mr. Potato Jesus” and “Tickle Me Baal Reformation” Buss takes apart smiley faces like Joel Osteen and Benny Hinn but also Emergents like Rob Bell and Brian McLaren. Buss is often over-the-top, but he writes vigorously and rightly notes that America is not far from a new Inquisition in which “Biblically submissive Christians can be excluded in the name of inclusiveness.” If you want a book that can make atheists walk fast, try Ben Hobrink’s Modern Science in the Bible (Simon & Schuster, ), which shows in many ways the difference between Scripture and ancient mythology. For example, the Babylonian hero Gilgamesh has a cubeshaped vessel that would roll over in
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good reputation and careful scholarship of Michael Horton, author of The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims On the Way, , pages (Zondervan, ); Douglas Laycock, author of Religious Liberty, Volume : The Free Exercise Clause, pages (Eerdman’s, ); and Gregg R. Allison, author of Historical Theology, pages (Zondervan, )—but I can’t testify about every page. Two other books that seem useful for reference collections are Anthony Kenny’s A New History of Western Philosophy, Philosophy , pages (Oxford, ), and The Oxford Handbook of Evangelical Theology (Oxford, ), which clocks in at a mere pages.
BEBETO MATTHEWS/AP
How the Gospel Brings Us All the Way Home, by Derek W.H. Thomas (Reformation Trust, ) is a good, short book that acutely explores what he calls “the best chapter in the Bible,” Romans . I read it in one treadmill session, but that leads me to a confession in regard to very long books that land on my pile: I sometimes skim them. For example, with Bruce L. Gordon and William Dembski, editors, The Nature of Nature: Examining the Role of Naturalism in Science, pages (ISI Books, ), I can attest to the good reputation of the authors and the good critiques of naturalism and multiverse cosmology that Gordon provides. Similarly, I’m impressed by the
waves, but the God-given dimensions of Noah’s ark give maximum stability. Many ancient peoples like the Canaanites killed themselves by practicing sacred prostitution, child sacrifice, and snake worship, but God’s holiness statutes were also good for health: The Israelites buried excrement outside the camp and washed their hands. If you’re depressed about the current state of the church and think everything was fine in the good old days, read The Shooting Salvationist by David Stokes (Steerforth, ), which centers on the trial for murder of s megachurch pastor J. Frank Norris. John Jefferson Davis’ Worship and the Reality of God (, ) casts a grand vision of what should occur on our Sunday mornings. Hell Is Real (But I Hate to Admit It), by Pennsylvania pastor Brian Jones (David C. Cook, ), shows that we’re bound to present what the Bible teaches, not what tickles our ears.
Email: molasky@worldmag.com
7/20/11 5:02 PM
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L W, which leads Manhattanites from Madison Avenue to the New York Public Library, features sidewalk-embedded quotations including this famous one from Francis Bacon: “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.” That’s how it is with books readers and publishers send me. Examples: Two just-published HarperCollins novels, William Dietrich’s Blood of the Reich and Matthew Dunn’s Spycatcher, have improbable action/adventure plots and crazy twists toward the end. Sprinkled with bad words and characters dying violently, they served one purpose: Got me to walk five fast miles on the treadmill, because they did make me want to find out what happened next. Note: I do
NOTABLE BOOKS Four Christian nonfiction books > reviewed by
Out of a Far Country
Christopher Yuan and Angela Yuan A mother and son tell their stories, variations on the parable of the Prodigal Son. Only this time both mother and son were lost: the mother to moralism and idols of achievement, the son to a life of homosexuality, drug dealing, and jail. Both needed rescue. It’s also the story of a mother’s proud heart being softened by the gospel, her faithful prayers for her husband and son, and God’s gracious work in all their lives. Christopher Yuan explains how he came to ask: “Who am I apart from my sexuality?” At first he didn’t have an answer. But he came to understand that his identity as “a child of the living God must be in Jesus Christ alone.” Well-written and worth reading.
Red Like Blood: Confrontations with Grace Joe Coffey and Bob Bevington Joe Coffey is a pastor and the son of a pastor. Bob Bevington was an eye doctor attending Joe’s church when he blew up his life by committing adultery and divorcing his wife, a Christian schoolteacher who soon after received a cancer diagnosis. More than a decade later he came back to the church a changed man. In this book, the men describe the transforming power of grace both for the prodigal and the elder brother. With brutal honesty they lay bare their sins to show the beauty and sufficiency of Christ, and use homely topics such as garbage, math, and M&M’s to talk about profound ideas. Through stories about friends and other changed people, they show how grace scrubs, flows, and multiplies.
The Missional Mom Helen Lee Lee applies missional to moms who also pursue career callings, fight poverty or injustice, or live simply. She makes good points about keeping in mind our primary calling, to love and know God. Her repetitive use of the buzzword “missional” is annoying, as is her sense that previous generations of Christian moms didn’t understand the importance of living “with God-directed intentionality and purpose, in their family life as well as in whatever other context God has placed them.” Nevertheless, she rightly encourages moms to be aware of the cultural influences shaping their desires for their children, to be cultural rebels when necessary, and to train up “missionally-minded” children.
SPOTLIGHT In Surprised by Oxford (Thomas Nelson, ), Christian college professor Carolyn Weber describes growing up in a troubled family in London, Ontario. Her college success earned her a full scholarship to study for a master’s degree in Romantic literature at Oxford in the s. This memoir describes her experiences that first year, but focuses on her relationship with a handsome theology student she dubs (tall, dark, and handsome) who introduced her to the gospel. At an Oxford she describes as spiritually vibrant, Weber was surrounded by students who were open to belief. Conversations about spiritual topics flourished, although some professors were openly hostile. After she embraced Christ, she found professors who encouraged her. Readers with a literary bent will especially enjoy her references to books and writers. In Six Stone Jars: God’s Remedy for Fear, Worry, and Anxiety (Focus Publishing, ), biblical counselor Dan Manningham offers sound guidance for believers struggling with worry.
BEBETO MATTHEWS/AP
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Hudson Taylor: Gospel Pioneer to China
Vance Christie Christie’s readable biography begins with the -year-old Taylor, then a medical student, becoming deathly ill after helping to dissect a corpse. Through this episode and others, Christie portrays a man willing to sacrifice many worldly comforts as he prepares for and pursues his missionary calling to China. Through challenges and the death of a wife and children, Taylor perseveres. Of particular interest is the account of Taylor’s spiritual crisis as he felt the “need personally . . . of more holiness, life, power in our souls,” but—no matter how much he strived—was “utterly powerless.” A letter from a friend gave him new eyes: “Not a striving to have faith, or to increase our faith, but a looking off to the Faithful One seems all we need.” Email: solasky@worldmag.com; see all our reviews at mag.com/books
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AUGUST 13, 2011
WORLD
7/21/11 9:46 AM
Reviews > Q&A
Without ırony
Novelist ToNy EarlEy has found success in writing about “folks who are simply doing the best they can” By Bill Boyd
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John Russell/VAndeRbilt uniVeRsity
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Tony Earley is a noted novelist and short story writer, perhaps best known for a novel, Jim the Boy (2002), and for stories that have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Esquire, and Best American Short Stores. He teaches fiction workshops and seminars at Vanderbilt University. When I introduced myself to him and mentioned World, he smiled and said, “My wife is not going to believe this. She is a subscriber. We have a mixed marriage. She is the conservative (laughter).” As a writer, how do you approach the reading public? My books are written from a Christian standpoint, but I never want to end up in the Christian bookstore. If I do, I’ll know my career is shot. Being too overt is not good for your career. The part of the establishment that publishes and reviews is the issue, not necessarily the reading public. My aim is to fly in under the radar. When you say you are a “Christian,” what do you mean? If I didn’t believe in the Resurrection, I‘d just sleep late and play golf. I would just try to be a good person via secular humanism. It is possible to be an atheist and a fine person, just like it is possible to be a Christian and an awful person. But I would like to be a Christian and a good person. I am not actively seeking to convert anyone through my writing as much as I am trying to provide a positive example. I know a lot of writers, and Southern writers, who are Christians. They show more than they tell. That is for the reasons I mentioned earlier. When did you start thinking about becoming a writer? I grew up in small-town North Carolina, Rutherfordton, pronounced “Ruthfton.” I got the idea that if I didn’t become famous, I’d be a failure. My second-grade teacher, Doris Freeman, would have us write every Monday. I still remember turning in a paper and Mrs. Freeman responding, “This is good, Tony. You should be a writer.” Thus, I assumed, from age 7, that I would be a writer and a success. And here I am. I actually got to be my dream. A happy childhood? My sister died in a car accident when she was a senior in high school. In the year following, my Dad had a conversion experience. This led to something I had not had, a close relationship with my father. . . . Which reminds me, I showed you my daughters, didn’t I? (He pulls out photos.) That’s Clara Eudora, and that is Willa Ruth. We adopted them from China. (Pause, eyes welling up.) I love being a Daddy. My childhood wasn’t that great, and it feels like a do-over. The thrill of my life is riding bicycles with Clara each day to school. What happened after you left “Ruthfton”? I went to nearby Warren Wilson College, just outside of Asheville. I then became a newspaper reporter at The Daily Courier in Forest City. That is why Ernest Hemingway and Willa Cather are my models for writing. They were reporters first. Then I got married and went on to earn an MFa at the University of Alabama in 1992. I wanted Sarah to realize her own dream, so
we moved from Tuscaloosa to Pittsburgh, Pa., where she attended Trinity Episcopal School of Divinity, a very traditional Episcopal seminary. We are in the Episcopal church, but Sarah is not ordained. How did the success of your writing affect you? I was a “success” at least in the sense of being noted by peers within the profession. But then I had a serious bout with clinical depression. I was taken to the brink of myself. It became clear that there was no guarantee that I would write another word. Over time, my “success” came into perspective. I began to see my ability for what it is, a gift from God, not something self-generated. The central question posed by this revelation was, “Given the opportunity again, what will you do with this gift? How will you steward it?” My answer to that question was Jim the Boy. You have described Jim the Boy and The Blue Star as “children’s literature for adults.” So much of contemporary life is dark, nihilistic, hopeless. Reading contemporary fiction, one gets the idea that all children are abused, all marriages are bad, all people are in danger of being murdered in their beds. I know life is horrible at times, I get that. I have experienced it firsthand. But I like to focus on the folks who simply are doing the best they can. I wanted to honor these people. Also, a lot of contemporary literature is so ironic. With Jim the Boy I decided to throw irony out of the toolbox. Irony followed to its natural conclusion precludes belief in anything. The ironic writer writes from a standpoint that presupposes the meaninglessness of everything. For example, he or she presupposes that all human institutions are stupid. That is at the heart of irony. And don’t get me wrong, there is a great deal of stupidity and cruelty in the world. But I don’t think that is the final word. Writing would be worthless if transformation was not possible. How did you develop such a clear and concise style? Hemingway and Cather as models. Hemingway was so talented. I admire him so much for his craft, though he was a pretty awful human being. I like the difficulty of doing something complicated with a simple sentence. I like the technical challenge of trying to say something without saying something. I like art with spare lines, Matisse, Picasso, Hank Williams. What is simpler, or more complicated, than a Hank Williams song? Jim the Boy has been a critical success. How has that affected you? The summer of Jim the Boy was remarkable: reviews, awards, crowds. I was hailed as the next big thing. At the end of the summer, Sarah and I pulled into the driveway after our last big trip. She looked around and said, “The grass needs mowing.” And I came within a fingernail of saying, “Don’t you know who I am!” But this tiny little voice, the last bit of sanity within me said, “You probably shouldn’t say that, Tony.” So . . . I unpacked the car and mowed the grass.” A August 13, 2011
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Reviews > Music
Virtuosity with purpose Whether you call it , Celtic, or progressive rock, the music of IONA is exhilarating BY ARSENIO ORTEZA
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I E A R’ Miniver Cheevy, who “loved the days of old / When swords were bright and steeds were prancing,” could have loved a contemporary band, it would have been Iona. As the title of the group’s latest album, the two-disc Another Realm (Open Sky), implies, Iona not only celebrates but also seems to come from another place and time. In reality, Iona was formed in the U.K. in the late s by the Irish singer Joanne Hogg, the British keyboardist-guitarist Dave Bainbridge, and several other musicians whom they’ve since replaced. Iona came to the attention of American audiences in the s when the Christian label ForeFront gave them a domestic push. As might be expected, fans pegged the band as a act. Over the years
they also labeled the band “Celtic” and “progressive rock.” Actually, Iona is little of all three— and a lot of something else for which there is as yet no name. Its main subject is Christ, but, drums and electric guitars notwithstanding, there’s little that’s “contemporary” about its sound. That sound has unmistakably Celtic elements, but the Christocentric lyrics make imagining it as a soundtrack accompanying the festivals of Druids or their latter-day admirers difficult. And although songs such as Another Realm’s Realm “An Atmosphere of Miracles” (:), “White Horse” (:), and “Let Your Glory Fall” (:) unfold at a progressive-rock pace, they do so without the virtuosity for virtuosity’s sake for which that genre has become notorious. Iona’s virtuosity serves a clear purpose. About that virtuosity: It is said that a man “plays” an instrument. But, owing
in part to the ruthless economic apparatus erected upon talented musicians, it is usually the case nowadays that the instrument plays the man. The inherent limitations of guitars, keyboards, drums, and even voices have come to rein in human imagination rather than to serve as the reins by which an imaginative musician may saddle a steed, brandish a sword, and charge toward something besides the mere turning of a profit. A windmill would make a worthier target than a Grammy. But in Iona the sense of play survives. No matter how much labor may have gone into the composing and recording, what comes through in the end is exhilaration. Hogg’s magnificent singing has a lot to do with this, but so does the nearly omnipresent swirl of tin whistles and uillean pipes, instruments especially well-suited to suggesting extravagant quests in general and, as Iona continues to demonstrate, the quest for the Holy Grail in particular.
