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CONTENTS F E AT UR E S
32 Life or death
COVER STORY With international adoptions harder and harder to process and a slowdown in Ethiopia—the second-largest source of hope for American parents wanting to adopt overseas— the outcome can be heartbreak, or worse
40 Time bomb
With the clock ticking toward government default, both sides of the debt debate appear ready to risk hardship
42 The dawn of China’s civil rights era
Government clashes with a prominent house church are putting religious freedom to the test, just as friendly U.S. churches and prominent ministries plan to welcome a state-sponsored Bible exhibit on U.S. tour
46 Safe house
compassion: World’s East region winner provides addicted women security, stability, and the love of Christ
DISPATCHES 5 News 12 Human Race 14 Quotables 16 Quick Takes
50 Causes lost
compassion: Some church programs have lost their salt, and short-sighted officials have put psychotic patients on the streets
52 Church clean & club funny
They stay up late, chase laughs in small towns, and all because they believe in the growing entertainment niche known as Clean Comedy
56 They get around
21
Guess who headlined a pro-life fundraiser in Ohio: the Beach Boys ON THE COVER: Ethiopian adoptee Tate Bayly (photo by Charlie Nye/ Genesis); inset: Warner Bros. Pictures
42
Reviews 21 Movies & TV 24 Books 26 Q&A 28 Music
46
notebook 59 Lifestyle 61 Technology 62 Science 63 Houses of God 64 Sports 65 Money 66 Religion
56
Voices 3 Joel Belz 18 Janie B. Cheaney 30 Mindy Belz 69 Mailbag 71 Andrée Seu 72 Marvin Olasky
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Joel Belz
S
SMASHED VIOLINS
ROGER VIOLLET/LIPNITZKI/GETTY IMAGES
It takes some digging to verify a story
of journalism some years ago, I’ve ruefully concluded there may be no more important wisdom for my colleagues and me than this: Nothing spoils a good story like a little research. Some of the best have grown into what are called urban legends. At their worst, they’re no better than sloppy gossip. I had an opportunity this past week to test one of my all-time favorite stories in such a manner—and you deserve to know the results. The story goes like this: In a major German city— maybe Berlin?—and very likely in the early s, a prominent Jewish violinist was to perform at the local concert hall. But in anticipation of his performance, a music critic for the city’s Nazi-dominated newspaper reminded everyone that this violinist wasn’t as deserving of his reputation as some had suggested. “When he finishes his performance,” the critic suggested, “our applause will be less for his skill than for the Stradivarius instrument on which he plays. It’s the excellence of the violin we’ll be cheering, not the man playing it.” And so it was as the performance came to its end. The applause was thunderous, but everyone—including the violinist—knew how ambiguous its meaning had become. That’s when the violinist walked over to a nearby chair, violently smashed the violin against the chair’s back, and held up its splintered remains for all to see. Then he walked quietly to the edge of the stage, opened a case that no one had noticed, and took out the Stradivarius everyone thought, until then, he had been playing. The encore he played for his undeserving audience would never be forgotten. For years I’ve loved that story. For years, I’ve never known whether it was true. Truth be told, I never checked it out—partly because I was scared I might discover the story was phony. But then, last week and Email: jbelz@worldmag.com
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very unexpectedly, I found myself shaking hands with a man who could almost certainly point me in the right direction. Stephen Clapp, longtime dean of the Juilliard School of Music in New York, was playing his violin and accompanying the congregational singing at my little church during a memorial service for his sisterin-law, Jinny Clapp. “Will you promise not to laugh if I ask you a strange question?” I asked him during the family reception after the service. His eyes twinkled as I reached the end of my story. “Is it true?” I begged him hopefully. “I knew where you were headed with your story,” he said. “It has all the marks of being true. But was it Isaac Stern, was it Fritz Kreisler, or was it Jascha Heifetz? There are arguments on several sides. I tend to think it was Heifetz.” Kreisler, in fact, was only half Jewish. His mother was German Protestant, and he was baptized as a Christian at the age of . There’s also an intriguing account from , when Kreisler found himself accompanying Heifetz, who was then a -year-old violin prodigy. After hearing Heifetz’s version of a Mendelssohn concerto, Kreisler reportedly commented to his colleagues: “We may as well break our fiddles across our knees.” Did that merely set the stage for the later story—or did it plant a seed in the young violinist’s mind? Stern, born in , was too young to fit the story I first heard. But it’s possible he played the central role in a less political version of the account where a prominent violinist, upset because everyone tended to mention the tone of his Stradivarius rather than his own playing, smashed the violin over a chair and then asked the shocked audience: “You didn’t know this was only a cheap fiddle?” And it was supposedly Heifetz who, annoyed on another occasion at the attention being given his Stradivarius, reminded onlookers that not in their whole lives would they ever hear anything from a violin sitting in its case. The journalist in me admits I haven’t proven my case. But I did do a little digging—and I’m happy to report to you that in this case, the research didn’t spoil my story. A J U LY 3 0 , 2 0 1 1
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7/12/11 3:17 PM
Dispatches NEWS HUMAN RACE QUOTABLES QUICK TAKES
Birth of a nation
NEWS: South Sudan starts life as a country under a peace accord but still in the throes of war BY MINDY BELZ
ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
>>
: .. on July the countries of Africa became . The Republic of South Sudan—an ethnically African, largely Christian region broken from what once was the largest country in Africa—officially won its independence, following two civil wars fought over nearly years at the cost of millions of lives. “We were all born into war. All of us,” said Choi Allen, a -year-old pastor who escaped war in Sudan in and lives in Memphis. Allen returned two months ago to be on hand for the independence celebration launched by a peace agreement and a referendum last January in which voters overwhelming chose secession. Pointing to a truckload of youngsters, Allen said, “This generation will see the hope of the newborn nation.” Hope was everywhere as dignitaries from across Africa, Asia, Europe, and North and South America flew into Juba, an improvised capital where many main roads are red dirt. The Saturday ceremony took place in sweltering equatorial heat. At the podium Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir looked on as South J U LY 3 0 , 2 0 1 1
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Dispatches > News
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MACHU PICCHU: RICARDO CHOY KIFOX/AP • GEITHNER: CLIFF OWEN/AP • MUBARAK: ALEX WONG.GETTY IMAGES • ALAA MUBARAK: BEN CURTIS/AP • OBAMA: NAM Y. HUH/AP • ATLAS 5: KSC/NASA • HIROSHIMA: KIYOSHI OTA/GETTY IMAGES
diseases—sleeping sickness, dengue fever, kala-azar, and malaria. Earlier this year international health workers battled an outbreak of polio. The newly elevated government—approved for admission to the on July —will need all the patriotic enthusiasm on display in Juba to face these and other dangers. Tribal clashes in South Sudan have killed hundreds, and Khartoumbased militias are inciting Southerners and threatening ethnic cleansing. In May Khartoum’s bodies on the road, and the orphanage Sudan Armed Forces () seized the took in five children who lost their disputed town of Abyei in violation of parents in the attack. the peace accord. The government Smith says that indigenous leaders has refused to withdraw despite a with reliable contacts help both Security Council resolution calling on it orphanages stay alert to the substantial to do so. Fighting in disputed regions security concerns, and that the group’s along the new border between North mission hasn’t changed: “We will keep and South could again plunge the region doing what we’re doing because we into what would no longer be a civil knew exactly what we were getting into war, but an international one. when we came into this situation.” Kimberly Smith of Make Way Some of those in most immediate Partners said independence isn’t an danger are Sudanese who are loyal to automatic boost to security. Smith’s South Sudan but now live north of its Alabama-based organization operates border. In the state of South Kordofan an orphanage in South Sudan for more Sudan’s military has heavily bombed than children. (The group also mainthe region, home to members of the tains an orphanage near the border of Nuba ethnic group, mostly Christians Darfur in western who sided with South Sudan caring Sudan during civil war. for nearly Amar Amoun, a local orphans.) The military official loyal to orphanage’s the South, described indigenous director the attacks to The in South Sudan Oil Khartoum pipelines Independent: “They are not recently reported a bombing our military, they brutal attack in a are bombing our civilians nearby village: The and terrorizing our people.” raiders left mutilated Both the South’s forces (also known as ) and the Juba North’s have bases in South Kordofan, and
PHOTOS: ANDREW BURTON/AP • MAP: ESRI/AP
Sudan’s new president, Salva Kiir, lowered the Sudanese flag and raised the new flag of his country before tens of thousands of cheering onlookers. At a mausoleum dedicated to John Garang, the longtime leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement () who fought the Islamic government in Khartoum for over years (but died in a helicopter crash), a national band in red uniforms unveiled the country’s new national anthem, to be sung in English: “Oh God! / We praise and glorify you / For your grace on South Sudan /Land of great abundance,” it begins, and ends with a salute to “our martyrs whose blood / Cemented our national foundation. / We vow to protect our nation / Oh God, bless South Sudan!” For the new country’s millions of Christians, who watched as Khartoum’s National Islamic Front soldiers burned their churches and villages, independence means new religious freedom. A transitional constitution protects freedom to worship and religious liberty for all. (Khartoum’s Islamic government earlier this month reaffirmed its commitment to Shariah or Islamic law, which prohibits conversions and denies religious freedom.) “I am lost for words,” said John Ashworth, who arrived to teach in southern Sudan in , later launched Sudan Focal Point, and is now senior advisor to the Sudan Ecumenical Forum. “It was simply a wonderful day, and those who tried to put a negative spin on it for whatever reason failed.” It’s not hard to see why the day prompted both celebration and sobriety. The world’s newest country is about the size of Texas but has less than miles of paved roads. It has the potential to produce more than half a million barrels of oil per day but has no refineries. It possesses water from both the White and Blue Nile but no hydroelectric capacity. At its birth South Sudan ranks near the bottom of most of the world’s indexes, with the highest maternal mortality rate in the world. Of its million people, percent are under age . The literacy rate is percent. South Sudan is also the world’s best incubator for some of the deadliest
NEWBORN NATION: A red carpet during the independence ceremony (top); prayers near a statue of John Garang (bottom).
