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Contents
J A N U A r y 1 4 , 2 0 1 2 / V O L U M E 2 7, N U M B E r 1
FE AT UR E S
42 Commands & control
COVER STORY Concerns over executive orders grow as President Obama tries to implement parts of his jobs bill without congressional approval
33 The year ahead: A long way to go
Eating our broccoli: Americans may be ready to accept some short-term pain for long-term gain Race for the White House: The presidential campaign appears to be shaping up as a four-man race. Here’s where the candidates stand on issues likely to play a large part in the campaign. States to watch: The races for president and 33 U.S. Senate seats will highlight the political calendar. Here are 10 states to watch as campaign season heats up. Around the world: 2012 could be a turning point in many places across the globe. Here’s a look at 11 nations in transition.
46 Risky regulations
Will the EPA’s new mercury rules do more harm than good?
50 Setting their own limits
“Unschooling” and traditional Christian homeschooling are two very different things
54 Web of grace
Internet presence is helping Christians spread the Word in China
56 Bittersweet farewell
A Christian couple returns to Mexico ahead of their visa expiration date and grateful to America, but their complicated case highlights problems with immigration law
21
ON THE COVER: Photograph by Carolyn Kaster/AP
46 33
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Joel Belz
The other elitists
Shallow and vulgar discourse can now be found across class lines
KRIEG BARRIE
>>
“Y ,” charged the email from someone with the unlikely name of Harmony Threesome, “were nothing if they weren’t insufferably elitist. Why don’t you get off your high horse? Who appointed you the judge of all the good people who shop at Walmart?” In case you missed all that led to such a diatribe, go back and read my columns in the Dec. and Dec. issues of WORLD, where I described two efforts to interview shoppers at the entrance to the local Walmart. In the first case, virtually no one would talk. During my second visit, shoppers talked—but with embarrassing shallowness and vulgarity. Ms. Threesome (if that was really her—or maybe his—name) also asked in her (or was it his?) email if I didn’t know that the disciples Jesus called to serve closely with Him were common folk. “So don’t you people at WORLD have any time for fishermen and laborers? Peter and John were the Walmart shoppers of their day.” Now, anybody smart enough to use a pseudonym like Harmony Threesome and to get quoted in a national magazine is no dummy. So Harmony must also know that Peter and John, blue collar though they may have been, were also the authors of multiple books in the New Testament. I assume they were capable of carrying on an intelligent conversation concerning the content of those books. But Peter and John also probably bristled a bit, as I do, at being called elitists. As I have said before in this space, I hope that when you hear the term “media
Email: jbelz@worldmag.com
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elite,” WORLD magazine isn’t the first thing that pops into your mind. I’d much rather instead that you would conjure up images of the pompous, arrogant, and condescending folks at The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS News, and, of course, the Public Broadcasting System. But it’s a pretty obvious fact that at least one form of elitism is a built-in component of just about any media effort. With each issue of this magazine, there’s an implicit sort of suggestion that our reporters, writers, editors, and designers have been blessed with a certain level of insight to sort out and cull and select and reject enough of the right details to produce, in the end, a package that is helpful and pleasing to you, the reader. In that sense, we at WORLD are probably elitist. But the two kinds of behavior I described based on my visit to Walmart have nothing to do with social class. I could just as easily have found such responses, I think, among shoppers at Barnes & Noble or at Macy’s. I could have found them in Manhattan or Newton, Kan., in downtown San Francisco or in Jasper, Tenn. Anti-social coolness and trivial vulgarity are overwhelmingly classless sins in today’s culture. You can find them anywhere and everywhere. Ironically, the mass media heads who think they are so smart and who are indeed so often condescending toward the “unwashed masses”—those mass media bear as much responsibility as any other mechanism for spreading such anti-social and vulgar behavior. Accompanied, aided, and abetted, of course, by the socalled “social media,” the mass media have made it seem cool to be aloof, to put people down, to launch a mean-spirited double entendre. So I would argue that instead of engaging in elitist behavior ourselves by interviewing and then reporting on the Walmart clientele, we may simply have opened the door for those people, however unintentionally, to play the part of the new elite. First by cutting us off, and then by trivializing or vulgarizing the conversation, they were doing exactly what the major media have told them is acceptable and what the social media give them so much practice in doing. As I say, the fact that it happened in front of Walmart was beside the point. It could just as easily have happened in virtually any setting in today’s sorry society. And don’t forget that it was the party with the phony pseudonym, whose address we still don’t know, who thought it was so clever to carry on a one-sided conversation. A JANUARY 14, 2012
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Dispatches NEWS HUMAN RACE QUOTABLES QUICK TAKES
Payroll games NEWS: House Republicans retreat on tax holiday as the main event looms in
ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES
by EDWARD LEE PITTS in Washington
>>
W war of ended with a House Republican retreat, even House Speaker John Boehner had mixed reviews of the GOP’s last stand. “It may not have been politically the smartest thing in the world,” Boehner said of House Republicans’ initial insistence on an immediate year-long extension of an expiring payroll tax holiday when the Senate had already agreed to a shorter extension. “But let me tell you what, I think our members waged a good fight.” Picking this fight at this time almost left Republicans on the hook for an impending tax increase heading into an election year. The stakes were clear. With the Jan. expiration of a Social Security tax break, million Americans faced a tax increase that averaged a month for someone earning , a year. The Senate, in a rare display of bipartisanship, voted to on Dec. for a two-month
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extension of the tax holiday. That deal included a conservative win: a provision giving President Barack Obama days to approve construction of the Keystone oil pipeline. If Obama declines to build the Canada to Texas pipeline he will have to certify that it is not in the nation’s best interest—a risky proposition heading into November’s elections. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, known as a poker-faced negotiator, offered a high-five to a colleague in celebration of the deal. But House Republicans balked, insisting on a year-long extension of the tax break. This gamble put a paycheck decrease for Americans in the middle of a congressional game of chicken. With a bipartisan vote to prevent the tax hike already secured, the Democrat-led Senate recessed for the holidays. House Republicans found themselves alone on Capitol Hill, scrambling to explain RISKY BUSINESS: Boehner (third from right) and other House Republicans (from left to right) Tom Reed, Kevin Brady, Nan Hayworth, Dave Camp, Eric Cantor, Renee Ellmers, and Fred Upton speak to the media on Capitol Hill. JANUARY 14, 2012
WORLD
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Dispatches > News
of Arc, French heroine of the Hundred Years’ War, was born years ago on Jan. . Anniversary events honoring the Maid of Orleans are expected throughout France.
LOOKING AHEAD Sundance Festival
Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival opens in Park City, Utah, on Jan. . The festival features films out of more than , submissions and gives unknown filmmakers an opportunity to boost their films.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day The Jan. holiday honors the slain civil rights leader. Outside the United States, the Canadian city of Toronto and the Japanese city of Hiroshima observe the holiday.
New addresses
ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, on Jan. will begin accepting applications for new “generic top level domains,” also known as internet address endings. ICANN will stop accepting applications on April . The address endings now include the familiar .com, and ICANN hasn’t set a limit on the number of new endings.
Christmas in Egypt Egyptian Coptic
Christians celebrate Christmas on Jan. . They have been suffering increasing attacks from Muslims since the fall of the three-decade-long regime of former President Hosni Mubarak.
Religious Freedom Day Jan. , Religious Freedom Day in the United States, marks the anniversary of the passage of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom. Drafted by Thomas Jefferson, the statute rejected plans to set up government funding for churches.
JOAN OF ARC: BETTMANN/CORBIS/AP • COMPUTER SCREEN: PASHAIGNATOV/iSTOCK • SUNDANCE: PETER KRAMER/AP • EGYPT: BELA SZANDELSZKY/AP • KING: AP • JEFFERSON: BETTMANN/CORBIS/AP
why they rejected a tax holiday they said they supported. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board led the conservative backlash. “We wonder if [Republicans] might end up re-electing the President before the campaign even begins in earnest,” stated the paper’s editorial, which used words like “fiasco,” “thoroughly botched,” and “circular firing squad” to describe Republican efforts. “Republicans have also achieved the small miracle of letting Mr. Obama position himself as an election-year tax cutter.” Some of the Republicans who backed the Senate extension also piled on, frustrated that the House GOP had ceded ground on the party’s signature tax relief platform. Sen. Bob Corker, RTenn., called it “one more public policy blunder” while Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., said the House action “angers me.” Both senators are up for reelection. The cornered House surrendered Dec. and agreed to the temporary extension. But the GOP’s immediate hard line stance handed Democrats a public relations victory they can exploit throughout the campaign season. Obama, who is enjoying a recent uptick in approval ratings, grafted the payroll tax fight into his campaign narrative of an obstructionist, do-nothing Congress. “What’s happening right now is exactly why people just get so frustrated with Washington,” said Obama, relishing the chance to play the role of a tax break defender. Some Republicans say they will remain entrenched even if they do get beaten politically. “I don’t care about my reelection,” said Rep. Tom Reed, a freshmen Republican from New York. “We are going to do what is right for America.” But is it right for America to pick a fight with Democrats who had gained the high ground by, for once, agreeing to cut taxes? With elections looming, Republicans should weigh political calculations as much as policy positions if they want to win the Senate and the White House in , and enact their agenda in . A
Joan’s birthday Joan
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Dispatches > News
Personhood politics
The Nevada Pro-life Coalition hopes to collect more than 72,000 signatures by June to get a personhood measure on November ballots. But a Nevada judge on Dec. 19 rewrote the proposed initiative after pro-abortion groups challenged it. The personhood measure would amend the state’s constitution to protect the right to life of every prenatal person. Siding with Planned Parenthood, Nevada District Judge James E. Wilson ordered the measure to include language that the change would affect embryonic stem-cell research and impact a woman’s ability to get fertility treatments and birth control. “This court order significantly compromises the truth of the life-saving personhood amendment we have proposed,” said Chet Gallagher, Director of the Nevada Pro-life Coalition. Personhood groups are trying to get similar initiatives FIGHTING FOR placed on ballots across the nation this year, and LIFE: a pro-life pro-abortion groups have filed nearly a dozen lawsuits activist marching to slow the movement. in Washington, D.C.
Disapproving public
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according to a year-end gallup poll, Congress sank to an 11 percent approval rating to close out 2011. That’s a new record monthly low. another record: the 86 percent of respondents who said they disapproved of the job Congress is doing. That bested the 84 percent record reached last august. for 2011, Congress averaged a 17 percent job pRo-lIfE maRCh: alEx wong/gETTy ImagEs • mEDICaRE aD: youTubE • CapITol: bIll ClaRk/CQ Roll CREDIT Call
Conservatives have long disputed PolitiFact, the left-leaning (and Pulitzer Prize–winning) blog from the St. Petersburg Times that “fact checks” politicians’ statements, but now the fact checker has ignited liberal criticism. PolitiFact named its 2011 “Lie of the Year” Democrats’ assertion that House Republicans voted to end Medicare. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee as well as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have repeated that Republicans voted to end Medicare in ads all over the country, with one ad depicting an elderly man taking a job as a stripper to pay his medical bills. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget, which passed the House but failed in the Senate, maintains Medicare as it is now for those over age 55, and then provides vouchers for those under 55 to buy private insurance when they reach the program’s eligibility age. PolitiFact said Democrats were using “scare tactics” with seniors over the Ryan plan and noted, “In the past, some Democrats have even favored such proposals.” Ryan recently introFALSE CLAIMS: a scene from the Democratic duced a modified plan Congressional Campaign Committee ad. with Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden that would allow seniors to choose between a voucher plan or traditional Medicare. PolitiFact’s 2010 “Lie of the Year” was Republicans’ assertion that the healthcare law was a government takeover of healthcare. According to a study by the University of Minnesota’s Eric Ostermeier, 76 percent of the statements PolitiFact disputes are from Republicans, and only 22 percent are from Democrats.
approval rating, which is yet another record for lowest yearly average. for nearly four decades the average annual job approval rating for Congress has been 34 percent. There is an old saying that americans hate Congress but love their own congressman. These poll results must have some Capitol hill lawmakers wondering if that is still true.
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No longer interested
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A house divided As 2011 came to a close, Iraq appeared to be in danger of descending into a civil war. With U.S. troops withdrawing from the country on Dec. 18, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite Muslim, moved quickly to order the arrest of Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi and to threaten other Sunni rivals. Hashemi, whom Maliki accused of running death squads, found refuge in Kurdish areas and from there denied the charges. With battle lines drawn— increasingly influential Iran and Iraqi Shiites on one side, Sunni Arabs and Kurds on the other— ESCALATING: a stack of local newspapers features al-Queda in Iraq set off a deadly wave of bombings a front-page photo of in Baghdad on Dec. 22, killing 65 and further al-Hashemi on Dec. 20. inflaming Shiites against Sunnis. A recent deal between Exxon-Mobil and the Kurds to allow oil exploration in the Kurdish region is also increasing tensions. The central government in Baghdad claims authority to oversee resources in the northern territory: Sunni Arabs and Shiites both support that assertion. The deal with Exxon-Mobil includes land claimed by both Kurds and Arabs. Some Iraqis hope that the United States could play a diplomatic if not military role in resolving the crisis. In a Dec. 28 op-ed for The New York Times, Iraqi Sunni leaders Iyad Allawi, Osama al-Nujaifi, and Rafa al-Essawi accused Maliki of reneging on a 2010 power-sharing agreement. They called on the Obama administration not to give “unconditional support” to the prime minister: “Unless America acts rapidly to help create a successful unity government, Iraq is doomed.” —For more on other nations in transition, see p. 40.
In what may be bad news for President Obama, a new report predicts lower voter turnout for the 2012 election after a historically high turnout in 2008. Many young voters who supported Obama in 2008 will probably stay home in 2012, according to the Dec. 27 report from the Center for the Study of the American Electorate at American University. Curtis Gans, director of the center, argues that “because Obama the president did not fulfill the hope invested in Obama the candidate, there has been an enormous sense of disappointment among those young who had been previously politically active, and the current crop of collegeresident young do not have the same compelling motivation to engage as those who preceded them.” Gans notes a lack of enthusiasm for other candidates and a likely wave of “often ad hominem television advertising” from both parties: “Against this backdrop, it is hard to envision anything other than a substantial decline in turnout.” Gans predicts that a strong economic rebound would change this equation and would lead to President Obama’s reelection, while continued stagnation would ensure his loss. According to the report, voter turnout in 2008 reached 62.3 percent of eligible citizens, the highest level since 1960—and up from 51.4 percent in 1996.
THOSE WERE THE DAYS: Clemson university students cheer for Obama in 2008. January 14, 2012
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Dispatches > News
On the docket
Honoring Churchill The House on Dec. passed a bill, authored by House Speaker John Boehner, to place a statue or bust of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill inside the U.S. Capitol. The measure, just the fourth piece of legislation sponsored by Boehner in , says that “the United States Capitol does not currently appropriately recognize the contributions of Sir Winston Churchill or that of the United Kingdom.” Churchill, who led the opposition to the Nazis while serving as prime minister during most of World War II, addressed a joint session of Congress on Dec. , . “Winston Churchill was the best friend America ever had,” Boehner said. President Barack Obama in sent back to England a Churchill bust loaned to the White House after the terrorist attacks. Churchill, whose mother was American, would be one of just a few foreign leaders depicted in the U.S. Capitol’s art.
HEALTH CARE PROTEST: MICHAEL REYNOLDS/NEWSCOM • CHURCHILL: BETTMANN/CORBIS/AP CREDIT
Obama administration, Thomas for his wife’s advocacy against the law—but neither has shown intentions to sit out the biggest moment in the term. Healthcare, television, and immigration highlight Federal Communications Commission v. Fox the upcoming Supreme Court term Television Stations, Inc., takes one of the first oral argument slots of the year on Jan. . The FCC prohibits indecent material on broadcasting channels before p.m. in an effort to protect children, and Fox is arguing that the FCC’s standards are unconstitutionally vague, placing a burden on free speech. Libertarians and press associations have sided with Fox, and the lower courts have too. But National Religious Broadcasters, Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, and The Parents Television Council filed amicus briefs on the side of the FCC. “Despite cries of a ‘chilling effect’ and ‘censorship’ from the industry and their agents, the FCC’s broadcast decency enforcement regime does not affect whether the TV networks can broadcast indecent material. It only affects when they can do so,” said PTC’s President Tim Winter in a statement. “If broadcasters are truly unable to refrain from airing indecent material when children are most likely to be watching television, they simply do not deserve a broadThe three cases challenging the healthcare overhaul will cast license.” The Supreme Court ruled in that the FCC take the spotlight in the Supreme Court’s spring term; the was right to ding Fox over fleeting expletives, but this case court scheduled the hefty / hours of oral arguments for addresses the broader issue of whether the FCC’s indecency the cases to occur March , , and . The court will focus standards are constitutional. on the law’s mandate that individuals buy health insurance, On the docket later in the spring: In April, the Court will hear but the justices will visit other aspects of the law, like the an appeal by Arizona, which is seeking to uphold its state-level Medicaid requirements imposed on states. The justices will immigration law that requires immigrants to carry render some kind of decision before the end of their current papers and police to check the citizenship status of term—and before the presidential election—but a possibility anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant. exists that they could delay a real decision on the merits of the The Obama administration has challenged the law law until it takes fuller effect. Groups on either side of the aisle as unconstitutional and in conflict with federal continue to urge Justices Elena Kagan and Clarence Thomas to immigration law. recuse themselves from the case—Kagan for her work in the
WORLD JANUARY 14, 2012
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Dispatches > Human Race
Pakistani woman Mukhtaran Bibi (above), who generated international attention after she successfully prosecuted a group of men responsible for gang raping her a decade ago, gave birth to a son in December. A tribal council had ordered the rape in response to accusations that Bibi’s brother had sex with a woman from a higher caste. Bibi, , who is now married to one of the police officers assigned to
A Virginia man, accused by authorities of helping Lisa Miller flee the country with her biological daughter Isabella, surrendered Dec. to face charges of aiding in interna-
tional parental kidnapping. Kenneth Miller, , allegedly helped arrange Lisa Miller’s flight to Canada and then Nicaragua so she wouldn’t have to hand custody of her daughter over to her former lesbian partner, Janet Jenkins. Last year prosecutors dropped similar charges against Timothy Miller, the American Mennonite missionary who helped Lisa Miller reach Central America, after he agreed to cooperate with the investigation. (None of the Millers are related.)
A -year-old American used his wits to outsmart and escape suspected al-Qaedalinked militants who had kidnapped him five months earlier. Kevin Lunsmann (above), his mother, and a cousin were vacationing on an island in the Philippines when they were snatched over the summer. The captors eventually released Lunsmann’s mother after his father paid an undisclosed ransom; the cousin also managed to escape a few weeks before Lunsmann.
Author and journalist Christopher Hitchens died on Dec. from complications of cancer. A leftist and socialist as a young man, Hitchens, , came to embrace a range of policies to the point, as he put it, that he was “accused of being a neoconservative and not always thought of it as an insult.” With regard to religion he was unswerving: Calling himself an anti-theist, Hitchens in wrote God Is Not Great.
Cardinal John Patrick Foley Foley, who headed up the Vatican’s press office, died Dec. at age . Foley was also a former Philadelphia priest who for years served as the American narrator for the pope’s annual midnight Christmas Mass.
CHIRAC: FRANCOIS MORI/AP • BIBI: S.S. MIRZA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • LUNSMANN: AP • HITCHENS: SHANNON STAPLETONS/REUTERS/NEWSCOM • FOLEY: PIER PAOLO CITO/AP CREDIT
A French court on Dec. found former President Jacques Chirac guilty of embezzlement during his tenure as mayor of Paris from to . The court, which found that Chirac had used public funds to support his political party, gave the ailing former leader a two-year suspended sentence. Chirac served as president of France from to .
protect her, fought back. A Pakistani court sentenced six of the men to death, although a higher court later acquitted or commuted the sentences. Bibi used the money she received from the trial to start schools and shelters in her city.