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Email: aorteza@worldmag.com
7/26/11 11:28 PM
JACO KLAMER
FURLER’S FIRE
For the most part, the new solo album by the ex-Newsboy Peter Furler, On Fire (Sparrow), with its rousing pop hooks and electronically cushioned sheen, aims at something quite un-Iona-like. And, catchy though his music is, Furler’s aim would feel truer if he occasionally shot wide of the mark—if he didn’t, for instance, resort on occasion to Auto-Tune, settle for a poetically deficient sub–King James rendering of the rd Psalm (“Psalm ”), or exude so much sunny optimism about the Christian experience. Longtime inhabitants of the dark night of the soul will have to wear shades as they search in vain for any sign of the “fear and trembling” that’s supposed to accompany salvation. At least once, however, in “Glory to the King,” Furler’s vision rivals Iona’s for celestial clarity. An arrival-in-heaven anthem sung from the second-person point of view to a believer who has just shuffled off his mortal coil, it pulls off the alchemical trick of transmuting Contemporary Hit Radio’s baser elements into a gold worthy of lining heaven’s airwaves if not necessarily paving its streets. —A.O.
NOTABLE CDs
Five new or recent classical music releases > reviewed by
Philippe Gaubert: On a Clear Morning Immanuel Davis The gimmick at work on this delightful recording of four pieces by Philippe Gaubert and one by Debussy (“Syrinx”) is that the flautist Immanuel Davis, the pianist Timothy Lovelace, and the violoncellist Käthe Jarka perform on instruments built during the period in which the music was composed. Many listeners probably wouldn’t have noticed had the musicians used modern instruments with less of an “individual voice” (Davis’ term) instead, but Davis, Lovelace, and Jarka clearly have, responding to the instruments’ expressive sensitivity with a sensitive expressiveness of their own.
Johann Sebastian Bach: Concertos and Sinfonias for Oboe
Heinz Holliger, Erich Höbarth, Camerata Bern Of the making of Bach recordings there appears to be no end, but as long as they approach the standards adhered to by Heinz Holliger and the Swiss chamber orchestra Camerata Bern in these performances of Bach oboe showcases, nobody will complain. The only flaw, if a flaw it is, is the flawlessness of Holliger and Camerata. Not that one wants wrong notes, but there is a kind of perfection so breathtaking it leaves listeners with scarcely enough breath to express to others or themselves what they’ve just experienced.
Uniko Kronos Quartet, Kimmo Pohjonen,
Samuli Kosminen Known for, among many other qualities, trying to be all things to all people that it may entertain some, the Kronos Quartet aims its bows this time at Finland and, with the compositions and playing of two genuine Fins (the electric percussionist Samuli Kosminen, the experimental accordionist and vocal noisemaker Kimmo Pohjonen), slashes and plucks its way toward its target. Does the Quartet hit it? Only Fins would know for sure. Is it fascinating whether what they evoke is Finland or some neighboring brand of Nordic severity? Yes.
HANDOUT
JACO KLAMER
Hampson Sisler: Phoenix Forever
Praga Sinfonietta One of these four world-premier recordings of works by the American composer Hampson Sisler features the mezzo-soprano Lori-Kaye Miller and the baritone Darnell Ishmel, another the soprano Melissa Cintron. And although the former sing an English translation of a th-century Czech love poem worth translating (“Music in the Soul”) and the latter sings the Prayer of St. Francis, it’s the wordless, four-movement, Stravinsky-inspired title suite as brought to life by the Czechoslovakian orchestra Praga Sinfionetta that speaks most eloquently about love, death, and being born to eternal life. See all our reviews at mag.com/music
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SPOTLIGHT The exact nature of the epiphany that the Dutch composer and percussionist Dick Le Mair experienced recently while undertaking the “Way of St. James” pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain is unclear, but, judging from his latest album, Impressions of a Pilgrimage (Global Recording Artists), it apparently involved a profound encounter with the living Christ. The titles alone—“Sanctus,” “Adoro Te,” “The Monastery,” “Cruz de Hierro,” “Credo”—suggest intense paradigmatic shifts. But it’s the music, an evershifting panoply of reverent but eclectic styles, that transforms Le Mair’s Way of St. James into St. Paul’s Damascus Road. The Gregorian-chant motif that unifies the album’s disparate parts lends the project a Catholic feel, but nonsectarian feelings are evoked too, from majestic sorrow (“The Road Is Long and Lonely”) to otherworldly spookiness (a woman’s mysterious whispering of devotional Latin throughout). And “No Greater Love Than This” sounds like an instrumental outtake from the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds that should’ve been an intake.
AUGUST 13, 2011
WORLD
7/26/11 11:31 PM
Mindy Belz
Famine Fables
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In Somalia drought is not the only culprit
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FArAh ABdi WArsAMeh/Ap
t’s not accidental that the book of Deuteronomy (literally, a “copy of this law”) retells for the Israelites what just happened to them. We so quickly overlook the lessons of history. So as the newspapers and airwaves begin to report the tragic story of famine in Somalia, it’s important to read these as Moses would, not as the Israelites, who got themselves stuck in the wilderness for 40 years because they refused to see their own role in their predicament. The famine in Somalia is not, as most major news sources would have you believe, caused by drought. Agence France-Presse had Somalians “fleeing drought.” Even Mission Aviation Fellowship, a wonderful support group, said it was redirecting planes and hiring crews to work through the night to ready relief flights to the Horn of Africa, where 11 million people are facing “a hunger crisis caused by several years of severe drought.” At the risk of sounding callous, it’s worth pointing out that much of Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas currently face what the U.S. Department of Agriculture classifies as D4, or “exceptional” drought—the worst—and residents of those states have food to eat and water to drink. High temperatures in Waco averaged 102° in mid-July while barely registering 85° in Mogadishu, yet Waco residents carried on with business and commerce while Somali residents fled, some desperate enough to wander for six weeks toward relief in Kenya. Severe drought may contribute to famine, but failed governments—and terrorist tactics— are what finally cause them. Somalia’s transitional government, weakened by decades of misdirected foreign aid and failed international peacekeeping missions, has failed to counter al-Shabaab, a fierce al-Qaeda linked movement that actually controls much of the southern area outside Mogadishu, not surprisingly the areas most affected by famine. “Corruption is a major part of the problem in Somalia,” said Rashid Abdi, a Somalia analyst at the International Crisis Group, even as donors prepared to spend more millions there. “This drought did not come out of nowhere, but the [Somali] government did not do anything to prepare for it. Instead they spent all their time fighting each other.” That—coupled with political correctness in the donor community—
extends famine rather than relieves it. Aid workers blame manmade global warming yet refuse to address the manmade political causes. ActionAid’s Lena Aahlby, in an op-ed for the Sydney Morning Herald, said Australia’s failure to tax carbon emissions was responsible for the Horn of Africa’s “devastating drought” and famine an ocean away. Larger actors like the World Bank and the U.S. Agency for International Development (Usaid), systemically wish away political causes. The World Bank in its Articles of Agreement states it “shall not interfere in the political affairs of any member.” Usaid—though it already has spent $459 million in taxpayer dollars for “emergency assistance” to the region this fiscal year—has nothing to say about Somalia’s brew of corruption, terrorism, and civil war. Its “Feed the Future” program purports to provide food security through technical advances that will increase agriculture production. That’s like spitting at a tornado, given al-Shabaab’s treachery and the Somali government’s lethargy. Not facing the totality of Somalia’s crisis is the reason it won’t go away. Dadaab refugee camp opened in eastern Kenya in 1991 to take in refugees from Somalia’s civil war. Twenty years later it’s the largest refugee camp in the world. Constructed to house up to 90,000, its population is approaching 1 million. Un field coordinators say they have been registering an average of 1,000 Somalis a day since June. One 70-year-old traveled by car with her 3-yearold granddaughter because they lacked food, but upon reaching the Kenya border was stopped and had to walk—50 miles—to Dadaab then wait while Un workers sorted the influx of new arrivals. The poor and malnourished need our help but they deserve more than to be sentenced to lasting deprivation by government and other programs that play at easing their suffering while standing back from solving its real causes. A Email: mbelz@worldmag.com
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The public images of TIM PAWLENTY and MICHELE BACHMANN could not be more different: Mr. Nice Guy versus Mrs. Prairie Firebrand. But beneath the surface the two presidential candidates have more in common than being from Minnesota. Those who know them say it would be a mistake to underestimate either one rrr
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in Ames, Iowa
Five of the six questions reporters pose to Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor, deal with the Republican congresswoman who also hails from Minnesota. “You know Bachmann pretty well. What are her strengths and qualifications?”
“Could she beat Barack Obama?” Pawlenty, trying to move up from the bottom of the ’s presidential pack, smiles. Inside he may be seething, but he’d better get used to it. The last election in which two White House contenders called Minnesota home was . The state has brought America such liberals as Eugene McCarthy, Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, and now Al Franken. Minnesotans haven’t given their state’s electoral votes to a Republican since . But this year Minnesota has gone red. Pawlenty has been called the most conservative governor in the state’s history. Bachmann is the first Republican woman elected from the state to the U.S. House. Now both are fighting to call Pennsylvania Avenue home. Beyond being rare conservatives from a left-leaning state, both appeal to the same pro-life, pro-marriage, anti-Obamacare crowd. Pawlenty famously has said Republicans should be the “party of Sam’s Club not just the country club.” Bachmann has
MICHAEL TERCHA/CHICAGO TRIBUNE/MCT/LANDOV
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courting Iowa Republicans at a dinner in Ames, presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty walks outside to court the media. He is almost immediately asked a question that includes a reference to rival Michele Bachmann’s sex appeal.
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OTA TWINS? embraced the rise of the Tea Party as warmly as any of her Capitol Hill colleagues. Both argue that they are the best options to unite all factions of the . So what divides them? Both need a victory in Iowa’s much-watched Aug. straw poll to propel them toward November . Pundits and those who know them say it’s hard to describe the two conservatives as Minnesota twins. Their political roots reside in Minnesota, yet anyone watching them on the campaign trail can see they possess different styles and distinct resumés. But a closer look at their working-class roots and current policy positions reveals at least a partly shared narrative. Pawlenty, , grew up near the foul smelling slaughterhouses of the South St. Paul stockyards. He was one of five siblings in a Catholic family. His dad drove trucks, and his mom died while Pawlenty was a teenager. Then his dad lost his job. “I saw in the mirror the face of a very uncertain future,” Pawlenty said.
He became the first member of his family to go to college. He stocked shelves in a grocery store for seven years and delivered newspapers to pay for tuition at the University of Minnesota where he earned undergraduate and law degrees. He wanted to be a dentist. He met his wife, Mary, in law school. Bachmann, , was born in Iowa—a fact she doesn’t hide in her campaign stops here. She describes how her ancestors “felled the trees and plowed the prairies” in Iowa’s early days. “Everything I needed to know I learned in Iowa,” she says. Her grandparents worked on railroads, in sewing factories, and in packing plants. Her father was the first member of the family to go to college. Bachmann drove a school bus to help pay for college. She met her husband, Marcus, while attending Minnesota’s Winona State University. Both Pawlenty and Bachmann profess to be evangelical Christians and are comfortable discussing their beliefs in public. At the event in Ames, Pawlenty started his speech by AUGUST 13, 2011
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their church membership. The synod granted that release just six days before Bachmann formally announced her candidacy. Bachmann now attends Eagle Brook Church, a nondenominational megachurch with a Baptist heritage that boasts four Minnesota locations with worship services for more than 13,000 people each weekend. This is not the only area of the Bachmanns’ faith that has brought controversy. Marcus runs a Christian counseling center that’s faced media attacks for its use of biblical counseling strategies, including prayer, with homosexual patients. Bachmann and her husband have put their faith into action. Seeing a couple at church with foster children inspired Bachmann to open up her home to at-risk children. They cared for a total of 23 foster children, mostly abused teenagers, over a
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arried now for 33 years, Bachmann and her husband were inspired in college by theologian Francis Schaeffer’s film series, How Should We Then Live? Bachmann, who went on an overseas mission trip to Israel sponsored by Young Life, said the videos impressed upon them the “high value we need to place on human life. That is the first right. Inalienable rights are ones that man cannot give, only a creator can.” For years Bachmann was a member of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod and attended the Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church in Stillwater, Minn. The synod came under media fire this summer for a doctrinal statement calling the pope the Antichrist. While Bachmann has not been active in the church for the last two years, the press is raising questions about the timing of her family’s decision to seek an official written release from
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talking about a passage in Isaiah Chapter 6 where God asks “Whom shall I send?” and Isaiah responds, “Send me.” “We have all been blessed with different resources,” Pawlenty said. “The question is how are you going to use them? One of the most meaningful purposes we have in front of us is a responsibility to the care and custody of freedom.” Bachmann recently closed a speech in Washington, D.C., by evoking 1 Timothy 2:2 and asking the attendees to pray. She then led the group in a prayer for the nation’s leaders and its finances before asking for forgiveness for the nation’s sins: “This is not a political scorecard,” she prayed. “This is about the very life and future of our nation. So Father we lift it up to You. We ask that once again You will turn Your face towards us.” Both Bachmann and Pawlenty credit their spouses for helping them go deeper in their faiths. “She was pretty far ahead of me in terms of biblical memorization and knowledge,” Pawlenty told me about his wife. “She really challenged me to get a better understanding of the Bible and its teachings.” Wanting a unified faith experience for their marriage, Tim left the Catholic church around the time of their 1987 wedding. He joined Mary as a member of the Wooddale Church in the Minneapolis suburbs. The couple are still members of the nondenominational evangelical megachurch, whose senior pastor, Leith Anderson, is the current president of the National Association of Evangelicals. “I can’t say that I have caught her in my biblical knowledge, but I have closed the gap,” Pawlenty said. Mary is featured in a recent six-minute campaign video talking about how their “faith walk” is the most important aspect of their marriage and family. In the video Pawlenty and his wife discuss why their hope is in Jesus Christ and how the United States was founded as a nation under God. Pawlenty, who has called for the country to move toward God, says he is transparent about his beliefs because voters need to know the source of a leader’s values. He told me that one of his favorite passages is Proverbs 3:5-6. “It is a daily reminder for me to make sure that we put our trust and our faith in the right place, which is God,” he said. “You have got to have a sense of humility. There are so many things you can’t control, and you have to know where your help comes from.”
six-year period in the 1990s. “While we were by no means a perfect family, one thing that we could offer was just a little bit of a picture of maybe what the word normal looks like,” Bachmann said in testimony before Congress in 2007. These foster children led Bachmann to jump into the political arena. Bachmann’s five biological children had been educated through a combination of Christian schools and
homeschooling. But the law required Bachmann’s foster children to attend public schools. Frustrated by the state’s curriculum mandates, Bachmann ran for a school board seat in 1999. She lost. But even in defeat her public speaking gift attracted notice. “I did not expect her to be so articulate, so dynamic, and so captivating,” said Twila Brase, president of the St. Paul-based Citizens’ Council on Health Care. Brase saw Bachmann inspire an audience during her grassroots push against the state’s education standards and thought, “‘Gracious, she’s good.’ I knew she’d be a little dynamo if she ever got elected.” The school board loss remains Bachmann’s only campaign defeat. The next year she unseated a 28-year incumbent for a seat in the Minnesota senate. Six years later, in 2006, Bachmann won an open seat for the U.S. House. She became part of the smallest GOP freshman class in 60 years. A federal tax lawyer turned stay-at-home mom turned political activist had become a politician.