PHOTOS: ANDREW BURTON/AP • MAP: ESRI/AP
MACHU PICCHU: RICARDO CHOY KIFOX/AP • GEITHNER: CLIFF OWEN/AP • MUBARAK: ALEX WONG.GETTY IMAGES • ALAA MUBARAK: BEN CURTIS/AP • OBAMA: NAM Y. HUH/AP • ATLAS 5: KSC/NASA • HIROSHIMA: KIYOSHI OTA/GETTY IMAGES
Lost city’s centenary July
observers say incursions to disarm the have led to the conflict that has displaced , people, according to estimates. The has cut off to aid workers and journalists most areas of fighting, leaving reports of dead and ongoing atrocities unverifiable. On July , Ashworth reported, “I have just this minute talked to three Nuba, including one very old friend, who found their way separately to Juba with firsthand news of [the South Kordofan towns of] Kauda, Kadugli, and Dilling. All confirm that the targeting of Nuba and suspected sympathizers is continuing.” Ashworth’s contacts report that it is government-supported Arab militias rather than soldiers who are searching vehicles and removing suspected Southern sympathizers along the roads. “The Nuba report that they don’t even feel safe in Khartoum,” he said. Like South Kordafan, Blue Nile state also faces uncertainty. It too joined South Sudan’s in fighting the North during civil war, and both received special status under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. But negotiations to establish political and military protocols in the contested areas have never been finalized. That means the states include unreconciled fighting forces from North and South: “We have over , forces which were part and parcel of the and they are sons and daughters of the two areas,” said Blue Nile Governor Malik Agar, who spoke to reporters in Juba the day after the independence celebrations. “There will be resistance [to disarmament] and then there is going to be war in the two areas and possibly in the whole of Sudan.” Agar is a veteran all the way back to the early days of the civil war, a Muslim and a Northerner who became a steady ally of the South and comrade in arms to Garang, a Christian. I once met Agar in his heavily guarded compound in Blue Nile, a rebel commander operating on the run. Now he is the duly elected governor of a contested state whose allegiances lie on both sides of the new border. Whether he can officiate as a civilian head of state or as a commander on the run will say much about the future of Sudan and its neighbor, the Republic of South Sudan. A
marks the th anniversary of the rediscovery of Machu Picchu. Yale lecturer Hiram Bingham dubbed the ruins the “Lost City of the Incas” after purportedly rediscovering in the pre-th-century Inca city near Cuzco, Peru. In June, Yale University returned to Peru some of the artifacts Bingham took.
LOOKING AHEAD Mubarak on trial
Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, , will stand trial beginning Aug. on charges of murder and corruption, making him the first Arab head of state to answer in court after being overthrown. At least he will have company—his sons Gamal and Alaa will also face charges from the Egyptian attorney general.
Mubarak
Gamal
Debt doomsday
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says Aug. is the day that the United States will blow past its current debt limit of . trillion unless congressional Republicans, Democrats, and President Barack Obama forge a deal to raise the limit or drastically cut spending (see p. ).
President’s 50th
On Aug. President Obama becomes only the eighth president to celebrate his th birthday in the White House, following James K. Polk, Franklin Pierce, Ulysses S. Grant, James A. Garfield, Grover Cleveland, Teddy Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton.
Alaa
Life after the shuttle launches an Atlas rocket into space on Aug. carrying the Juno probe for its five-year mission to study Jupiter—a preview of the space agency’s low-profile work in the post-shuttle era. When the Juno probe arrives in , it will orbit Jupiter more than times to learn more about how the gas giant was formed and what might lie at its center.
Hiroshima Day
For a nation still recovering from the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the th anniversary of Japan’s original nuclear disaster promises to be especially somber. According to the Radioactive Effects Research Foundation, between , and , people died as a direct result of the atomic bomb dropped from the Enola Gay on Aug. , .
—with reporting by Jamie Dean J U LY 3 0 , 2 0 1 1
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WORLD
7/14/11 4:15 PM
Dispatches > News
Mumbai massacre Santosh Verma, a veteran news photographer whose work has been published by The New York Times, Bloomberg, and , rushed to the scene after hearing “a huge bomb blast” near his home in Mumbai July . “I pushed against the tide of humanity rushing out from the scene and saw something I have never seen in my whole life—a whole mass of bodies, completely maimed, dismembered, one dead and another trying to use his cell phone to call for help,” he told later. Verma was an early witness to a triple bomb attack that killed at least and wounded more than (other estimates said and over were killed). For Mumbai, India’s largest city and is financial hub, it was the third major terrorist attack on the city in five years. Verma said when he heard one of the bombs—apparently hidden beneath an umbrella between two motorcycles— he knew that terrorists had once again picked a time, rush hour, to maximize casualties: The streets were their most crowded with commuters heading home, buying food from roadside vendors, or taking tea just before sundown. The bomb near Mumbai’s Opera House exploded in an area of diamond merchants, prominent and well-to-do targets. Verma’s images show the horror of what have become commonplace attacks: men just seconds earlier in suits and white business shirts nearly naked, their clothing shredded down to their underwear by the force of the explosion; severed limbs, stray shoes, busted tires, and crushed vehicles mingled in a bloody street.
Nigeria’s greater danger A peaceful July church meeting turned deadly at All Christian Fellowship Mission in Suleja, Nigeria, when a bomb ripped through the church building after a Sunday morning worship service: The blast killed at least three churchgoers and critically injured seven. Church member Blessing Uwagbuwa described the scene after fleeing with his wife and child: “I couldn’t hear anything, and I was just seeing red.” Post-election violence has grown increasingly worse in the largest West African nation, split evenly between Muslims and Christians. Muslims rioted after the April election of President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian, and killed hundreds. Boko Haram, an Islamist terror group seeking to establish Islamic rule in northern Nigeria, has claimed responsibility for much of the violence—six bombings in June and July alone— including at a police headquarters and a crowded outdoor market. DANGER: A Churches may grow more vulnerable as police tighten security in victim of the urban areas. Stuart Windsor of Christian Solidarity Worldwide said if July bomb Boko Haram sees churches as soft targets, “Christians are in greater blast in the danger than ever.” hospital in Suleja.
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MUMBAI: SANTOSH VERMA/GENESIS PHOTOS FOR WORLD • NIGERIA: AFOLABI SOTUNDE/REUTERS /LANDOV CREDIT
Illinois in July informed Catholic Charities—which handles percent of the state’s foster care and adoption cases— that the state was cutting its foster care contracts with the organization as a result of a new same-sex civil unions law that went into effect June . Catholic Charities, an arm of the Catholic Church, provides foster care and adoptions only to heterosexual married couples. The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services informed Catholic Charities of the contract terminations in a letter, noting, “[Y]our agency has made it clear that it does not intend to comply with the Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act.” Catholic Charities from several major Illinois dioceses had already filed a preemptive lawsuit claiming specific legal protections for religious adoption agencies. A few days after the letter’s arrival, a county judge issued a temporary injunction against the state, preserving the contracts of the major dioceses until another hearing in mid-August. If the state succeeds in ending the contracts, Catholic Charities will need to find foster care providers (likely non-faith-based) to take over the cases of some , children under the group’s care.
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CIRM: HOWARD LIPIN/SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE/ZUMA PRESS/NEWSCOM • PLANNED PARENTHOOD OPPONENT: MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPA/LANDOV • PLANNED PARENTHOOD SUPPORTER: JB NICHOLAS/SIPA PRESS/NEWSCOM
Abuse of charity
Misfeasance
CREDIT
CIRM: HOWARD LIPIN/SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE/ZUMA PRESS/NEWSCOM • PLANNED PARENTHOOD OPPONENT: MICHAEL REYNOLDS/EPA/LANDOV • PLANNED PARENTHOOD SUPPORTER: JB NICHOLAS/SIPA PRESS/NEWSCOM
Two decades of Planned Parenthood abusing women— and tax dollars—detailed in new report
>>
P P onto its federal funding so far, but nine states—Indiana, Texas, Kansas, New Jersey, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Ohio, Tennessee, and Wisconsin—have defunded the leading abortion provider from state budgets or may soon do so. This month Americans United for Life () added to the pressure by publishAfter proponents of embryonic ing solid research into two decades of Planned Parenthood records and law stem-cell research pleaded with enforcement reports. The Case for California voters to approve a Investigating Planned Parenthood details billion ballot measure to establish the misuse of federal healthcare and family California Institute for Regenerative planning funds, failures to report Medicine in , the agency’s criminal child sexual abuse and to latest figures may raise hackles: The comply with parental involvement laws, group announced it would pay Los and dangerous misuse of the abortion Angeles investment banker drug RU-. Jonathan Thomas , to serve The report (available online) highas the board’s part-time chairman. lights the group’s willingness to provide That pushes the combined annual women with inaccurate and misleading salaries of the agency’s top two information and to refer them to officials to nearly million. substandard clinics. It relies heavily on Opponents of embryonic stem-cell statistics but also reports individual research may find the fulsome salary incidents like that of the -year-old ammunition for their case that the who impregnated his -year-old industry doesn’t need government stepdaughter and brought her to Planned funding to survive. But the California Parenthood, the -year-old who foundation said it does need more impregnated his -year-old girlfriend public funds—and plans to ask the three times and each time brought her state’s voters to approve another in, the -year-old who impregnated a billion within the next few years. -year-old runaway and regularly locked her in a storage space, and so on: Each time Planned Parenthood performed the abortion. Despite such misfeasance, Planned Parenthood still receives more than million in taxpayer funding each year. Abortion-providing organizations have preserved their subsidies from government not because of political popularity—polls show more than percent of taxpayers don’t want their tax Though International Planned Parenthood Federation () ( dollars to subsidize abortion—but reported a million drop in total funding last year—an through lobbying and strategic decrease— agencies increased funding to the percent decrease— contributions. According to the organization—by percent. Federal Election Commission, The Population Fund () gave . million— pro-abortion groups since up from . million in and , in —after have spent more than President Barack Obama resumed contributions in million dollars in campaign cut by the Bush administration. A new agency, contributions or independent Women, gave ,. gave ,, expenditures on behalf of candidates for and the Foundation provided ,. The World Health federal office. Those donations will buy Organization gave , and partnered with to do the support of some politicians, and abortion clinic seminars on “safe abortion care.” ideology will do the same for others, but Last year Canada cut its million in contributions to increasing pro-life sentiment plus budget . But even with the overall loss of funds, reported stringency plus ’s ’s research is likely to providing a record number of “abortion-related services,” defund Planned Parenthood in more states. totaling over . million.