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“It’s like NPR from a Christian worldview.” Trevin Wax, blogger, Kingdom People
The World and Everything in It
What you can expect News review: Top stories of the week, in the United States and around the world Special features like “The Olasky Interview,” “Let the Candidates Speak,” and “The History Book” Commentary: Original reflections by Joel Belz, Andrée Seu, and Janie Cheaney, and other biblical worldview thinkers In-depth audio treatments of feature stories from the print magazine Culture: Film and television reviews by Megan Basham, books by Susan Olasky, and music by Arsenio Orteza Political roundup: Analysis of the candidates and the issues — plus key state and local initiatives Thorough coverage of life issues, education, the economy, and the law News of the church and God’s people working in the world
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Check radio listings, listen online, and share favorite segments via Facebook and Twitter at worldandeverything.com. Listen anytime, anywhere with free podcast subscriptions on iTunes.
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DAVID MATHIESON of Human Rights Watch on the brutality of Burmese troops during a six-month campaign last year against minorities, including Kachin Christians.
“We haven’t found one yet that the vaccine isn’t able to stop.” SIMON DRAPER of Oxford’s Jenner Institute, on an experimental vaccine that researchers hope will neutralize even the most deadly strains of malaria.
“Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy. That’s critical.” Vice President JOE BIDEN, saying the United States would support reconciliation between the current Afghan government and its Taliban enemies as long as terrorists who want to attack the United States don’t gain a foothold in Afghanistan. The Reuters news service reports that U.S. officials have been in secret negotiations with the Taliban for months.
“All the efforts that have been exerted to reach national reconciliation and to unite Iraq are now gone.” Iraqi Vice President TARIQ ALHASHEMI, accused (he says falsely) of running Sunni death squads, on the crisis in Iraq that quickly followed the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Last month Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki stationed armored personnel carriers outside the homes of his Sunni political opponents and took other aggressive steps.
“I just want you to be humble ... I think you’re great! I just get nervous.” Newt Gingrich supporter JENNY TURNER at a Dec. Iowa campaign event, speaking to Gingrich about his claim that he would be the GOP nominee. Gingrich (left) responded by saying he is “assertive,” but “sometimes when you’re a little too assertive, it’s not too smart.”
BIDEN: KELLY JORDAN/THE FLORIDA TIMES-UNION/AP • MYANMAR: SOE ZEYA TUN/REUTERS/LANDOV • MOSQUITO: JAMES GATHANY/CDC/UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME/AP • AL-HASHEMI: SAFIN HAMED/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • GINGRICH: CHARLIE RIEDEL/AP CREDIT
“It’s like a set menu of abusive practices: forced labor, torture and the destruction of property and livelihoods.”
WORLD JANUARY 14, 2012
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CREDIT
Dispatches > Quotables
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BIDEN: KElly JorDaN/ThE FlorIDa TImEs-UNIoN/aP • myaNmar: soE ZEya TUN/rEUTErs/laNDov • mosqUITo: JamEs GaThaNy/CDC/UNIvErsITy oF NoTrE DamE/aP • al-hashEmI: saFIN hamED/aFP/GETTy ImaGEs • GINGrICh: CharlIE rIEDEl/aP CREDIT
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Dispatches > Quick Takes
Beachgoers near Pompano
A Florida woman learned one of the best ways to deal with carjackers: Drive a stick-shift. Police in St. Petersburg, Fla., report that a pair of carjackers commandeered a -year-old woman’s Nissan on Dec. when she stopped to pick up her boyfriend from work. The armed carjackers got the keys and started the car, but couldn’t drive the Nissan’s manual transmission. The car stalled and the carjackers fled on foot.
Beach, Fla., may want to stay out of the water for the time being. On Nov. , boaters noticed and took pictures of a giant swarm of jellyfish floating about a quarter-mile off the shore of Pompano Beach. Scientists identified the swarm as moon jellies and said the densely packed and large clump of ocean pests were being held offshore by wind. But lifeguards in the area decided to hoist a purple flag— warning swimmers and divers that a wind change could bring the toxic mass of nuisances close to the beach.
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Taking money that doesn’t belong to you is stealing. That’s the message police have for motorists on Route in Upper St. Clair, Pa., who apparently took advantage of an unintended money drop on Nov. . Police in the Western Pennsylvania town reported that the back doors of a Fidelity Courier Service van blew open, spilling more than ,. Officers arrived to help clean up the littered cash but were able to scoop up only about . A police spokesman said motorists who picked up scattered money could face theft charges if they don’t return it. “This is not a free-for-all situation,” police Lt. James Englert said. “Obviously, this money is ... bank property.”
’ Faced with a court order to enforce an eviction in an Atlanta neighborhood, Fulton County sheriff’s deputies walked into the marked house on Nov. . Then they walked back out and did not evict the foreclosed home’s owner, -year-old Vinia Hall, who has lived in the house for more than years. The mayor’s office and a city councilman joined in an attempt to settle the dispute between Hall’s grandson, who owns the house, and Deutsche Bank, which owns the mortgage note. Hall, who has lived in the home with her -year-old daughter, says she never feared eviction. “No, I knew that they know what they were doing,” she told local TV station WSB. “God don’t let them do wrong.”
WORLD JANUARY 14, 2012
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A mugger in Chicago clearly didn’t know his potential victim very well. Police say -yearold Anthony Miranda tried to mug a man in Chicago’s Southwest Side neighborhood on Dec. after asking the victim for a lighter. When the unidentified victim said he didn’t have a lighter, Miranda produced a gun and ordered the victim out of the car. Once out of the car, the victim, later revealed to be a mixed-martial artist, began pummeling the surprised Miranda. While receiving his beating from the MMA fighter, Miranda accidentally shot his own leg, inflicting a serious wound to his own ankle. Once out of the hospital, Miranda will face charges of armed robbery and aggravated discharge of a firearm.
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MIRANDA: COOK COUNTY SHERIFF • VIETNAM: TUOI TRE • SALVATION ARMY KETTLE: HANDOUT • ALABAMA: LLOYD GALLMAN/THE MONTGOMERY ADVERTISER/AP • LITTLE CAESARS: HANDOUT CREDIT
Facing an increase in illegal motorcycle racing in city streets, police in Vietnam have turned to their cultural roots to solve the problem. Officers armed with fishing nets are now literally catching bike racers in their dragnets. A traffic police official in the Thanh Hoa province said officers lie in wait for the racing motorcyclists. As they pass, officers cast their sturdy nets into the rear wheels of the bikes, causing the wheel to be entangled and bringing the motorcycle to a stop. “Without the nets, mob racing in the province would have caused chaos by now,” Luu Thien Minh, head of the Thanh Hoa police traffic unit, told The Telegraph.
Police in Southgate, Mich., are searching for a man in a gorilla suit who burst into a Little Caesars Pizza parlor on Nov. , dumped a -pound bag of sand on the floor, and then fled the scene. Employees at the pizza shop say the man escaped in a dark blue Chevy Cobalt and left an empty bag of sand in an alley behind the restaurant. Police say the perp is a serial sander, having dumped sand in that Little Caesars three other times and additionally once in a Little Caesars in nearby Lincoln Park, Mich.
Amid the loose change and spare bills in a Salvation Army kettle at a Walmart in Shawnee, Kan., on Dec. was something more valuable—a ¾-carat diamond. Salvation Army Major Michele Heaver told the Reuters news service that the group doesn’t know who put the rock in the kettle but that an appraiser says it was cut about years ago and is worth ,. Heaver says the employee who found the diamond initially thought it was trash.
In a way, you could say that Alabama’s new immigration law is working—just perhaps not as lawmakers had foreseen. Signed into law in June, Alabama’s law practically requires persons in the state from other countries to carry identity papers. But on Nov. , Tuscaloosa, Ala., police arrested a German Mercedes-Benz executive who accidentally left his passport in his hotel room. And on Dec. , a Japanese Honda executive was ticketed under provisions of the law despite showing an international drivers license, a passport, and a U.S. work permit. A judge later threw out the case against the Honda executive, but some in Alabama worry that the high-profile arrests could be bad for business in Alabama, which has aggressively pursued foreign auto manufacturers to build factories there. Mercedes employs , Alabamians and Honda more than ,. JANUARY 14, 2012
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WORLD
12/20/11 10:30 AM
Janie B. Cheaney
Ill will toward men A warm-hearted atheist is difficult to find
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WORLD JANUARY 14, 2012
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universe is an extremely beautiful place, and the more we understand about it the more beautiful does it appear,” says Richard Dawkins. But he also writes, “The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” Which is it? That might depend on one’s mood at the moment. But mankind is even more paradoxical than the universe. “To deny atheism is to reject humanity,” boldly states TheAtheist blog, and right away backs itself into a corner by the simple fact that most of humanity “denies” atheism. Are they stupid, venal, or simply ignorant? “My own view,” says Christopher Hitchens, not entirely tongue-in-cheek, “is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilization, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can’t prove it, but you can’t disprove it either.” Can I prove that atheists tend to hold a low view of mankind? There’s plenty of circumstantial evidence. One is the position they stake out for themselves as more intelligent, courageous, and honest than the general run. Two is an argument that pops up frequently in skeptical circles: If God were such a creative genius, wouldn’t He have done a better job? Especially with humans? Three is the scarcity of benevolent works founded by atheists. I’m sure there are some, but their names don’t spring readily to mind like, say, Samaritan’s Purse, Catholic Charities, and the hundreds of hospitals named for a Saint. Seen on Answerblog.com: “How do atheists express their love for the rest of humanity?” Answer: “You don’t need religion to express love, you complete idiot. Why are all your questions so ignorant?” Genuinely warmhearted atheists exist, but warmheartedness is not the first descriptive quality that comes to mind. The more vocal ones betray themselves sooner or later: To reject God is almost always to despise people. A
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T P E, Good Will toward Men has swiftly passed, so it’s OK to resort to road rage and gloom. Or if you’re more inclined to savage laughter, a book by novelist Meg Rosoff might be just the ticket. There Is No Dog, published a few months ago in the UK (available here in January), imagines God as a lazy, sex-crazed teenager named Bob, whose mother volunteered him for the creation gig. Since Bob is incompetent on top of his other faults, he requires some middle management to ensure he doesn’t destroy the world in a thoughtless moment. This would be merely dumb in the adult market, but the novel is intended for teenagers. Last fall, after learning about the content of her latest book, a Christian school in Bath revoked an invitation for Rosoff to speak during a literature festival. This prompted the author to remark, “It’s disappointing that some schools feel that the subject of my book is unsuitable for their pupils as I consider it part of my job as a writer to explore sensitive issues, and to let my adolescent readers find hope, humour, and redemption in a world full of danger and loss.” Beyond the clanging, boiler-plate echoes of this statement, it’s hard to see how a selfindulgent satire would be helpful to a teen exploring sensitive issues. But an interview with Rosoff published around the same time may shed more light than she intended on her motivations. She claims to have been an atheist since the age of , and “if I could have been an atheist younger I would have been. I used to stand at the bus stop and think, what a rubbish creation is man!” She was also tormented by the thought of death and “eternal nothingness.” Still is: “Life is absolutely horrific, leading up to absolute horror.” This from a woman who has achieved a level of career satisfaction that most authors only dream of. Other wildly successful atheist writers betray an attitude about the world and its inhabitants that is at best conflicted. “The world and the
Email: jcheaney@worldmag.com
12/16/11 9:34 AM
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12/15/11 10:42 AM
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Reviews MOVIES & TV BOOKS Q&A MuSIC
Fairy-tale breakthrough TV: aBC finds an unexpected but deserved hit with Once Upon a Time
Craig Sjodin/aBC
by Megan bashaM
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Though its ratings have faltered somewhat in recent weeks, the biggest success story of the fall television schedule is arguably ABC’s Once Upon a Time, airing on Sundays at 7 p.m. It’s hardly surprising, given its subject matter, that few industry insiders had high expectations for the hour-long drama. The show starts out with the characters and stories we all know and love from fairy tales, then repackages and relocates them to the real world. Ever wondered how Prince Charming and Snow White met? Ever wanted
email: mbasham@worldmag.com
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to know how Jiminy Cricket learned to always let his conscience be his guide? Once Upon a Time endeavors to show us. It also shows us how Cinderella, Rumpelstiltskin, Little Red Riding Hood, and the rest of the Grimm gang might operate in a land where death is permanent and the IRS more frightening than any giant. If you’d have bet with the experts that this kind of fantasy programming didn’t have a chance against gritty crime dramas like Prime Suspect or soapy fare like The Playboy Club and Revenge, you’d have been out some January 14, 2012
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Reviews > Movies & TV
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TV
Downton Abbey by Megan bashaM Fans of all t hings English and aristocratic can rejoice that Downton Abbey makes its return to American TV screens on Jan. 8. While war and infirmity upset the order of affairs at the grand country estate, the fundamentals of the British import that won the Guinness world record for “most critically acclaimed television show of 2011” remain strong. As it embarks on its second season, Downton takes less time developing the scandals and intrigues that keep the plot turning. Viewers not familiar with the show may have some trouble discerning the motives of conniving butler-turned-soldier Thomas (Rob James-Collier) and his partner in crime, lady’s maid, O’Brien (Siobhan Finneran). But new trouble threatening to bring shame on the Grantham family and upset maid Anna’s hard-won happiness should leave them just as hooked as faithful fans. And if that’s not enough, there’s always the new fiancée of Downton heir-apparent Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens), who may be hiding a past involvement with Lady Mary Crawley’s new love interest, a slightly disreputable newspaper magnate. If the ties that bind seem to be getting a bit overly tangled, Downton balances it with continuing exploration of class roles in a time of social upheaval. From the noblesse oblige of Lord Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) to the revolutionary impulses of his Irish chauffeur, audiences are offered multiple views on the shifting political tides without being manipulated to sympathize with one over another. In other good news, the hilarious Dame Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess, along with the luminous Michelle Dockery as Lady Mary, maintain the high performance standards set in its brilliant first season. Even better, during the four episodes screened for this review, the show avoids the brief racy moments that marked its beginning. The gay subplot surrounding Thomas still hovers about the edges, but isn’t nearly so overt. The only blatantly adult scene, in which a couple is caught giggling under the sheets, is minor by primetime standards and treated as an BACK FOR immoral choice by an irresponsible girl. So despite MORE: somewhat soapier tendencies, Downton Abbey is dockery and maintaining its stiff upper-crust lip. stevens.
WORLD January 14, 2012
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12/21/11 9:34 AM
Margin Call: roadsidE aTTracTions • We Bought a Zoo: 20th cEnTury Fox
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nick Briggs/iTV/MasTErPiEcE/PBs
Storybrooke, Maine, presents an alternate reality wherein character’s actions in one dimension affect the lives of their counterparts in the other. Snow White becomes sweet grade-school teacher and hospital volunteer Mary Margaret (Ginnifer Goodwin), Rumplestiltskin becomes devious moneylender Mr. Gold (Robert Carlyle), and the wicked queen transforms into hard-as-nails town mayor Regina Mills (Lana Parrilla). Half the fun of the show is trying to guess which fairy tale the characters belong to when they first appear on screen. When the son that Snow White’s daughter Emma (Jennifer Morrison) placed for adoption finds Emma and drags her into town, the two worlds begin to collide. It seems Emma alone can break the spell the queen cast and return the inhabitants of fairyland to their rightful kingOnce Upon a Time is one of doms. The storylines the most popular family surrounding Emma’s shows of the last decade. showdowns with the mayor, and the clues she uncovers to everyone’s more fairy dust. And when real identities, contain far Prince Charming battles less hokum and far more trolls and defends fair maidhuman interest. ens, grown-ups may get the One warning: The kind of feeling they’re watching an minor obscenities that have especially well-financed become standard on anygrade-school play. thing not broadcast on However, if they’re able Disney or Nick Jr. pop up to let the corny bits slide for often, and one non-explicit the first few episodes, older scene shows unmarried viewers are likely to find characters in bed. Still, Once themselves drawn into the Upon a Time is much milder drama of the small town than most scripted primewhere everyone winds up time shows. Its success proves after the wicked queen banthere’s an audience hungry ishes them to a place where enough for this type of all“there are no happy endages programming—and ings.” Namely, Maine. they’ll be satisfied even if the Much like Lost, from meal is occasionally served which the producers of Once with too much cheese. A Upon a Time hail, life in money. At the time of its winter hiatus, Once Upon a Time can boast not only that it’s the season’s highest-rated new drama but also ABC’s biggest debut in five years. So what’s drawing so many eyes? Parsing the numbers suggests it’s not only the quality of the show but also the opportunity it offers for family togetherness. According to Nielsen measurements of co-viewing— that is, adults watching with a child or teen—Once Upon a Time is one of the most popular family shows of the last decade. While the half of the story that takes place in the magical realm will leave most adults and teens rolling their eyes, younger kids will eat it up with a spoon. It would have been hard for the set and costume designers to cover their castles, princesses, and knights in
DVD
Margin Call BY MICHAEL LEASER
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W A still suffering the effects of the financial crisis, filmmakers have been trying to cash in with documentaries and made-for-TV films that attempt to explain the causes of the near meltdown. First-time feature writer and director J.C. Chandor brings audiences the first narrative feature to tackle the debacle directly in a spare, focused, star-laden vehicle that attempts to humanize, rather than demonize, the players in this catastrophe (well, most of them anyway). Co-producer Zachary Quinto stars as a young risk assessment analyst who discovers late one night that the investment bank he works for has accumulated so many toxic assets that its current projected losses exceed the value of the firm. His superiors call an emergency meeting that night and debate whether they should sell off as much as they can at the opening market bell, even though they know the assets they would be selling are practically worthless. Chandor largely avoids caricaturing his subjects, but he describes all the sympathetic bankers as people who entered or
stayed with the profession for the money, not because they actually enjoyed creating capital. One risk assessment manager speaks wistfully of when he helped build a bridge that saved people time and money. Another expresses a desire to dig ditches, since at least his ditches will last, unlike the bank’s ephemeral assets. Margin Call (rated R for liberal amounts of coarse language) boasts an impressive portfolio of performers, getting nuanced and multi-layered performances from Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, and the underappreciated Stanley Tucci. A slithering Jeremy Irons dominates his few scenes as the ruthless CEO determined to save his company, no matter what the ethical cost. Chandor directs at least some of the meltdown blame to the American people with one manager’s snarky remark that Americans expect to live like kings and people like him make that possible. Frank DeMarco’s cinematography has a hyper-realistic look, almost like a professional home movie, creating that feeling of immediacy and wincing familiarity with a past event that is never quite far enough away.