DIFFERENT STYLES:
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pawlenty at a July 7 town hall meeting in urbandale, iowa. Bachmann (left) speaks to the south carolina christian chamber of commerce in columbia, s.c., on July 19.
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awlenty wOrked his way uP the POlitical ladder: from a seat on a city planning commission to city council to state legislator to Minnesota House Majority Leader to governor. Pawlenty won both of his governor’s races with less than 50 percent of the vote, but despite being an underdog swore off negative campaigning: “My attitude in life is you can be a strong advocate without being a jerk,” he said while running for governor. He has been tagged with being too “Minnesota nice.” So what happened during the June 13 New Hampshire GOP presidential debate shouldn’t have been too surprising. Days before the election, the Pawlenty campaign coined the word “Obamneycare” in an effort to connect frontrunner Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts healthcare plan to Obama’s federal healthcare law. But when asked repeatedly to elaborate on the catchphrase by cnn debate moderator John King, Pawlenty refused to detail the plan’s problems in front of Romney. Pawlenty had missed a headlinegrabbing moment. Instead Pawlenty had to stand on stage and learn a lesson in Bachmann-style campaigning. A poised Bachmann used the debate to announce to a national television audience that she was officially running for president. She got the night’s first big applause with the statement: “I want to announce tonight President Obama is a one-term president.” In the first poll after the debate, Bachmann skyrocketed to second place with 19 percent. Pawlenty tied for sixth place with 6 percent. Bachmann has long been a favorite of talking heads. She appeared on national television, mostly Fox News, once every nine days in 2009. There is even a Michele Bachmann action figure for sale. This attention translates into campaign cash: Bachmann raised $13.5 million for her 2010 reelection bid—more than any other House incumbent. She has broad grassroots appeal: In the first quarter of this year, 75 percent of her donations came from donors giving $200 or less. Pawlenty can boast of no eponymous action figure and only intermittent television appearances. So far he’s been unable to stop a national narrative that he is boring—an image that puzzles those who know Pawlenty. Former Minnesota House Speaker Steve Sviggum calls Pawlenty an accomplished August 13, 2011
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“The loudest guy or woman in the bar usually isn’t the toughest. I’m an old hockey player. I’ve been in more fights than the rest of the candidates combined.”
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agreed to a “health impact fee” that imposed a -cent per prankster pack increase on cigarettes. “They didn’t call it a tax, but who had enough everyone laughed at that,” Tice said. “They knew what it was.” guts to take on The governor set a record for vetoes, earning him a wrestler turned SEND ME: “godfather of no” headline from the Minneapolis Star Tribune. governor Jesse Ventura Pawlenty on Pawlenty also beat the unions during a -day transit strike when Pawlenty was ice; as governor in over workers wanting taxpayer-funded vested healthcare House Majority Leader. ; on the benefits for life. “He was a stellar goalie, stopping shots at a But during a recent campaign time when the other side had a power play on,” said John Pawlenty campaign trail with wife Helmberger with the Minnesota Family Council. “He understop in Urbandale, Mary in Iowa (from left). stands why government cannot be a savior.” Iowa, Bill Campbell Overall Pawlenty reduced the growth rate of state spending was one of the first as governor for the first time in Minnesota history. From people to grab the microphone. He told Pawlenty that he to , the state budget grew percent on average every two would like to see a stronger demeanor from him. “I think he years. The average fell to percent on Pawlenty’s watch. The comes across as vanilla,” Campbell, a retired postal worker conservative Cato Institute gave Pawlenty one of only four “A” from Indianola, explained later. “He is going to have to have a grades for governors last year. “He fundamentally changed little more passion to win the election.” taxing and spending patterns over the last eight years,” said Pawlenty answered Campbell by saying that “the loudest Mitch Pearlstein, the president of the Minnesota-based Center guy or woman in the bar usually isn’t the toughest. I’m an old of the American Experiment. hockey player. I’ve been in more fights than the rest of the Conservatives did criticize Pawlenty for being a one-time candidates combined.” While Bachmann specializes in stirring supporter of cap-and-trade policies and for toying with the crowds, Pawlenty doesn’t mind sharing the stage. At the government healthcare exchanges in . He has since Urbandale town hall Pawlenty called up a -year-old boy abandoned both and fought the new federal healthcare law wearing a Minnesota Vikings jersey and asked him to explain as governor. On the campaign trail Pawlenty has denied any the problems with Obama’s economic politics. responsibility for Minnesota’s most recent shutdown, saying “Pawlenty is well-known for being likeable,” said Doug it is due to a percent spending increase he would have Tice, an editor with the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “He’s a guy never allowed. you’d want to have a beer with. But that doesn’t come across on .” Pawlenty’s defense is that America “doesn’t need an entertainer in chief.” So he has replaced resumé during his recent Iowa tour. “It theatrics with a methodical presentation is about record not just rhetoric,” he said. of his conservative bona fides in a series of “Do you just flap your jaws or do you get major policy speeches. things done?” As governor, Pawlenty inherited a . This is a subtle swipe at Bachmann. Into billion state budget deficit. He also faced a her third congressional term Congress has Senate controlled by the state’s yet to pass a single piece of legislation Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party for both authored by Bachmann. She has not been of his terms and a -controlled House tapped to lead a congressional committee his final term as governor. His clash with or subcommittee. In recent speeches, she lawmakers over budget issues in led likes to highlight a “light bulb freedom of to the state’s first government shutdown in choice” act she has sponsored. years. It lasted for nine days. Bachmann has had six chiefs of staff Having campaigned on a no-new-taxes since taking office. One of those former pledge, Pawlenty cut taxes by office heads, Ron Carey, described rrr million. But Minnesota lawmakers Bachmann’s office as “wildly out of resolved the shutdown only after Pawlenty control” in an op-ed for the Des Moines
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OUTSIDER: “House call” on the Capitol in the days Register. “If she is unable, or before the vote. “I’m asking people to come unwilling, to handle the basic Congressional candidate to Washington, D.C., by the carload . . . find duties of a campaign or congressioBachmann with members of Congress, look at the whites of nal office, how could she possibly manage the Bush in ; the their eyes, and say, ‘Don’t take away my magnitude of the presidency?” Carey wrote. action figure; healthcare.’ This is our liberty and tyranny Until last year’s election, Bachmann had spent the bulk of husband Marcus’ Christian moment.” her time on Capitol Hill handcuffed as a member of the counseling clinic; Thousands joined Bachmann around the minority party. Last fall, after Republicans won control of the delivering her steps of the Capitol. House, Bachmann made an unsuccessful bid to join the response to the But the frequency of Bachmann’s leadership team. State of the Union (from left). exposure increases the odds of gaffes. She Rebuffed, she created her own leadership position by has had more than a few including claiming founding and chairing the Tea Party Caucus. In January, she that an Obama trip to India would cost million a day, that irked leaders by offering her own televised response to airstrikes in Libya potentially killed up to ,, and that Obama’s State of the Union address even though Republicans Iran had a secret plan to partition Iraq. had selected Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to give the party’s official So far, the gaffes haven’t stopped Bachmann from gaining in reaction. the polls—seemingly at the expense of Pawlenty. Highlighting Viewing herself in Congress as a “foreign correspondent the importance of the Aug. straw poll in Ames to both behind enemy lines,” Bachmann tries to use her lack of candidates, Pawlenty and Bachmann ended July locked in an legislative accomplishments as a strength during her speeches: intensifying verbal battle. Bachmann on July argued that “What I have tried fervently to do is to bring a different voice to Pawlenty’s time as governor led to a multibillion-dollar deficit Washington and to the halls of Congress that hasn’t been heard in Minnesota: “Executive experience is not an asset if it simply for very long,” she said. means bigger and more intrusive government,” she said. This preference for an outside over an inside political game Pawlenty came back a day later by shedding his Minnesota is the same tactic Bachmann used as a member of the Nice persona and saying that Bachmann has a history of Minnesota Senate. The Minnesota Family Council’s Tom “saying things that are off the mark.” Prichard remembers getting a call from Bachmann soon after Pawlenty supporters believe he will persist. Steve Sviggum, the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that state’s ban on the former House speaker, said Pawlenty same-sex marriage unconstitutional in installed a bubble hockey game in the . basement of the governor’s mansion “She said if this could happen in where he successfully took on three oppoMassachusetts it could happen in Minnesota. nents at a time in late night challenges of She was ready to roll,” Prichard said of the foosball-style game. “I believe in my Bachmann, who pushed for a state constituheart that he will be the last man standtional amendment banning homosexual ing,” Sviggum told me. “He doesn’t have marriages in Minnesota. “I see her as an anything hidden in his closet that will activist who happens to be a legislator.” bring him down in October or November.” Bachmann spoke the language of the Tea Steve Pirkle has his own idea about Party before the Tea Party existed. Without how to solve this Minnesota rivalry. “I’m the rise of the Tea Party it’s doubtful her thinking of maybe a ticket of him and of presidential campaign would exist. And if Bachmann would do,” said the -yearBachmann found her audience in the Tea old photographer from Mason City, Party, she found her ultimate cause in the Iowa, while leaving a Pawlenty event in debate over Obamacare. Clear Lake. But when asked which one Her attacks on the bill, which she called should run at the top of that ticket, the “crown jewel of socialism,” culminated rrr Pirkle shook his head. in an October appearance on Fox News “Oh, I don’t know about that yet.” A when she called on citizens to make a
“What I have tried fervently to do is to bring a different voice to Washington and to the halls of Congress that hasn’t been heard for very long.”
Email: lpitts@worldmag.com
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FATHER of the TEA PARTY For decades RON PAUL has held up the lonely libertarian standard in Congress and the primaries. Now, as his non-interventionist foreign policy ideas gain traction, Paul is entering the presidential fray for a third time r by in Washington r
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elections in . Now central elements of Paul’s noninterventionist foreign policy are resonating too. Polls in recent years find American “isolationist sentiment” is at a -year high. “I do think there is some growth in interest in libertarian ideas— not the word libertarian—but those ideas,” said David Boaz, the executive vice president of the libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute. “If you polled people in Peoria, will have heard of the word, and of those, five people would be libertarian.” The New York Times statistician Nate Silver reported in June that “libertarian sentiments” have risen steadily since and are at their highest point since polling began in . Still, Paul is an outlier in most presidential polls (though he regularly wins straw polls at places like the Republican Leadership Conference and ). After breaking fundraising records in , Paul’s fundraising numbers have been good again: In the last quarter, he raised . million, better than the same quarter in , when he raised . million. His fundraising is second in the Republican field to frontrunner Mitt Romney, who raised . million. President Barack Obama raised million. At the New Hampshire presidential debate in June, Paul received cheers
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R C Ben Bernanke almost suppressed a grin at a House Financial Services Committee hearing in mid-July when a lawmaker noted Rep. Ron Paul’s plan to retire after he finishes this term—but the smile spread to both ends of the chairman’s face. The Texas Republican congressman, who is retiring to focus on his presidential run, would like to abolish Bernanke’s agency and return the United States to the gold standard. “Someone had told me that announcement would put a smile on Chairman Bernanke’s face,” Paul said, laughing giddily. Then he assailed Bernanke about the rising cost of living and the Federal Reserve’s injections of cash into the economy—and the chairman’s smiling face changed to a furrowed brow. The gold standard may sound antiquated, but Paul strikes a nerve when he talks about the weak dollar: He said if Bernanke “talked to the average housewife,” she would tell the chairman that prices are rising rapidly, even if the Federal Reserve isn’t worried over inflation. Hanging on a wall in Paul’s congressional office are framed German marks from the autumn of , when hyperinflation raged across Germany. A million mark note in September bought a loaf of bread, and by October, Germans needed the million mark note framed below for the same loaf of bread. Surrounding the frame with the old German marks are pictures of Paul’s five children, grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. The “average housewife” may be more inclined toward libertarian ideas than in the past. Paul is considered the father of the Tea Party movement, which upended the midterm WORLD AUGUST 13, 2011
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when the moderator asked him about bringing troops out of Afghanistan: “I’d bring them home as quickly as possible. And I would get them out of Iraq as well. And I wouldn’t start a war in Libya. I’d quit bombing Yemen. And I’d quit bombing Pakistan. I’d start taking care of people here at home because we could save hundreds of billions of dollars.” Military personnel contributed more to Paul in than to any other Republican candidate, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Paul supports international commerce and trade but opposes all wars, unless they what he considers defensive. He would cut all U.S. governmental aid to Pakistan, to Israel, and to the nations in Africa where the United States has made big investments in addressing the / epidemic. He argues that Christians in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq, are worse off due to U.S. intervention there:
The Pauls are a family of politicians and physicians: Ron Paul and three of his children, including Rand, are physicians and two grandchildren attend medical school now. The senior Paul grew up a Lutheran, but his wife Carol is Episcopalian, and they baptized their five children in that church. He became a Baptist later in life, but his office declined to comment on whether he is a member of a particular church. On his desk sits a picture of his family, with Philippians : over it: “I thank my God every time I remember you.” His son Rand (short for Randal, not named for Ayn Rand) said they were raised to believe that “the individual and family can conquer most problems.” The congressman elaborated. “The parable of the lost sheep—the , and the one—the one was the interest of the story,” Paul said. “I think that [the Bible] really supports—it at least doesn’t contradict my political
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beliefs at all. If you’re responsible for your “Christians have lived LIBERTARIAN LEADER: own salvation and I can’t give it to you— there since the time of Christ. They survived. Paul and his wife, Carol; in Washington in ; at the Village nobody can give it to you, they can’t legislate And yet the one consequence of this war is Deli and Country Store in New it—why shouldn’t the rest of your responsibilthat Christians have had to become refugees Hampshire June ; with son ities be yours?” and actually leave Iraq.” Rand; greeting supporters at a In the next second, though, Paul was Paul’s views are formed from home—he campaign stop (from left to right). talking about the power of the group: “Our “rarely travels overseas,” said his concountry was really built—whether it was the schools or our gressional spokeswoman. He never goes on congressional hospitals—most of them were started by the churches.” On his delegations abroad—those cost taxpayers money. His son Sen. bookshelf in his office, he has several Bibles and How Now Shall Rand Paul, R-Ky., said as a family they stayed close to home We Live? by Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey, along with when he was growing up because his father was always travelMerck’s Manual of Medical Information, books on Ayn Rand ing back and forth to Washington. “Being at home sort of was a and Ludwig von Mises, a book on just war theory called Neovacation,” the senator said. Conned!, and Marijuana, the Forbidden Medication. Paul arrived in his congressional office one late morning Marijuana should be legal, according to Paul, along with chipper, even though the -year-old had already been up heroin, prostitution, and unpasteurized milk: Paul always since dawn. “Sometimes I feel like, Why am I doing all of seems to push further than typical voters will accept. Paul has this?” he said, coming into his office and grabbing a water botsaid the United States reaped / because of the country’s tle. “I don’t need to be this busy. But then if I had nothing to involvement in the Middle East. He did not join the rest of do, I wouldn’t be very happy either. I’d go about two days and Washington in hailing the assassination of Osama bin Laden: then wonder, what am I doing next?” A track star in high Although in he voted for assassination as a tactic for school, Paul walks several miles daily and bikes whenever he responding to /, he didn’t think this was the time to stir up can, so his eyes are bright. Paul has been in Congress over the resentment in Pakistan with a covert raid: “The Pakistani course of the last years (taking a break from to ), people now are furious with us for just marching in and and this is his third presidential run after running in as a embarrassing them.” Paul says U.S. forces should have Libertarian and in as a Republican. WORLD AUGUST 13, 2011
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Reclaiming an idea
Republican candidate RICK SANTORUM says his mission is to remind Americans about their country’s first principles by
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WORLD has frequently covered one presidential candidate, Rick Santorum. (See cover profile, April , , and interview, Oct. , .) In a recent conversation I asked the former Pennsylvania senator to describe what his campaign is trying to convey. Please complete this sentence: Our mission is ___________. To reclaim America’s first principles and apply those to the issues we have in hand. To reclaim those principles because we are very much at risk of losing them. What’s the story on which you want to campaign? To remind Americans who we are. We’ve forgotten how great this country is, how unique this country is. It’s a story that resonates. America is not a country that is an ethnicity. It’s not like France, or Italy, or Bulgaria. It’s an idea. America to hold together has to emphasize a common set of values and ideas. We haven’t had anybody who is willing to go out, paint that picture, and say, “Come join us as Americans. Come reclaim our birthright.” What’s the story you’d like to tell about your leadership as compared to that of all the other candidates out there? In Washington, D.C., I was not afraid to go out and lead on issues that were of great consequence and moral consequence to the country. I was able to connect with people on the partial-birth abortion bill and on marriage. I’ve been willing to lead on issues and find -some votes in the Senate. When you appear on college campuses, what message are you trying to convey about Islam? I lay out, as controversial as it is, the roots of Islam and the roots of Christianity and how they are antithetical to each other. I explain that the jihadists don’t hate America for what we do: They hate us because of who we are, because we are foundationally different than them. They believe it is their obligation to defeat us for our own good. The most common refrain from students is, “I’ve never heard that before.” Media liberals continue to argue that conservatives are selfish and don’t care about the poor. How do you fight that image? Our obligation as free people is to serve God, country, and neighbor. It’s not a selfish freedom. It’s not about making money so I can have all these material things. It’s making money so I have the ability to care for those I love. That’s a very important message that is lost, and I think lost among Republicans. We forget what economics really is all about. How do you assess our process for choosing a president? The beautiful thing about the way our Republican and Democratic national committees have laid out the caucuses and primaries is that they start with a little state like Iowa, a little state like New Hampshire, a slightly bigger state like South Carolina, and another little state, Nevada—two caucuses, two primaries, four different regions of the country, all manageable states to get around and, as a retail politician, get exposed to real people who want to meet you four, five or six times as they measure you. It’s not just the positions you hold, but it’s the character you have, the way you carry yourself—all of these things that go into who a leader should be.