EXPENSIVE STEM CELLS
RECORD LEVELS
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WORLD
7/14/11 2:09 PM
The Horn of Africa’s worst drought in years has spurred Somalia’s militants to drastic action: allowing foreigners and infidels to help. Leaders of the Islamist al-Shabab, an insurgent movement that controls large sections of Somalia, banned foreign aid groups in , saying the groups were anti-Muslim. (Some agencies continued STARVING: A Somali small operations in areas woman holds her malnourished child. outside the group’s control.) But a worsening drought has deepened the catastrophic conditions in war-torn Somalia: The estimates nearly a quarter of the nation’s population has fled the country seeking food and water. At least , Somali refugees are arriving in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp each day, and , Somalis have packed remote camps in southeastern Ethiopia. Nine million Africans need assistance across the drought-stricken region. The most vulnerable: malnourished children unable to withstand the grueling treks to refugee camps. Aid workers say throngs of Somali children have died of starvation, yet delivering aid inside Somalia could prove dangerous and dubious: A report last year estimated that corrupt contractors diverted as much as half of the food flowing into the country through the ’s World Food Program. Where did it go? The study found that at least some went to groups like al-Shabab—those now asking for more food aid to flow into the country.
World food prices approached record levels in June, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (). The main driver: the price of sugar, which rose percent in just one month following weather-related production slowdowns in Brazil. Offsetting declines in prices for cereals and oils kept the ’s Food Price Index from topping a record high hit in February. Overall, the June index was up percent from a year earlier—and while world cereal prices dropped slightly, they remain percent higher than a year ago.
Deadly increase The first six months of were the deadliest for civilians in Afghanistan since the war began in , the said in a report released July . The country saw , civilian deaths from January to June—a percent increase on the same period last year. Roadside bombs, Taliban forces, and other militants are responsible for nearly all the uptick, but more Afghans also died from -led air strikes than a year ago. The report followed the July assassination of Ahmed Wali Karzai, the younger half-brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai (below). Considered Karzai’s envoy and powerbroker in volatile Kandahar, once a Taliban stronghold, Ahmed Wali was killed by a close associate of the Karzai family, and the Taliban claimed responsibility. On July a bomb blast during a memorial service in his honor left five dead and wounded.
Arrested development “Thank you & goodbye,” read the July News of the World front page after owner Rupert Murdoch shuttered the -year-old British tabloid over ongoing allegations its journalists illegally hacked phones and made payments to police. But controversy over the controversial news outlet may not go away so fast. After authorities arrested former editor Andy Coulson July on charges relating to the illegal activity, Prime Minister David Cameron, who in hired Coulson as his director of communications, faced mounting questions over what he knew about Coulson’s involvement in the hacking scandal. On July a group of shareholders in Murdoch’s News Corp., which purchased the paper in (and also owns The Wall Street Journal), filed an amended lawsuit accusing Murdoch of “complete failure” to oversee the paper and its journalists.
REFUGEE: ISMAIL TAXTA/REUTERS/LANDOV • AHMED WALI KARZAI: ANJA NIEDRINGHAUS/AP • HAMID KARZAI: MAMOON DURRANI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • NEWSPAPER: REX FEATURES VIA AP IMAGES CREDIT
Circle of aid
SUGAR HIGH
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PATRICK BAZ/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Dispatches > News
DIVIDED LOYALTIES? An Army chaplain leads a worship service in Afghanistan.
Contrary to conscience
Chaplains challenged in new era of gays in the military
refugee: ISMAIL TAXTA/Reuters/Landov • newspaper: Rex Features via AP Images CREDIT
patrick baz/afp/getty images
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By tiffany owens
Retired Chaplain Douglas Lee, director of the Presbyterian and Reformed Joint Commission on Chaplains and Military Personnel, spent 30 years of his life walking among soldiers. He worked as a Protestant chaplain in a highly pluralistic setting, serving alongside Muslim, Buddhist, and Catholic chaplains, all exercising First Amendment freedoms. As a chaplain he convened Bible studies and prayer meetings and did one-on-one counseling. Now he has a new task: working to protect the freedom that makes a chaplain’s job possible. On July 6 a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the U.S. government to drop the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) rule and allow openly gay and lesbian soldiers to serve in the military. Pentagon spokesmen said military officials will comply with the court order: The Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps have all held training sessions regarding the long-anticipated change. Lee, though, argues that the new arrangement could compromise chaplains’ free speech and freedom of conscience, leaving them to face the
tension of divided loyalties. He has joined with other retired chaplains to publicize the lack of codified protection for chaplains. Some 21 organizations, including his, sent a letter in May to the heads of each military branch, asking them to “join us in urging DOD [the Department of Defense] and Congress to adopt such specific and intentional conscience protections.” Chaplain (Col.) Ken Bush, former director of Leadership and Training at the Chaplain Center and School, cited the implementation guide for DADT’s repeal and said, “No chaplain will be forced to do something contrary to their faith tradition.” But Lee is concerned that, beyond training, those promises will not stand: “Many things have been said that are already being challenged.” One example: Last month, Navy Chief of Chaplains Mark Tidd
announced that Navy chapels could be used for same-sex unions. “That is a direct affront to all the promises that had been given,” Lee said, emphasizing that the announcement directly challenges the Defense of Marriage Act’s protection of church buildings. Lee calls the military an establishment built on trust—but such announcements have shaken his confidence: “None of the things that were said have any basis in law or policy . . . they are just promises made that are not codified any place.” Lee and others are concerned that advocates for homosexuality will move swiftly to create a pro-gay environment: “We see how the GLBT community has worked in the civilian United States,” he said. “They are eager to challenge any group or persons who might suggest that homosexuality is immoral or wrong. . . . We assume they’ll want to apply those same tactics and principles in the military and have federal protection for it.” The judicial battle is not necessarily over. The 9th U.S. Circuit has scheduled an August 29 hearing to consider a government appeal of an earlier court decision—but U.S. officials may not pursue the appeal, since Pentagon personnel already have said they’ll stop enforcing DADT. Legislative debates may also continue. Three amendments regarding DADT have passed the House Committee on Armed Services. One, introduced by Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., would require the approval of the service branches’ chiefs for the repeal to go into effect. A second, coming from Rep. Vicky Hartlzler, R-Minn., would reaffirm the Defense of Marriage Act. The third amendment, from Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., would protect military personnel from having to perform same-sex marriages on base. Lee says Christian chaplains aren’t planning on leaving because of DADT’s repeal—but without explicit conscience protection, staying could become much harder. A
“We assume they’ll want to apply those same tactics and principles in the military and have federal protection for it.”
—Tiffany Owens is a New York journalist J U LY 3 0 , 2 0 1 1 W O R L D
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7/13/11 2:16 PM
Dispatches > Human Race
SHOCKING
AILING Venezuelans face an uncertain future after President Hugo Chavez, , revealed he underwent surgery in Cuba last month to remove a malignant tumor. He has not indicated what kind of cancer he has nor the severity of his illness, raising questions about whether he will be able to run for reelection next year. Despite economic woes and a proliferation of crime, recent polls indicate about half of Venezuelans still approve of Chavez’s socialist rule.
SHIFTING Robert H. Schuller, , is no longer a voting member of the Crystal Cathedral Ministries board. Its members changed his position to honorary chairman of the board emeritus so he would have more time for speaking and writing, a church statement said. But Schuller’s son
A Florida jury’s decision July to acquit Casey Anthony in the murder of her -year-old daughter Caylee and convict her only on four counts of lying to investigators sparked widespread public outrage. Juror Jennifer Ford said she and the other jurors didn’t believe there was enough evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to convict Anthony, who would have faced the death penalty. Anthony received a four-year sentence but was slated to go free on July since she has already served nearly three years in jail.
STALKED A North Carolina jury ruled July that pro-life activist Philip “Flip” Benham, director of Operation Save America, is guilty of stalking a Charlotte abortionist. Authorities charged Benham, , after he distributed posters listing the name of the abortionist with the words, “Wanted . . . By Christ, to Stop Killing Babies.” Benham received an -month probation sentence.
DIED Pro-life advocate Joseph E. Mortimer Jr. died July at the age of . Mortimer founded and published the Voices for the Unborn newspaper and used various forms of media to spread his message that “Abortion Stops a Beating Heart.”
DIED Betty Ford,, wife of former President Gerald Ford, died July at the age of . The former first lady, who in cofounded the California-based Betty Ford Center following a personal struggle with alcohol
and pain killer addictions, was a breast cancer survivor who used her platform to advocate for equal rights and the legalization of abortion.
CHAVEZ: ARIANA CUBILLOS/AP • BENHAM: ROGELIO V. SOLIS/AP • FORD: RON GALELLA, LTD./WIRE IMAGE/GETTY IMAGES • ANTHONY: JOE BURBANK/AP • SCHULLER: JOSHUA SUDOCK/THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER/AP CREDIT
Robert A. Schuller told media sources that his father was voted off the board because of differences with other board members. The bankrupt California church is currently on the market.
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7/12/11 3:14 PM
T L A
E H T
N I F
R U O
The Rebelution is one of the most encouraging developments I have seen in many years. Alex anD Brett are young men of conviction, passion, and courage. Their call to their generation is faithful to the Gospel and honoring to Christ.