MOVIE
We Bought a Zoo BY REBECCA CUSEY
NICK BRIGGS/ITV/MASTERPIECE/PBS
MARGIN CALL: ROADSIDE ATTRACTIONS • WE BOUGHT A ZOO: 20th CENTURY FOX
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W B A Z is an excellent family film, which is different than a children’s movie. Unlike frenetic movies focused on the next laugh, this tender film does not aim at children and hope to bring adults along. Rather, it offers something for each member of the family, blending a sad but ultimately hopeful storyline and some cute animals. The unalterable fact of his wife’s death has not stopped Benjamin Mee (Matt Matt Damon) from loving her. Likewise, -year-old Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones) and teen Dylan (Colin Ford) need her as much as ever. When Dylan starts acting up in school, Benjamin answers with drastic change, selling their home. Finding the perfect replacement house is easy. The fact that it comes with a small zoo and an eccentric staff challenges a bit more. Kelly Foster (Scarlett Johansson)) heads up the animal care team, preparing for an inspection that will determine whether the zoo stays open. Her homeschooled niece Lily (Elle Fanning) hopes to find a friend in Dylan. While there are funny moments, this is not the sort of film that features talking animals or jokes about droppings. Just as the animals add richness to the Mees’ life, they add richness to the film, but the focus is on human hearts. All the acting is top notch, but Damon does an especially good job portraying a good man in overwhelming circumstances. Johansson leaves behind her ingenue glamor to portray an earthy and earnest animal lover. Rated PG for occasional language and thematic elements, particularly death and adolescent rebellion, the film will be appropriate for all but the most sensitive children. The quality and sensitivity of this film, plus its tender heart, make it one of the best recent movies. The zoo is much more than just a zoo. It is revitalization of a wounded family unit. See all our movie reviews at WORLDmag.com/movies
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JANUARY 14, 2012
WORLD
12/21/11 9:39 AM
Reviews > Books
Try two works of historical fiction
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BY MARVIN OLASKY
WORLD JANUARY 14, 2012
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still under God’s rule and wrath.” I also asked him about his portrayal of Ham in his third volume. Reed replied, “Ham definitely developed as I wrote. ... I have always been intrigued by the flawed people in Scripture: Jepthah, Samson, Saul. ... Ham was a flawed, broken man, just as we all are. ... But God delivers flawed, broken people into His kingdom, and so Ham for me personifies the hope that I have in Christ.” Reed’s books are available through reasonablehope.com/books or amazon.com. A
THEBES VS. SPARTA: HERMANN VOGEL/J.G.VOGT/ILLUSTRIERTE WELTGESCHICHTE/NEWSCOM • THE ARK: GUSTAVE DORE/BETTMANN/CORBIS/AP
Wrath, Mabbul, and Mystery of R I S of Lawlessness (-). The publishMahwah, N.J., was disappointed ers are small ministries in Georgia and that our summer books issue South Carolina, the author is a Ph.D. included numerous genres but geologist and PCA ruling elder/young not historical fiction. He wrote, “As a earth creationist, and the books are set voracious male reader, I find it difficult to in Noah’s time, so it’s not surprising find good clean historical fiction and am that they received no publicity and no constantly disappointed by the lack of media mention that I’ve run across. it. ... Can you recommend some great The Coming Wrath occurs in the contemporary historical fiction writers?” decades immediately before the flood, Yes, I can—but the search has not and the main character is Madrazi, who been an easy one. Some historical (in this fictional novelists fail to take sufficient account account) marries of original sin. Others produce more Noah’s son Shem. Reed talk than action. And yet, just when I thought my Shpudejko mission would be a failure, books by two first-time, improbable novelists not only made it onto my pile by the treadmill, but kept me walking for a long time. One of the debut novelists, Victor Davis Hanson, has received laud, honor, and a , Bradley Prize for terrific historical works of military history such as Carnage and Culture. Hanson also BLOOD AND FLOOD: Thebans fight celebrates the martial Spartans; Noah’s ark (right). virtues in articles for makes first-time-novelist National Review and other conservative mistakes in pacing, but his publications. His novel, The End of vibrant passages pushed me Sparta (Bloomsbury), recreates the th toward Mabbul,, which is gripcentury .. Thebes vs. Sparta battles. Hanson particularly focuses on the ping in its flood narrative, and Mystery of Lawlessness,, which genius of Theban general Epaminondas, whose democratic vision of freeing occurs in the years leading up to the building of the Tower of Babel. Sparta’s slaves won him the temporary That last book is the best, with action allegiance of tens of thousands. and well-etched characters mentioned in Memorable characters such as Lichas, a the Bible (Ham, Nimrod, Ashkenaz, othSpartan so determined to kill others ers) or emerging from Reed’s imagination that he comes across as a human (Korac, Noah’s post-flood daughters Terminator, and Melon, a farmer who Mariel and Jael). Nimrod is a super-villain does not allow his lameness to become but the others are not super-heroes or weakness, provide human drama. caricatures: Several rebel but eventually The End of Sparta is receiving some come to understand God’s grace, through publicity, so I’d like to turn now to a realistic (not heavy-handed) transitions. trilogy by John K. Reed: The Coming
Email: molasky@worldmag.com
12/15/11 11:11 AM
COBURN: SUE OGROCKI/AP
Looking backward?
I asked Reed how he developed the concept of Shem’s wife Madrazi. He replied, “I was nervous about blending the Bible and fiction for fear of diluting or distorting God’s word. ... I decided that the story should not use the people explicitly mentioned as my main characters and focused instead on those not mentioned, which meant a story about the wives of Noah’s sons and people who died in the flood. “Madrazi painfully changing allegiances from her father by blood to her father by marriage. I made her birth father a two-fisted all-American hero gathered from many stories, trying to show that type of character, no matter how good he comes off in the stories, is
NOTABLE BOOKS Four nonfiction books > reviewed by
You Will See Fire: A Search for Justice in Kenya Christopher Goffard Catholic priest John Kaiser lived for more than years in Kenya and spent most of that time working in obscurity, building churches, baptizing babies, and hearing confessions. He became much more outspoken after , when he became chaplain of a refugee camp and learned firsthand how the government was fueling tribal tensions for its own corrupt purposes. In , after years of death threats, Kaiser died from a gunshot wound that blew off the back of his head. Murder or suicide? Goffard, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, reconstructs Kaiser’s last years in meticulous detail, perhaps not solving the puzzle but creating a compelling portrait of the priest and a gritty account of the ravaged land he loved.
The Grace Effect Larry Taunton Taunton begins and ends his book with conversations he had with Christopher Hitchens in which Hitchens insisted the world would be better off without Christianity. Taunton had a chance to test that proposition when, several weeks after the first conversation, he traveled with his family to the Ukraine to adopt Sasha, a young girl with HIV. Taunton recounts the deplorable conditions of her orphanage, the way officials treated children as commodities, and the corruption built into the court system. He makes the case that this result is due to Ukraine’s recent Soviet history, where government systematically suppressed Christianity. Taunton also shows the effect grace has had in Sasha’s life, and presents her joy as the ultimate argument against atheistic unbelief.
Raised Right: How I Untangled My Faith from Politics Alisa Harris
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THEBES VS. SPARTA: HERMANN VOGEL/J.G.VOGT/ILLUSTRIERTE WELTGESCHICHTE/NEWSCOM • THE ARK: GUSTAVE DORE/BETTMANN/CORBIS/AP
A More Perfect Heaven Dava Sobel At the time of the Reformation, in remote Frauenburg, doctor and Catholic church administrator Nicolaus Copernicus squeezed careful observations of the planets into a daily schedule taken up with settling land disputes among peasants, setting policy on the minting of money, and caring for his bishop’s health. His observations led him to conclude that the earth orbited the sun—but he sat on his research for years until a young mathematician, Rheticus, came from Wittenberg and convinced him to publish it. Sobel weaves together the mundane and celestial in Parts and of this fascinating book. Part is a play that humanizes Copernicus but also depicts speculation (such as about Rheticus’ homosexuality) as fact.
Alisa Harris grew up in a Christian homeschooling family. As a child she idolized Ronald Reagan, carried pro-life signs at demonstrations, and dressed up a goat as Bill Clinton. Now she is the author of a memoir in which she describes voting for Barack Obama and carrying signs to protest Bank of America. The book is both engaging and confusing. She’s a good reporter, able to breathe life into stories about her younger self and her life in New York City. She rightly criticizes some of the Christian conservative movement in which she was raised, but she’s much less critical of the Christian left. Despite the book’s title, she didn’t untangle her faith from politics. She’s still entangled—it’s just a different politics. Email: solasky@worldmag.com; see all our reviews at WORLDmag.com/books
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SPOTLIGHT As Americans head into an election year, it’s a good time to reread Sen. Tom Coburn’s Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders into Insiders (Thomas Nelson, ). In it Coburn writes bluntly about what went wrong in the Republican revolution of . Since important figures from that era are back in the spotlight, and since the same issue—the need to tame out-of-control federal spending—is still with us, Coburn’s book couldn’t be more timely. He explains the lure of “careerism” and the corrupting nature of power, and warns of those who spend today and promise belt-tightening tomorrow. The book embeds its detailed accounts of crucial budget battles in a larger discussion of human nature, the lure of “the inner ring,” and the need for internal controls that ultimately come from Christ.
JANUARY 14, 2012
WORLD
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Reviews > Q&A
Border reformer The father of a pioneering education policy in Arizona is now bringing ideas for conservative reform to Washington as a congressman BY MARVIN OLASKY
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T F, R-Ariz., is serving his fifth term in the United States House of Representatives. Before that he was an education pioneer in the Arizona legislature (see WORLD, April , ). Here are edited excerpts of an interview conducted before a student audience at Patrick Henry College. I’ve read that you owe a lot to pro-life parents. I was born with not only a cleft lip, but my skull didn’t fuse together, and the roof of the mouth was missing. The doctors said, “Well, this baby isn’t going to be ... is he going to survive? The best thing probably to do is to do away with him in a merciful manner.” My parents had other ideas, and I’m very grateful to them. My father, an engineer, told the doctor that he would make a machine to feed me if he had to. Turns out they fed me with a pill cup and an eyedropper. Nine operations? Doctors had to rebuild the entire roof of the mouth. By the grace of God, I can now perpetuate monotonic polysyllabic obfuscation and verbal circumlocution [spoken very fast] with the best of them.
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You’re also grateful to Margie Freeman. She was my rd- and th-grade teacher. I don’t want to be emotional here, but she always said to me, “You can do it!” She was there when I needed her. Good parents, good teachers ... the bells and whistles that some schools add don’t make much of a difference. Do you think that non-wealthy parents should be able to choose their children’s teachers? In Arizona I was on a board raising money for K- scholarships. We worked very hard and raised ,, a year. I remember one mother who was earning , a year and wanted so bad for her two children to go to a little Christian school that she was willing to give up , of that so they could go. We were able to help her, but I wished we could help more mothers like her.
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Did you think of a way? One day in my shower I thought about taking some of the billions of dollars we spend in government-sponsored education. The idea hit me: What if we allowed people to contribute to a scholarship fund, and they would get a
I thought it would end up in the Supreme Court. That indeed is what happened. We got it passed after three years and fought in court for years. The ACLU and the NEA called it fiendishly clever, but it was really divinely simple. Government never touches the
because it doesn’t cause the religious schools to be vulnerable to government pressures. It’s private contributions going to a private charity to go to private scholarships for private individuals to go to the private school of their private choice. It privately drives the ACLU nuts because it’s structured that way. Have other states followed suit? Nine, either fully or partially, including Florida and Pennsylvania. Remember, it’s contributing to a fund to send another person’s child to the school of their parents’ choice. It doesn’t help you send your own child, but if we make these scholarships available it makes more available to others. Let’s turn to immigration. As you survey that long border between Arizona and Mexico, what do you recommend? I’ve been a supporter of the fence in particular places, but the bigger principle is what is important here. Border security is vital to national security. I’m a member of the Armed Services Committee and the Strategic Forces Committee, which deals with our nuclear profile. People say, “How can they get a nuclear weapon across the border?” My answer: “Maybe they put it in a barrel of marijuana.” The idea that you couldn’t bring a major weapon across the border is ludicrous. What’s the bigger principle concerning immigrants? We
“The idea that you couldn’t bring a major weapon across the border is ludicrous.” dollar-for-dollar reduction in taxes. That would save the state money, because it costs so much less to send a child to a private school than it does to a government school, and that would empower a lot of parents. Then what happened? I walked out of the shower just as I was—not to scare anyone— and wrote down the idea.
money. We have given a quarter of a million scholarships: It’s the largest school choice program in the nation, and percent of the kids are going to a Christian-based school, not because of the program, but because their parents wanted that to be that way. The Supreme Court upheld it. A few months ago. We are working on efforts to expand it. I’m a supporter of anything that empowers parents, including vouchers, but I think this is a better mechanism
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can still insist that people who come into our country come here legally and come to embrace the Constitution and the idea of freedom itself. We are going to do this in a fair and just fashion. Let’s connect the dots of border security, immigration policy, and education opportunity. If Congress had a bipartisan agreement to secure the borders, would it then be possible to pass a version of the Dream Act, which would provide a road to citizenship for those brought into the country as small children, and thus were not consciously breaking the law? If we had border security, there would be a lot of credibility on some of these other issues. If we haven’t stopped the bleeding, it’s hard then to decide what you want to do with the patient. Once we secure the borders, there could be a way to regularize their status, without giving them some front-of-the-line position over those who are trying to come in the traditional way. With all the retirement communities in Arizona, I suspect you get lots of questions about Social Security and Medicare. There has to be a restructuring: Unless we can repeal the laws of mathematics, we’re on a collision course with solvency. How would you restructure it? Allow young people to invest some or all of their Social Security into a private fund that they own— that will be there for them when they retire. Students here: How many of you believe that if Social Security continues on its present course it will be there for you at that far-off time? For the record, I don’t see one hand raised. A JANUARY 14, 2012
WORLD
12/15/11 1:59 PM
Reviews > Music Bennett with Amy Winehouse.
Resting on laurels Tony Bennett’s Duets II has pleasant moments, but it’s an album only record sellers and Grammy voters could truly love
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WORLD JANUARY 14, 2012
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(“Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album,” “Best Pop Duo/Group Performance” for the Amy Winehouse–featuring “Body and Soul,” “Best Instrumental Accompanying Vocalists” for the Queen Latifah–featuring “Who Can I Turn To [When Nobody Needs Me]”). The Roman numerals alone denote roads more traveled by—Bennett released Duets: An American Classic in —especially when you consider that Frank Sinatra also released similarly configured albums called Duets and Duets II in and , respectively. All four albums were produced with care by Phil Ramone and were greeted warmly if largely for sentimental reasons. All four can be played unobtrusively in the background of upscale soirées and not all that obtrusively elsewhere. And if they aren’t among either Bennett’s or Sinatra’s best work, they aren’t among his worst either. Yet, coming from singers known for their taste, there’s something off-puttingly uncreative, and thus unartistic, about them—as if, bereft of new ideas and unwilling to “pull a Johnny Cash” and hire Rick Rubin to steer them toward material they’d never otherwise notice, Bennett and Sinatra realized they could rest not only on their laurels but on those of younger, hipper microphone partners. Bennett’s Duets II is cushioned with other
platinum-selling superstars, and it’s not without its share of pleasant mini-revelations (that Winehouse, for instance, could’ve matured into a st-century Billie Holiday, that Andrea Bocelli might yet mature into another Julio Iglesias, that Bennett still sings better than all of them). But the main idea is obviously to tap into the sales potential represented by whatever fraction of the guests’ audiences will buy anything with their names on it. Even if that fraction is, say, only one-tenth, the combined revenue generated by one-tenth of multimillion-member demographics covereth a multitude of questionable aesthetic judgments. Or at least it does in the minds of the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences, who will no doubt nominate Duets III from Bennett should he live long enough to record it. He certainly expects to live long enough to record an album with Stevie Wonder, as he has already announced such plans. But even that sounds like Ebony and Ivory Redux. What Bennett should do is enlist Keith Richards, whom he recently met for the first time, for a collection of Rolling Stones songs. To say the least, it would be interesting. Especially since, by his own admission, the -year old Bennett has never heard a single one. A
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“T ,” wrote G.K. Chesterton a century ago about the unimaginativeness of female education, “but plodding, elaborate, elephantine imitation.” He might well have had similar thoughts about the Grammy Awards. The th edition of America’s longestrunning annual music showcase won’t transpire until Feb. , . But signs that it has become nothing but a plodding, elaborate, elephantine imitation of its former self are already afoot. In fact, according to the U.K. Guardian’s Hadley Freeman’s take on the recently broadcast Grammy Nominations Concert, they’re running rampant. “As is always the way with these shows,” wrote Freeman, “the nominations themselves were the least memorable part of the event, primarily because they were both predictable and daft.” Nothing can be “predictable,” of course, unless it’s unimaginatively imitative. As for “daft,” surely that term includes elaborate and elephantine plodding. Freeman aimed most of her criticism at performers whose over-the-top celebrity and sales (Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Kanye West) practically made their nominations faits accomplis. But she could’ve targeted more venerable prey as well. Consider, for instance, Tony Bennett’s thrice-nominated Duets II
Email: aorteza@worldmag.com
12/15/11 2:08 PM
M. MACNELL/NEWSCOM
BY ARSENIO ORTEZA
NOTABLE CDs
Five new pop releases > reviewed by
Beautiful Morning Yukie Nishimura Yukie Nishimura is a Japanese pianist whose style Wikipedia describes as “light easy listening.” And so it is. But what light easy listening! Imagine a better Carpenters album than that duo ever released stripped of vocals, and you’ll have some idea of what she’s able to evoke with just a little help from an occasional and sympathetic string section. As far from the amorphousness of New Age as it is from the rigors of baroque, her lightness glistens like the rain glazing William Carlos Williams’ red wheelbarrow. Hollywood The Puppini Sisters Being one part Roches and nine parts Andrews Sisters might make this trio an ideal foil for Michael Bublé singing “Jingle Bells,” but it hardly qualifies them to turn in versions of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” or “Moon River” that can compete with those of Marilyn Monroe (or T-Bone Burnett) or Andy Williams (or Morrissey), respectively. So consider them the Sha-Na-Na of the Great American Songbook, and save your money for their Vegas show.
Glory Michael W. Smith Michael W. Smith has thrown himself into his second instrumental album with a gusto you don’t have to like Contemporary Christian Music to love. It might help, however, if you love, or at least like, epic films and Gershwin. Smith’s not quite in that league, but he’s getting there. And he’s not falling all that short of what he’s aiming for. Besides, where he’s landing is not to be sneezed at—unless you’re allergic to purple mountain majesties, amber waves of grain, and The Trip to Bountiful.
SPOTLIGHT Admittedly, Brian Wilson’s similar recording of the first songs on the Beach Boys’ The SMiLE Sessions mutes the impact of Capitol Records’ presentation of what for the last years has been considered the “greatest unreleased album of all time.” But only a little. Finally hearing the psychedelic Americana that the Beach Boys labored so long and hard over in and —and what Brian labored so long and hard over with an unorthodox studio orchestra before he added the Beach Boys’ voices—is still amazing. Brian had intended SMiLE to be a superior response to the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Instead, weakened by copious amounts of drugs, he cracked, leaving only “Good Vibrations” and “Heroes and Villains” to connote What Might Have Been because he’d destroyed the tapes. Only he hadn’t—as Disc Two of The SMiLE Sessions two-disc edition and Discs Two through Five of the five-disc edition abundantly prove.