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after a Las Vegas speech in and asked why he wouldn’t “come out about the truth about /,” Paul responded that he had “too much to do” to get involved in the controversy. Lew Rockwell, a friend of Paul’s who heads the Ludwig von Mises Institute, which Paul helped start, is another associate with a pessimistic outlook on American government. Rockwell was Paul’s chief of staff in the late s and early s and wrote the introduction to Paul’s book on foreign policy. In a July blog post on his website, lewrockwell.com, Rockwell described government as the “greatest killing, torturing, and looting machine on earth.” The U.S. Constitution, he wrote, grew the government into “the monstrosity we have today.” Cato vice president Boaz, who has known Paul personally for years, said, “I’ve never heard him say anything questioning whether the federal government was behind /, but I do think he is too indiscriminate in his associations . . . he should have been more careful over the years.” Paul responded later: “David’s a friend of mine,” but added that he is “probably a more liberal libertarian.” Paul isn’t friends with the Republican power players in Washington. He’s friends with other outsiders, people like Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, who shares his anti-war views, and whose far-left views put him on the fringes of the Democratic Party. Paul’s base is also diverse—potheads, homeschoolers, anti-war activists, and some evangelicals. An obstetrician-gynecologist who has delivered thousands of babies over the course of his career, he has a pro-life following too. “Ever since evangelicals have re-entered the political fray back in the s, we’ve had a difficult time with accepting its terms as the ‘art of the possible,’ or the inherent compromises and settling for thegood-over-against-the-best nature of things,” said Jay Green, professor of history at Covenant College. “Paul is attractive to various libertarians and evangelicals because he is pure and seemingly unsullied by the dirty compromises that politics asks us to make.” When I asked Paul why he wouldn’t make a compromise, even if it was pragmatic, he said, “No reason you have to. We don’t think about doing that on our religious values.” He acknowledges: “Ultimately the only thing that counts is what the people endorse, what they think the role of government ought to be.” A
“I think that [the Bible] really supports—it at least doesn’t contradict my political beliefs at all. If you’re responsible for your own salvation and I can’t give it to you—nobody can give it to you, they can’t legislate it—why shouldn’t the rest of your responsibilities be yours?”
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BILL CLARK/ROLL CALL/GETTY IMAGES
captured bin Laden instead of killing him. “I think maybe talking to him wouldn’t have hurt anything,” he said. “We talked to [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the / attacks], we could have talked to [bin Laden] and gotten some information from him.” That was the last straw for one Ron Paul supporter from the campaign. Thomas Prettyman, a former Marine now living in Chattanooga, Tenn., said, “I’ve never agreed with all of Ron Paul’s views (abolishing the Federal Reserve, zero intervention abroad), but I’ve always thought he was the best candidate regardless, because you knew what you were getting.” Paul’s opposition to the covert raid in Pakistan lost him Prettyman’s support: “This guy would’ve told King David not to take the consecrated bread.” Paul’s associations could alienate voters too. In Paul endorsed his friend, Chuck Baldwin, a pastor who ran as the Constitution Party’s candidate, for president after Paul lost the Republican primary. Baldwin suggested in a column, “Praise for Lee and Jackson,” which discusses the “War of Northern Aggression,” that because of the ever-expanding federal government, “secession may, once again, be in order.” He has also questioned whether the federal government was involved in /. “I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t there,” Baldwin told me. “But I do know that there are scores and scores of victims’ families that are convinced they have not been told the complete truth as to what happened. There is enough circumstantial evidence, if you please, to warrant a thorough independent investigation.” I asked Paul about endorsing a candidate like Baldwin, who is calling for an investigation into /. He laughed congenially: “Oh, just because someone has a different opinion than mine? I talk to a lot of people who have a disagreement or opinion on something. No, Chuck Baldwin I like very much, but we have some disagreements on the issues. He’s very good on monetary policy and the entitlement system.” During a presidential debate in South Carolina, the moderator asked Paul whether he would repudiate the / truthers: “I can’t tell people what to do but I’ve abandoned those viewpoints and I don’t believe that, so that’s the only thing that’s important,” he said. At other times Paul has been more wiggly: When a woman approached him
Email: ebelz@worldmag.com
7/27/11 9:06 AM
California Baptist University
You were created for a purpose. Do you know what it is? Are you living it? For more than 60 years, California Baptist University has been helping students understand and engage their purpose by providing a Christ-centered educational experience that integrates academics with spiritual and social development opportunities. If you are looking for a life-changing college experience that will provide the path for you to live your purpose, find out more about CBU today.
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live your purpose | www.calbaptist.edu
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ETAL FFETAL AATTRACTION TTRACTIIOON Aborted babies provide the vast majority of fetal tissue used in American medical research. Demand is high, competition for the tissue is strong, and oversight may be taking a back seat
NOAH BERGER
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H. Ronald Zielke is a bank director. His institution collected $1.4 million in federal funds last year—but inside, you won’t find money. You’ll find human tissue. Zielke’s bank is the Brain and Tissue Bank for Developmental Disorders, hosted by the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Each year it distributes some 3,000 tissue samples to researchers, collected from donors (average age: 20 to 40 years old) with neurological disorders ranging from autism to Down syndrome to Parkinson’s disease. The donors’ cellular material will aid researchers looking for treatments for such diseases. According to the bank’s 234-page “Catalog of Available Tissue,” updated July 1, it also stores tissue from hundreds of fetuses, including those with chromosomal disorders, anencephaly (a brain malformation)—and many with no disorders at all, marked as “control” tissue and spanning ages 10 to 39 weeks. I wanted to learn what scientists do with fetal tissue, and where they get it, so I called the bank director. The funny thing was, Zielke didn’t seem to know much about the source of fetal tissue. He thought researchers occasionally acquired fetal remains directly from “some service that does terminations,” such as clinics and hospitals with whom they had private agreements—but “this isn’t something that is generally known.” When I asked Zielke if his bank distinguished between fetal tissue derived from abortions or miscarriages, he changed the subject: “There are very strict federal guidelines about how tissue can be collected,” he said, and alluded to the filing of consent forms. These types of questions, he insisted, were outside his expertise. Federal and some state laws permit fetal tissue research, and although some regulation of the practice exists, there appear to be gaps in oversight. Few have firsthand knowledge of the secretive networks that procure the tissue, and no central agency or organization tracks them. But an uncomfortable reality is clear: The overwhelming majority of fetal tissue used for research in the United States is obtained from aborted babies.
n NoAh Berger
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ederal law prohibits the sale of fetal tissue for profit but allows “reasonable payments associated with the transportation, implantation, processing, preservation, quality control, or storage of human fetal tissue.” Such transactions were last in the media spotlight over a decade ago, when the pro-life organization Life Dynamics paid the employee of a fetal tissue collection organization to turn over evidence of legally questionable practices. (world reported the news in October 1999 and April 2000.) Life Dynamics uncovered confidential order forms and price lists showing that scientists at pharmaceutical companies and universities were ordering fetal parts— brains, limbs, and organs—from procurement groups that collected the tissue directly from abortion clinics. Life Dynamics said that one procurement group, the Maryland-based Anatomic Gift Foundation (aGF), made
between $12,000 and $18,000 in profit during a single month. Lawmakers called for a congressional hearing in March 2000, but when key witnesses failed to appear, and another witness proved unreliable, the matter stagnated and legislators dropped it. An Fbi investigation later declared it had found no illegal activity. Public attention was powerful, though: aGF dropped its fetal tissue business, and today the organization only accepts donors who are at least 18 years old. Two of the largest tissue suppliers in the country, who handled fetal tissue into the 1990s have also washed their hands of the trade. But that doesn’t mean the practice has ceased. An assessment published in 1995 in The Journal of the American Medical Association concluded that fetuses obtained from miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies were a “quite limited” source for fetal tissue, while another study published in Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research in 2001, the authors noted that out of 37 donated fetuses they used for their research, 33 had come from elective abortions. According to other journal articles, very little tissue comes from fetuses dying natural deaths. To learn firsthand how tissue makes its way to research labs, I reached by phone the executive director of an abortion clinic that allows women to donate their fetuses. Jennifer Boulanger of the Allentown Women’s Center in Allentown, Pa., said her clinic supplies tissue to the University of Washington. She said her clinic is not paid for the donations, but the university provides her staff with the supplies needed to collect and ship the specimens. In order to abide by state law, the clinic’s workers don’t tell women about the donation program until after they have made the decision to abort. Boulanger explained that although women must be a certain number of weeks along in their pregnancies to qualify for the program, “I would say the majority of those who are eligible choose to donate.” To ensure tissue freshness, “the specimens are FedExed overnight” to Seattle, she said. Boulanger didn’t have at hand the number of specimens her clinic provides annually, but she estimated, “I don’t think it’s any more than 10 a week.” The recipient, named misleadingly the Birth Defects Research Laboratory at the University of Washington in Seattle, has been sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (nih) for over four decades. It’s known within the research community as a top government distributor of fetal tissue. Last year the Puget Sound Business Journal stated the lab “in 2009 filled more than 4,400 requests for fetal tissue and cell lines.” The lab’s grant records indicate it received $579,091 from the nih last year. To date, it has retrieved the products of 22,000 pregnancies. According to a description the lab provided in its most recent grant applications, an increase in nonsurgical abortion methods has “created new obstacles to obtaining sufficient amounts of high quality tissue. To overcome these problems and meet August 13, 2011
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increasing demand, the Laboratory has developed new relationships with both local and distant clinics.” Demand indeed. It’s 2,770 miles from Allentown to Seattle, if you take the toll roads.
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lab), but others had arrangements with hospitals and private clinics. In 2006 a medical journal reported that the availability of all human tissues had declined due to rising procurement costs, and noted that pharmaceutical companies “now compete with academic research centers for tissues.” Fetal remains also are in demand in Britain, where, similar to the United States, no formal stats on donations are kept. In a survey published three years ago, Julie Kent, a professor from the University of the West of England, found some surprising practices: At least one abortion clinic altered its termination method in order to preserve specimens, extracting the fetus with a syringe instead of a vacuum to avoid macerating the tissue. In another case, a clinic collected cells during the abortion procedure “by inserting a cannula into the woman’s uterus and the fetal heart,” which, the clinical scientist involved admitted, “may hasten its death.” According to the most recent review of state law (in 2008) by the National Conference of State Legislatures, many U.S. states specifically prohibit such procedures on live fetuses. Other states don’t address the subject. States vary widely in how they regulate fetal tissue research and donation, and some states apparently have no restrictions at all. Email: ddevine@worldmag.com
7/27/11 9:51 AM
CorBett: mAtt rourke/Ap • deIsher: hANdout
COLD COMMERCE: A technician at tissue Banks International’s san rafael, Calif., facility processes donated tissue.