Albert Mohler President, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
ALEX AND BRETT HARRIS
are best-selling authors of Do Hard Things and Start Here and founders of TheRebelution.com. They are the sons of home school pioneer, Gregg Harris, and the younger brothers of best-selling author, Joshua Harris (“I Kissed Dating Goodbye”).
THE REBELUTION
is a teenage rebellion against low expectations — a growing movement of young people committed to doing hard things for the glory of God.
l-r: Alex and Brett Harris
Alex and Brett are the real deal. they’re abandoned to Jesus. Their message is vital. Join the Rebelution!
Randy Alcorn
best-selling author, Eternal Perspective Ministries
CREDIT
* Receive one copy of Do Hard Things by Alex & Brett Harris and one Rebelution T-Shirt for $22 (down from $27). While supplies last. 15 HUMAN RACE.indd 13
7/8/11 2:40 PM
Dispatches > Quotables
“We made a collective mistake.” JEAN-JACQUES DORDAIN, director of the European Space Agency, one of five international agencies that jointly manage the International Space Station, about the decision in led by President George Bush to allow Russia to take over space transport. With the July final launch of the space shuttle Atlantis closing the -year-old U.S. shuttle program, Russia announced price increases for seats aboard its space flights: . million apiece to fly aboard the Soyuz later this year for U.S. and other astronauts.
“We don’t need new taxes. We need new taxpayers.” U.S. Sen. MARCO RUBIO, arguing that the deficit reduction debate should focus on job creation.
“My blood’s type B, which means I can be irritable and impetuous, and my intentions don’t always come across.” RYU MATSUMOTO, reconstruction minister of Japan, on controversial comments he made during a trip to areas devastated by the March tsunami. Matsumoto resigned July after the trip.
“$75 million.” The amount of income that former president BILL CLINTON has earned in speaking fees in the last years. A analysis of federal financial records found that Clinton has delivered paid speeches since leaving the White House, earning an average of , per event.
RUBIO: TRAVIS GRIGGS/THE PENSACOLA NEWS JOURNAL/AP • EGYPT: KHALIL HAMRA/AP • DORDAIN: JOHN THYS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES • MATSUMOTO: KYODO VIA AP • CLINTON: CLEMENS BILAN/DAPD/AP CREDIT
AN EGYPTIAN, speaking to Western reporters during July protests, explaining that he was going to work instead of joining demonstrators in Tahrir Square, as Egypt’s transitional government appeared increasingly beholden to Islamists rather than young protesters who launched street revolts and provoked Hosni Mubarak’s downfall in March.
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CREDIT
“The square won’t solve our problems.”
CREDIT
RUBIO: Travis Griggs/The Pensacola News Journal/AP • EGYPT: Khalil Hamra/AP • DORDAIN: JOHN THYS/AFP/Getty Images • MATSUMOTO: Kyodo via AP • CLINTON: Clemens Bilan/dapd/ap CREDIT
7/14/11 1:54 PM
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Dispatches > Quick Takes To say Gilbert Herrick is a picky man might be an understatement. At years old, the Rochester, N.Y., retiree on June married an -year-old fellow nursing home resident he met while admiring her art. This will be the near-centenarian’s first marriage. Herrick says that after he and Virginia Hartman became acquainted, they fell in love. Herrick petitioned the nursing home to move Hartman into his room. Officials at the facility told the pensioner, however, that only married couples could live together at the nursing home. That’s when Hartman proposed to Herrick. The couple told reporters that they would have eloped to Fiji, but rules at the nursing home prohibit that sort of travel.
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The book Stanley Baker picked up was old: He bought it at a garage sale in . The parking ticket he only recently found inside the book was dated . And despite the fact that the parking ticket wasn’t issued to him—and was now years past due—the Pentwater, Mich., -year-old figured that he might as well pay So last month, Baker (shown with his son, Fritz) put the payment for the ticket in the original envelope along with a note that read, “Better late than never,” and mailed it to the Orlando, Fla., address printed on the label, once a traffic court and now a police auditorium. Orlando police said they appreciated receiving the belated payment.
While assisting the owner of a disabled vehicle on I- in Philadelphia, a veteran city policeman on July found an unusual piece of litter. Upside down on the shoulder of the interstate highway, the officer found a magnetic presidential seal. President Barack Obama had been in Philadelphia the day before on a fundraising visit. And as his presidential motorcade drove eastbound on I-, the magnetic presidential seal affixed to the side of his limousine flew off. Officers tried to locate the magnet that evening, but couldn’t find it. Police department officials say they quickly returned it to agents at the Philadelphia Secret Service field office, who then shipped it back to Washington.
HERRICK: WHAM-TV • BAKER, TICKET: BAKER FAMILY • OUTLET: ISTOCK • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE CREDIT
A homeless Bangor, Maine, man trying to find a way to charge up a cell phone instead found himself in trouble with the law. Police patrolling downtown Bangor on June arrested -year-old Shaun Fawster when a patrolman discovered Fawster charging up a cell phone from an electrical outlet on the outside of a building hidden behind plants. Authorities charged Fawster with theft of services and released him from jail.
Download ’s iPad app today; details at worldmag.com/iPad
7/13/11 2:37 PM
BUFFALO: LM OTERO/AP • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • KID: SONNY HEDGECOCK/THE ENTERPRISE/AP • KIM JONG IL: KYODO NEWS/AP CREDIT
No one knows exactly the last time a white buffalo was born. But more than , people converged on the Lakota Ranch in Greenville, Texas, on June to celebrate the birth of a white, non-albino buffalo considered by scientists as a one-in--million rarity. The crowd gathered for a Native American ceremony to name the unusual calf Lightning Medicine Cloud—because it was born during a thunderstorm on the northeast Texas ranch.
HERRICK: WHAM-TV • BAKER, TICKET: BAKER FAMILY • OUTLET: ISTOCK • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE CREDIT
BUFFALO: LM OTERO/AP • ILLUSTRATION: KRIEG BARRIE • KID: SONNY HEDGECOCK/THE ENTERPRISE/AP • KIM JONG IL: KYODO NEWS/AP CREDIT
Visiting a school in rural Uganda, a mine and bomb awareness team found that its services were needed—urgently. The team from the Anti-Mine Network, which visits schools to teach children how to spot mines and bombs in the war-torn nation, reportedly found that teachers were using an unexploded bomb as a school bell, banging it with stones to call their pupils to class. “Its head was still active, which means that if it is hit by a stronger force, it would explode instantly and cause untold destruction in the area,” team member Wilson Bwambale told the Daily Monitor. At another school, the Anti-Mine Network reportedly found children using a bomb as a toy.
If political leaders around the world had no reason to take the UN Conference on Disarmament seriously before, the ascension of North Korea to the presidency of the anti-nuclearproliferation organization doesn’t help the agency’s reputation. Despite the Communist nation’s record on nuclear weapons, North Korea was awarded the honor because the presidency of the organization rotates alphabetically. According to the Center for Arms Kim Jong Il Control and NonProliferation, North Korea has already test-fired two nuclear weapons and has enough nuclear material for between four and six more.
Dianne Kidd may never get a second chance like this again. In , her future husband Thomas Wray Kidd gave her his high-school class ring as a gift. And when Dianne accidentally dropped it in the toilet mid-flush, her father called a plumber out to try and fish the ring out of the pipes. “The plumber finally told them, ‘Hey, that ring is gone,’” Thomas Kidd told Reuters. More than years later, when a storm sewer collapsed in nearby Roanoke Rapids, N.C., repair crew foreman Dwayne Johnson found the ring in the debris. After taking it to a jeweler for polishing, Johnson found Thomas Kidd’s initials engraved on the ring. Jeweler Steve Brantley then began searching for the ring’s original owner—a task made easier by the fact that Kidd graduated with just other classmates. And after tracking down a classmate of Kidd’s, Brantley finally made contact with the -year-old Kidd and offered to drive three hours to deliver the gold ring with red gemstone. Kidd said he planned on giving the ring back to Dianne, his wife of years.