MARK ALLAN/AP
M. MACNELL/NEWSCOM
American Road
The Tierney Sutton Band Grammy laden though she is, the jazz vocalist Tierney Sutton breezes along her individualistic way as if nothing more than suggesting the flexible parameters of her Bahá’í faith and following her Wisconsin-bred (and New England-honed) instincts were at stake. She doesn’t break new ground, but the old ground that she revisits she tends with an apolitical affection that’s downright touching in our hyper-political times. Progressives might not blink at “Summertime” or “On Broadway.” But—admit it— “Amazing Grace” and “America the Beautiful” take some nerve. See all our reviews at WORLDmag.com/music
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Mindy Belz
The other unreached people group
Theirs is a world shaped by media, by technology, and by the predominance of English as the language of the internet. A -year-old in Kathmandu is more likely to speak English and to use it frequently via Facebook and YouTube than his -year-old parents, who haven’t had an English lesson since th grade and don’t have much time for the internet while running a store. This, said Taylor, “at least blurs if not practically speaking obliterates the geographic boundaries that once divided previous generations.” The / Window will be one to watch in Towering alongside these new trends is what Larsen calls “the systemic adult abandonment of the young.” The very things that unite young people divide them M the / Window, that from adults. They learn the day’s conversation topics geographic band between and degrees from a social media website, not the dinner table. They north latitude that’s home to the largest go to YouTube for direction on how to change the oil in unreached people groups—and the poorest and the car, not Dad. If they have a question about who most spiritually impoverished—in the world. Its billion took the first walk on the moon or what is an HPV account for the majority of the world’s Muslims, vaccine, they’re more likely to google it than to ask in Hindus, and Buddhists. the car on the way home from school. Fewer of us have heard of the / Window, and And clearly parents have turned away from youth, I’m grateful for a recent orientation session from two particularly in the West (and often in pursuit of experts, Eric Larsen and Jonathan Taylor of Global extending their own youth). Even in our Christian Youth and Family Ministries. They believe missions are circles adults often are no longer a treasury of wisdom both geographic and generational, and they have and experience for children but a directory of services. dubbed the . billion of the world’s population The Christian school or the homeschool curriculum between the ages of and as the / Window. educates and disciplines Taylor told me these youth them, the youth group constitute “the largest entertains them, and unreached people group in clinical experts are there to human history, larger than rehabilitate them when the largest geographithey fall. cally defined unreached “We used to guide our people groups combined.” children into the pool and World population teach them how to swim,” quietly hit a tipping point says Larsen. “But this is the in : Over percent of generation of parents who people around the globe are walked away. We’ve pushed now under the age of . It’s our children into the pool perhaps not a coincidence and we aren’t in the water that in the year following YOUNG ONES: Two Afghan teenagers listen to music as with them.” we saw youth rise up in they ride a motorcycle outside Kabul on Dec. , . Larsen’s plea is simple Arab Spring revolts, and and direct: “We are calling on an entire adult population other less noted protests in China, Burma, Uganda and to turn its hearts to the young.” elsewhere have featured youthful roustabouts raging His plea is not only to parents but to what he calls a against aging, entrenched government leaders. I have covenant community of adults who will recognize the seen too the sheer potency and discontentedness of value of training the next generation in all things at all youth in Afghanistan, where people under the age of levels—and not as in “we hire some people and we say make up percent of the population. we have done it.” Beyond the shifting demographics are two other Larsen believes it’s significant that the Old Testament guiding realities: The extension of adolescence, where ends in Malachi with the promise of the prophet who puberty begins earlier (in its average age of onset will “turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the was . years of age; today it is ) and marriage and hearts of children to their fathers ...” (Malachi :) and other signifiers of adulthood arrive later and later. And that the New Testament begins with the birth of a baby, an emerging global youth culture in which youth an infant savior, Himself born to parents who today around the world have more in common with each would be considered part of the / Window. A other than they do with the adults in their own culture.
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WORLD JANUARY 14, 2012
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ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Email: mbelz@worldmag.com
12/22/11 4:38 PM
AMAZING DOCUMENTED STORY OF HOW THE LIGHT OF MODERN SCIENCE REVEALS CHRIST AS CREATOR
Important Unknown Facts Excluded by Bias of Modern Science that are included in this Book 1. Most of the founders of modern science for nearly 300 years (1500 ff.) believed in biblical creation by Jesus Christ, the Word. 2. Naturalistic theory of chance beginning and evolution to reject biblical creation was begun by biased men, many who heard and had visions (by 1755 A.D.). This theory spread, was altered, widely accepted, and later modified (1859 A.D.) by Charles Darwin. 3. Before publication Darwin was told by his three more qualified scientific friends that his theory of natural selection for descent up to man had no evidence in fossils or in life. His co-author, Alfred Wallace, later denied evolution to man because his extensive study of primitive tribes showed no gradualism in human development. 4. In 2011 scientests from Rutgers and University of Arizona concluded “... we don’t know what the mechanism of evolution is. As far as we can make out, nobody knows exactly how phenotypes evolve.” What Darwin Got Wrong.
Reports Footnoted from Science of Actual Measurements Support Biblical Beginnings 1. The evidence of the decline of the earth’s forces (e.g. alpha force, speed of light, et al.) corrects time beginnings to near 6,000 years. 2. The genetic age of man measured by mutations, not guesses from chimpanzees, but from science of human families is 6,000 years. 3. Scientific computer calculations of factors of actuarial history of humanity shows the beginning of mankind was 6,000 years ago. 4. Science of lower criticism of New Testament documents reveal they were written by witnesses of the time of Jesus. (606 pages, 1000 + footnotes of reliable history of science)
...plus much more!
“Everyone seems to be disturbed—even panicked—at the disarray of family and social life in the western world. Still we follow the wrong cues and retreat to the sidelines in defeat. Confusion and ineptitude always stumble hand-in-hand over the backwoods of ignorance. From ancient days men of success and accomplishment inevitably perceive the ‘big picture.’ Old Testament history records that the sons of Issachar were men ‘who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do…’ Our need today is critical for men of their ilk. Carl Wilson is such a man. With painstaking patience he has dusted off a path through history to trace whence we have come. He has sketched a grid to classify the enigmas of modern life.” Dr. Howard Hendricks, chairman of Center of Christian Leadership, Dallas Theological Seminary
Worshiping creation or wealth instead of the Creator is a bad eye putting everything into great darkness CREDIT
(Jesus, Matthew 6:22-33) ISBN 978-0-9668181-1-6 $40.00 (paperback) Order from your bookstore or bravegoodmen.org
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Educating the next generation of leaders in the heart of New York City.
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888-969-7200
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THE YEAR AHEAD
A long way to go The political and economic outlook for appears murky BY MARvIN oLAsKY
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enthusiastic supporters and enough financial backing to keep on slogging, state after state? Even now many people are saying that the GOP bench—Huckabee, Daniels, Christie, Ryan, Rubio, McDonnell—is stronger than the team on the field. If no campaigning candidate gains a commanding lead, the “none of the above” caucus will grow and we may be on the way to the journalists’ dream, a convention where delegates must actually convene to select a nominee. That’s unlikely but conceivable in . Also unlikely soon is any resolution of the debate concerning how much government should intervene in markets, and how much more of the total tax bill the top percent should pay. We’ve been told often that this or that federal program will stimulate the economy out of its job-poor semirecovery, but so far many Americans
are no better off than they were immediately after the Crash of . Internationally, the financial future is also murky. In China and the Middle East, where the division between the percent and the percent is real, most despots seem likely to hold onto their political and economic power, unless they are replaced by new despots. In Europe, where overspending by many national governments has created financial crisis, residents of many nations are likely to ask “Est-qu’on est arrivés maintenant?” in their own languages—and with many kilometers to go before they sleep, presidents will continue to reply, “Non.” But here’s one bit of good news: is a leap year, so we have one day more than usual to get things right. The real Good News is this: We sinners will continue to mess up this year, but Christ has already accomplished what’s needed for all who believe in Him to leap ahead. A
RYAN McVAY/STONE/GETTY IMAGES
A The children’s question on long car trips is likely to be the question parents will ask political and economic decision-makers during . The Republican primaries will yield political drama during the first half of the year. Republicans have partly imitated Democrats by moving from winner-take-all primaries to proportional representation of the kind that in led to a protracted battle between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. For example, the new rules state that any GOP primary in March must have some proportionality in the selection of delegates. Since Obama in faced only one other major candidate, he was able to eke out a win without having the contest continue all the way to the Democratic convention. But what if the GOP, at the end of March this year, has not two but three or four major candidates, all with
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WORLD
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THE YEAR AHEAD
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With last year’s Keynesian stimulus not working, Americans in may be ready to accept some short-term pain for long-term gain BY DAvID sKEEL
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of will be the same as last year’s—the deficit and whether to increase it with more “stimulus” spending, the Wall Street protests, the European crisis— but the overall debate is likely to shift. Notice that I said “debate,” not debates. The issues are complex but they all boil down to the same question: How much should the government intervene in the markets? The conventional wisdom is that in a crisis, the government needs to “prime the pump” by, among other things, providing plenty of funding for the banking system and using public money to create jobs. In this “Keynesian” perspective—after John Maynard Keynes, the British economist who defended this strategy during the Great Depression—government must keep a heavy hand on the reins. Today’s Keynesians argue that we need massive new stimulus spending and shouldn’t worry about the growing deficit, since economic growth will follow if the government leads. They interpret the
Occupy Wall Street movement as confirming that the government needs to control the economy. The opposing view is sometimes called Hayekian, for Friedrich von Hayek, the Austrian economist who argued that markets are nearly always preferable to government planning. Today’s Hayekians condemn the bank bailouts, arguing that the creative destruction of bankruptcy is a better solution than propping up inefficient banks. They also criticize the financial reforms enacted in for singling out “systemically important” financial institutions for special government attention, and thus creating a European-style partnership between the government and the biggest banks. Hayekians fear that this partnership will make it difficult for smaller banks to compete, and will discourage competition in financial services. Those of us who lean toward the Hayekian perspective on these issues have an uphill battle in troubled economic times. Hayekian remedies are
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Eating our broccoli
hard medicine in the short run: Their benefits only emerge over time. Keynesian solutions, by contrast, have precisely the opposite quality: Spend now, pay the bill later. This often makes them irresistible. Newt Gingrich wasn’t crazy when he touted the benefits of the stimulus for his clients in the electronic health records industry. Why eat broccoli when you can go straight to dessert? The good news is that broccoli may start looking a lot better in . The crisis has now lasted long enough to reveal some of the downsides of government management of the economy. The Obama administration is patting itself on the back for having “rescued the economy” through its stimulus and other interventions, but the benefits of this “rescue” are hardly apparent. The job market remains awful, especially for the young: This is why many of them are out protesting. Anyone who has recently applied for a mortgage or business loan knows how far things are from anything resembling normal. It’s extraordinarily difficult to get a loan, even for those with pristine credit. In this environment, the Hayekian perspective cannot be so easily dismissed. Perhaps the government shouldn’t have been so quick to bail out the troubled banks. Europe might be better off had Greece been forced to
Unemployment through the years Coming to power in the midst of an economic crisis, the Obama administration projected in January that its stimulus plan would keep unemployment under percent. Unemployment instead rose much higher than that. The unemployment rate has fallen some this year, but it remains at historically high levels:
1997 > 4.9 %
1991 > 5.6 %
1992 > 7.5 %
1993 > 6.9 %
1994 > 6.1 %
1995 > 5.6 %
1998 > 4.5 %
1996 > 5.4 %
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1999 > 4.2 %
1998 > 4.5 %
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BACK TO WORK: A man looks out at Wall Street in New York City. The barriers were put up around the New York Stock Exchange after the Occupy Wall Street movement began.
1999 > 4.2 %
restructure its debt severely, and temporarily leave the euro. A new stimulus could make things worse rather than better. These remedies, painful in the short run, might have set the stage for robust economic growth
2000 > 4.0 %
by now. We’re learning that while government might have a role to play during a crisis, we should take seriously the possibility that sustained government involvement will crowd out private investment and retard recovery. When Ronald Reagan ran for president in , he famously asked Americans to consider whether they
2001 > 4.7 %
2005 > 5.1 %
2002 > 5.8 %
2003 > 6.0 %
2004 > 5.5 %
2006 > 4.6 %
were better off than they had been four years earlier. In , Americans will ask the same question about government management of the economy, and many will conclude that stagnation is not good enough. A —David Skeel Jr. is the S. Samuel Arsht Professor of Corporate Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School
2007 > 4.6 %
2008 > 5.8 %
2009 > 9.3 %
2010 > 9.6 %
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2011 (Nov.) > 8.6 %
WORLD
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THE YEAR AHEAD
Race for the White House >
As wound down, the presidential campaign appeared to be shaping up as a four-man race—among President Obama, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul. Here’s where they stand on issues likely to play a large part in the race:
SOCIAL ISSUES: Gingrich signed a pledge to select only pro-life appointees for top jobs and to stop federal dollars going to pro-abortion clinics. Romney supported legal abortion earlier in his career and did not sign the pro-life pledge but voices strong opposition to abortion. Both support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
SOCIAL ISSUES: Obama overturned an order barring overseas pro-abortion groups from receiving U.S. taxpayer money. He has nominated pro-abortion cabinet secretaries and federal judges. He pushed to repeal the ban on gays openly serving in the military and instructed the Justice Department to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act.
ENTITLEMENTS: Obama considered changes in the way Social Security is linked to inflation in but backed off after upsetting core supporters. He did propose higher Medicare premiums and raised deductibles and copays for wealthier seniors. His biggest proposed source of Medicare savings, billion over years, came from extending price controls on prescription drugs.
IMMIGRATION: After gaining two-thirds of the Latino vote in , Obama abandoned his promise for a comprehensive reform bill in Congress his first year in office, disappointing many Hispanics. He unsuccessfully pushed for passage of the DREAM Act in , which would grant permanent residency to illegal immigrant graduates of U.S. schools.
FOREIGN POLICY: Obama took heat last May for suggesting that IsraeliPalestinian peace talks should start with the borders that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called indefensible. Obama ordered in a troop surge in Afghanistan, and he approved in the mission that killed Osama bin Laden.
TAX POLICY: Obama wants to let the Bush-era tax cuts expire and also favors limiting deductions and closing loopholes for top income earners. He has repeatedly argued that the government’s deficit problem cannot be solved without tax increases.
HEALTHCARE: The president’s flagship accomplishment remains the massive overhaul of America’s healthcare system. The trillion law includes a mandate requiring all Americans to buy health insurance. It also forces businesses to offer insurance or pay fines. The Supreme Court is set to decide if the program is constitutional.
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ENTITLEMENTS: Gingrich’s plan gives younger workers the option of diverting Social Security taxes to private retirement accounts and provides a private insurance option for Medicare patients. Romney also supports private competition in Medicare and said he would consider increasing the Social Security eligibility age, and reducing inflation adjustments for wealthy retirees. Both would convert Medicaid to a block grant administered by states.
IMMIGRATION: Gingrich wants to make English the official language of the U.S. government, but rivals have attacked Gingrich for supporting legal status for some illegal immigrants. Romney said the focus should be on first securing the U.S.–Mexico border, and he opposes illegal immigrants receiving higher education benefits.
FOREIGN POLICY: Both see a nuclear Iran as the greatest threat to the United States, and both would increase coordination with Israel in opposing the Iranian regime. Romney refuses to rule out waterboarding as a form of interrogation while Gingrich opposes the tactic.
SOCIAL ISSUES: Paul is pro-life. “Some people believe that being pro-choice is being on the side of freedom,” he wrote in his book Liberty Defined. “I’ve never understood how an act of violence, killing a human being ... is portrayed as a precious right.” He supports overturning Roe v. Wade but believes that states should regulate abortion. On marriage, Paul supports the federal Defense of Marriage Act, but also supported the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
ENTITLEMENTS: Paul’s proposed budget allows younger workers to opt out of Social Security and Medicare. Current seniors would continue to receive their benefits, and he has said cuts to defense and foreign aid would help cover the current recipients. Paul would turn Medicaid and other welfare programs into block grants to states.
IMMIGRATION: Paul wrote in Liberty Defined that the United States should have a “generous visitor work program,” and perhaps provide undocumented immigrants a “‘green card’ with an asterisk,” because the country can’t deport everyone. He would also revoke birthright citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants. He opposes laws forcing employers to check employees’ immigration status, which he says is a “police and court function.”
FOREIGN POLICY: The congressman supports international commerce and trade but advocates cutting all foreign aid and ending the war in Afghanistan. Paul said the United States should have captured and interrogated Osama bin Laden instead of killing him, which he said unnecessarily inflamed relations with Pakistan.
TAX POLICY: Gingrich would offer a percent flat tax to households and cut the corporate tax rate to . percent. Romney would cut the corporate tax rate to percent from its current percent. Both would eliminate the capital gains tax and the estate tax while extending the Bush-era tax cuts.
TAX POLICY: Paul would like to eliminate the Internal Revenue Service and the federal income tax. That ideal aside, his budget proposal released in October would extend the Bush tax cuts, reduce the corporate tax rate to percent, and eliminate both the capital gains and the estate taxes. On monetary policy, Paul would eliminate the Federal Reserve and return to the gold standard.
HEALTHCARE: Repealing Obamacare is a
HEALTHCARE: Paul said he would push to repeal
top priority for both, although both have supported forms of insurance mandates in the past. Both support the ability to purchase policies across state lines, tax deductions for health insurance costs, protection of insurance of those who get sick, health savings accounts, and caps on medical malpractice lawsuits.
Obama’s healthcare law, institute tax credits and deductions for all medical expenses, and allow Americans to buy insurance across state lines to increase competition. He thinks Americans should increasingly rely on medical savings accounts, which allow them to save for medical costs tax-free. He has proposed tort reform where patients would receive a tax credit to buy their own “negative outcomes” insurance.
GINGRICH: JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES • PAUL: CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES
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THE YEAR AHEAD
States to watch >
The races for president and U.S. Senate seats will highlight the political calendar. The next year will also see fallout from fights between two conservative governors and their states’ powerful public employee unions. Here are states to watch as campaign season heats up:
NEVADA:
WISCONSIN:
Nevada, a swing state that President Obama won in , is still feeling the full blast of the recession and the housing crisis. Its foreclosure rate was the worst in the nation in , and remained the worst in . The state’s unemployment rate increased last year to . percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
If recall organizers have collected as many signatures as they say they have, Republican Gov. Scott Walker will likely face a recall election in spring or summer . Recalls rarely succeed, but Walker’s controversial budget that curbed public employees’ collective bargaining power stirred up voter opposition in and resulted in the successful recalls of two Republican state senators.
MISSOURI:
COLORADO: Colorado is one swing state with more registered independents than either Republicans or Democrats. President Obama will need to win the support of most independent voters to counter conservative voter excitement; a recent Gallup poll found that Democratic enthusiasm is at its lowest point in a decade, trailing Republican enthusiasm by points.
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Of the Senate seats up for a vote in , Democrats have more seats to defend than Republicans, and the Republicans need a net gain of four seats to take the Senate majority. Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill is one of the more vulnerable Democrats.
NEVADA PROTEST: BILL CLARK/ROLL CALL/GETTY IMAGES • WISCONSIN PROTEST: JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES McCASKILL: ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES
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MICHIGAN:
OHIO:
Twenty-one percent of the population of Michigan is Roman Catholic, among the highest rates in the country, according to the Official Catholic Directory released in . Obama won the support of a majority of Catholic voters in , but his administration has a strained relationship with the Catholic Church. The state also holds its Republican primary on Feb. , potentially giving a candidate momentum heading into Super Tuesday on March .
Ohio is a critical Rust Belt swing state that has felt acute unemployment as manufacturing jobs have evaporated. When the state ousted its Democratic governor in and brought in Republican John Kasich, Ohio GOP Chairman Kevin DeWine said, “Today we kicked down Obama’s firewall”—but voters in overturned a major Kasich measure curbing collective bargaining.
MASSACHUSETTS: Massachusetts is the rare state where Republicans could lose a Senate seat. Republican Sen. Scott Brown won a huge upset in to fill the late Sen. Edward Kennedy’s seat, but Brown faces a tough candidate this time around: Elizabeth Warren, who headed Obama’s newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau until recently, currently leads Brown in polls.
VIRGINIA: Obama turned this red state into a blue state in , but a year later Virginians elected Republican Governor Bob McDonnell,, and Republicans took control of the state Senate in . In recent years the population of deep blue northern Virginia has surged, so Obama has a better chance here than Virginia’s decades of Republican triumph would indicate.
NORTH CAROLINA: North Carolina’s congressional representation could look more Republican after . The GOP had its first chance in more than a century to redistrict when it took control of the legislature in —a sea change most pronounced in North Carolina but replicated in states across the country where Republicans took control of legislatures.