NoAh Berger/Ap
ro-life scientists don’t necessarily have a problem using fetal tissue for research. A position statement from the Christian Medical & Dental Association declares, “cMDA does not oppose the use of the tissues of spontaneously aborted, nonviable fetuses, with parental consent, for research or transplantation.” The problem is when tissue comes from elective abortions, and there the rules become difficult to follow. In 1992 President George H.W. Bush attempted to establish tissue banks using only tissue from miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies, but the Clinton administration abandoned that approach the following year. Clinton also reversed a Reaganera moratorium on funding for “therapeutic” fetal tissue transplantation that aim to cure diseases. The policy has not changed since. Aborted fetuses may be used for therapeutic purposes as long as the tissue is freely donated by women following their decision to terminate. From 1993 to 2009, according to the most recently filed reports WorlD obtained, the niH granted $14.8 million for therapeutic research. Two major projects included trials in which doctors transplanted brain tissue from aborted fetuses into the brains of Parkinson’s disease patients. The experiments were largely unsuccessful—in fact, some patients’ condition grew worse after treatment. Therapeutic funding exceeded $1 million a year from 1994 to 2001, but declined sharply thereafter, when the results of the Parkinson’s trials became known. Institutions that receive funding are expected to police themselves and assure the government they will abide by federal and state laws. During one of the Parkinson’s trials, conducted at the University of Colorado, the Department of Health and Human Services learned that a woman who donated fetal tissue to the project hadn’t been properly informed of the medical or privacy risks of donation, contrary to federal law. According to a 2002 determination letter, the university cooperated in resolving the problem. The same strict requirements of informed consent don’t necessarily apply to nontherapeutic research, however. And the niH spends much more for nontherapeutic purposes: Added to therapeutic spending, the agency granted $182 million for 404 “human fetal tissue” projects between 2008 and 2010 alone. The projects studied HiV, stem cells, eye diseases, and other issues, sometimes with the help of tissue from donated fetuses—but not always: One project labeled “human fetal tissue” simply studied the safety of a drug on infants in Botswana who had been exposed to HiV in the womb. According to a government audit back in 2000, niHsupported researchers were acquiring about 4,000 fetal tissue samples a year at the time, sometimes paying a fee. Many ordered tissue from central supply organizations (including Zielke’s bank and the University of Washington’s birth defects
Pennsylvania’s fetal donation law requires the woman to sign a consent form and mandates that anyone who handles the tissue be informed whether it came from a miscarriage, abortion, or some other origin. But the state has exercised lax oversight of abortion laws in recent years. Investigations last year resulted in the closure of three filthy, Philadelphia-area abortion clinics—including one run by Kermit Gosnell, who was charged with murder last January for delivering live babies and then killing them. In response, Republican governor Tom Corbett, who took office in January, committed to resuming long-neglected clinic inspections. Corbett also fired Pennsylvania Department of Health employees who had turned a blind eye to clinic problems. A spokeswoman told me by email the Health Department was not aware of any violations of the state’s fetal tissue laws within the past years—but noted that the new administration was reviewing all compliance matters.
NOAH BERGER/AP
CORBETT: MATT ROURKE/AP • DEISHER: HANDOUT
T
‘‘So, what’s the argument? ‘Oh, you’re going to abort them anyway—you might as well make good use of the tissue.’ . . . What a terrible thing, to exploit those young women in such a vulnerable period.’’ — .
A. D, a scientist specializing in adult stem cells, told me stem-cell lines from aborted fetuses have been used to create cosmetic products and several common vaccines, including chickenpox vaccines: “I know the most terrific abusers of the products of abortion are academic scientists, across the board.” The nonprofit group that Deisher founded in , Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute, stands in Seattle as a sort of rebuttal to the University of Washington’s birth defects lab. “Its mission is to educate people about the pervasive use of morally illicit material in the biomedical industry” and other industries, she said. Some, like Peg Johnston, a manager for a clinic that performs abortions in Vestal, N.Y., and chair of the Abortion Care Network, thinks that allowing women to donate their fetal tissue is both moral and compassionate. “I can tell you women do ask about it and feel that something good can come out of a difficult situation,” she told me, although she said her clinic does not currently have a donation program. “So, what’s the argument? ‘Oh, you’re going to abort them anyway— you might as well make good use of the tissue.’ Well, that doesn’t justify anything,” Deisher responds. With state regulation of fetal donation spotty, Deisher fears that young women facing unplanned pregnancies may be enticed to abort with the promise that “great medical advances” will come from their fetuses: “What a terrible thing, to exploit those young women in such a vulnerable period.” But as long as fetal tissue is in demand and sparsely regulated, they’ll continue to be solicited. A AUGUST 13, 2011
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‘THINGS A DAD WOULD DO’
’ , , by JAMIE DEAN in Fresno, Calif.
When David Maravilla
gives a tour of his former neighborhood, he points to grim landmarks: “I had my first drug overdose right over there.” Motioning across the street, he adds: “I had my second one there.” Maravilla remembers the day that a counselor from a local ministry approached him in a backyard full of gang members, drugs, and guns. He offered to help Maravilla find a job and gave him a card bearing the ministry’s name: Hope Now for Youth. Maravilla says he threw the card and scoffed: “Man, there ain’t no hope here.” After serving more than three years in the California Youth Authority (a state jail for youth), Maravilla tired of gangs and crime. Christian counselors at Hope Now helped Maravilla find a job. On June , at a busy street corner near Fresno’s juvenile detention center, I watched Maravilla spot two teenage boys buying drugs from a local dealer on a weekday morning. He hopped out of the van—and extended a Hope Now for Youth card. The boys said they knew about the ministry but didn’t want to start the program now. Maravilla, today a Hope Now staff member, offered a sober warning: “Right now is your chance.”
The Hope Now ministry flowed from a desire to give chances to Fresno youth languishing in a culture of gangs and crime: After the Los Angeles race riots in , Roger Minassian, a Fresno pastor, met with local ministers to discuss the gang violence afflicting their city. A year later Minassian started Hope Now with a simple idea: Offer gang members decent jobs and consistent relationships with Christian men. The hope: Meaningful work and a Christian foundation would change their lives. More than years later, Hope Now reports that it has placed over , at-risk young men into first-time jobs and helped many break a cycle of poverty and crime that often goes back generations.
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Now, at a borrowed build“RIGHT NOW IS YOUR CHANCE”: David Maravilla (right and above) ing with a few meeting walks through a neighborhood rooms and a garage near with Hope Now participants. downtown Fresno, a staff of seven men oversees Hope Now’s efforts: The program targets at-risk men (ages -) ensnared in gangs or crime, and also helps young men with gang members in their immediate family. The requirements are simple: Attend Bible studies and classes on subjects like job skills, money management, marriage, and parenting. Complete odd jobs (like landscaping or cleaning) that the ministry provides to help build a work ethic and provide needed cash. Throughout the process, counselors like Maravilla help guide clients and provide one-on-one counseling. When a young man completes the program, often within a month, he must attend a practice job interview with a staffer and pass a drug test if he’s admitted using drugs within the last few weeks. Hope Now then connects him with an employer willing to offer opportunities to gang members, some with serious criminal records. Most have never held a legitimate job. When clients enter the program, Hope Now staffers know the challenges: Some may not make it on the first try, and some might not make it at all.
Photography by JAMES ALLEN WALKER
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Anthony Lopez
did not cut ties with gangs and crime during his first try with Hope Now. Lopez says his father wasn’t around, his mother suffered from a drug addiction, and his neighborhood was “total chaos. It’s like a Third World country.” Still, it was his choice to commit the crime for which he served time—for assault, but he also returned to Hope Now. This time, Lopez had new motivation: two children and a newfound faith in Christ: “The program taught me about Jesus, it taught me about a family ethic, and it taught me how to be a working man.” I visited him in the offices of Fresno Dental Surgery Center: Clad in blue scrubs, black sneakers, and latex gloves, Lopez carefully disassembled instruments and painstakingly sterilized tools for dental surgeries at the clinic, which serves children from low-income families. On some days he helps prepare for surgeries. It’s a serious job that requires a serious commitment. “I never thought I’d have a job like this,” says Lopez. “People still can’t believe I do this.” Vickie Kasprzyk, the clinic’s owner, can. She hired Lopez and another Hope Now graduate despite their past troubles because she wants to offer them a chance: “No one else is going to give them a leg up if we don’t start somewhere.” She says Lopez has performed beautifully since taking the job in January.
“THE PROGRAM TAUGHT ME ABOUT JESUS, IT TAUGHT ME ABOUT A FAMILY ETHIC, AND IT TAUGHT ME HOW TO BE A WORKING MAN.” —Anthony Lopez
“I’VE HAD A HUGE SECOND CHANCE, AND THAT’S WHY I CARE ABOUT THESE GUYS.” —Matthew Messer
long Trail-Gear warehouse table, making sure components for car kits are in the proper place. Messer calls Martinez “steady Eddie,” saying he shows up on time and works hard. Martinez company that makes components for off-road, recreational is proud that in his seven months on the job he hasn’t missed a vehicles, was wary when Hope Now staffers asked him to day. consider hiring former gang members in : “I want people Martinez—once involved with gang members and drugs— to feel safe, and I don’t want drama.” says the Hope Now program taught But Messer’s own past difficulties him how to manage his money and inspired him to help: He battled a work with people. After graduation, he severe drug addiction in his youth, and first worked for the sanitation departnarrowly survived a major cocaine ment of the City of Fresno (an overdose. The Christian businessman LOCATION: Fresno, Calif. employer that regularly hires Hope has been clean and sober since : Now graduates). When Martinez did “God spared my life. . . . I’ve had a SIZE: Seven full-time employees; well, he says Hope Now staffer Bill huge second chance, and that’s why I , at-risk young men placed in firstMurray helped him find better positions: care about these guys.” time jobs since “Every job they give me, I try to give it In a warehouse nearby, Hope Now EXPENSES: , last year (all percent, every time.” graduate Eddie Martinez stood over a funded privately)
Matthew Messer, owner of Trail-Gear, a Fresno
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WEBSITE: hopenowforyouth.org
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DUARTES: HANDOUT
HOPE NOW FOR YOUTH
LOVE INC
- About this time two years ago, Steven and Monique Duarte’s checking account had a single digit balance: . By that year’s end, their marriage was also depleted: The couple decided to tell their two daughters after Christmas that they were divorcing. Their problems were substantial: They faced medical bankruptcies, mounting tax bills, piles of debt, and a foreclosure notice on their home. Steven was unemployed and battling alcoholism. Monique compulsively shopped. Conflicts raged, she says: “I just couldn’t see the light.” Two years later, the darkness has lifted: On a Thursday night in July at a packed church in Nampa, Idaho, the couple told clients and volunteers from Love INC of Treasure Valley how the local ministry helped them: Through financial counseling and practical assistance with items like groceries, clothing, and school supplies, the couple avoided foreclosure and paid off more than , in debt. Through marriage counseling, the couple is still married and “better than ever,” says Monique: “How blessed am I?” Lois Tupyi, executive director of Love INC (an acronym for “in the name of Christ”), says helping couples like the Duartes takes more than just providing material or financial assistance: “If we look at the need but don’t look at the person, we imprison them in these situations.”
The Nampa chapter of Love INC is one of independent affiliates in states aiming to help local churches meet local needs. In Nampa, that means maintaining a network of some , volunteers from area churches willing to help with dozens of ministries: Some work at the ministry’s thrift store; others process donations of clothing, furniture, and household items; and some visit the elderly or disabled in their homes. Other volunteers maintain ministries at their churches like clothing closets, auto repair days, and tutoring for children. But when a local resident calls Love INC’s office for material assistance, help isn’t automatic. A handful of volunteers sit at cubicles answering phones and using an extensive intake form to ask callers questions: Why do they need help? Are other agencies helping them? Do they have
DUARTES: HANDOUT
Hope Now executive director
Roger Feenstra says cultivating relationships with men like Martinez is key: Feenstra has found that giving an “at-risk” man a job without giving him help to succeed often leads to failure. The pastor and former president of a Christian bookstore chain admits that he didn’t know much about gang members when he came to Hope Now, but he quickly learned:
a family? Are they members of a church? Are they working? Do they collect government assistance? Tupyi says the information helps the ministry determine how they can help address the underlying causes of clients’ financial needs. After volunteers and staffers process applications, they refer clients to one of the local ministries connected with church volunteers. If callers won’t answer questions, they aren’t eligible for assistance, says Tupyi: “It often takes saying ‘no’ to a felt need to move them to a greater need.” The ministry addresses greater needs through community classes on topics like finances, job training, life skills, family life, and nutrition. A more intense relational program—completed by clients like the Duartes—connects couples or individuals with serious financial problems to a volunteer financial counselor. The clients (usually - families each week) surrender their checkbooks, expose all their debt, agree to record all the money they spend, and listen to sound financial advice. Volunteers refer clients struggling with addiction or marriage problems to local Christian counselors. The ministry gives clients material help like weekly groceries and gasoline cards to free up cash needed to pay off debt. The results are dramatic: Love INC reports that families have paid off . million in debt since . Monique Duartes says the encouragement and accountability saved her family and her finances. And she says their financial records have an addition she still can’t believe: “Our checking account has a comma in it.” —J.D.