In a bid to further diminish gender inequalities, one school in Stockholm, Sweden, has decided to banish gender talk altogether. The Egalia preschool in Stockholm recently announced plans to prohibit the use of gendered pronouns like “him” and “her,” saying that such gendered distinctions only reinforce societal inequalities. Instead, Egalia teachers have been instructed to use non-gendered pronouns invented and used in the nation’s transgendered community. “This is about democracy,” said Director Lotta Rajalin, “about human equality.” J U LY 3 0 , 2 0 1 1
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WORLD
7/13/11 2:35 PM
Janie B. Cheaney
THE REAL ME
Supporters of traditional marriage will need more than rational arguments to win
O
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KRIEG BARRIE
in favor of same-sex marriage is that it rights an ancient wrong: the denial to an entire class of people of the right to live in accord with their true selves, with the same rights as others who are more favored. Sexuality (the argument goes) is as much a part of who one is as skin color. The prejudice against biracial marriage fell years ago; isn’t it time for the bias against same-sex marriage to go as well? But one’s “true self” is a tougher proposition than a physical characteristic. Some homosexuals believe they were hard-wired from birth: “God made me this way.” Others believe they were led or even misled. Others float between a sexual preference for men and for women, or both at the same time, or even a feeling that in their inmost being they are some other gender than they were physically born. That’s the problem with psychology vs. physiology: It’s harder to pin down. What is my “true self”? Is it located in the mind and constructed from thought, or located in the gut and driven by instinct? Do I find it by holding on, or by letting go? Joshua Knobe, associate professor of cognitive science and philosophy at Yale, is wondering about that. “In Search of the True Self,” posted in the New York Times online Stone Forum (for contemporary philosophy), suggests that it’s impossible to separate a person’s inmost being from his biases. For example, he posed the following proposition to participants in a study: Jim used to be homosexual. However, now Jim is married to a woman and no longer has sex with men. Participants were then asked how much they agreed with this conclusion: At his very essence, there was always something deep within Jim, calling him to stop having sex with men, and then this true self emerged. Self-identified conservatives agreed; self-identified liberals didn’t. Other propositions and conclusions more in line with liberal thinking produced a similar result, only reversed. Dr. Knobe asks, “Does our ordinary notion of
a ‘true self’ simply pick out a certain part of the mind? Or is this notion actually wrapped up in some inextricable way with our own values and ideals?” About , years ago, Augustine of Hippo delved into his own mind and memory to write the world’s first psychological biography. Confessions charts a journey through several “true selves,” from the hedonist to the Manichean dualist to the dedicated seeker of truth who couldn’t live up to his own standards. At this point in the narrative he reflects the dilemma of Romans :-: “I delight in the law of God, in my inner being [true self], but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind.” Two Augustines, two warring wills. He was almost driven to despair when, in a friend’s garden, he heard a child’s voice chanting, “Take and read! Take and read!” A scroll of Paul’s letter to the Romans was nearby. He snatched it up and read: “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh” (Romans :). In that moment, his unruly flesh and his rationalizing intellect made peace in Christ. There’s a rational, nonreligious case for keeping marriage between a man and a woman, but selves ruled by instinct are unlikely to hear it. There’s a valid emotional appeal to “what’s best for the children,” but intellectual selves are likely to reject it. Tides of public opinion come and go, and it seems the tide is running against traditional marriage. The real battle is where it always was: within each individual heart. Everyone, no matter how confident they seem, struggles with who they really are. A complex weave of nature and nurture? A patchwork of advertising and catchphrases? Who knows? God does. Our lives are hidden in Him (Colossians :). When you encounter these divided souls, don’t just give them arguments— give them Christ. A Email: jcheaney@worldmag.com
7/8/11 5:28 PM
Taught by Professor Edward B. Burger
IM ED T E OF IT
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70%
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williams college
FE
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An Introduction to Number Theory
BY S P T E M E
Discover the Fascinating and Elusive Patterns in Numbers
lecture titles 1. Number Theory and Mathematical Research 2. Natural Numbers and Their Personalities 3. Triangular Numbers and Their Progressions 4. Geometric Progressions, Exponential Growth 5. Recurrence Sequences 6. The Binet Formula and the Towers of Hanoi 7. The Classical Theory of Prime Numbers 8. Euler’s Product Formula and Divisibility 9. The Prime Number Theorem and Riemann 10. Division Algorithm and Modular Arithmetic 11. Cryptography and Fermat’s Little Theorem 12. The RSA Encryption Scheme 13. Fermat’s Method of Ascent 14. Fermat’s Last Theorem 15. Factorization and Algebraic Number Theory 16. Pythagorean Triples 17. An Introduction to Algebraic Geometry 18. The Complex Structure of Elliptic Curves 19. The Abundance of Irrational Numbers 20. Transcending the Algebraic Numbers 21. Diophantine Approximation 22. Writing Real Numbers as Continued Fractions 23. Applications Involving Continued Fractions 24. A Journey’s End and the Journey Ahead
An Introduction to Number Theory
Curious and creative people have always been intrigued by the nuance of numbers. Now you can begin to explore the enigmatic prime numbers, the synergy between rational and irrational numbers, and the properties of algebraic and transcendental numbers.
Course no. 1495 | 24 lectures (30 minutes/lecture)
Welcome the thrill of discovery as you witness the exhilarating, sometimes heartbreaking, process by which mathematical proofs are devised in the pursuit of new areas of great knowledge. Award-winning professor Dr. Edward B. Burger provides clear and effective guidance over the course of 24 stimulating lectures. You’ll gain insights into the complex and beautiful patterns that structure the world of numbers.
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7/7/11 2:45 PM
ry
uth minist
Is modern yo
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One of the most controversial documentaries of the decade.
the church?
Young Christian filmmaker Philip Leclerc sets out on a cross-country journey to discover what has happened to his generation in the church. Divided is a documentary that gives a historical and biblical evaluation of the roots, effects, and future of modern youth ministry all through the eyes of a young
eye-opening and revealing
man searching for answers.
%LECERC BROTHERS MOTION PICTURES FILM + THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR FAMILY-INTEGRATED CHURCHES WRITTEN AND BY PETER BRADRICK c JURGEN BECK p SCOTT BROWN g CHRIS LECLERC k THE LECLERC BROTHERS PRODUCED The National Center for Family-Integrated Churches
LECLERC BROTHERS MOTION PICTURES CREDIT
Length: 55 minutes
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7/8/11 2:38 PM
Reviews MOVIES & TV BOOKS Q&A MUSIC
WARNER BROS. PICTURES
It all ends here MOVIE: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part finishes an era on a hero’s note BY REBECCA CUSEY
>>
who eagerly devoured the first Harry Potter book back in are now, like Harry himself, young adults. Seven Potter books and subsequent films have defined an era—the books selling more than million copies in over languages while the movie adaptations have earned more than billion in worldwide ticket sales. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part , the eighth and final film of the series, hit theaters July , and with it we say goodbye
to Master Potter, watching him take his place with Frodo Baggins and Luke Skywalker as epic heroes who have helped shape a generation. Despite some controversy in Christian thought over J.K. Rowling’s wizard-centered setting, Harry Potter has had his effect on the world not because of the series’ magical conceit but because of a universal and profound story: that of a boy growing to manhood and accepting the responsibility to resist evil, even at great cost. In the hands of Harry, Hermione, and Ron, wands and spells take the place of guns or light sabers, but the values of freedom and justice remain the same. As the film picks up the story, the evil Lord Voldemort has taken over the wizarding J U LY 3 0 , 2 0 1 1
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WORLD
7/13/11 3:17 PM
Reviews > Movies & TV
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with bloodstained feet past the bodies of his victims, a murder heard and seen in shapes through an opaque window. The film is rated PG-13 for sometimes intense action and frightening images (it contains one minor profanity and no sexuality). The effects and acting are top notch, with a vast cast providing well-developed background characters. Daniel Radcliffe as Harry, Emma Watson as Hermione, and Rupert Grint as Ron have perfected the roles that have defined their young lives. Ralph Finnes creates an iconic villain in Voldemort and Michael Gambon embodies the very picture of wisdom in Dumbledore. Next to Harry, however, the best character is Alan Rickman’s wonderfully complex Snape. A two hour and five minute film cannot capture the richness of even half of J.K. Rowling’s thick book. Storylines are truncated, such as those of Remus Lupin (David Thewlis), a valiant werewolf, or conflicted Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), Harry’s schoolboy nemesis. The movie emphasizes horcruxes (important talismans) over the powerful objects
Warner Bros. Pictures
world, imposing his racist mission and arbitrary terror over formerly free wizards. Severus Snape, a bitter teacher and murderer of the wise wizard Dumbledore, controls the Hogwarts school. Harry and the rest of the resistance have been forced underground. Harry heads for a showdown with the dictator in a raging battle with Hogwarts as its backdrop. He learns that his destiny merges with that of Voldemort in a different way than he had supposed and that Snape’s secrets hold the key to the entire series. With a villain bent on eliminating mixed-blood wizards and an Anglophile setting, the series echoes the story of World War II, with ordinary Hogwarts students and teachers cast as the everyday heroes of the Battle of Britain. The power of Rowling’s work lies in that while it’s Harry’s story, it’s also the story of Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis), a clumsy boy who stands up to Voldemort even when all hope is lost; or that of Dumbledore’s angry brother who comes through in the end; or that of many other wizard heroes who perform above the call of duty, some losing their lives. Another character emerges as an even greater hero, all the more so because he hides his bravery from the world and allows others to think ill of him. Like the books, each movie has turned more serious, more mature than the last. Director David Yates infuses this film with dark settings and bleak images, the ethos of France before D-Day. Some images will be too much for young children: Voldemort walking
called hallows, which fans of the book will recognize as diminishing Harry’s choice of whether or not to take possession of the hallows. Like all the films, the final adaptation is made for fans of the books and will confuse novices. This one, however, with its universal themes of sacrifice and heroism, as well as big payoffs in story, does the best job of the series. The film does magnificently capture the emotions of the book in tear-inducing moments when friends and even rivals stand shoulder-to-shoulder to fight for decency against impossible odds. Although moral choices seemed murky in the beginning of the series, by the final chapter, each character must choose whether to stand on the side of justice, succumb to fear, or embrace the power of tyranny. From freeing the slave elf Dobby to rescuing an abused dragon to opposing Voldemort’s campaign for “pure blood” wizards, Harry and his friends consistently choose the side of decency. In the early books, Harry sometimes chooses selfishly and arrogantly over estimates his own importance—all the while wishing to avoid the responsibility life has placed on his shoulders. By the end, Harry, for the sake of his friends, knowingly and willingly chooses sacrifice. His yearning for glory has been resisted, his desperation to escape responsibility conquered. He is willing to lay down his life so others may live in a just peace. Like Frodo Baggins of The Lord of the Rings, he decides to walk away from the tremendous and attractive power he has won at great cost. Though magic spells and fantastic creatures may have been the trappings that initially drew fans into the series, what ultimately makes it an enduring favorite is that it glorifies heroes who know right from wrong. If Harry Potter’s stratospheric sales are any indication, the kids are going to be just fine. A
See all our movie reviews at worldmag.com/movies
7/13/11 3:27 PM
page one: magnolia pictures • project nim: bbc films
HARRY SITUATION: Daniel Radcliffe as Potter (left) and Ralph Finnes as Voldemort (below).