FLORIDA: Florida will play a large role in the GOP nomination process through its primary on Jan. and its hosting of the GOP convention in Tampa in August. It will also be a key swing state in the general election. The state’s large senior population will be responding to Republican proposals on Social Security and Medicare.
WARREN: ZUMA/NEWSCOM • OBAMA: BILL PUGLIANO/GETTY IMAGES • KASICH: SKIP PETERSON/AP McDONNELL: MARK WILSON/GETTY IMAGES
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WORLD
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THE YEAR AHEAD
Around the world >
The year could be a turning point in many places across the globe—politically in Latin America and Europe, militarily in the Middle East, and economically in Asia. Here’s a look at nations in transition:
GREAT BRITAIN: Painful austerity measures may pay off this year in Great Britain. After two years of deep cuts introduced by Prime Minister David Cameron, a key global indicator called the Purchasing Managers Index suggests Britain may be the only European country to avoid a recession. The rest of the continent will likely face a rough year: Morgan Stanley estimates Europe’s economies will contract . percent in as the EU financial crisis continues.
MEXICO: A slate of candidates will vie for Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s job when the president’s six-year term ends later this year. Deplorable security conditions will be a central campaign issue, as the country reels from a drug war that has cost at least , lives since .
VENEZUELA: Venezuelans due to vote in presidential elections in October face a major question: Will President Hugo Chavez be on the ballot? The socialist leader has suffered health problems that appear serious enough to raise questions of whether he’ll run. If he doesn’t, strategic allies like Iran will watch eagerly to see if another anti-American leader takes his place.
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EGYPT: If early election trends continue, Islamist political groups will gain control of Egypt’s parliament when officials announce final results in March. Religious minorities— including Christians comprising percent of the population—will watch to see if their freedoms erode under a new government with power to shape the nation for decades.
CAMERON: CARL COURT/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • CALDERÓN: TIM SLOAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES COPTS: PETER MACDIARMID/GETTY IMAGES • CHAVEZ: JUAN BARRETO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
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RUSSIA: Most election observers expect Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to return to the country’s presidency after March elections. But growing discontent with the authoritarian leader’s rule may force Putin to make a critical choice: reform or repress. When thousands of Russians flooded Moscow’s streets to protest corrupt parliamentary elections in December, the government responded by dispatching the military—but a post-Arab Spring world may force Putin to learn the limits of repression.
IRAN: Will Israel strike Iran in ? One of the weightiest questions of the year carries worldwide implications, including how the United States would respond. After a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed Iran is inching closer to obtaining a nuclear weapon, top Israeli officials suggested a preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities could be necessary to prevent an attack by the nation that has called for Israel’s extinction.
CHINA: If was a tough year for political dissidents and religious groups in China, could be even worse: As the Chinese Communist Party prepares for its th congress—and a change in party leadership—government officials may seek to manage public reaction by continuing to silence public dissent. Even groups that aren’t directly challenging government policy will likely face continued harassment: Christians in congregations like Beijing’s unregistered Shouwang Church say they’ll continue to look for ways to meet, despite government opposition.
NORTH KOREA:
SUDAN/ SOUTH SUDAN: A burning question for East Africa in : Will full-scale war erupt between Sudan and the newly constituted South Sudan? As Sudanese military forces bolster encampments near the disputed border with South Sudan, an international crisis could re-ignite war between the two regions and leave millions of South Sudanese facing old dangers in their new nation.
INDIA: Though India isn’t immune to the global economic downturn, the Asian giant still enjoyed an economic growth rate of around percent in . That vastly outstripped America’s estimated percent rate, but widespread poverty still plagues Asia’s third-largest economy, and government officials are proposing to expand welfare benefits in a system that suffers extensive corruption.
PUTIN: ALEXEY DRUZHININ/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • CHINA: JONATHAN SARUK/GETTY IMAGES KIM: KOREAN CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY/KOREA NEWS SERVICE/AP
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With marking the th birthday of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, the country’s officials set this year as a deadline for achieving status as a “strong and prosperous nation.” Major construction projects in the nation’s capital are designed to create new restaurants, theaters, and , new apartments. But a crippled economy and dire food shortages in the communist regime mean millions continue to languish in one of the most secretive nations on earth, even as the death of dictator Kim Jong-Il apparently leaves his youngest son, Kim Jong-Un, as the next dictator.
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Concerns over executive orders grow as President Obama tries to implement parts of his jobs bill without congressional approval
COMMANDS &
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“W into our own hands.” That’s the message President Barack Obama is taking across the country this fall. Unable to prod Capitol Hill—even the Democraticcontrolled Senate—to enact his billion jobs bill, Obama shifted his attention to the American people. His message is persistent and blunt: If Congress won’t pass what Obama thinks are the best prescriptions for the nation’s dour economy, then he will do it himself. In Denver on Oct. , Obama said, “We can’t wait for Congress to do its job. So where they won’t act, I will.” And in Yeadon, Pa., on Nov. , Obama pledged that, with his agenda stalled in Congress, “We decided to take matters into our own hands. I’m going to move ahead without them. I told my administration I want you to keep on looking for actions that we can take without Congress.” The actions White House officials have found? Executive orders. On a weekly basis this fall the White House, using the slogan “We Can’t Wait” in its press releases, is unveiling numerous executive orders that bypass Congress to implement economic policy. These directives, many taken straight from Obama’s faltering jobs bill, touch on a wide range of domestic issues, including changes to the student loan and home mortgage processes, the reworking of business tax breaks, billion to expand the healthcare workforce, and orders to step up the Food and Drug Administration’s investigations of the pharmaceutical market. For example, Obama’s mortgage order expanded the powers of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two entities that many blame for the housing crisis. This flood has occurred without negotiations with Congress and amid concerns about its constitutional authority, but the White House insists that Obama is doing nothing wrong: “He’s not pulling pieces out and making them law by fiat,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters. “I’m sure he wishes he could do that.”
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P G W have issued executive orders, an avenue of presidential powers not explicitly defined in the Constitution
and often ignored by the public. Traditionally, presidents have used executive orders to help direct federal agencies in complying with congressional laws. Beyond this administrative function, executive orders also serve symbolic purposes such as lowering flags to half mast or creating a new military medal. Fifty-five percent of all executive orders have been issued since . Franklin D. Roosevelt tops all presidents, having issued more than ,. Gerald Ford, who succeeded Richard Nixon after his use of executive orders in the White House led to claims of an imperial presidency, issued the least with , but he was president for only two-and-a-half years. George W. Bush issued in eight years, while Bill Clinton issued . The total in U.S. history, as of Nov. , was ,. A few executive orders, particularly in wartime, have been controversial. During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln used an executive SIGNING OF THE TIMES: Obama signs order to suspend the an executive order to writ of habeas corpus close the Guantanamo that protects citizens Bay detention camp against unlawful detenon Jan. , . tion. During World War MARK WILSON/GETTY IMAGES II, Franklin D. Roosevelt used an executive order to create internment camps for Japanese Americans. Presidents occasionally used executive orders to push for social change: Harry Truman issued an executive order to desegregate the Army, and Dwight Eisenhower used one to desegregate schools. Obama issued only executive orders through Nov. , but his boldness has made this fall flurry of orders different from those issued by Obama’s predecessors. Phil Kerpen of Americans for Prosperity said, “We’ve never seen a president turn sidestepping Congress into a political virtue.” Conservatives are concerned that Obama’s latest spate of executive orders veers dangerously close to usurping powers from Congress, especially since some of these domestic policy orders involve untying the federal purse strings. Article I of the Constitution gives Congress control over taxes and spending. “To me, ‘we
S & CONTROL by
in Washington
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“Until Nancy Pelosi is speaker again, I’d lik cant wait’ means we can’t wait for the process that the framers of the Constitution set forth,” said Colin Hanna of Let Freedom Ring, a nonprofit group that promotes constitutional government. “We can’t wait for this messy process that the framers designed to grind its way through.” Adam Warber, a Clemson University political scientist and author of Executive Orders and the Modern Presidency: Legislating from the Oval Office, said the evolution of executive orders is an example of “someone with power trying to find ways to increase their power.” Some observers suspect that Obama’s executive orders are part of his reelection strategy, meant to create a contrast between himself and what he calls a do-nothing Congress. Obama may be using Roosevelt’s economic and political playbook: The Depression-era president used some executive orders to jump-start his New Deal program. Obama, like Roosevelt, believes government expansion is the best antidote for economic strife. An executive order can be overturned in several ways: A president can reverse his own order, another president can revoke it, or Congress can pass a law overruling the order. Two of Obama’s earliest executive orders in rescinded George W. Bush’s executive orders banning the federal funding of both embryonic stem-cell research and clinics that performed abortions overseas. The next pro-life president likely will overturn Obama’s orders that now permit these activities. Also, courts can overturn an executive order by declaring it unconstitutional— but Clemson’s Warber said examples of a court striking down an executive order are rare. The Supreme Court in overturned Truman’s order authorizing the seizure of steel mills during a series of strikes. In , the court nullified a Bill Clinton order, issued as a nod to his union supporters, that barred the government from contracting with organizations employing strikebreakers. R C are pledging to scrutinize Obama’s orders. House Speaker John Boehner said on the Laura Ingraham radio program, “We are keeping
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a very close eye on the administration to make sure they are following the law and following the Constitution.” Many observers, though, see such promises as political theater on the order of Obama’s “we can’t wait” motto. Congress tends to be passive when it comes to challenging presidential power: Lawmakers may hold hearings about executive overreach, but they rarely take the next step of formally challenging the orders. Todd Gaziano of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies blames this on lawmaker reluctance to be more accountable with legislation. He says Congress prefers passing laws that are broadly interpreted and grant wide authority to the executive branch: “That way they can get political credit for doing something but also be able to avoid the blame for the specifics if things go wrong. They can blame any failure on the federal regulators and their bureaucracy.” In the face of such legislative chicanery, Americans for Prosperity’s Kerpen says that presidents continue to centralize power in the executive branch: “We need to get citizens involved who will elect lawmakers who will fight to restore power back to Congress and pass specific legislation.” This leeway has allowed Obama to act aggressively. Congress rejected Democrats’ cap-and-trade energy legislation, but the Environmental Protection Agency is busy writing regulations incorporating elements of the defeated bill. Congress defeated prounion card-check legislation, but the National Labor Relations Board and the Department of Labor are issuing rules incorporating parts of what lost. Netneutrality regulation failed to receive majority support in Congress, but the Federal Communications Commission voted to impose it. Congress has declined to halt this encroachment: Last month the Senate, in a party-line vote, rejected an effort to override the FCC’s decision to enhance its own regulatory powers over the internet. But the private sector has not been as willing as Congress to let the executive branch run free. Verizon Communications has filed a complaint in court against the FCC’s new authority. Numerous states and Email: lpitts@worldmag.com
12/16/11 9:48 AM
I’d like to work my way around Congress.” —OBAMA, in a Sept. speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus
CHUCK KENNEDY/MCT/GETTY IMAGES
utilities are suing the EPA over its new regulations. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce have brought a lawsuit against the NLRB’s new rule requiring businesses to post notices explaining employees’ rights to unionize. Undaunted, Obama in a Sept. speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute was forthright in his goals: “Until Nancy Pelosi is speaker again, I’d like to work my way around Congress.”
Email: lpitts@worldmag.com
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I, Obama during the campaign accused George W. Bush of abusing his executive power. A former constitutional law professor, Obama took exception to Bush’s use of another traditional presidential power: signing statements. Such statements accompanying a bill usually clarify a president’s understanding of that law and how it will be enforced. Obama, in a comment to the Houston Chronicle, said Bush mistreated this power by using it “as an end run around Congress’ legislative intent.” Obama at the time pledged he would not use signing statements to undermine congressional instructions enacted into law. Yet this April, as Washington tried to avert a federal government shutdown, Obama issued his own signing statement. It said he would disregard a provision in Congress’ short-term budget that blocked funding for four White House policy advisors, known as czars for their ability to oversee major policy initiatives without congressional oversight. “It is brazenly running roughshod over the constitutional limits on his authority,” said Ken Klukowski of the Center for Religious Liberty at the Family Research Council. “His ‘we can’t wait,’ is code for ‘I know better.’” Executive orders aren’t always orders, though. Just two days after taking office in January , Obama ordered the detention camp in Guantanamo Bay to be closed in one year: During the campaign he had called the center’s use a “sad chapter in American history.” Nearly three years and numerous classified presidential intelligence briefings later, the camp remains open. A JANUARY 14, 2012
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Risky regulations
I
’ to take your favorite -year-old boy fishing out on a Michigan lake. On his first cast, he hooks a largemouth bass, a -pounder you have to help him reel in. It’ll go perfect on the grill. One problem: Michigan has a statewide mercury advisory for bass. Mercury is a toxicant that affects the nervous system. Do you eat the fish? Michigan suggests you make no more than one meal a week from any bass you’ve caught. For an -year-old, only one meal a month is recommended. If you follow that cautious advice, you can grill today, but you’ll be eating hot dogs tomorrow. Whether you throw the fish back—or eat it for lunch and dinner—you’re making a risk decision. As a society we leave some risks to individual choice or the marketplace, and minimize others through regulation. On Dec. the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized the first nationwide limits on the emission of mercury and other toxic air pollution from power plants. As the debate surrounding the rules proves, Americans disagree about how much risk to regulate. The new EPA rules are expected to eliminate percent of mercury from the exhaust of coal- and oil-fired power plants in the United States, and reduce the emission of nickel, chromium, arsenic, and certain acid gases. Mercury that enters the atmosphere can travel for thousands of miles before falling to the ground or into bodies of water, where it accumulates in fish. Humans who eat those fish absorb the mercury, and some
studies have shown cognitive impairments in children whose mothers ate seafood-rich diets during their pregnancies. Advocates of regulation say reducing mercury from power plants will reduce a health risk to children. The power sector will have to spend billion a year by to comply with the rules, according to EPA calculations. Electric companies have decided to shut down some of their coal-fired plants and install powerful scrubbing technology on others. Consumer electricity prices could rise percent, and perhaps more in some regions. Mitch Hescox, president of the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN), says increased energy costs are a sound investment where children’s health is concerned: “Is it right, in our country, that people should have to worry about where they can take their kids fishing?” Hescox’s organization has helped draft a statement describing mercury pollution’s effect on the unborn and calling for stricter regulation of emissions. The statement (mercuryandtheunborn.org) has gained endorsements from more than pastors and leaders, including Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary. The statement reads in part, “One out of six babies born in the U.S. has harmful levels of mercury in their blood.” “I think that’s a national tragedy,” says Hescox. “Jesus said, don’t do anything to hinder the children.” But another organization with endorsements from evangelicals, the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of
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GARY FONG/GENESIS PHOTOS FOR WORLD
WILL THE EPA’S NEW MERCURY RULES DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD?
GARY FONG/GENESIS PHOTOS FOR WORLD
FISHY: A warning sign Creation, thinks some skepticism of the in San Jose, Calif. EPA is justified in this case. Cornwall’s spokesman, Cal Beisner, said the EEN’s “one out of six babies” figure is inflated, based on calculations that assume mercury could be harming children even in relatively minute amounts, an uncertainty that needs an empirical answer. (WORLD founder Joel Belz is a Cornwall advisory board member.) Hescox said he stands by his organization’s figure. Who’s right? And how do two groups promoting environmental stewardship come to opposite conclusions on an environmental matter? Much depends on the research they rely upon. The studies the EEN cites assume that mercury in umbilical cord blood is percent more concentrated than in the mother’s bloodstream. But cord blood mercury concentrations vary in other studies, and the EPA’s estimate—which includes an uncertainty factor to account for cord blood—is that , newborns each year may be at risk. That’s bad news, but at in births, it’s half the EEN’s figure. Beisner thinks even the EPA’s number is too high: He believes in , births is more realistic, and that any neurological harm is likely to be barely detectable. Other organizations are weighing in. The Hawaii Seafood Council, a nonprofit promoting Hawaiian seafood, argues the fish consumption advice issued by the U.S. government in (that pregnant women and young children should eat fish no more than twice a week) is out of date and dangerously Email: ddevine@worldmag.com
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underemphasizes the health benefits of seafood. And new research shows that the element selenium, found in many fish, neutralizes mercury’s effect on the brain: An EPA-funded study in found that percent of the freshwater fish it surveyed in the western United States had sufficient levels of selenium to counteract mercury toxicity altogether. Some scientists, moreover, doubt whether the efforts to reign in U.S. power plant emissions will really lower mercury concentrations in U.S. fish to acceptable levels. Roughly a third of the earth’s mercury emissions comes not from industrial sources but natural ones, like volcanoes and ocean vents, and of the airborne mercury that is deposited in the United States, over half likely comes from foreign nations like China, the world’s largest emitter. The EPA predicts its new mercury and air toxics rules will save between , and , people from premature deaths, prevent , cases of acute bronchitis, and avoid , cases of aggravated asthma. (Oddly, almost all these advertised benefits would come from the reduction of pollution unrelated to the rules: “Fine particulate matter,” which the EPA already regulates, will be coincidentally removed from the air as the metals and gases are scrubbed.) The agency predicts a to return in health benefits for every dollar invested, leading some to believe billion a year in compliance costs is a bargain. Regulation has hidden health effects that shouldn’t be overlooked, though. Timothy Terrell, an economics professor at Wofford College in South Carolina and a Cornwall senior fellow, JANUARY 14, 2012
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POWER STRUGGLE: Consumers Energy’s Karn/Weadock power plant near Bay City, Mich., was ranked the sixth-biggest mercury polluter in Michigan in 2010, according to a report released by the Environment Michigan research & policy Center.
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Looming over the dispute between the two evangelical groups is a larger conflict between two approaches to handling risk: One views nature and people as in need of protection and focuses on preventing as much risk as possible. The other views them as resilient and focuses on regulating only the most credible threats. The tension between these approaches is noticeable in debates over issues like climate change, flu immunization, and lead laws. Some experts believe government often has a responsibility to prevent risks even when our understanding of them is still evolving. “Uncertainty doesn’t dictate inaction,” said Michael Vandenbergh, director of Vanderbilt Law School’s environmental law program. “We act every day in response to a risk of a flood, or a hurricane, or a house burning down, even though it’s uncertain whether it will occur. We buy insurance; we drive more safely.” On the other hand, setting down rules before clearly defining the problem can lead to policies based on assumption instead of fact, said Andrew Maynard, director of the Risk Science Center at the University of Michigan. Maynard, whose research background is in nanotechnology and its health hazards, was recently perturbed upon hearing that the European Commission—a group providing oversight to regulation in the European Union— planned to establish a legal definition of nanomaterials as “a policy decision” (as a representative put it), even though scientists disagree about what a nanomaterial even is. “It seems to be saying that, ‘We haven’t got the foggiest what this thing called nanotechnology is, but we’re going to make up a definition so we can regulate it anyway,’” said Maynard. “That leaves it in a position where we have no idea what we’re regulating and why, and that can’t be good for business, and it simply can’t be good for people’s health.” He said some people automatically assume that a newly invented nanomaterial will be a health hazard, but research doesn’t back up that view. Dueling math models reflect different approaches to risk. The EPA’s default method for calculating chemicals’ cancer risk is a model called “linear non-threshold,” which assumes that even the smallest amount of a carcinogenic substance increases a person’s risk of cancer. (By this assumption, for example, a single X-ray could cause cancer.) This model is under challenge today by proponents of models based on “hormesis,” the idea that tiny amounts of radiation or toxics are harmless or even beneficial. With all the tension between cost, benefits, and risk, how do we write regulations that are good for everybody? Maynard of the Risk Science Center said the best policies invite all the stakeholders to the table, and are adaptable to change in case science brings new information to light: “Any regulation is going to be inadequate. It’s just that you aim for them to be as good as possible.” —D.J.D.