“You relate to them like any other person. They need love and respect.” Feenstra says his staffers offer encouragement, accountability, and help with simple steps like getting a Social Security card, learning how to drive, tying a tie, and filling out a job application: “We do things a dad would do.” Murray—the vocational counselor—says a Christian man’s friendship is sometimes overwhelming to clients without fathers: “You tell them that you’re proud of them and they just melt.” Though the program doesn’t require that clients embrace Christianity, biblical teaching is foundational. (A few staffers AUGUST 13, 2011
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have helped start a church that some clients attend.) On a recent weekday afternoon, staffer Bryce Naylor told the men gathered for a required Bible study: “We wouldn’t be doing you any favors if we just gave you a job and didn’t tell you about Jesus.” After reading a passage from the book of Matthew, Naylor explained that true faith brings true repentance: “A true and lasting change only comes through Jesus Christ.” Not all the men make a lasting change, and some of the clients face huge obstacles. Rocky Gonzales, and finishing his fourth week of the program, lives with his sister and has a pregnant girlfriend. He went to jail at age , serving an eight-year sentence for a drive-by shooting. He says his family members—including his parents—were drug addicts, and that he committed the crime to fit in with a gang. He says he’s never been on a job interview. He doesn’t have work experience. But Gonzales hopes to get a job, despite his record: “Sometimes I get stuck, but I know a lot. . . . I feel like if people knew who I really am they would feel differently about me.” Staffers will help him prepare for interviews. We now have four finalists for the Hope Award for Effective Compassion: from with some longthe East, Bowery Women’s time program gradMission Center, New York City; uates like Oscar from the South, Challenge Rodriguez, . He House, Hopkinsville, Ky.; from says he never read the Midwest, Victory Trade the Bible growing School, Springfield, Mo.; from up, but felt his purthe West, Hope Now for Youth, pose was “to steal, Fresno, Calif. kill, and destroy.” For profiles, videos, and He joined a gang early: additional photos of all four “The street became my finalists, and to register to family.” At age he was attend Awards Night in stealing cars to sell to chop Houston on Oct. , please go shops for . Soon, he to worldmag.com/ was using crack and maricompassion. juana. He stole beer from You can help make one of convenience stores and our finalists the national armfuls of clothes from winner by going to that page stores. He sold drugs and and voting for the program survived being “shot, that most appeals to you. stabbed, and beaten.” Online voting begins now and For Rodriguez, the way continues through Sept. . out wasn’t easy: The first You may also register to time a Hope Now staffer attend Awards Night by calling gave him a card, he used it Trina Gould at ... to roll a joint. He eventually completed the program, —Marvin Olasky but still committed
THE FINAL FOUR
I also spoke
crimes: “Just because I got a job I wasn’t healed.” During a fourth prison stint, Rodriguez began thinking about the Hope Now teaching and started reading his Bible. With two weeks left, he told God: “If I get out of here, I’m going to give myself to You. . . . I finally understand that I’m a sinner. I finally understand that my life doesn’t belong to me anymore.” After leaving prison, Rodriguez returned to Hope Now and staffers helped him find work. Seven years later, he is lead custodian for First Presbyterian Church, the church that allows Hope Now to use its adjacent building. Now a husband and a father of five, he says life still isn’t always easy: “I have so many issues. . . . But now I have an issues-solver. I have Christ in my life. I have God who says: ‘Bring Me your problems.’” Rodriguez encourages the other men in the program to let go of regret for years wasted and focus on the time God still gives them: “Even the Bible talks about it: The years that the locusts have eaten will be given back to me.” A
“BRING ME YOUR PROBLEMS”: Hope Now clients John Shelton, John Trujillo, and Carlos Gamez (from left).
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WORKING & LEARNING by JOEL HANNAHS
Alicea dialed the hotline
WORLD AUGUST 13, 2011
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counselors. The sessions work out any issues among the residents early on, and include classes and discussion on everything from disciplining techniques to healthy eating and meal preparation. Each of the residents takes on meal planning and preparation for these evenings for one month at a time, serving to people. Laura has lived there two years and is preparing to transition out on her own. At , she confidently takes on an organizational role within the household, and she is happy with her full-time job at the front desk of a lawyer’s office. She earned her associate’s degree while at the house. She’s considered becoming a paralegal, but her real goal is to become an accountant. To that end, she’s taking a few online college courses. Yet when Laura first moved in she couldn’t quite bring herself to unpack completely, because the stability of her new environment didn’t feel real. “You just have to have trust,” she said. “That’s where the -day probation comes in. That’s more for us.”
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number for pregnancy help, but when a cheerful female voice greeted her, she hung up. Again. Her feelings of misery didn’t match up with the happy voice on the other end, and she couldn’t bring herself to say the words that would seal the upheaval in her young life: “I’m pregnant and I need help.” As she relates the story now, she can smile. In retrospect, it seems like an obvious thing to say. For weeks, she had tried to act as though her -year-old life was unchanged. She went to her job at . She sometimes went to class at Northern Virginia Community College, but the downward spiral of her grades was another reminder. She had to face up to her pregnancy soon. The day she acknowledged her pregnancy was everything she feared. A blunt conversation with her mother, who was concerned the young mother would really expect her to raise the child around her work schedule. Anger from her sister. Suggestions she not keep the baby. A first visit to the doctor. Internet searches and phone calls led her to Borromeo Housing, a faith-based charitable organization in Arlington, Va., that seeks to do more than merely provide a safe haven. It reaches into two lives at a time, mother and child, and attempt to set them on a path to self-sufficiency. The program has a work mandate with an education requirement for a combined total of at least hours, with
goal-setting and parenting classes rounding out the program. Residents are typically to years of age when they arrive, often still in need of a high-school diploma. Some go further: “We had our first four-year graduate last year from Marymount University,” Director Joy Myers said. “She did it.” The home environment includes rules new to the young women, such as being home by p.m., doing household chores, and having no men in the house. Myers, the only full-time staff member, says the program communicates the message to each resident: You are now in a safe place, so focus your time on improving yourself, not on drama. Borromeo, founded in by St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church and now managed by an independent board of directors, typically houses five to eight young women at a time in two locations. No signs mark the little house that blends into the residential neighborhood. It is comfortably furnished and decorated, not cluttered. Borromeo’s other facility includes two two-bedroom apartments, but the organization is considering eventually adding a second house. Holding her -week-old daughter, Alicea is confident she is in the right place. From now on, every Monday and Thursday evening is a group session with the other three young women sharing the house, and variousSLUG: teachers or Caption
Photography by KAREN KASMAUSKI
7/27/11 10:02 AM
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, ’
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SAFE PLACE: A mom prepares for graduation as her daughter watches (above); parenting classes (left); the house (right).
For months during her pregnancy she had moved from house to house, staying with friends. Two weeks after she learned of the existence of Borromeo Housing, she moved in. The residents take part in the decision-making, and they interview each new applicant. “We’re looking for someone who’s motivated,” Laura said. “It’s not just a place to stay.” The goals of the program go beyond giving them a safe place to sleep, so counselors pointedly tell them they have to get beyond a minimum wage job. “That’s not going to get you anywhere,” Myers said. Instead, Borromeo works with them as they set their own goals for educational development and job
progression. Her message has been picked up by the residents. “You can’t be lazy,” Alicea said. Laura, now the one who has been part of the home the longest, helps welcome the next single mom from chaos into calm. Alicea got a recent helping hand from Laura, when Laura picked up her baby and sent the tired new mom to bed for a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. “You don’t get support like that anywhere else,” Alicea said. Stephanie, “extremely relieved” to learn of Borromeo, moved in a few weeks later, now nearly a year ago. She hid the pregnancy from her family for nearly weeks. Pressured to place the baby for adoption, she considered it but thought her connection to her baby too strong: “I felt like that was the only person I had.”
She initially looked into other housing, but Borromeo’s educational opportunities were important to her, since she wanted to be a nurse. Now a licensed Certified Nurse’s Assistant, she’s hoping to eventually work with mothers. Alicea also just earned her license as a Certified Nurse’s Assistant. She is hoping to eventually proceed through college for a biology degree. From the stability of her new home, Alicea can see possibilities: “I’ve always wanted to be a doctor. . . . I like taking care of people.” Sally Keyes, a board member for the charity, said parents of the young women often end up accepting their grandchild and repairing the broken relationship, once they see mother and child settled at Borromeo. Her point garnered nods from the three residents in the room, who all have improving contact with their families. “They come full circle,” Keyes said. A —Joel Hannahs is a Virginia journalist; he used only first names to protect privacy AUGUST 13, 2011
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Notebook
LIFESTYLE TECHNOLOGY SCIENCE HOUSES OF GOD SPORTS MONEY RELIGION
Nursing >> grievances CHRISTINNE MUSCHI/REUTERS/LANDOV
LIFESTYLE: Battles over breastfeeding in public bring controversy to an ageless and tender practice BY SUSAN OLASKY
Email: solasky@worldmag.com
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versus those offended by the sight of a baby suckling in public: Two recent contretemps received attention. In June near Chicago, a storeowner told a mom to stop nursing her baby in a resale shop, or leave. In July in Detroit, Afrykayn Moon, , was nursing her -week-old baby as she boarded a public bus. The female driver told Moon to cover up or get off. Moon told the Detroit Free Press, “‘I had him in a football wrap. . . . She wasn’t seeing much.’” Nonetheless, the driver refused to drive until Moon had finished feeding the baby. Both incidents led to “nurse-ins,” FEEDING FRENZY: sit-in type gatherings of nursing moms Mothers participate outside the place where the confrontain a “nurse-in” at a shopping mall in tion occurred. Their message: You were Montreal to protest embarrassed by the flash of one breast, so an employee who we will humiliate you by flashing dozens. asked a mother not Last year a nurse-in at a Glendale, Ariz., to breastfeed. AUGUST 13, 2011
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Notebook > Lifestyle
Babynamewizard.com is a fascinating place to explore trends in baby names. Website founder Laura Wattenberg wrote recently, “Remember the Freakonomics theory that baby names ‘trickle down’ the economic ladder, as strivers try to emulate the upper classes? I wonder how they’d account for the fact that an unwed pregnant teenager from Chattanooga, Tenn., is America’s top baby name stylemaker.” Wattenberg went on to note that Maci, the name belonging to the reality star of and Pregnant and Teen Mom, was the fastest-rising girl’s baby name in . Her son’s name, Bentley, was the fastest-rising boy’s name. —S.O.
ROMANCE RIVALS Does reading romance fiction make women unhappy in relationships? An article on London’s The Guardian website noted that several female psychologists recently asked that question. Susan Quilliam in the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health wrote that some women read as many as books of that sort a month: “Sometimes t he kindest and wisest thing we can do for our clients is to encourage them to put down the books—and pick up reality.” She also quoted psychologist Juli Slattery: “For many women, these novels really do promote dissatisfaction with their real relationships.” The Guardian story didn’t take the psychologists’ concerns seriously. Instead it quoted at length the defensive and sarcastic reactions of romance writers and readers. The debate even reached Twitter, where crime writer Jason Pinter started the satirical hashtag #romancekills and encouraged the genre’s fans and writers to join in. They responded with tweets blaming romance novels for everything from the Black Death to the sinking of the Titanic. —S.O.
Mara Hvistendahl’s “Where Have All the Girls Gone?” in the June issue of Foreign Policy tells a sad story. After World War II, Western policymakers concerned about overpopulation were stumped over how to get poor women in the developing world to have fewer children. They knew that religious and cultural pressures encouraged women to have children until they had a son. Wouldn’t it be great if science could grant a son right away? No need for all those extra daughters. Since scientists never developed a way to guarantee the gender of a baby pre-conception, they turned their attention to determining the sex of a baby pre-abortion. Hvistendahl, although not pro-life, is honest enough to admit that the legacy left by these population controllers, including Planned Parenthood, has made sex selection abortion more acceptable in places like South Korea and India than it otherwise would be. We now see evils—extreme gender imbalances and sex trafficking— flowing from these policies. —S.O.
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PHISHING: DAVE PILIBOSIAN/ISTOCK
D EAD GIRLS
Maci and Bentley
MACI & BENTLEY: MTV/AP • QUILLIAM: DEBORAH VOS • INDIA: PEDRO UGARTE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
McDonald’s came after a manager asked a breastfeeding mother to leave. This February, parents and babies showed up for a nurse-in at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., after a security guard asked a breastfeeding mother to move to a restroom. All this acrimony is happening at a time of growing social and legal support for breastfeeding. In January, Surgeon General Regina Benjamin issued a “call to action to support breastfeeding,” citing statistics meant to galvanize people to act: About percent of new mothers try to breastfeed. Six months later only percent of moms breastfeed (only percent exclusively). She outlined barriers and highlighted health and economic benefits for families, companies, and the nation. States have passed laws to support breastfeeding. According to the National Council of State Legislatures, states, plus the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands, permit breastfeeding in all public and private locations. Some states also protect breastfeeding from public indecency laws. Others require employers to facilitate breastfeeding at work— as does the new healthcare law. Some local jurisdictions haven’t climbed on board: Forest Park, Ga., recently passed a public indecency ordinance that bans mothers from breastfeeding “anyone older than years old in public,” but it seems to be in the minority. Does breastfeeding show the limits of the law to change behavior? Apparently the law doesn’t give some people the good sense to avert their eyes from a sight they find offensive. Law also doesn’t give some mothers the sense to cover up or turn the other cheek. Mothers have been nursing babies for thousands of years, but leave it to our litigious society to turn one of the most tender and calming human experiences into a field of strife. A
Notebook > Technology
Timeless YouTube Website experiments with much higher time limits for some videos BY ALISSA WILKINSON
>>
YT the home for clips and short videos: music videos, kids singing, cats doing cute things, bloopers, and so on. In , the website raised its lengthper-video limit from minutes to ; a
Don’t get hooked
PHISHING: DAVE PILIBOSIAN/ISTOCK
MACI & BENTLEY: MTV/AP • QUILLIAM: DEBORAH VOS • INDIA: PEDRO UGARTE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
select number of users were granted longer uploads, but nearly all of the site’s million users still were restricted to the shorter length. Those wishing to upload significantly longer video—for instance, a full-length feature film, which generally runs minutes or more—would have to slice the film into segments and upload each individually, then trust that users would keep clicking on the next video. But lately YouTube has been toying with much higher video limits, and in June they increased the limit for some users from minutes to a hefty hours, long enough for all three of the Lord of the Rings movies with a little time left over for intermission. It’s hard to imagine how most people will make use of those hours in a single video. But the initial response was both baffling and hilarious: Popular videos like “Badger Badger,” “Nyan Cat,” and “Epic Sax Guy” appeared in -hour versions in which the short video was simply looped—a lot.