MOVIE
Page One by Toddy Burton
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Box Office Top 10 For the weekend of July 8-10, according to Box Office Mojo
cautions: Quantity of sexual (S), violent (V), and foul-language (L) content on a 0-10 scale, with 10 high, from kids-in-mind.com
S V L 1̀
Transformers: Dark of the Moon* PG-13......5 2̀ Horrible Bosses r................... 7 3̀ Zookeeper PG............................4 4̀ Cars 2* G. ......................................2 5̀ Bad Teacher R........................... 7 6̀ Larry Crowne PG-13................5 7̀ Super 8* PG-13............................2 8̀ Monte Carlo PG.........................2 9̀ Mr. Popper’s Penguins* pg... 1 1 `0 Green Lantern PG-13..............4
7 5 6 10 4 3 4 1 3 8 2 5 6 5 2 3 3 2 7 4
*Reviewed by world
MOVIE
Project Nim by Alisa Harris
Warner Bros. Pictures
page one: magnolia pictures • project nim: bbc films
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Dr. Herbert S. Terrace picked Stephanie LaFarge to be his chimpanzee’s mother because she was full of warmth and empathy. Thrilled to be making scientific history and burning with the 1970s spirit of adventure, she took in the two-week-old baby chimp, Nim, and raised him like one of her seven children— with very little discipline and the occasional dose of marijuana. Project Nim (rated PG-13 for references to sex, drugs, and some disturbing images) tells the true story of how Nim grew up like a human child—the subject of an experiment to prove that chimps can learn language just like
Print media is dying. Same goes for traditional journalism as consumers head to news aggregators, blogs, and social networks for information. This isn’t news to anyone, but the documentary Page One: Inside the New York Times does a decent job of infusing life into a tired conversation. Following a handful of Times journalists over the course of a year as they research stories, face layoffs, and struggle to remain relevant, the film (rated R for language, including sexual references) explores the decline of print journalism: If anyone with an internet connection can become a reporter, is there a place for traditional media? The documentary presents little in new insight, but as a portrait of the conflicts inside the newsroom, it’s an occasionally compelling depiction. The movie centers on the Times Media Desk, which (not without a sense of irony) reports on the change and demise of its own way of life. Columnist David Carr, the film’s unlikely hero, represents the collision of old and new journalism. A grisly former drug addict, Carr speaks in the crusty cadence of a character from another era—a time when journalists worked in smoke-filled newsrooms and rushed to make the late edition deadline. Carr reads from his columns in voiceover throughout the movie, his sharp and easy prose establishing some of the film’s best moments. His old school reporting counters Brian Stelter, a reporter who thrives in the world of Tweets and blogs. As breaking stories come and go, the chaos of newsroom activity and dramatic behind-the-scenes footage secures the film’s place on every journalism student’s syllabus. Carr insists there will always be a need for seasoned journalists, and he’s right. But is that insight really so revelatory? Yes, there was a time when leaking something to the press meant delivering a stack of secret documents by hand and yes, newspapers used to be where news got made. But, like the inky stains on your fingers after poring through the morning paper, this movie might already be a relic.
humans—only to be abandoned by his human family when his true nature emerges. It shows that the noblest pursuit of science, wrongly directed, can end up being cruel. Director James Marsh vivifies history with the same impressionistic but piercing recreations that characterized his awardwinning documentary, Man on Wire. The film is by turns funny and sad as the camera
uncannily reveals the character of the interviewees. Besides examining the still-roiling nature vs. nurture question, the film explores the nature of science itself: How dispassionate can it be? When we learn that Terrace has been romantically involved with one of the women engaged in the experiment, the professor scoffs at the idea that his personal entanglements affect the experiment. But science and values are hopelessly entangled here. The kids who grew up with an ape for a baby brother, the young students who taught Nim sign language, and the string of young women who mothered him all end up confused yet deeply moved. The counterpart to the hypothesis that chimps are almost human is that humans are not much more than chimps. This is the bias that the experiment’s participants seem to hold, until they realize that their hubris has created havoc not only in the life of a defenseless animal, but in their own as well. J U LY 3 0 , 2 0 1 1 W O R L D
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Reviews > Books
God and evil Two books on what men call evil BY MARVIN OLASKY
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N G’ If God, Why Evil? (Bethany House, ) lays out in textbook fashion the basic arguments. God is sovereign, so He could eliminate evil by wiping out our freedom to be evil. The existence of evil shows that God values human freedom more than He values the destruction of evil: “Even God cannot totally destroy all evil without destroying freedom. Given that He has willed to create free creatures, it would go against His own will to destroy our free will.” God showed His commitment to free will by forcing Adam and Eve to leave the Garden and enter a world where our desire to embrace evil would give sin even more opportunity. But God’s grace shows in His willingness, when we are dead in our sins, to turn our free will into a different channel. Geisler notes that even we, with our limited understanding, know some good purposes for pain and suffering: For example, pain can keep us from self-destruction (lepers show the horror of not feeling pain), and suffering has to be strong enough to accomplish its
warning purpose. Geisler points out that alternatives to a world with suffering—no world at all, or a non-free world where no one sins—are not morally superior. None of this may satisfy the parent whose child dies. In the end we need to believe that God’s infinitely good mind knows the good purpose for everything. The toughest chapter in Christopher Wright’s The God I Don’t Understand: Reflections on Tough Questions of Faith (Zondervan, ) concerns God’s command to commit acts against the Canaanites, including their children, that today might be labeled “genocide.” Wright turns down one easy but wrong answer: “It’s an Old Testament problem that the New Testament fixes.” That doesn’t work because it accuses God of encouraging evil in the Old Testament and it doesn’t recognize God’s mixture of love and wrath in both testaments. Besides, no one in the New Testament suggests that God wasn’t speaking in the Old Testament, or had changed.
Wright finds a better answer by placing the Canaan war within the culture and rhetoric of ancient warfare and noting the wickedness of Canaanite society. He then shows that Israel’s military ethic was like that of other ancient cultures in one sense but very different in another— because, for Israel, military victory did not mean that Israel was righteous. Wright also notes that Rahab the Canaanite and Ruth the Moabite were among the foreigners who professed faith in Israel’s God and received His blessings. The Jebusites over time may have become a clan of the tribe of Judah, and whole peoples, including even the dreaded Philistines, would one day join God’s church as well. God, instead of ordering ethnic cleansing, proclaimed ethnic blessing. True—and the best answer also emphasizes seeing Christ in the Old Testament. Joshua/Jesus—Yehoshua in Hebrew—means “Yahweh saves.” The book of Joshua foreshadows the gospel in many ways. In Chapter the three days of Israelite preparation before entering the Promised Land foreshadow Jesus’ time in the tomb. In Chapter the scarlet cord that Rahab tied in her window preserves her to be the ancestor of Christ, who shed His blood for us. Overall, the book of Joshua shows God pouring out His judgment on a wicked society. The books about the greater Joshua, Jesus, show God pouring out His judgment on His own sinless Son, who did not deserve it.
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HANDOUTS
Stories of perseverance in evil places are both harrowing and inspiring. Primo Levi’s classic Survival in Auschwitz is out in a new paperback edition (BN Publishing, ). Surviving Hell: A ’s Journey (Encounter, ) by Leo Thorsness tells of life in communist captivity. The pilot endured terrible torture but also survived boredom by memorizing long passages of poetry and counting the paces within his tiny cell so he could “walk home” the , miles from Hanoi.
Email: molasky@worldmag.com
7/8/11 11:41 AM
HANDOUT
PRISONER PERSEVERANCE
NOTABLE BOOKS Four new mysteries > reviewed by
The Complaints Ian Rankin Accomplished crime novelist Rankin introduces a new series featuring Malcolm Fox, a cop whose job it is to investigate other cops. That department in the United States would be called Internal Affairs, but in Scotland it is The Complaints. Fox, who has been sober for five years, finds himself hardpressed on all sides. His sister’s abusive boyfriend breaks her arm and then shows up dead. The cops investigating the murder have a grievance against Fox because he investigated one of their own. Suddenly he’s under suspicion, and he’s not sure what’s going on or who is behind it. Financially troubled Scotland provides the setting for this gritty novel featuring a flawed protagonist trying to do right in a fallen world. Some bad language, especially from the mouths of bad guys. Come and Find Me Hallie Ephron Since her boyfriend died in a mountain climbing accident in Switzerland, former computer hacker Diana has been afraid to venture out from behind her electronically fortified doors. She spends her days on the computer, visiting virtual OtherWorld and running a computer security firm with her boyfriend’s best friend. Then her sister goes missing, and Diana must leave her secure bunker to find her. Which of her virtual friends are trustworthy, and which are not? Who is messing with her security firm? The internet allows lurking behind false identities, and only at the end does Diana understand how deep are the secrets and betrayals. Some bad language.
HANDOUTS
HANDOUT
I am not an athlete, but I thoroughly enjoyed Cycling Home from Siberia: , miles, years, bicycle (Howard Books, ), Rob Lilwall’s exhilarating account of his roundabout jour-
The Body in the Gazebo Katherine Hall Page
ney from Siberia
Caterer Faith Fairchild must unravel two mysteries in the village of Aleford, Mass., where her husband is a mainline church minister. An audit uncovers money missing from the church’s discretionary fund, to which her husband alone has access. Which of the unpleasant people who work for the church is responsible? Meanwhile, an elderly friend confides in Faith a story from her childhood involving an unsolved murder. The elderly woman has begun to receive anonymous letters about the murder and wants Faith to figure out who is sending them. Congregational jealousies and details of everyday life provide the context for this cozy mystery’s slowly unfolding plot.
to London. He
The Bone Yard Jefferson Bass Dr. Bill Bass founded the Body Farm at the University of Tennessee years ago to study how bodies decompose in different conditions. This forensic lab provides him with rich fodder for the crime novels he writes with Jon Jefferson under the pen name Jefferson Bass. In the novel, forensic anthropologist Bill Brockton is in Florida to help a colleague prove that her sister did not commit suicide. A dog uncovers several old skulls that appear to come from a cemetery on the grounds of a long-closed boys’ reformatory. Although the bones reveal past secrets, a murderer in the present wants to keep them hidden. The novel, apparently loosely based in history, includes some bad language and gritty forensic details that aren’t for the squeamish. Email: solasky@worldmag.com; see all our reviews at mag.com/books
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SPOTLIGHT
had the audacity to begin riding in Siberia in late fall/early winter, with temperatures sinking to -°F at night. By the time he and Al, his riding companion, reached Honshu, Japan, they were not getting along and decided to split up. From then on he rode mostly alone. His was a meandering route that included Australia, Tibet, Nepal, Afghanistan, and Iran—then up through Europe before reaching his home in London. Along the way Lilwall met fascinating people, escaped evildoers, worshipped in churches, discussed God with Muslims and others, and met his future wife.