Carlos osorio/ap
told me economists estimate that for every $10 million to $20 million in increased regulatory costs, a life is lost, statistically speaking: “You don’t know who that is, but it might be that because we had lower income, we lived in a more dangerous area, drove a less safe car, had to take a more dangerous job—or maybe didn’t take care of ourselves as much as we might otherwise.” Terrell said although the EPA rules may save some lives, “You’re costing lives on the other side because you’re reducing incomes, reducing the availability of energy, and raising costs to people of obtaining some very definite benefits from having cheaper electricity and jobs.” Republicans and a handful of Democrats in the U.S. House are concerned about those hidden costs. In September they passed the TRAIN Act, a bill that would delay implementation of the EPA’s mercury and air toxics rules for a year or more while a committee studies their potential economic impact. The legislation faces Senate opposition and a White House veto threat. A
risk analysis
12/28/11 2:08 PM
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The mission of the World Journalism Institute is to recruit, equip, place and encourage journalists who are Christians in the newsrooms of America first and then the world.
12/15/11 4:09 PM
“Unschooling” and traditional Christian homeschooling are two very different things by Grace Howard
F
or Bethany Drury, an Iowa State University senior, school was whatever she wanted it to be. She was “unschooled”—a homeschooled child with complete control over her education. Drury focused her education on horses, the outdoors, and veterinary studies. She watched National Geographic specials and read library books on her favorite subjects. When Drury began attending Iowa State, she faced new difficulties: “I got to college loving to learn, seeking information … but there were things I didn’t want to focus on when I was younger, like math and chemistry, so when I got to college, I wasn’t prepared for them.” Drury struggled to focus during study time. She could not sit for long, and frequently switched subjects or took breaks. But she had never learned another study method: “It never occurred to me that there was any other way to do it.” The National Center for Education Statistics estimates that one-third of the 1.5-2 million homeschoolSCHOOL’S OUT: ers in the United States are unschooled. But “unschooled” unschooling’s philosophy of education children Ivy and differs substantially from traditional Kai Borden play homeschooling, and should pose some in their yard in Birmingham, ala. concerns for Christian parents.
MICHELLE
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education. It is to help a child be who she is and blossom into who she will become. … Learning happens as a side effect.” In the most radical forms of unschooling, this freedom permeates children’s entire life: they control their bedtimes, meals, and chores. On her blog, Fetteroll writes that children should sculpt their own lives and parents should give them what they want: If “they are happy and free and are making these choices because it brings them joy, then we should trust that it really is what they want or need right now. … We need to trust that when it is enough for them, then they will stop. Their ‘enough’ may be different from where ours is.” The difference in discernment about “enough” is exactly what concerns some Christian parents. Blogger Cathy Koetsier explored unschooling and liked its child-directed learning philosophy, but she wondered how to reconcile unschooling with Christian motherhood. After reading Psalm , she wrote on her website, Christian-Unschooling.com, that Christian unschooling should be described as a large pasture encircled by a strong boundary fence: “The pasture is the place of freedom. … The fence is the principle and instruction of God’s Word.” Christian unschoolers try to meld the limit-free teaching methods of unschooling with structured biblical parenting. Elissa Wahl, co-author of Christian Unschooling: Growing Your
JOHN GAPS III/ GENESIS PHOTOS FOR WORLD
Unschoolers operate under the same state laws that regulate homeschoolers, but their philosophies and approaches to learning can vary significantly. Unschooling is a “radical” version of homeschooling; it gives children complete control over their subjects, schedule, and interests. If children do not want to learn science, they do not have to. If they enjoy art, literature, or computer programming, they can spend all their time pursuing that subject. Nineteen-year-old unschooler Shane Stranahan did not learn to divide until age . He began attending community college philosophy and literature classes at age . Before he was , he spent a year in Canada building log cabins and learning how to farm. This fall he has backpacked across Europe and harvested grapes in France. Shane’s father, filmmaker and writer Lee Stranahan, calls it “natural learning … organic, as opposed to arbitrary. … In traditional school, learning is a chore you do during certain hours, during certain times of the year.” Unschooling mom Joyce Fetteroll writes on her blog, Joyfully Rejoycing, “The goals of unschooling are different than all the other methods. … The goal of unschooling is not
“IT NEVER OCCURRED TO ME THAT THERE WAS ANY OTHER WAY”: Bethany Drury, at Iowa State University, with a photo of herself from her homeschool days.
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Children in the Freedom of Christ, writes on her site, Christian-Unschooling.blogspot.com, that “Unschooling in my house is not unparenting. ... Although I am pretty radical in my educational beliefs, they do not carry over to letting the children do whatever they want, whenever, with no consequences. That would be unbiblical.” But when it comes to school, Wahl does believe in letting her children do “whatever they want. … If they want to learn about rockets for years, or minutes, that’s OK with me!” Koetsier writes, “Unschooling is the freedom to learn what you want to learn, when you want to learn it, how you want to learn it, where you want to learn it, and for your own reasons.” She does not believe this method will nurture willful or disobedient children. She thinks that respecting her children’s natural abilities to learn will result in “a rich adventure of discovery that ultimately brings us … closer to one another and to our God, the Creator of all.”
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and biblical understanding of child raising is hard, though, because unschooling grew out of the work of author John Holt, an atheist who argued that parents who exercise discipline “probably destroy as many good qualities as we develop, do at least as much harm as good.” In his book How Children Fail, Holt says teachers should not tell children they are wrong, under any circumstances, because that undermines their self-confidence: “We adults destroy most of the intellectual and creative capacity of children … by making them afraid … of not pleasing, of making mistakes, of failing, of being wrong.” Unschooling father and writer Pat Farenga worked closely with Holt until his death in . Although Holt was an atheist, Farenga does not believe his atheism influenced his educational philosophies. Farenga says Holt did not assume the intrinsic goodness of human nature, as some unschooling critics argue, but realized that “people can be willfully bad. … [He] did advise people in his talks and writing to try as much as possible to think and expect the best of children and to give them second chances.” Koestier does not believe that Holt’s views of discipline and teaching are incompatible with her Christian faith. She says unschooling cultivates her children’s spiritual development: “We didn’t want children that complied with rules on the outside while their hearts were wrong on the inside. We wanted free thinkers who chose what was right because it was right. I can control my children’s actions. But it seems a better thing to coach and support them in developing self-control.” Author and Patrick Henry College provost Gene Edward Veith, a proponent of classical liberal arts education, fears that unschooling’s narrow scope could make a person “very narrow and brittle. … The beauty of a liberal arts education is that [students] try a bunch of different things, and see what
they’re good at. In the course of that, they find what they most want to focus on, but they still have a foundation and basic understanding of a lot of different things.” Katie Roberts, a Patrick Henry College senior, was unschooled until high school. She enjoyed her “childhood without school,” but when she became a teenager, she wanted to prepare for college—and apart from her high school training, “getting into college would have been very difficult. I would probably have done some English and History of my own accord,” but she wouldn’t have had the “full slate of academics”—including math, science, and Spanish—that allowed her to make an easy transition to college. Mary Hood, founder of the Association of Relaxed Christian Home Educators, has a Ph.D. in education and supports “relaxed homeschooling.” By that she means a flexible curriculum and not the grade system of the public school; she sets specific goals for her children’s education. As children get older, they set their own goals: “As much as possible, I like to let them enjoy the academics, but I still have goals for where they’re heading. … If they’re not achieving with what I expect, then I will bring more structure to fill in the gaps.” Although Farenga believes that parents could maintain parental authority while allowing complete freedom in education, Veith wonders how parents could compartmentalize parenting and education: “If you wouldn’t do that in your Elissa Wahl family, why would you do it Christian Unschooling in education? Good parentauthor and blogger ing is absolutely essential to the mental health and happiness of a child. … Teaching right and wrong, to be selfcontrolled, respectful—that’s education.” Veith believes that unschooling follows Rousseau’s philosophy of a naturally innocent and good child. Rousseau never advocated the unschooling method: He believed in removing children from their parents and placing them in the care of a tutor. But Veith says that both Rousseau and Holt defined freedom as meaning, “I’ll do whatever I want.” Veith says, “That’s not Christian freedom, that’s license and slavery. A child who is following his own impulses is not free. He’s a slave to those impulses. Freedom comes from teaching [children] “to develop self-control, self-discipline, to develop their mind and their conscience. … That’s real freedom.” A
“ALTHOUGH I AM PRETTY RADICAL IN MY
EDUCATIONAL BELIEFS, THEY DO NOT CARRY OVER
TO LETTING THE
CHILDREN DO
WHATEVER THEY WANT,
WHENEVER, WITH NO CONSEQUENCES.
THAT WOULD BE
UNBIBLICAL”
— Grace Howard is a Virginia journalist
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web of by ANGELA LU illustration by EVAN HUGHES
grace
A burgeoning presence on the internet is helping Christians spread the Word in China C’ C is likely to continue in , with teaching via the internet contributing to it. Type “democracy” or “Tiananmen Square” into Baidu.com, the popular search engine in China, and a message will pop up informing you that you cannot access the page. But type “Christianity” into the same search engine, and you’ll be flooded with links to church websites, personal blogs, and sites about Christianity from inside and outside the country. That’s surprising at a time when Chinese officials are persecuting members of Shouwang, a Protestant house church in Beijing, and the “Great Firewall of China” is preventing many internet users from finding material the government deems offensive—like information on Taiwan, Tibet, or Chinese dissenters. Christian material, though, is often unblocked. With nearly million Chinese people using the internet, Christian ministries such as Jesus Central, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and Minnesota pastor John Piper’s Desiring God are looking to the internet. Vipool Patel originally created jesuscentral.com in as a way to teach his Hindu family about Jesus. The site uses passages in the Bible to explain the life, teaching, and impact of Jesus, with the goal of creating a starting point for someone with no religious background to understand who Jesus is. Seven years ago, Patel worked with Ambassadors for Christ to create the same website in Chinese, called YesuZhongxin.org. Since then, the popularity of the site has grown through word-ofmouth, links on Three-Self church websites, and search engine ads. In , the site had . million unique visitors. The site offers Jesus , a six-week program on Jesus’ life and ministry, with lessons, assignments, and journaling. More than , people have signed up for it: Patel said the government does not block YesuZhongxin.org because it is an educational site that is open about its goals and respectful of Chinese laws. Patel has already shifted operations of the site into China and hopes to form a board of directors in China as well. He wants the Chinese site to be self-sustaining inside the country. He said, “Many people who come to the website are lonely and hurting, people write [on the message boards] about how they don’t want to live on, but then they say, ‘I discovered Jesus, there is a future for me now.’” For those wanting a deeper understanding of the Bible, GordonConwell Theological Seminary provides online courses in Chinese.
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agreed not to name for security reasons: “They are The program began five years ago after some Chinese believers familiar beginning a conversation about how to lead a Christian with the seminary asked for help: Although some estimate that life, forums, blogging, encouraging each ot her, and million Chinese have professed Christ, only legal seminaries exist. sharing testimonies.” “Online education provides an opportunity for a huge church The importance of these resources can be seen in a that really needs education,” said David Horn, director of Semlink, recent Metadigm study that showed percent of the online course provider. Currently about students—most Chinese - to -year-olds saying the information they tied to the house church movement—are taking the Semlink read on the internet influences their decisions. The study courses. Students cannot get a full degree from the program, but also showed that Chinese youth need help: percent said the courses do count toward a degree at a larger institution. they had thought about suicide in the past three months, Last year Piper’s Desiring God ministry created kemushen.org, compared to the world average of percent. a Chinese version of its website. Bill Walsh, director of internaMany young Chinese— tional outreach at Desiring God, worked with volunteers and percent of the younger translators to translate Piper’s written manuscripts and digital generation aged to in urban books into simplified Chinese. In the past six months, the site cities—are spending their time has received , unique visitors from within China. on Weibo, China’s main social “In formulating a language site, we wanted to make all the media platform. The micronavigation terms, the domain name all to be in Chinese,” Walsh blogging site, which is similar said. “We want a Chinese speaker to feel completely at home.” to a combination of Facebook Walsh and his team next plan to translate into Chinese of and Twitter, has over milPiper’s key sermons that they believe “represent his whole lion users. “It’s the closest thing body of work.” China has to a public square,” Besides websites from outside China, some Christian sites the consultant said. “It makes based in China also exist. Gospeltimes.cn aggregates news the government nervous. If on churches around the country with headlines like the government wanted a “Shenzhen, Guangdong, Hong Kong pastoral seminar on BREAKING THROUGH THE GREAT revolution, it would just have the challenges of urbanization.” Fuyin.tv archives sermons FIREWALL OF CHINA: A laptop in a to shut down Weibo.” from popular pastors, Christian documentaries, and Beijing house church in May . Christians have a presence on worship music. the site: Chinese pastors, Christian publishers, and openly Similarly, Jonahome.cn is a forum where believers Christian actors all have their own accounts and followers. share prayer requests, ask questions about the faith, and Desiring God started a JohnPiperQuotes account on Weibo in encourage one another. Todayschinesefamily.com gives May. JohnPiperQuotes posts some of the translated material from biblical advice on building healthy marriages and the site and also some English sentences from Piper’s Twitter. As of includes articles such as “How to help a suicidal friend.” mid-October, the account had , followers from every province Even underground churches have their own websites and municipality in China including Tibet and Xinjian. The team where they upload sermons and share testimonies. found that the followers included ordinary young people, Three-Self “Christians have taken advantage of the internet,” and house churches pastors, and even famous actors. A said a Desiring God China consultant, whom WORLD
numbers victory
country. As of earlier this year, the total number of Christian books in legal circulation was about , with to new books added each year. Walsh started dreaming about publishing a Last month Desiring God’s Bill Walsh received the book in China on his first trip to the country in digits he had spent years waiting for—the Chinese . In subsequent visits, he started building a government-issued ISBN number that will allow Desiring relationship with ZDL, a Christian publishing house, God to sell John Piper’s Legacy of Sovereign Joy to in order to make the dream a reality. The biggest anyone, anywhere, in any quantity in China. obstacle was to obtain an ISBN number for the book, The book, which chronicles the lives of Augustine, since books with foreign ISBN numbers cannot be John Calvin, and Martin Luther, is Piper’s first book to published legally in China: Each book needed a specific be legally published in China. Walsh said Desiring God government-issued ISBN. Desiring God worked with chose it because “a book about the history of the ZDL to translate the book, and after several years of church seemed to have a lower bar to get over to get prayer and work finally received an ISBN number. The a legal ISBN, yet there is also theological content.” Chinese translation of The Legacy of Sovereign Joy is He also noted that other biographies on these men available in China this month. have already been published in China. “We are trying to take resources and use those to In the past decade, China has become more equip Christians globally, especially the leaders who are open to publishing Christian content, with over lacking in theological training,” Walsh said. —A.L. Christian bookstores opening up throughout the
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BITTERSWEET FAREWELL A Christian couple returns to Mexico ahead of their visa expiration date and grateful to America, but their complicated case highlights problems with immigration law by JILL NELSON in Orange County, Calif.
Alger Garcia Hernandez and Liliana Colin
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, Alger Garcia Hernandez and Liliana Colin came to the United States from Mexico City looking for opportunity. They are married and both have degrees in business administration, but / wreaked havoc on the Mexican economy and they lost their jobs. The couple immigrated to the United States and immediately began looking for work. Hernandez and Colin came here on a B/B “visitor for pleasure and business” visa. The expiration date is posted in the middle of their visas: March . But what the couple may not have realized is that during the years the visa is valid, the visa holder cannot enter into employment with a U.S. company, start a business, or remain in the country for more than six months at a time. With immigration a hot topic this election season, this couple’s story highlights some of the problems that have plagued immigration law. Many lawyers claim the system is more complex than the U.S. tax code. Some analysts suggest that solving illegal immigration requires fixing our legal immigration system so that officials can enforce violations but offer legal opportunities to couples such as Hernandez and Colin. Not wanting to stay past their visa’s expiration date, Hernandez, , and Colin, , decided to return to Mexico. Their reason developed through a journey into the Christian faith. “I believe God brought us to this country to know Him, but God doesn’t want us in bondage,” Hernandez said. He was reading about God directing our paths in Psalm and thought, “How about we go back [to Mexico] and glorify Him?” Hernandez and Colin have two children and have worked diligently these past years. Colin’s first job was at Kmart, working from p.m. until a.m. as a janitor for a day. “When I came back to my house I didn’t know if I was going to feed my baby or sleep. When I was with my baby I was sleeping,” Colin said. Hernandez, although used to having his own office and secretary in Mexico, took the first job he could find and started working at Payless Shoes for an hour. Their goal was to have jobs that matched their qualifications and an apartment of their own. They reached their rental goal but encountered numerous obstacles in the marketplace because they didn’t have work visas. The couple had Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers and paid their taxes, but that wasn’t enough for higher-level jobs, Hernandez told me. What he may not have realized is that any employment was considered a violation of the terms of their visas. For many immigrants, the situation here is far better than what they left behind, Hernandez said: “Our story is pretty neat
‘OUT OF SYNCH’
ALGER & LILIANA: JILL NELSON MAP: WAEL HAMDAN/iSOTCK
Matthew Soerens, a U.S. church training specialist for World Relief and former immigration legal counselor, says he would like to see changes to immigration law that would both open doors for immigrants like Hernandez and Colin and meet the needs of our labor market. In a case like theirs, the couple would be made aware of their visa violations and asked to pay a fine in exchange for legal status. This proposal is not “amnesty,” Soerens explained, since the violation is acknowledged and the penalty paid.
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compared with the stories we hear. Some are used to working in the fields—doing jobs that we never realized existed in Mexico. So when they come and work in house cleaning they are in the shade working and are not persecuted by someone else.” Many of these immigrants intend to save money and return home. Hernandez says they had planned to do the opposite: “We came to work hard and buy a house here and become citizens. We never thought about going back.” But the citizenship requirements are difficult, and there aren’t enough programs for immigrants who are here legally, they said. Despite the obstacles they encountered, Hernandez and Colin remained hopeful. In , a friend invited their kids to a vacation Bible school at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif. The couple said they didn’t have a positive experience growing up in the Roman Catholic Church and did not believe in God. A client who attended the same church explained the gospel, and both accepted Christ. They started losing clients as the economic downturn hit their housecleaning business, and with their visa expiration only months away, they discussed returning to Mexico. The couple’s story appears tragic: Hernandez and Colin left Mexico because of a recession and a U.S. recession sent them back to Mexico. They came intending to obey immigration laws, but those laws confused the couple and made lawful residence unobtainable. Instead of despairing, they saw these challenges as God’s providence. “If I can share the good news with all the people I know in Mexico, it’s better that I leave,” Hernandez said. “If I just call them to have dinner, they will notice that something happened in my life.” Colin said that she loves the United States and will miss her church and friends—she knows few Christians in Mexico and says there are many problems there. The most difficult part of the transition was sending their kids—-year-old Alger and -yearold Maria—to Mexico over the summer to live with family and start school. “This is my down payment,” Hernandez said. “This is my heart, my flesh and my blood.” On Nov. , the couple drove to Tijuana, Mexico, and boarded their flight to Mexico City. Hernandez plans to use the cooking skills he learned while working in the food business to open a restaurant that specializes in California-style fish and shrimp tacos. Colin plans to help market the restaurant and spend more time with her kids. These are tough realities for Hernandez and Colin, but they are quick to point out the positives: “If we didn’t come to this country, maybe we wouldn’t know God. He brought us here to know Him, to work hard and be humble, and to appreciate what we have every day—our family, our kids, and our relationships.” A
Soerens says the solution to illegal immigration involves fixing a system that is “so dysfunctional and out of synch with the needs of the labor market (and with the societal goal of keeping families together) that illegal immigration is widespread.” What most people don’t realize, he adds, is that under current immigration laws, individuals such as Hernandez and Colin would have no chance to immigrate legally. (According to research compiled by the Heritage Foundation, an estimated percent to percent of illegal aliens fall into the category of visa “overstays.”) There are currently only four ways to immigrate legally and work in the United
States: a family sponsor, an employer sponsor (most of these limited visas are allocated to “highly skilled workers”), winning the Diversity Lottery (residents of certain countries—including Mexico, China, and India—are ineligible) and refugee resettlement. Soerens told me few Americans understand our immigration laws: “This is why they make statements like ‘they should go back and come back the legal way’ when as the couple you profiled are likely finding out now, there is no legal way for them, even though there are many jobs in sectors of our economy that rely upon low-skilled immigrants.”