Fishing is fun but “phishing”—spam emails that try to deceive recipients so as to take their personal information by posing as PayPal or a user’s bank —is deadly. How can you avoid being phished? Reputable companies will never request this information through email, so don’t send it. In most email programs, you can see not just the name of the sender, but the address from which an email was sent, and many phishing messages are sent from a domain other than the sender’s domain (such as @paypal.com). Gmail goes a step further and tells you when it suspects that an email is phishing. And if you’re in doubt, don’t send the information or click on the link— check with the sender directly. —A.W. Available in Apple’s App Store: Download ’s iPad app today
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BOARD GAMES Imagine having a bulletin board to which you can pin anything you like, for inspiration or memory preservation: pictures of an event, recipes, books you want to read, clothes you want to purchase, images of places you’d like to go. A new website called Pinterest (pinterest.com) is just like that bulletin board, except on the web. Pinterest users create various categories on their boards and share their finds with friends, then browse other people’s finds. Users can also “like” one another’s finds and can set up the account to cross-post to a Facebook page. Pinterest offers an easy “pin it” bookmarklet for browsers to make it easy to pin anything—like an image or a website—to a board, and the mobile app allows users to take pictures with a smartphone and then pin them directly to Pinterest. The site’s design makes it fun to use, and there are a number of applications: recipe listings, pictures of travel locations, labels from food or drink, books worth reading, and so on. Setting up a Pinterest account is free, but new users will need to request an invite from the site in order to join. —A.W.
AUGUST 13, 2011
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Notebook > Science
Embryonic obsession
some way. And you’re saying to it, ‘Do something different.’” Both ESCs and induced pluripotent stem cells have this While adult stem-cell treatments work wonders overseas, problem—but FitzGerald prefers the U.S. research emphasis remains on embryos the latter cell type because deriving them doesn’t require the BY DANIEL JAMES DEVINE embryo destruction inherent in collection. To people who argue an embryo isn’t sacrosanct G C. the first until it implants in the uterus—a -approved embryonic way of approving research stem cell () therapy last while disapproving abortion— October, in patients with FitzGerald answers that sanctity spinal cord injuries. Now a second company has begun its own clinical doesn’t depend on location: “We send people into outer space. And if we trials. Advanced Cell Technology partnered with a ophthalmolodon’t put them in ships and give them gist to inject the eyes of two legally blind oxygen, they’ll die too. So when they get patients with about , embryonic to outer space, does that mean they’re stem cells apiece on July . no longer human beings?” FitzGerald thinks induced Given the novelty of the technology, pluripotent cells could have though, it’s too early to know whether been reasonable alternatives either company’s trials will avoid to the recent trials, but development of the tumors that said that in terms of cures, therapy sometimes causes—or whether adult stem cells are where the treatments will have any healing reality lies. He pointed to the effect. Geron reports that its spinal cord case of Yankees pitcher treatment has proved safe so far, but hasn’t said whether Bartolo Colon, who received the patients’ conditions improved. LIFE SCIENCE: stem-cell treatment in the Dominican Commenting on the trials, the head of the National Researcher holds Republic last year for a blown-out elbow Institutes of Health, Francis Collins—who is an evangelical a container with and rotator cuff. Colon had been facing Christian and an enthusiastic supporter of research— stem cells; Colon. retirement due to his injuries, but the said the public shouldn’t set its hopes too high: “People surgery, which used Colon’s own stem cells, was so need to be prepared for the fact that in this area, it’s not successful that the pitcher made a hailed comeback this year going to be successful from day one.” and threw a shutout in May. I asked Kevin T. FitzGerald, a Jesuit and associate profes“Interestingly, that research isn’t being pursued [in the sor in the oncology department of Georgetown University United States] as robustly,” FitzGerald said, “because there’s Medical Center, why some stem cells run the risk of forming so much emphasis being put on doing human embryonic tumors. He said manipulating stem cells in a lab can cause stem-cell research.” unexpected changes: “You’re taking a cell and kicking it in
Maximum estimated diameter, in miles, of a new moon found circling Pluto—bringing the dwarf planet’s total number of moons to four.
WORLD AUGUST 13, 2011
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Number of feet the water level in the Dead Sea is dropping each year. Locals blame a heavily tapped Jordon River.
COLON: CHARLES KRUPA/AP • STEM CELLS: SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES • PLUTO MOON: NASA/JPL-CALTECH/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA • DEAD SEA: ODED BALILTY/AP • VESTA: NASA/JPL
BY THE NUMBERS
The length of miles, side to side, of an asteroid named Vesta that ’s Dawn spacecraft will study for the next year. It’s the agency’s first mission orbiting an asteroid belt object. —D.J.D.
Email: ddevine@worldmag.com
7/28/11 9:21 AM
BARRY GUTIERREZ/GENESIS PHOTOS
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BArry gutierrez/genesis photos
Notebook > Houses of God
Lightning strikes above the Abundant
Life Christian Center in Arvada, Colo.
August 13, 2011
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WORLD
69
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Notebook > Sports
Out of the locker
nation. The print, radio, and television outlets that make up appeared especially eager to deliver a few congratulatory backslaps to the miscreant athlete turned social activist. With his views on same-sex marriage, MICHAEL IRVIN blogger Dan Graziano called Irvin’s appearance found a way to be a hero to BY MARK BERGIN in Out “courageous” and “impressive,” and added: “That’s called being a man. Good job, Michael Irvin. Well done.” On ESPN Radio, sports personalities F D C Michael Irvin has and brothers Andy and Bryan Kamenetzky applauded Irvin for a story to tell. It’s a story about womanizing and what they agreed was “a brave act.” And the headline above a cocaine use and repeated run-ins with the law. But it’s SportsCenter clip on the website proclaimed, “Michael also a story about redemption—about taking responsiIrvin champions equality.” This was a redemption story bility, finding Christian faith, and living a very different life. wanted to tell. Irvin tells that story regularly on his daily Miami radio show In fact, the world leader in sports coverage has been with little fanfare. searching for some time for a major sports figure to become a But last month, the Hall-of-Famer found an outlet and an spokesperson for gay activism. When New York Rangers angle to push his story to national prominence. The outlet: forward Sean Avery and former New York Giants star the cover of Out magazine, the world’s leading publiMichael Strahan recently filmed -second comcation on issues pertaining to male homosexuality. mercials in support of efforts to legalize same-sex The angle: Michael Irvin is a recovering homophobe. marriages in the state, devoted full articles In a feature-length article accompanying photos to each athlete. Earlier this summer, a story in of a bare-chested Irvin, the once troubled athlete ESPN The Magazine declared, “It’s time for a gay suggests his long run of social dysfunction may all-star.” And as far back as , ESPN The have stemmed from overcompensation after learnMagazine provided a prominent forum for women’s ing his older brother was gay. It’s an idea Irvin first basketball star Sheryl Swoopes to come out of considered during counseling sessions with Dallas the closet. megachurch pastor T.D. Jakes. “We realized As yet, no active player in maybe some of the issues I’ve had with so one of the country’s four bigmany women—just bringing women gest sports—football, baseball, around so everybody can see— basketball, and hockey—is maybe that’s residual of the fear I openly gay. But that is not had that, if my brother is wearing for lack of effort on the part ladies’ clothes, am I going to be of . doing that? Is it genetic?” Of course, the story of Irvin goes on in the Out magahomosexuality in athletzine article to connect the gay ics is worth covering marriage debate to the civil-rights from a number of struggle of African-Americans: “I angles. As is often the don’t see how any Africancase with social American with any inkling of issues, the sports history can say that you don’t world provides a have the right to live your life public microcosm of how you want to live your life. the full range of posiNo one should be telling you tions on the matter. who you should love; no one Athletes run the gamut should be telling you who you from hostility toward should be spending the rest of homosexuals to respectful your life with. When we start opposition of same-sex martalking about equality and riage to indifference to genial everybody being treated equally, I don’t want to know support of same-sex marriage to an African-American who will caustic gay activism. seems intent on selectively giving say everybody doesn’t deserve voice to only some of those equality.” camps. And that has everything In an instant, Irvin’s story to do with the story the network popped up on every major wants to tell. A sports media channel in the WORLD AUGUST 13, 2011
16 SPORTS and MONEY.indd 70
FREDERICK M. BROWN/GETTY IMAGES
Email: mbergin@worldmag.com
7/28/11 9:43 AM
LEIBOWITZ: DREW ANGERER/AP • BORDERS: JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES • MINKOW: GETTY IMAGES
>>
Notebook > Money
Payback time
Two banks begin making amends for bad bubble-era behavior BY JOSEPH SLIFE
>>
T F T C began sending out checks to , homeowners it said were charged excessive fees by Countrywide Home Loans beginning in . The reimbursements, totaling million, are part of a settlement between Countrywide—now owned by Bank of America—and the . Agency chairman Jon Leibowitz termed Countrywide’s fee charges “unconscionable,” but neither Countrywide nor its now-parent admitted any wrongdoing. “Bank of America agreed to this settlement to
avoid the expense and distraction associated with litigating the case,” spokesman Rick Simon said. In an unrelated action, the Federal Reserve Board tagged Wells Fargo with an million civil penalty over allegations that company employees, from to , exaggerated income information on some mortgage applications and improperly steered some borrowers into higherinterest-rate subprime loans. According to Fed estimates, more
FREDERICK M. BROWN/GETTY IMAGES
LEIBOWITZ: DREW ANGERER/AP • BORDERS: JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES • MINKOW: GETTY IMAGES
FINAL CHAPTER Borders, the bookseller that grew from a single -square-foot used bookshop in Ann Arbor, Mich., in to become the nation’s second-largest bookstore chain, announced that it will shut down all its stores and cease operations. The bankrupt company, unable to find a buyer, said it will begin liquidation of its remaining stores immediately. “Borders has been facing headwinds for quite some time, including a rapidly changing book industry, eReader revolution, and turbulent economy,” Borders Group president Mike Edwards wrote in a letter to the company’s , employees. “We put in a valiant fight, but regrettably in the end we weren’t able to overcome these external forces.” The bookseller, which filed for bankruptcy protection in February, has not turned a profit since . Since then, losses have averaged about million annually. At one time, Borders Group had more than , employees and stores in the United States and overseas. —J.S.
Joseph Slife is the assistant editor of SoundMindInvesting.com
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than , people may be owed money, in amounts ranging from less than , to more than ,. Although Wells Fargo technically didn’t admit wrongdoing, the company’s chief executive John Stumpf issued a statement noting that “the alleged actions committed by a relatively small group of team members are not what we stand for at Wells Fargo.” The Federal Reserve banned former employees of Wells Fargo Financial from being employed in the banking industry again. After last year’s merger with Wachovia, Wells Fargo—now the nation’s fourth-largest bank—shut down its more than Wells Fargo Financial locations.
Back in prison Convicted-felon-turned-fraud-investigator-turned-pastor Barry Minkow is heading back to jail, this time for his role in a stock manipulation scheme. Minkow, who resigned in mid-March as pastor of Community Bible Church in San Diego, was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay million in restitution for distributing false information aimed at driving down the stock price of a Florida homebuilding company. “His hubris is what caused this problem,” Minkow’s attorney Alvin Entin said at the sentencing, quoted by Bloomberg. “His narcissism is what caused this problem.” Minkow, convicted in of counts of fraud and conspiracy, served seven years of a -year sentence. While in prison, he became involved in Christian ministry and studied theology. Upon release, he founded the Fraud Discovery Institute and worked with federal investigators on several cases. The Los Angeles Times reported in early July that leaders of Community Bible Church, where Minkow had served as pastor since , sent a letter to Minkow’s attorney accusing their former pastor of improperly using church funds to finance the Fraud Discovery Institute. So far, no charges have been filed in connection with that allegation. —J.S. AUGUST 13, 2011
WORLD
7/28/11 9:34 AM
Notebook > Religion
Multiple outcomes
The slippery slope predicted by opponents of same-sex marriage is beginning to appear BY TIM DALRYMPLE I
>>
century ago, separatists continue the practice. Sister Wives, which began airing on in , introduced millions of viewers to the family of Kody Brown and his four wives. According to their attorney, polygamy is a “deep-seated religious belief” for the Browns, who merely seek “equal treatment with other citizens in living their lives according to their beliefs.” Mormon polygamists are not alone. Practitioners of modern paganism defend polygamy online, making the same argument that laws against polygamy essentially discriminate against their religious beliefs. And defenders of consanguineous marriage argue that the chances of genetic defects are higher among older parents than they are when cousins reproduce. When laws upholding traditional marriage are seen as “privileging” Christian beliefs, the doors are thrown open to anyone who can argue that his faith blesses marriage in nontraditional forms.
NOT SO FAST
Although Rick Perry is not officially a candidate for the nomination, his faith is coming under scrutiny. The Methodist governor of Texas issued a call for state and national leaders to join him on Aug. —a week before the Iowa straw poll—at Reliant Stadium in Houston. Citing the “global economic downturn,” the “lingering danger of terrorism,” and the “continued debasement of our culture,” Perry has partnered with the
SISTER WIVES: Kody Brown and wives (from the left) Meri, Janelle, Christine, and Robyn speak during press tour. BRIDES: Same-sex couple Amber Weiss (right) and Sharon Papo (left) after their ceremony in San Francisco.
American Family Association for a day of nondenominational, “apolitical” prayer and fasting. Predictably, organizations like the Secular Coalition for America, the Interfaith Alliance, and the Texas Democratic Party condemned the intermixing of faith and politics. The Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a lawsuit asking Texas’ Southern District Court to declare Perry’s association with the event unconstitutional and to prevent him from participating. —T.D.
SISTER WIVES: FREDERICK M. BROWN/GETTY IMAGES • COUPLE: JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES • PERRY: ERIC GAY/AP
W C warned that activists might use the legal argument in favor of same-sex marriage to justify polygamous marriage or consanguineous marriage (marriage of relatives), they were roundly accused of hysteria. But if the traditional vision of marriage as the union of one man and one woman is a specifically Christian model, as same-sex marriage advocates argue, and thus the support of traditional marriage is “forcing Christian beliefs on others,” then the state cannot discriminate against other religious models of marriage without violating freedom of religion. In legalizing only traditional marriages, in other words, the state would be siding with Christians against everyone else on what marriage should mean. Such is the argument now on offer from the Mormon stars of a reality show called Sister Wives (see “Little love,” April , ). Although the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints banned polygamy over a
WORLD AUGUST 13, 2011
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hard to conclude that the Holy Spirit is not referring to -hour calendar days.
South Plainfield, N.J.
“2011 Books Issue” ( ) As a high-school graduate, I am constantly on the lookout for thoughtprovoking, enlightening reading material. ’s annual Books Issue, The arrival of ’s always a highlight of the summer, swelled my “to read” list to unnerving lengths. I couldn’t be happier. , Carlton, Minn.