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WORLD
7/8/11 11:43 AM
Reviews > Q&A
Go local
Former presidential candidate MIKE HUCKABEE discusses how current candidates should discuss politics and economics BY MARVIN OLASKY
up is more of an art than a science. People want to make very simplistic sort of slogan approaches to policy, and when you really get into issues it’s a little more complicated than that. , as an example of a complication, how do you reason through the question of whether the federal government should tell people what they should eat? Government should not tell you what to eat and what not to eat, or whether to put salt on your food or whether you can put sugar on top of your cereal. But the government is already involved in what you eat by the way it subsidizes certain products and doesn’t subsidize others. If the government is subsidizing high fructose corn syrup and making it a very cheap commodity, the manufacturers are going to put more of that in
your food than they are fresh fruits and vegetables. Are school lunches already an example of federal reach? If you go to a school
HUCKABEE: DANNY JOHNSTON/AP • MCCAUGHEY: HANDOUT
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F A governor Mike Huckabee participated in presidential candidate debates four years ago. Now he can sit and watch others. Here are some edited excerpts of my interview of him. Should Republican candidates be anti-government? Republicans are not anti-government. Republicans believe in government, believe that it should be limited, and, to the extent that it can be, local. They do not believe that it should be centralized. It should be decentralized and moved out to the closest place of the people being governed. When should the federal government be involved in a domestic policy problem? Only when there is no practical way for it to be solved at the individual, the family, the community, or the church level. Only when it escapes all the strata below should it ever end up at the federal level. Seeing where individual responsibility stops and when the government picks
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HUCKABEE: DANNY JOHNSTON/AP • MCCAUGHEY: HANDOUT
Overinsured nation BETSY MCAUGHEY, former lieutenant governor of New York, received her Ph.D. at Columbia and then taught constitutional law both at Columbia and at Vassar. She has twice been a leader in the fight against nationalized healthcare, first in in opposition to Hillarycare, and in the past two years versus Obamacare. What is this huge prop you’ve brought along? The Obama healthcare law. It is , pages long. A -page document in plain English would have been sufficient. The entire federal government was established in pages. Have you read it all? Yes. I’ve put these blue tabs in. Why should voters care? First, Obamacare shreds your constitutional rights. It requires you to join up. It broadens the powers of the to penalize you. The Constitution cannot require you to buy anything. Second, section . of this law changes how doctors may treat privately insured patients: Doctors will be forced to choose between keeping the patient well and the government happy. Third, the law makes it difficult for companies to hire long term because of the strictures on companies larger than employees. If the healthcare bill were only pages long, what would you put in it? First, tort reform, which would not cap damage awards but would establish medical courts. Second, for those patients with preexisting conditions who cannot otherwise get insurance, it would help the states by making block grants to them to establish high-risk pools. Third, it would free the public to buy health insurance across state lines. Overexpensive states would quickly change their laws. Does the Obamacare legislation do anything right? It has provisions for those high-risk pools that I mentioned. The fallacy is that you need , pages of Constitution-violating rights just to get those good things. As we wait for the Supreme Court to rule on Obamacare and for voters to rule on President Obama, what should we realize about our current insurance system? Most Americans are overinsured. You pay a big premium at the beginning of the month or quarter, and then you hope you get sick, so you can get your money’s worth. Adding routine doctor’s visits to insurance raises costs by some percent; if you were to just pay visit by visit, and save insurance for those catastrophic cases, health costs would be lower overall. Premiums would be lower. There would be more freedom. Doctors wouldn’t have to spend as much on paperwork. Save the insurance for the big items. —M.O.
cafeteria, the government is already involved in saying what you should eat by saying what’s going to be on the menu. The ingredients are -certified, subsidized commodities sent at either low or no cost to that school. So the government has in essence decided a lot of those things that those kids were going to eat. What if the government decided that a lot of what they sent was going to be healthy? If a kid is going to eat a meal at school, and we’ve already decided that he is, shouldn’t that meal be a little healthier than something that is filled with sodium and sugar? Turning from food to money: Grover Norquist
has for years pushed candidates to sign his no new taxes pledge. Would you want all presidential candidates to sign a no new bailouts pledge? I would love that. And I would love for all the potential candidates to have to pledge whether they supported the previous bailouts, and they would have to go on record, because a lot of them who would say it is a bad idea now would have to explain why they thought it was such a great idea back in . And let’s be very clear: Republicans who sponsored and put forward that bailout teed it up so that Obama and the Democrats could do one in . We had the stimulus bill and all the bailouts because it was hard for the Republicans to say, oh no, we don’t believe in bailouts on principle. They’d already violated their principles.
Email: molasky@worldmag.com
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What should presidential candidates say about any future bailout proposals? We are not going to take money from people who are responsible, people who’ve worked very hard, who’ve saved, and been thoughtful and good stewards of their money and their businesses. We’re not going to take their money and give it to people who’ve recklessly mismanaged their businesses, who’ve changed the dynamics of investing from investing in the real value of goods and services to speculation. What should candidates suggest as a way to encourage stewardship rather than speculation on Wall Street? Make sure that the government does not aid and abet irresponsible behavior. Tell speculators, “You’re not going to get any taxpayer money, and you’re not going to get tax breaks for what you lose.” A J U LY 3 0 , 2 0 1 1
WORLD
7/8/11 11:52 AM
Reviews > Music
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the work that went into their construction seem even more impressive now than they did when the albums were new. To a degree, time has made the problem of separating Queen’s aesthetic wheat from its content-oriented chaff less thorny. First, a good deal of its content was either innocuous (“You’re My Best Friend,” bassist John Deacon’s love song to his wife) or salutary (“Jesus” from Queen) to begin with. Second, Christians who’ve been maturing in the faith for the years since Queen debuted are far less likely to feel their baser instincts inflamed by songs such as “Get Down, Make Love” and “Body Language” now than they were as adolescents.
one in which Chaucer composed the raunchier aspects of The Canterbury Tales, albeit with less of an ear for the richness of metrically exact verse. All of which is to say that if one didn’t speak English, the meticulously constructed traits of Queen’s baroque sonic architecture would merit admiration even from those with scrupulous consciences.
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O Q’ sonic co-architects was the producer Roy Thomas Baker, who parlayed his success with Queen into helping ignite the Boston-based New Wave band The Cars, thus
tracks in, it seems that The Cars must’ve undertaken a crash course in listening to their old albums before putting the pedal to the metal this time. A
QUEEN: AP • CARS: HANDOUT
T Q has always presented Christians who were coming of age during its zenith with a conundrum: namely, how to celebrate the band’s undeniably superlative talent and creativity without endorsing the unabashed hedonism of some of its best-known songs. It’s a conundrum that will strike buyers of Hollywood Records’ th-anniversary reissues of Queen’s albums afresh. Digitally remastered yet again (frankly, the sound quality isn’t discernibly different from that of any of the previous digital remasterings) and accompanied with bonus EPs chock-full of mostly previously unreleased demos, live cuts, instrumental versions, and a cappella snippets, the albums (’s Queen through ’s Hot Space as of this writing) and
Queen reissue highlights the troubling band’s talent, while a new Cars sounds like an older model BY ARSENIO ORTEZA
permanently linking the two otherwise quite dissimilar bands. The Cars are back in the news these days because they’ve released their first new album, Move Like This (Hear Music), since the death in of their lead guitarist and co-lead vocalist Benjamin Orr. Baker isn’t aboard for the ride, and neither is Mutt Lange, who produced the group’s quadruple-platinum Heartbeat City. Nevertheless, Move Like This sounds like a vintage Cars album. The group leader Ric Ocasek has always sung enough like Orr to make differentiating the two a challenge, so his assumption of full singing won’t create a disturbance in the minds of the band’s more ardent fans. Besides, all of the other original band members are present and accounted for, and the album’s first single, “Sad Song,” even boasts percussive handclaps straight out of the group’s hit “Let’s Go.” But, on the debit side, the continuity also emphasizes the extent to which the band remains stuck in a gear that it can’t get out of. A few
Email: aorteza@worldmag.com
7/11/11 9:41 AM
ROBERT RAPHAEL/AP
Listening again
Third, the -related death of Queen’s bisexual lead singer Freddie Mercury in has relegated his more outrageous forays to the category of “more to be pitied than censured”: The words of “Bohemian Rhapsody” sound like nothing so much as a prophecy of his final days. As for those tasteless staples of the group’s catalog penned by the guitarist Brian May (“Tie Your Mother Down,” “Fat Bottomed Girls”), one suspects that, given his overall refinement (he has a Ph.D. in astrophysics and is a university chancellor), he conceived them in the same spirit of English cheekiness as the
NOTABLE CDs
Five new pop-rock releases > reviewed by
Panic of Girls Blondie The music that Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, and Clem Burke are making at an average age of sounds just enough unlike the music of their heyday that it really deserves a separate label (old New Wave?). Beat-driven songs evocative of nocturnal intrigue still rotate with reggae-driven songs evocative of the need to mix things up a little, but whether it’s the world-weariness increasingly audible in Harry’s voice or simply her and her bandmates’ desire for vignettes they can perform live without disgracing themselves, the music becomes them.
Heaven and Earth John Martyn The death of John Martyn has not been felt as deeply in America as in England mainly because during his -plus-year career he was a bigger deal in England. Also, he was idiosyncratically unclassifiable, a quality that this posthumously released final album of his unabashedly captures. Martyn sang these funky and soulful songs in a voice that was equal parts Joe Cocker, Tom Waits, and Cookie Monster, knowing full well they might be his last. That they were is what puts them over. The Majestic Silver Strings
Buddy Miller There are two Miller compositions on this album, but one belongs to that old “king of the road” Roger and the other to Buddy’s wife Julie, songwriters whose dissimilar subject-matter preferences map out this music’s corny-deep parameters. The corn: “Cattle Call” and “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie.” The depth: Marc Ribot’s depression-prescribing “Meds” and Canray Fontenot’s depression-accepting “Barres de la Prison.” But the bifurcation isn’t tidy. In fact, between Miller’s guitar and his guest-singer cast, it’s nearly impossible to tell the corn and the depth apart.