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Health & dignity LIFESTYLE: Texas clinic offers medical care to the uninsured in a way that isn’t demeaning
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by susan olasky
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A 6-year-old boy sits on an examining table in a clinic near Houston, waiting to receive his school immunizations. He’s nervous. Volunteer nurses say, “We’re going to crisscross his arms and give him a big hug.” One volunteer leans over to hold him still, while two others give him shots, one in each thigh, at exactly the same time. Before the boy knows what’s happening, they repeat the procedure— four shots in all.
“Oh, my goodness. You are all finished. You did absolutely fabulous.” The boy looks proudly at his mom as a nurse applies a Peanuts and a Scooby Doo bandage. Then she leads him out to pick a toy. Some 45 minutes later the phone at TOMAGWA HealthCare Ministries rings. It’s the school nurse from the 6-yearold’s public school. She says his shots aren’t up to date so he needs to go home. But TOMAGWA nurse Dottie Hardy says: We know he’s behind on his shots, but we
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GOOD MEDICINE: only give four shots TOMaGWa nurse at a time. [More Practitioner Tamra than that, she tells Grotte examines me, and you can’t a young patient. tell what caused a negative reaction.] We told the mom to bring him back in a month. Today he received the shots he should have gotten when he was 4 months old. The school nurse relents, and the boy is able to stay at school. TOMAGWA—the name is an acronym from Tomball, Magnolia, and Waller, January 14, 2012
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Notebook > Lifestyle
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“OUR FOUNDATION IS JESUS”: TOMAGWA Executive Director Judy Deyo.
with her: “Faith is part of healing, and we get no resistance among patients.” TOMAGWA began in after two tragedies shook the three communities. A little girl from Tomball lost her hearing because her parents couldn’t afford medical care, and a father died from an infection after refusing to go to the emergency room because he couldn’t afford it. Christians in the community rallied. A church set aside a room, which volunteers divided in half with a curtain. On one side was the examining room, staffed by volunteer doctors on their lunch hours. On the other side, reception. A line of waiting patients snaked out the door. Several years later, TOMAGWA moved into a larger space with three examining rooms. In the clinic bought and finished out its own space in a new medical park. The spacious office has seven exam rooms and room for a dental clinic, eye clinic, and small pharmacy. A combination of paid and volunteer staff allows it to stay open five days a week from : to :. Patients pay for a first visit and for follow-ups. Judy Deyo says, “We help restore dignity by allowing them to help pay for care.”
Sometimes even a little money is too much. Nurse Lisa Goodeau explained to one new patient, “Don’t not come because you don’t have the money. We’ll start you an account. We don’t report it to the credit bureau. It’s an honor system.” Dottie Hardy explained further, “We never bill. We never chase them down. If they remember to pay it, that’s fine. Their account is in their head.” While I was visiting, a middle-aged man poked his head through the door, looking for someone who had taken care of him a while back. He wanted to tell her, “I’m doing good.” A trucker, he lost his job when he developed eye trouble. No longer able to make payments, he lost his truck. Then he lost his house. Finally he came to TOMAGWA, where a doctor discovered cataracts on both eyes. A sympathetic eye surgeon performed surgery, and the trucker is back at work. Susan Browning is a nurse who has been volunteering hours a week for the past months. She says appreciative patients like the truck driver make volunteering easy, but she also enjoys “the freedom to practice medicine freely.” Nurses don’t have to worry about “the things you have to do to be reimbursed.” As Judy Deyo explains, “We spend money on patient care, not on paperwork.” A
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three small cities northwest of Houston—is a Christian, nominal-fee, family practice clinic that provides care to those who don’t have insurance and aren’t eligible for Medicare or Medicaid. Last year TOMAGWA saw , patients for a total of , patient visits. But with Obamacare due to take effect in , will charity clinics like TOMAGWA still have a role to fill? Executive director Judy Deyo says yes, regardless of whether the healthcare transformation survives Supreme Court review. Deductibles and copays will still exist, and a large group of people will still not have insurance. She says government-run or statefinanced clinics will not have the freedom that TOMAGWA and similar clinics have to offer healthcare in the name of Christ: “Our foundation is Jesus. The things we do, the way we treat, the attitude we have is because we know His love for us, and we want to share that love with others.” Many of TOMAGWA’s patients are like the mom of the -year-old boy. They’ve slipped through the cracks of available healthcare. She didn’t send her son to kindergarten last year because she said she couldn’t afford his required vaccinations. The long waits and impersonal care typical at government clinics also deterred her. The staff at TOMAGWA works hard to set a different tone, starting with the clinic’s sun-lit waiting room. A marble tile floor and cushioned office chairs in a neutral palette say professional office, not second-class clinic. Deyo says, “Patients come and feel, ‘Wow! It’s nice, not rundown.’ That’s by design to help restore dignity.” Because it takes no government money, TOMAGWA doesn’t operate under government constraints. As R.N. Dottie Hardy hurries down the hallway and spots a woman with a cast-down expression, she stops to talk and learns that health issues are only one of the woman’s concerns: She is facing foreclosure and needs a job. Hardy refers her to a counselor who works on a sliding scale basis, but she also prays
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Notebook > Technology
Log in, neighbor
Private eyes The surveillance industry is learning to infiltrate tech devices—and making billions
By daniel james devine
>>
German firm, builds software and mobile devices that can spy on emails and track activity at Wi-Fi hotspots. The Wall Street Journal in November published online a “Surveillance Catalog” that includes brochures from 36 such companies, obtained from a surveillance conference held near Washington, D.C., earlier in the year. The private surveillance industry has boomed into a multibillion-dollar business, and although intelligence contractors generally insist they abide by export laws, their technologies have been found in use by oppressive regimes in countries such as China, Egypt, Libya, and Syria. Some systems reportedly enable government agencies to activate webcams and microphones in order to spy on a computer user in his or her home. Companies sometimes hype their products, of course, but we can be glad we’re not the subjects of a Chinese or Middle Eastern government crackdown.
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virtual backyard fence or front porch conversations of years ago,” said another, from Memphis, Tenn. One mom used the network to alert her community that her 16-yearold son had a case of contagious meningitis. —D.J.D.
Pro-life assistant? The most ballyhooed feature of apple’s new iphone 4s is a virtual assistant named siri. ask siri a question and she’ll produce a list of helpful websites, offer a humorous retort, or weasel out of controversy. (“no comment,” siri answered when asked if she believed in heaven and hell.) when some iphone users asked, “where can i get an abortion?” the virtual assistant drew a blank—or listed pro-life crisis pregnancy centers—eliciting outrage from pro-abortion groups. an apple spokeswoman said the omission was unintentional, and that siri was still being tweaked. however, a search engine expert pointed out a likely cause for the glitch: abortion providers rarely advertise the word abortion on their websites. siri’s search engine might simply be having trouble identifying true colors. —D.J.D.
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laptop: thomas Jackson/stone/getty images • tolia: Dai sugano/san Jose mercury news/mct/newscom • iphone 4s: anthony Devlin/pa wire/ap
Are world governments watching us while we’re online? Listening to our phone calls? The whistleblower website WikiLeaks released 287 documents on Dec. 1 that described services offered by scores of private “intelligence contractors” to infiltrate computers and conduct mass surveillance. “Intelligence agencies, military forces and police authorities are able to silently … and secretly intercept calls and take over computers without the help or knowledge of the telecommunication providers,” WikiLeaks stated on its website. An Italian company mentioned in the documents, HackingTeam, creates Trojan horses that can intercept encrypted Skype conversations and remotely infect smartphones. The company boasts that its systems can monitor “hundreds of thousands of targets” at a time and are “used daily to fight crime in all the five continents.” DigiTask, a
In small towns it may seem a bit ridiculous, but two social networking services, Home Elephant and Nextdoor, are offering new ways to meet neighbors. Both offer communities a free, Facebook-like format to share news privately, sell items, and make local business recommendations. The networks include more than 6,000 neighborhoods from the United States and three dozen other countries. A Pew Research Center study published last year found that only 42 percent of Americans knew most of their neighbors. “Already, interactions through Nextdoor have led to many new friends and drop-by visits,” said a Nextdoor user from Austin, Texas, in a blurb on the company’s website. “It’s the
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12/16/11 10:00 AM
EXERCISE IN ONLY 4 MINUTES PER DAY The ROM is very expensive but at the same time it is the cheapest exercise a person can do. How can that be? More on that later.
laptop: thomas Jackson/stone/getty images • tolia: Dai sugano/san Jose mercury news/mct/newscom • iphone 4s: anthony Devlin/pa wire/ap
FIRST DISBELIEF, THEN UNDERSTANDING People cannot believe that our 4 minute cardio exercise is possible. The “experts” ORDER FREE DVD ONLINE have that same (wrong) opinion. After OR CALL 818-787-6460 watching our video, many people order a 30 day no obligation trial rental and 97% of IN BUSINESS FOR OVER 20 YEARS them buy the ROM (stands for range of We have been manufacturing our ROM motion) machine at the end of the 30 day machine since 1990. Although the ROM won trial period. It sells itself. the Popular Science Magazine’s Prize for ADAPTS TO USER’S PHYSICAL ABILITY “The Best of What’s New” in 1991, the The ROM is used by young and old machine still sounds just too good to be (oldest owner is 99 yrs), by weak and true. That has been the main marketing This is what you will accomplish with the ROM in exactly 4 minutes per day: You will get the combined results that you get from all three of the following exercises: • 20 to 45 minutes of aerobic exercise (jogging, running) plus • 45 minutes weight training, plus • 15 to 20 minutes stretching exercises. The purchase of a ROM machine goes through several stages: 1. Total disbelief that the ROM can do all this in only 4 minutes a day. 2. Rhetorical (and sometimes hostile) questioning and ridicule. 3. Reading the ROM literature and reluctantly understanding it. 4. Taking a leap of faith and renting a ROM for a 30 day trial test in the home. 5. Being highly impressed by the health results and purchasing the ROM. 6. Becoming a ROM enthusiast and trying to persuade friends to buy one. 7. Being ignored and ridiculed by the friends who think you have lost your mind. 8. After a year of using the ROM your friends admiring your good shape. 9. You telling them (again) that you only exercise those 4 minutes per day. 10. Those friends reluctantly renting the ROM for a 30 day test trial in their home. Then the above cycle repeats from point 5 on down.
strong, by Special Forces (military), by physical therapists, chiropractors, medical doctors, trained athletes. And 90% of our machines go to private homes (including 320 homes of MDs), and 7% to businesses for employee wellness. People with high cholesterol and people with diabetes use the ROM to get into perfect cholesterol ranges and diabetes control.
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problem. People just cannot believe it. The incomparable ROM is for those who first ridicule this fantastic machine and later love and praise it. WHAT’S DIFFERENT ABOUT THE ROM You’ll learn why 92% of people who own exercise equipment do not use it. You will also learn why the ROM, despite its very
high $14,615 price, is the least expensive method to do exercise and why you burn more calories as a result of the 4 minute ROM exercise than from 60 minutes walking on a treadmill. Short duration interval training, the exercise the ROM gives, has been discovered to be the most effective for burning fat.
UNIVERSITY TESTED The ROM has been tested for over 8 weeks at USC’s Department of Exercise Sciences. Conclusion: it gives the same or better cardiovascular benefit as does 20 to 45 minutes aerobic exercise. Another 8 week test was published in the Journal of the American College of Sports Medicine. The results speak for themselves. SHIPPING AND INSTALLATION The machine is manufactured in Southern California with great attention to detail and quality. The machine is shipped in a custom wooden crate and comes fully assembled. A local delivery company will install the machine in the location of your choice. When they leave it is immediately ready for use. GIVE IT A REAL WORKOUT Rent it for 30 days to experience the results in your own home or office. The rental deposit applies to the purchase price. Based on the improvement experienced during those 30 days, 97% of the rented machines are purchased at the end of the 30 day no obligation trial period. The ROM proves itself.
Order free DVD from: www.RestartFitness.com or call 818-787-6460
Factory showroom 8137 Lankershim Blvd. North Hollywood, CA 91605
12/16/11 9:29 AM
Notebook > Science
Wind damage From Holland to Hawaii, wind power has proved expensive and difficult to support By daniel james devine
Unwanted electricity The Federal energy regulatory commission delivered a rebuke to a local federal power agency on dec. 6 for shutting off electricity from wind turbines in the pacific northwest during periods of energy surplus. The Bonneville power administration (Bpa), which oversees power generation from dams along the columbia river, can prevent a glut of energy on the grid—which can happen
wind turbines in lelystad, netherlands
water into a dam spillway. But
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doing so would break federal law by harming salmon in the river, the Bpa reasoned, so it had resorted to disconnecting power from wind farms temporarily. The wind operators complained, prompting the commission to order the Bpa to rewrite its electricity policy. That may force it to pay customers to accept the extra power. —D.J.D.
ROLL ON, COLUMBIA: The Bonneville dam on the Columbia river.
netherlands: tom stoddart/getty images • Bonneville dam: rick Bowmer/ap
The government of the Netherlands has been spending billions of euros to subsidize wind power and other renewables, part of a long-term plan to produce 14 percent of Dutch electricity from renewables by 2020. Now, with a looming budget deficit, the nation will slash renewable subsidies by two-thirds, leaving the energy sector and Dutch customers to pay for expensive power from wind farms, such as the 36 offshore turbines built in the North Sea in 2006 for $272 million. Some analysts say the new subsidy policy will land the Netherlands several percentage points short of its lofty 2020 target. Currently, only 4 percent of Dutch energy comes from renewables. The faltering dream of the Dutch is just another example of wind power’s disappointments. Andrew Walden, editor of the Hawai’i Free Press, has written about the abandonment of dozens of old wind turbines in Hawaii. In a video of one wind farm at the southern tip of the Big Island, rows of rusting Mitsubishi turbines—built in 1986—stand idle in the breeze, many missing their blades. Last year Walden reported that six such wind farms had been abandoned throughout the Hawaiian Islands, casualties of the approximately 20-year lifespan of electric wind turbines. But energy companies are slow to invest in new equipment at such sites without the promise of government subsidies. Wind power is unreliable by nature, and adding it to the grid is costly in comparison with traditional fossil fuels. The first big push for wind power came in the late ’70s, when the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act encouraged states to offer tax incentives for wind power. In California, federal and state subsidies in the early ’80s were lucrative enough to cover half of a turbine’s actual cost, spurring the construction of nearly 15,000 turbines by 1986. Walden estimates that 14,000 of these first-generation turbines in California and elsewhere have been decommissioned over the years due to lack of maintenance, outdated equipment, and the expiration of tax incentives. Disassembling these old turbines and reclaiming the land can require millions of additional dollars—although selling the equipment for scrap metal offsets the cost. Short life and expensive electricity mean governments have to keep offering taxpayer money to encourage the wind industry along: Three months ago the U.S. Department of Energy announced it would award $43 million over the next five years for the development of offshore wind projects.
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Fareed Khan/ap
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during storms—by diverting river
NETHERLANDS: TOM STODDART/GETTY IMAGES • BONNEVILLE DAM: RICK BOWMER/AP
FAREED KHAN/AP
Notebook > Houses of God
Costing . million and taking months to build, the Roman Catholic St. Peter’s Church in Karachi, Pakistan, opened its doors to worshippers in November. The three-story building, set amid a sprawling slum, can seat , and is the largest church building in the overwhelmingly Muslim country.
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12/19/11 4:44 PM
Notebook > Sports
Crystalline Ball
Will sports in provide more sparkle?
He lost the final golf event of when a rival sank -foot putts on back-to-back holes, but in the final event of Woods won by sinking clutch birdie putts on back-to-back holes. With a new swing, a new caddie, and new hope, the -time Major winner looks ready to add to that total.
BY MARK BERGIN
>>
Four billion viewers are likely to tune in to the games beginning July . Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt has hinted at adding the x-relay to his repertoire, which could give him a legitimate chance at four gold medals. If Bolt is healthy, he might tack on two or three world records, but American Tyson Gay has proven he can beat Bolt. That competitive challenge could push either athlete beneath . seconds in the meters. Swimming could bring a similar battle: Michael Phelps will try to duplicate his eight gold medals from Beijing, but friend and competitor Ryan Lochte has beaten Phelps in some of the champion’s signature races. Between that challenge and the newly unveiled Fastskin swimming systems from Speedo, more world records are likely to fall.
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Analysts still wonder whether Tebow can be a starting NFL quarterback in the long term, but in the meantime he’s piled up rabbit-from-hat victories. If darker days come, the sports world will watch closely to see how the evangelical athlete responds. Happily, Tebow says, “I know that no matter what happens on the football field, that’s not what defines my life.”
PHELPS: CLIVE ROSE/GETTY IMAGES • TIGER: SCOTT HALLERAN/ GETTY IMAGES • TEBOW: HARRY HOW/GETTY IMAGES
No sooner had owners and players finalized a new labor deal than signs of discontent emerged. Owners claimed small markets can’t compete. Players’ representatives skipped press conferences. The league office nixed a trade for reasons unclear. With the NBA mess far from cleaned up, the league will spend most of in damage control.
mbergin@worldmag.com
12/19/11 4:47 PM
HANDOUT
M headlines in displayed sin: Penn State and Syracuse had sexual abuse scandals, Ohio State fired football coach Jim Tressel for covering up violations, and a booster provided prostitutes, free cars, and paid vacations for Miami football players. Other sports stories were sad: Two-time Indy winner Dan Wheldon died in a -car crash, Peyton Manning suffered season-ending and careerthreatening neck surgery, the entire Russian hockey team died in a plane crash, and the Los Angeles Dodgers filed for bankruptcy. Still, many moments worth celebrating emerged over the past months—baseball’s pennant race and playoffs come to mind. Here are four developments to watch in ...
Notebook > Money
One CEO’s story David Kim has learned—and teaches others—not to turn great success in business into an idol BY ANGELA LU
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kids are in the back. But when you look back, your wife is gone and your kids are just barely holding on. Is this real enjoyment?” With Ignite Enterprise, Kim aims to help successful men and women to pay attention to what is important in life. Kim is open about his Christian faith. Last April he appeared on an episode of CBS’ Undercover Boss, which disguises company CEOs as new employees and sends them to their own restaurants to evaluate how the branches are functioning. For viewers, the big twist of the show was when Kim revealed his true identity to a hardworking store manager and then made the manager’s dream come
‘‘Sometimes I feel like a walking hypocrite and I’m ashamed.’’