“What to sing in storms” ( ) I usually read cover to cover but the essay by Ann Voskamp stopped me in my tracks. The line, “that which I refuse to thank Christ for, I refuse to believe Christ can redeem” was convicting. What a great gift and talent she has for addressing key spiritual principles we grapple with every day.
Big Canoe, Ga.
There’s only one downside to your Books Issue: I’m on the other side of and the urgency to read all these wondrous books at my age borders on greed. But I love every review, and have made some choice selections to read this year. . Chelmsford, Mass.
“Books of the year” ( ) The solid insights and accuracy in Marvin Olasky’s description and sidebars on the two “Books of the year” were matched only by the courage to print them. He can expect criticism from both the secular and religious worlds who have for too long been afraid to acknowledge the foundational scriptural truths about origins that theistic evolution can never provide.
symbolic of the fountain of youth made possible by stem cells. Winnetka, Ill.
“A bridge too far” ( ) Tim Keller wrote, “I don’t think the author of Genesis wants us to take the ‘days’ literally, but it is clear that Paul definitely does want readers to take Adam and Eve literally.” The plain reading of Genesis reveals a historical account, and the fact that each day is defined as “the morning and evening” makes it
I was delighted to read the poetic excerpts of Mrs. Voskamp. She has a breathtaking ability to just shout and laugh and whisper the wonder of our Blessed Creator. .
Wahpeton, N.D.
As a farmer who planted his crop in the wettest spring in memory and as a father who buried a stillborn daughter recently, I want to say “Amen” to Voskamp’s essay. Leola, Pa.
Western Shoals, Apra Harbor, Guam / around the world
Oostburg, Wis.
Setting aside Genesis - is not enough to eliminate the claim of creation by a Creator God. All throughout the Bible we read of God’s hand and Word actively involved in creation. This is the basis of who God is and why we need Him.
Eagan, Minn.
Christians can no longer ignore theistic evolution. Science is ready and willing to be “as God” and many Christians are apparently ready to bow. Soon we will see the eternal life Jesus promised described as Send photos and letters to: mailbag@worldmag.com
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AUGUST 13, 2011
WORLD
7/22/11 12:05 PM
Are You Teaching Children Everything They Need to Know about God?
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There should be nothing controversial about Voskamp’s phrase, “The intercourse of soul with God is the very climax of joy.” “Intercourse” means to have dealings with someone, an interchange of thoughts. And “climax” simply means, “the highest or most intense point in the development or resolution of something; culmination.” This is a beautiful description of the wondrous relationship man can have with God.
every part of life. It is important that we understand the sneakiness of the enemy of our Creator. Unfortunately, like Eve, many Christians have been deceived into thinking evolution has validity. We need to understand the premise behind it: Man is just an animal, not the creation of a loving Creator.
Tom Wells
I was impressed by WORLD’s God-honoring and uncompromising position on the theory of evolution. Indeed, I have seen so many instances where it is undermining the Christian faith, as you succinctly put it: “If Darwin was right, the Bible is wrong.”
New Orleans, La.
“Becoming readers” (July 2) Janie Cheaney hit the nail on the head when she said too many college professors use classic literature to propagate a certain philosophy of race, class, and gender oppression. I network with other book bloggers and the tiny minority who review classics are mainly young college women who, for example, congratulate Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary for their “emancipation” from the fetters of wifedom and condemn Rochester in Jane Eyre as an arrogant monster. What angers me the most is how smugly these women present themselves as intellectuals. sharon henning
Longview, Texas
I loved this column. I feel like my highschool literature teacher wants us to interpret books, so that we’re putting our own thoughts and words into the author’s mouth, instead of just letting them speak to us. It kills me. KisKa Carr
LaGrange, Ind.
I read The Silver Sword to my fourthgrade class every year for 35 years and never got tired of it. I knew what was coming but still got choked up near the end when the children saw their mother for the first time in years. Sometimes I had to ask a child to read that part because I was too emotional. Weird. I’ve been retired for seven years, but all I miss about teaching is reading that book. Karen heerWagen
Elmhurst, Ill.
“Darwin matters” (July 2) Thank you to Marvin Olasky for the article on the influence of Darwin on
JaneT Bell
Punta Gorda, Fla.
Daniel mann
Brooklyn, N.Y.
“World’s apart” (July 2) Thanks for including Jeffrey Overstreet’s The Ale Boy’s Feast in your list of good speculative fiction. I have enjoyed the poetry and artistry of his books but would note that this is the final installment of a four-book series. Interested readers should begin with book one, Auralia’s Colors. KinDra anDreWs Seattle, Wash.
“Wholesome reading” (July 2) This was worthwhile since many of us try to guard our hearts. But it was most disappointing to read Olasky’s comment, “I believe Jan Karon’s Mitford books . . . are clean, although I’ve only sampled parts.” He needs to add these to his treadmill stack. We don’t want hearsay— we want Marvinsay! And by the way, they are not only clean but excellent. J.a. sCoTT
Peachtree Corners, Ga.
“Hard to hold on” (July 2) I can really relate to this column. My parents are in their upper 80s and never throw anything away. My dad even saves scraps of soap to eventually (read: never) make them into one big bar of soap again. And I live in part of Pennsylvania Dutch country where everybody has an attic and basement full of “things” (please don’t call it “junk”). JaCK Pavie
Sumneytown, Pa.
7/22/11 12:05 PM
In an age of tweets and abbreviated text messages it would be a horrible shame if Joel Belz’s linotype machine were sold for scrap. The machine could educate many people about how print media has evolved.
Le Claire, Iowa
My wife Pat grew up the daughter of a newspaperman in Weldon, N.C. Her mother and father sat literally back-toback for years at two linotype machines in the newspaper office. I still remember the “clank-clank, clank” sound of the linotypes as you walked into the small printing office. When my wife’s father passed away, some suggested selling the equipment for scrap metal but history is worth more than cents per pound. It ended up in a museum. Thanks for the memories.
Opelika, Ala.
“Summer heart” ( ) Quite possibly Super ’s charms simply passed me by, but I thought it was a shameless rip-off of Spielberg’s own wildly successful ET, just without the cute alien. Same big, bad government agency, same dramatic “just let him go home” climax, only this time the nerdy middle schooler tosses out Jesus’ name as a swear word, along with other profanities.
Big Canoe, Ga.
“Long’s story” ( ) I was saddened to read about Bishop Eddie Long. His apparent fall into sin and the decline of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church are potent reminders that the church must be firmly grounded in the gospel, not in the charisma or charm of a sinful man.
Pleasant Prairie, Wis.
LETTERS AND PHOTOS Email: mailbag@worldmag.com Write: Mailbag, P.O. Box , Asheville, - Fax: .. Please include full name and address. Letters may be edited to yield brevity and clarity.
There’s still
health care for people of faith after health care reform If you are a committed Christian and do not want to purchase mandatory health insurance that forces you to help pay for abortions and other unbiblical medical practices, you can put your faith into practice by sharing medical needs with fellow believers through Samaritan Ministries. The provisions below are on pages 327 and 328 of last year’s 2,409-page health care law, and they protect people of faith who join in sharing medical needs through health care sharing ministries. “…an organization, members of which share a common set of ethical or religious beliefs and share medical expenses among members in accordance with those beliefs…” Sec. 1501 (b) of HR 3590 at pg. 327, 328 Every month the more than 17,000* households of Samaritan Ministries share more than $4 million* in medical needs directly—one household to another. They also pray for one another and send notes of encouragement. The monthly share for a family of any size has never exceeded $320*, and is even less for singles, couples, and single-parent families. Also, there are reduced share amounts for members aged 25 and under, and 65 and over.
For more information call us toll-free 1-888-268-4377, or visit us online at: www.samaritanministries.org. Follow us on Twitter (@samaritanmin) and Facebook (SamaritanMinistries). * As of May 2011
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I
Through the renewal of our minds, God brings us back in the game
kicking rocks in right field when the trance-piercing voice of Turcotte at short stop would rouse us all back to the reality of our situation: “A little chatter in the outfield!” Then would follow a revived trio of mildly convincing acclamations to the pitcher regarding the unsurpassable wonders of her arm, the inferiority of the hubris opposing her, and exhortations to dispatch the Philistine with three swift strikes. Now, decades later, I am seeing the relevance of this in the hands of the One who came not only to change my life but to change my day. “He is able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews :). Monday morning. It begins, for you as for me, with a quick reorientation to the surroundings: Who am I? Am I or not ? Am I married or single, young or old, ugly or pretty, healthy or sick, in trouble at work? Am I on the outs with anyone? You feel a complaint coming on: nothing specific, just the default and culturally expected Monday attitude, and instead you choose to say: “This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.” First temptation down. Next up, two minutes later, more debriefing from Radio in stereo: Oh yeah, my son is in jail, my daughter is moving away to California, I am incapable of lasting relationships, there’s no money for sclerotherapy, and I can’t summon names of movie stars at will anymore. This second seduction is to allow a vague spirit of heaviness to settle like smog in your heart. It does not render you nonfunctional (in fact, most of the world’s work is done within that heaviness), just non-joyful. But you have been striving for that rest God says to strive for (Hebrews :), so you drop and pray something along these lines: “Lord, I trust You with all of this—that You will keep Your promise to work out all things (you pause over “all things”) for good to those who love You. And You know I love You.” Then you might even hum a little praise Email: aseu@worldmag.com
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song to Him as you’re getting dressed, because you remember Ronnie’s good advice from Isaiah : about putting on a garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness. Two down. Then you look in the mirror and some diabolical night urchin has etched new wrinkles on your forehead while you slept, and done something awful with your neck. But now you are wide awake, removing that advantage from him. And also you are “trained by constant practice” and are no longer “unskilled in the word of righteousness” (Hebrews :), so you have the presence of mind to reply—to God and to yourself: “Lord, You said what causes quarrels and fights is our passions and covetings (James :-). Thank You that You did not leave the matter there but immediately gave the solution: ‘But He gives more grace’ (:). I am believing You for grace that is always more than the temptation. Be big in me, Lord! You who ‘yearn jealously over the spirit [You have] made to dwell in us’ (:), replace demonic thinking (:) with thinking that is ‘pure and peaceable.’” At the same time your mother calls and needs a ride to the doctor. And you have a split second to sound enthusiastic about the fact that your plans to get a lot done have just sprouted wings and are waving bye-bye. And having become better at this, you review in your mind who God is (in control of all contingencies) and who you are (His servant at His disposal), and you pray with Nehemiah-like speed (Nehemiah :), “Thou knowest, Lord,” between her sentence and your sentence. Three and out. After the Amalekite raid, “David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him because all the people were bitter in soul. . . . But David strengthened himself in the Lord his God” ( Samuel :). And the self-strengthening availed much because the word of God is “spirit” and it is “life” (John :), and transforms us by the renewing of our minds. And now we are back in the game, and walking in freedom. A little less kicking rocks; a little more chatter in the outfield. A AUGUST 13, 2011
WORLD
7/27/11 10:21 AM
Marvin Olasky
GROWING UP— AND OUT
I
At age , WORLD yells “start”
WORLD AUGUST 13, 2011
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KRIEG BARRIE
’ what’s coming next on our American roller coaster, but more harassment of Christians seems on the way. More than ever we need news organizations that recognize this is God’s world. For that reason, I’m still grateful to Joel Belz for bringing me into years ago, four years after Joel began the magazine in . This year brings not only ’s th anniversary but Joel’s th birthday, on Aug. . And what of the next few years? With God’s grace we are starting a major expansion. Here’s news about seven initiatives: I World on Campus (worldoncampus.com) starts next month. Digital-only, will be like but specifically designed for students from to . Close behind its web launch, we plan to roll out a free iPhone app. College students with journalistic or business interests who want to work on should write to June McGraw (jmcgraw@worldmag.com). I For high-school students specifically, Trak (gwnews.com) starts next month on both paper and the internet. Parents who have enjoyed our children’s newspapers and have long asked us for an in-between edition for high-school students who have different cultural reference points than either grade-schoolers or adults. I Creation of student news bureaus. Since February students at Patrick Henry College have been producing a prototype, World Virginia (worldmag. com/virginia): It provides state and local coverage and helps bright college students improve their writing and knowledge of the world. This fall we plan to start up two more: World New York and World California. I Mobilizing non-students: That’s the goal of another new initiative, which begins on Oct. as we expand the World Journalism Institute by hosting in Asheville, N.C., five days of journalism training by me for subscribers. Tuition is free and attendees pay their own expenses. The class is limited to : Interested subscribers aged to should send resumés and writing samples to jmcgraw@ worldmag.com. I iPad: The technical work is complete on an updated app that will offer subscriptions. We’ll roll out the particulars after Apple has completed its customary review and given us the green light. It’s a matter of days now. But I’ve seen it and it looks great.
I An expanded World Journalism Institute that will train students for both writing and secular alternatives. early next year will also put on a training course by Mindy Belz for African journalists, with the goal of creating another website, World Africa. I Radio: As I write, we’re looking forward to the Aug. debut of a weekly, national -hour radio show, “The World And Everything In It,” led by publisher Nick Eicher. Check listings (worldandeverything.com) to see if it’s on a station near you. The programs will feature in-depth contributions from our team as well as news reports from the Salem network’s White House and Capitol Hill correspondents. As grows, we remain firm in our journalistic philosophy of “biblical objectivity,” which is based on faith in Christ and recognition that reporting reflects worldviews. Christians and non-Christians both believe that cancer is bad, so neither nor Time reporters feel the need to balance pro-cancer and anti-cancer viewpoints. In areas outside of medicine, though, we disagree on the definition of cancer. Many secularist leftists believe that Christianity is cancer—but we see abortion as a cancer and Christ as the irradiating hope. We try to treat everyone with respect, but some policies—huge budget deficits and the current attack on marriage—are cancers. We see both personal and corporate “welfare” as addictive drugs that don’t make us well. Secular liberals argue that higher taxes are chemotherapy, but we see them as initiative-suppressers. National Review began publishing in with an announcement that “It stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no other is inclined to do so.” at has some affinities with that fine publication, but our larger goal is to yell “Start.” We want more Americans to start seeing how news of sin points us to Christ. We want our readers to learn how to show compassion and grace under pressure, so that the church truly is different from the surrounding world. To understand more about journalism, click on “About us” at the bottom of our www.worldmag.com homepage and read how we try to be salt, not sugar. Stand with us. A Email: molasky@worldmag.com
7/28/11 2:35 PM
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7/22/11 12:09 PM