HANDOUT
PHELPS: CLIVE ROSE/GETTY IMAGES • TIGER: SCOTT HALLERAN/ GETTY IMAGES • TEBOW: HARRY HOW/GETTY IMAGES
D K his first foray into business at the age of —selling toys at a flea market in Southern California with his parents. His father, once a Korean diplomat, had brought his family to the States the year before with nothing, and his mother was embarrassed as she sat in front of a tarp filled with toys. At that moment David decided, “I’ll do everything I can to make sure that my parents will not have to work the rest of their lives.” In the next years, Kim made his dream come true as he worked his way up to head an investor consortium that operates restaurant chains including Sweet Factory, La Salsa, Cinnabon, Denny’s, and Baja Fresh. But as I sat across from Kim at a Starbucks near his home in Anaheim, he looked tired and worn. His father had recently died, causing him to reevaluate his priorities in life: “I regret not spending enough time with him, especially before he was going to go.” Kim, the father of three, has decided to step down from his responsibilities as CEO so that he can spend more time with family while working on Ignite Enterprise, a business education company he started to teach entrepreneurs how to grow their businesses. The company sprang from a book he released earlier this year, Ignite!: The Values that Fuel Billionaire Success. Kim likens the journey to success to a ride on a Harley Davidson: “It’s dangerous, yet you want everyone to get on. … [Y]ou think that you are riding success and that your wife and
true by giving him a Baja Fresh franchise, valued at ,. The bigger surprise, though, was how the episode openly displayed Kim’s Christian faith: It included scenes of Kim praying with his family before leaving for work, and sitting on the curb praying with another store manager. After the show aired, viewers sent tens of thousands of emails, letters, and phone calls to the Baja Fresh office thanking Kim for having the courage to speak about Christ. But Kim said he felt uncomfortable being in the spotlight: “[My family] prays together every night. I didn’t understand why it was such a phenomenon, it wasn’t anything special.” Kim didn’t have any control over the show’s editing and had no idea what producers would keep and what they would cut: “I didn’t do this, God worked in the producers of CBS, who thought, ‘This would be a great story.’” He said living out his Christian faith in the workplace is hard: “Sometimes I feel like a walking hypocrite and I’m ashamed.” Kim admits to struggling with greed and notes that faith isn’t defined by perfection, but by relationship with Christ. Now he counsels successful business leaders and finds that “many of the very powerful won’t open up. They are very lonely because of the amount of power and pressure and responsibilities placed on them. They come to me in private because I’ve been in their shoes. I can connect with them.” Kim now eats dinner with his wife and children and watches his thgrade son’s ball games. Before he would attend the games physically, but his mind was on work. Now he can be fully present, concentrating on his job as dad, and making sure he has time to play Ping-Pong with his kids. A JANUARY 14, 2012
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the world market Classifieds are priced at per line with an average of characters per line and a minimum of two lines. Bold text and uppercase available for per line; special fonts and highlighting available for an additional charge. You will receive a percent discount with a frequency of four or more. All ads are subject to the approval of WORLD. Advertising in WORLD does not necessarily imply the endorsement of the publisher. Prepayment and written confi rmation will be required of all advertisers. : Connie Moses, WORLD, P.O. Box , Asheville, NC ; phone: ..; fax: ..; email: cmoses@worldmag.com
EMPLOYMENT I Colorado Dude/Guest Ranch seeking service-minded summer staff of high integrity. Latigo Ranch at LatigoTrails.com. I BELHAVEN UNIVERSITY, a Christian university that integrates faith and learning, invites applications for those with terminal degrees only in the following faculty positions: Health Administration (Memphis campus), Biblical Studies, Mathematics and Graphic Design. See www.belhaven.edu for details. I We call ourselves “happy Calvinists.” We are a very PCA-like, but independent, non-charismatic church that is searching for a full time Director of Children’s Ministry. We are looking for someone seminary trained, who has a huge heart for Jesus, for children, and for their families. Check us out at www.graceevan.org. Send resumé to Brent Wilkins at brent@graceevan.org. I TEACHERS URGENTLY NEEDED IN CAMBODIA! ELIC has an urgent need for teachers of English in Laos. This is an outstanding opportunity for singles, couples, families and second-career adults. Two-year commitment. Opportunities to return to North America. Serve on a vibrant team. Teach at the university level to future leaders in every sector. Previous teaching experience not required. Complete training provided. Thirty years of sending and caring for teachers in Asia. Additional strategic opportunities in Mongolia, China, Vietnam & Laos. We can get you there. www.elic.org. (888) 475-3542. I Headmaster - New Covenant School - Anderson, SC: Is accepting applications for the position of Headmaster effective next July 1, 2012.† New Covenant School is a Christian, Covenantal, Classical School with Grades K-5 through 12th Grade. Information for your review in regards the position and the procedure for applying may be found at www.ncchurch.net. Once at the site, look under the Headmaster Position; contact: Maurice Lopez, Chairman of Headmaster Search Committee (864) 224-6057. I Shelter Care has a rich history of over 30 years of helping troubled youth and families, has openings for mature couples. The program located in Akron, OH, uses a family model with many supportive helps. Each couple is responsible for 4 children. Position is full-time and includes salary and an excellent benefits package. Contact us at admin@sheltercareinc.org or phone (330) 630-5600 for more information. I School Director For International Christian School of Vienna in Austria: The International Christian School of Vienna is looking for a School Director starting in year -. Professional educator with a broad range of experience in both teaching and administrative roles. They must demonstrate effective interpersonal skills and the ability to work cross denominationally as well as cross culturally. Preferred Doctoral degree in Education/School Administration with a minimum requirement of a Master’s degree. Please contact Pearl Williams at pwilliams@icsv.at. I Make a deeper dent in this world with your Parenting/Teaching experience. Cono Christian School provides boarding programs for teens struggling with relationships and academics. We are looking for a few more versatile adults who understand both. See www.cono.org/involved.html. Contact Headmaster Tom Jahl at thomas.jahl@cono.org.
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Are you a mature Christian who has enjoyed a successful business leadership career as Owner, CEO, President or Executive Coach/Consultant & are now called to use these gifts to help other leaders fulfill their Godgiven calling & potential? Do you believe Christ is Lord, the Bible is true, God has an eternal plan for each believer’s life, & this plan includes their business? Would you be excited to build a high-impact professional practice to equip, encourage & inspire like-minded Christian leaders based on this truth? If so, you may be called by the Lord to be an Area Chair for The C12 Group, America’s leader in helping Christian CEOs & Owners Build GREAT Businesses for a GREATER Purpose. If you’re in a position to investigate a great franchise opportunity, visit www. C12Group.com to learn more!
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Mailbag
“Border bandits”
“Get serious”
(Dec. ) WORLD correctly identified one of the challenges associated with our failed immigration policies. I would add that conservative evangelicals have made an effective proposal for improvement with The Evangelical Call for Bipartisan Immigration Reform. It addresses the issue of securing our borders but also creates policy that treats immigrants with dignity, tries to keep families intact, and addresses the million undocumented workers already here, some of whom are our brothers and sisters in Christ. . , Cedarville, Ohio I don’t understand why you chose to address immigration in this manner. Of all the injustices associated with immigration and undocumented immigration in our country, why focus on drug-smuggling and ranchers feeling “invaded”? What about an immigration policy that prevents those living in extreme poverty in other countries from legally entering the country to waiting jobs here?
whose interests are ill-served by an article that wrongly questions their credit union’s financial condition. We remain financially healthy in large part because of our shared dedication to helping members better manage their financial resources.
Communications Manager
Evangelical Christian Credit Union Brea, Calif.
(Dec. ) To call Ron Paul an isolationist is simplistic at best. He espouses the foreign policy advocated by our Founding Fathers and rightly points out that the war in Iraq is undeclared and therefore unconstitutional. So-called conservatives need to decide whether to operate by the rule of law or an ends-justifies-the-means philosophy.
Franklin, Tenn.
I think Mindy Belz wrongly concluded that Herman Cain’s answer to whether Pakistan is a friend or foe was a gaffe. His answer was, “We don’t know.” Would we have violated Pakistan’s sovereignty in the killing of Osama bin Laden if we considered it a trustworthy friend? Alto, Mich.
“Fighting the good fight” (Dec. ) As a person in full-time ministry in Alaska, often the most difficult enemy to fight is myself. How will I respond when only two students show up for a muchanticipated event, or when my water pipes freeze and I can no longer host Thanksgiving? Thank you to Andrée Seu
Bridgeton, N.J.
“Forgive us our debt”
TIM’S FORD STATE PARK, WINCHESTER, TENN. / submitted by Gwyn Bergthold around the world
(Dec. ) This article addresses an important topic, church foreclosures, but raises questions about Evangelical Christian Credit Union’s response to foreclosures and our financial condition. You quote a banking analyst suggesting that if we experience another year of losses we “won’t survive as a well-capitalized institution” but ECCU is financially sound. As ends, we remain well-capitalized with appropriate reserves according to the federal regulators and independent auditors. As to foreclosures, we work hard with ministries to avoid them and have done more loan modifications than foreclosures. ECCU is a financial cooperative comprised of thousands of members—ministries and individuals—
Send photos and letters to: mailbag@worldmag.com
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12/19/11 4:40 PM
Mailbag for the reminder to keep fighting, even in the seemingly small things. AmAndA Hunt
Mountain Village, Alaska
“Not a jobs bill”
for two days inmates are your teachers a prison cell is your dorm
(Dec. 3) We have seen the Obama administration put guns in the hands of Mexican drug dealers, give good money to energy companies that were not viable, and now refuse Canadian oil with the excuse of environmental considerations when the result will be an even greater risk to the environment elsewhere. R.C. mulleR
Wilmington, Del.
“Melancholia” (Dec. 3) I’m really frustrated with WORLD’s movie reviews. Having been part of a team making movies, I can appreciate your reviewers’ comments. It’s nice to read someone with a real grasp of the technical aspects of a movie. But when you recommend a movie like Melancholia with “some graphic nudity, sexual content, and language,” yet criticize Courageous, I’m wondering, what is going on? lARRy tAte Windsor, Va.
“Hostile takeovers”
turnassembly.org @turnassembly
(Nov. 19) The Occupy Wall Street protesters say they are exercising civil rights but some have violently attacked the police and vandalized the areas they occupy. Thank you for an article that shows the dark side of these “peaceful” protests. BRAydon googeg New Knoxville, Ohio
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ReBeCCA lARson Wichita, Kan.
A while back, WORLD made a tough decision to move from weekly to biweekly. I realized recently that the issues are so good, I don’t miss getting them weekly. Congratulations on having vision, fortitude, and most of all, His blessings. tom HAnRAHAn Lexington Park, Md.
“Window of opportunity”
douglAs lloyd PeRkins
March 23-25, 2012 Angola Prison Angola, Louisiana
(Nov. 19) Thank you so much for “The World and Everything in It” podcasts. I have so loved downloading and listening to those. Good job seeing an area of growth and doing it well.
Oak Ridge, Tenn.
(Dec. 3) Marvin Olasky, after reminding us that Libya had six centuries of Christianity, insightfully observes that “Christianity had its moment in Libya.” If six centuries constitutes a “moment,” how should less than four centuries of Christianity in America be described? Has America’s minimoment expired? How long until it has another?
AN EXPERIENCE UNLIKE ANY OTHER
“Eyes to see, ears to hear”
I just wanted to say that I made WORLDmag.com my homepage and it has been a refreshing change from the other news source that I was using. CuRt PResley Oxford, Miss.
“Comedy revival” (Nov. 5) The moral lessons that infused the comic banter of Home Improvement strengthened our family, so we were looking forward to Tim Allen’s new show, Last Man Standing. However, I was disappointed that his new neighbors are a lesbian couple that Allen’s character must learn to accept as normal. It appears that the new morality has found a new teacher. JAmie inmAn
Tishomingo, Okla.
“Their future is now” (Nov. 5) Thank you for reporting the positive things happening in Afghanistan. Mindy Belz did an outstanding job covering development work in the country. It was refreshing to hear that the Afghans are very grateful to receive assistance and guidance from the United States in rebuilding their country. Jone Reid
Winston-Salem, N.C.
“Bluegrass bridge” (Sept. 24) I appreciated your review of Ricky Skaggs. He is one of the premier
12/19/11 4:40 PM
WORLDmag.com Your online source for today’s news, Christian views bluegrass artists, and the gospel figures strongly in his music. He follows the traditions of Bill Monroe, who many say created the genre in the s. Skaggs was on stage with Monroe at age and toured with another bluegrass giant, Ralph Stanley, when he was or . All of these musicians (and their bands) are superb musicians, playing at sometimes blinding speed, always accurately. Good stuff, that.
Eden Prairie, Minn.
“Genre clashes” (May ) After reading your recommendation, I purchased one of Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon novels and since then just had to buy them all. Not only are they wellwritten spy thrillers but they teach a lot of history and current events. Thank you for your informative book reviews in which I frequently find new authors and many good books. Noorvik, Alaska
Corrections ECCU increased reserves in to account for loan losses by about . million to a total of . million. In , ECCU increased reserves an additional . million to bring the total to . million (“Forgive us our debt,” Dec. , p. ). The California state college that currently prohibits campus clubs from restricting membership or leadership based on belief or behavior is San Diego State University (“Campus conformity,” Dec. , p. ).
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KRIEG BARRIE
POEMS
Tools for Teaching Conservative Thinking
Andrée Seu
Living consciously
Surrender control and experience a new year of freedom in Christ
KRIEG BARRIE
>>
I’ again. A few turns of the calendar ago I wrote about “Living logically.” This January I wish to venture a few words on living consciously. God loves me. That is good doctrine, and I subscribe to it. I would affix my signature to a Christian organization’s statement of faith that has “God loves me” as one of its tenets. I have subscribed for decades—and been a wreck. What is the problem? The problem is that I have spent very few moments of my life conscious of God loving me. A doctrine not actively believed in is as about as useful as an unplugged lamp. Christianity that is not conscious is a drag: We may get to heaven all right, but it will be a miserable trip. Jesus traveled light because He was doggedly “mindful of God” ( Peter :), committing everything they threw at Him into His Father’s hands (v. ). Here is a human example to illustrate how profoundly the “consciousness” factor affects us: A husband and wife part in the morning for their respective jobs. That woman who is mindful throughout the day that a man out there loves her has a spring in her step. Everything that happens is colored by that love: Minor irritations are less irritating; insults may sting but not destroy; she has a generous spirit as the natural issue of substantial internal reserves. In response to my “Quit worrying” essay (Nov. , ) I heard from a man about his own liberation from anxiety. Pastor Dick Robinson said that in the mind of the chronic worrier a constant background signal, flashing once a second, says “I must be in control, I must be in control.” You might think it is “natural,” but no: The mind under that kind of servitude is a mind that has at some point handed authority to the Enemy to set up shop. How so? At some point a fear or discomfort led the child to make a decision to take control of his own life. That was all the invitation Satan needed to move in (just like in Eden). Authority is ceded, not
Email: aseu@worldmag.com
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stolen. That’s Romans :: “Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?” Did we think God was kidding? All of which would be just one more useless “neat insight” unless there is a way out. Praise God there is! Not a program on stress management. Not a lobot omy. But the Lord’s own example to follow: “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in His steps” ( Peter :). By following Christ’s example we enter into the center of His will. It is His own declared will that we be free of anxiety—dumping that lifelong gunnysack we had come to think of as part of our anatomy. We need to ask God three questions: “Lord, are You in control of the universe or aren’t You?” “Lord, do You really love me?” “Lord, will You take care of me?” If you, like me, have put more thought into your holiday dinners than into addressing dogged sin issues, the next part of the prescription may strike you as hokey or legalistic or a faddish technique. Please consider that a lifetime of freedom may be well worth an hour of your time: Go into your room, shut the door, and confess that you have taken control of your life and forgotten that God is in control. Be specific, naming times you can remember. Renounce the Enemy. Ask for forgiveness. Verbally receive forgiveness. Picture God’s hands cupped and extended to you—like the Allstate insurance logo, Pastor Dick Robinson says. Put everything you have been worrying about into His hands—your kids, your mother-in-law, your regrets, your thinning hair. Release it all to God. He loves you and will take care of you. Then swap stressing for thanksgiving all day long (Philippians :). Go out and have a different kind of new year. A JANUARY 14, 2012
WORLD
12/21/11 9:48 AM
Marvin Olasky
College bubble
Advice for many students and parents: Explore non-college options
>>
WORLD JANUARY 14, 2012
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estimates that two-thirds of superior earning comes from the intelligence and character of the earner rather than the degree itself. That raises another question: Do colleges help or hurt character formation? Some students work hard, particularly when they add a part-time, bill-paying job to their classes, and some colleges demand hard work, but many students have an implicit deal with many professors: Neither will work hard. The blog Gonzo Town describes college years, with some hyperbole, as a “four-year window in which to master the fine art of drinking beer,” with “cheap tickets to Division I football and basketball games and their fantastic after parties ... a bottomless trough of free time to play computer games in your apartment, eat pizza, [consume] lots of beers, drugs, sports, parties, games, sex.” Gonzo Town has a good suggestion: “Go to community college for two years. By doing this you have the following advantages over your mostly deluded elite counterparts at a four-year university. You will have no debt, you can earn money, perhaps live at home and save money, get more or less the same curriculum the university college offers—at a fraction of the cost.” Drawbacks, though, include fewer parties, and “you have to put up with your parents for a while longer.” Some students can then transfer to a college, but Gonzo Town also offers a second option: “Learn a trade and become a ‘skilled worker.’ Here is a truly revolutionary concept, so radical in fact, the entire U.S. and European modern economies were built upon it. Question: Who earns more than a lawyer, a resident physician, or most company directors? Answer: a plumber.” I’m not at all suggesting that those called to be lawyers, doctors, professors, etc., should not go to college. I am suggesting that work as an electrician, landscaper, or X-ray technician, or in hundreds of other occupations that don’t require a four-year college degree, also glorifies God and should be honored by all of us. Many high-school graduates should spend their time that way instead of incurring huge loans for the opportunity to be unemployed and resentful. A
KRIEG BARRIE
L at the next bubble to burst: higher education. Costs keep going up at traditional four-year colleges, in part because—with the notable exception of some Christian colleges and a few others that are studentoriented—professors do not make teaching their prime activity. Examples are numerous. Here’s one: This past year the Center for College Affordability and Productivity (CCAP) released a study showing that percent of the faculty of the University of Texas at Austin receive full-time pay for teaching an average of students per year, the equivalent of three classes per year of students each. The joke used to be that tenured professors with too much time on their hands sold real estate on the side, but this past year a New Jersey physics professor went to extremes. Police arrested him, along with a distinguished former president of the University of New Mexico, for allegedly running an online prostitution ring. Most professors, of course, spend time in other pursuits. The Pope Center for Higher Education Policy in North Carolina recently asked whether an English professor who teaches Shakespeare will advance his career more by () Closely rereading the major plays of Shakespeare and their most important critiques, reading about Elizabethan history, preparing for lectures, and correcting written grammar when grading papers, or () Writing the one-millionth academic article on Shakespeare, “with an emphasis on cross-dressing, food, or some other obscure topic.” The answer: Number . And thus taxpayers spend thousands of dollars to subsidize conference papers that perhaps half a dozen people read, out of obligation. If you have a free half hour, visit the Postmodernism Generator (elsewhere.org/pomo) and make up amusing titles of the kind that fill research journals and allow professors to pretend that they are productive. Examples include “The semiotic paradigm of context in the works of Madonna” or “The capitalist paradigm of expression in the works of Fellini.” While students write poorly, professors prattle instead of teach. Meanwhile, parents pay tuition because it’s socially the thing to do—and they’ve also bought the talk that college graduates earn much more than non-graduates. That’s true, but Richard Vedder, an education economic expert,
Email: molasky@worldmag.com
12/19/11 1:21 PM
We are Serious about the Gospel
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Southern Seminary invites you to explore our new Nashville campus at nashville.sbts.edu/world KRIEG BARRIE
Taught by resident professors, courses will provide pastors and laypeople opportunities to enrich their understanding of biblical principles.
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Excellence-driven higher education begins with stellar faculty
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