QUEEN: AP • CARS: HANDOUT
ROBERT RAPHAEL/AP
Live in Las Vegas, August 26, 1969 Dinner Show Elvis Presley This installment in Sony’s Follow That Dream series captures Presley at a peak. Riding the momentum of his comeback, he was resuming live performing for the first time in years and clearly having fun. He had good reason: a crack band, a house orchestra, the backup-singing Imperials and Sweet Inspirations, an appreciative audience, and, of course, great songs. He was also off-the-cuff charming, telling rambling jokes between songs and kissing audience members during them. Mostly, he sounds happy—to have survived Hollywood and to be alive. See all our reviews at mag.com/music
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SPOTLIGHT When the pop singer Phoebe Snow passed away last April at the age of , fans and friends flooded the Twittersphere with tributes to a woman who had become as wellrespected for putting her career on the back burner to care for her disabled daughter as she had for her career itself. And it was quite a career. Despite never matching the success of her first hit, ’s “Poetry Man,” she maintained a high level of productivity, applying her downy-soft, jazzy voice to ad jingles, TV-show theme songs, and other musicians’ projects. It was on one such project, the smooth-jazz pianist Dave Grusin’s album Night-Lines (GRP), that Snow turned in one of her strongest performances, “Somewhere Between Old and New York.” A third-person tribute to an old-time New York Yankees fan for whom past and present have begun to blur, the song universalizes the particular so movingly that even fans of the Boston Red Sox might feel moved.
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WORLD
7/11/11 9:42 AM
Mindy Belz
puppies for sale Neither Democrats nor Republicans can wish away the global upheaval
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KRIEG BARRIE
n the afternoon of June 28 Blake Hounshell, the managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine and a normally pithy news fount, posted this: “According to my Twitter feed the world is on fire. Somebody please tweet a photo of a puppy or baby ducks or something.” That day Syrian tanks and security forces tried to enter the town of Hama, firing on protesters who blocked the city center, killing 28 civilians, including at least one child. Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, made a dramatic return to the capital Sanaa—visibly scarred, his hands bandaged—after nearly a month in Saudi Arabia recovering from a bomb attack. Yemenis, many enduring the summer heat on an hour of electricity a day, weren’t sympathetic: They turned out by tens of thousands to demand his resignation. In Athens angry youths hurled rocks and fire bombs at riot police. Where government by the people began, Greeks by the hundreds of thousands said no to the very austerity measures necessary to win more EU bailouts. Hardly noticed amid the street hubbub, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards test-fired 14 missiles on June 28—one of them a medium-range weapon able to strike Israel or U.S. installations in the Gulf. Closer to home, New Mexico firefighters announced it was a “make or break day” for protecting the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory from wildfires that had consumed over 800 square miles of the Southwest. Tending the flames of a fallen world goes with the news editor’s territory. But late in the day when we learned that terrorists had stormed the Inter-Continental Hotel in downtown Kabul—and awaited word on which
dignitaries might be inside—I, too, was longing for a puppy—something to take the chaos away. The street-level anger of 2011 and its attendant violence make 1968 demonstrations look tame. While society appeared to come unglued then, the global picture was by comparison black-andwhite. Wars from Angola to Vietnam might have local variants but one macro cause: They were hot war sideshows that kept the Cold War cold. Today confusion reigns. We know enough to know the Arab crisis is not only about Egypt (or Syria or Yemen) and to know that the global financial crisis is not only about Greece. But it should be no surprise that terror and chaos grow as our leaders fail to address them with clarity and vigor. In March Obama called for the ouster of Muammar Qaddafi, yet pledged it should happen with a “limited” military exercise designed only to protect civilians. With the French admitting they have funneled “light weapons” to Libyan rebels, the president cannot keep his distance from an entangling, opaque commitment. And what of the other dictators whom loose-knit rebels and other opponents want to oust? Why, as Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad has trained big guns on civilians, is he not worthy of NATO-led intervention? (Short answer: It’s barely 50 miles from Damascus to the Israeli border.) The region is being reshaped before our very eyes, and we see little beyond a continuation of weakly defined military missions and wasteful, government-backed development efforts that— sadly—Americans watched take root in the Bush years. Make no mistake, the world takes note as we dither (more on the Russians another time). And where are the Republicans? Many in the GOP also would like to wish away upheaval. The House budget roadmap put forward by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., says nothing about foreign affairs, only slashes those budgets by 44 percent by 2016. Among 2012 presidential candidates, former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty alone has acknowledged urgency, giving a speech last month before the Council on Foreign Relations in New York where he chided Obama for “a murky policy he called ‘engagement.’” Pawlenty said, “History teaches there is no such thing as stable oppression.” Pawlenty did more than any other current leader—helpfully categorizing Middle East countries and calling for a redirection of foreign aid “away from efforts to merely build good will, and toward efforts to build good allies—genuine democracies governed by free people according to the rule of law.” This is a start. It is better than a wish for puppies and baby ducks. A Email: mbelz@worldmag.com
7/14/11 9:27 AM
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D e v ot e D to Y o u r S u cc e S S
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7/13/11 9:10 AM
life death or
With international adoptions harder and harder to process and a slowdown in Ethiopia— the second-largest source of hope for American parents wanting to adopt overseas— the outcome can be heartbreak, or worse
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by Jamie Dean in Greenville, S.C. Photograph by Charlie Nye/Genesis
hen an Ethiopian woman found an abandoned baby girl on the steps of a government building outside the capital city of Addis Ababa in 2008, she reported the discovery to local police and called the baby Bethel: The woman prayed the needy child would eventually belong to a Christian family, and knew that Bethel means “house of God.” More than two years later, the child is fulfilling her name: Grace Bethel leans across the couch in the living room of her Greenville, S.C., home, watching a video of the day her adoptive parents—Scotty and Kerry Anderson—met her at an Ethiopian orphanage. “That’s you, daddy!” she says to Anderson, an associate pastor at a nearby church. The curly-haired toddler makes another observation: “I was a tiny baby.”
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SO WHAT’S A FEW MORE MONTHS? “In the case of Tate, it may well have been that he died.” —Joseph Bayly, shown with Heidi and Tate.
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It’s true: Like many children in impoverished Ethiopia, Grace was underweight and underdeveloped when the Andersons met her in 2008, but that quickly changed, says Mrs. Anderson: “Three weeks after we brought her home, she rolled over and sat up.” Joseph and Heidi Bayly can relate: When they met their adopted son in an Ethiopian orphanage in 2009, the 8-month-old weighed just 12 pounds and functioned like a small infant. But Bayly says Tate quickly improved: “In just a couple of months we went from having a 1-month-old to having a 10-month-old.” On a recent Sunday afternoon, Tate swayed in the living room of his Indianapolis home, strumming a tiny guitar and singing the Doxology. Bayly—a pastor in Indianapolis— contemplates what a few more months in an orphanage might have meant for his son: “In the case of Tate, it may well have been that he died.”
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handout
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hat reality adds sobering weight to an announcement that has jolted families trying to adopt children from Ethiopia: The U.S. Embassy reported that Ethiopian officials plan to process new adoption cases at a dramatically slower rate—as few as five cases a day. For a country that processes some 4,000 inter-country adoptions a year—including 2,500 to the United States—such a slowdown would mark a dramatic decline: Ethiopia represents the second-largest source of international adoptions to
American families over the last two years. (Only China processed more adoptions to the United States in the same time period.) The Ethiopian government hasn’t offered an official reason for the slowdown, but the announcement followed at least two developments: Government officials said the swelling volume of cases overwhelmed their limited capacity, while U.S. news reports claimed that corruption had permeated the system. The first problem seems likely: A small staff in a developing country could struggle with processing a rapidly growing number of adoption cases. But evidence of the second accusation— widespread, systematic corruption—seems far less clear. Indeed, a deeper look reveals a different picture: Adoption experts say that while problems exist in the Ethiopian system, grievous adoption scandals in countries like Guatemala and Vietnam led Ethiopia to build a better system with more oversight of the process. And the U.S. State Department reported encouraging results from a January visit to Ethiopia to examine 4,000 adoption cases: Officials said that while they found problems in the program—and the system needs improvement—the children they investigated met the U.S. definition of an orphan. The Ethiopian slowdown represents a critical moment for one of the largest populations of orphans in one of the poorest countries in Africa. For government officials, agencies, and parents,
FULFILLING HER NAME: Grace Bethel and the Anderson family.
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the moment calls for a crucial balancing act: evaluating claims of corruption fairly, offering practical help to improve the process, and remembering children who will never be adopted.
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thiopia burst onto the international adoption scene as the rate of foreign adoptions dramatically declined over the last several years: International adoptions by Americans fell from a peak of 22,991 in 2004 to 11,058 in 2010. The reasons varied: Countries like China tightened adoption requirements, and a handful of orphanrelated disasters tarnished the international process. One of the most egregious: In April 2010, a Tennessee woman placed her adopted Russian son on a Moscow-bound plane with a note saying she could no longer care for the child. But beyond isolated debacles, adoption programs closed in Guatemala and Vietnam after reports surfaced of systemic corruption. Guatemala’s adoption program had grown quickly: The country was the second-largest source for U.S. adoptions in 2006. By 2008, Guatemala had surpassed China for the most adoptions to U.S. families: Americans adopted 4,112 Guatemalan children that year. But problems also grew: In March 2007, the U.S. State Department advised Americans against adopting from Guatemala, saying investigations revealed the system was “rampant with fraud.” By 2008, Guatemala closed its interna-
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DeFilipo believes the layers of safeguards do protect against systematic fraud in Ethiopia, but he doesn’t deny the potential for trouble: ‘‘There’s no such thing as eliminating corruption in any human endeavor.’’
tional adoption program to new cases, saying it would improve the process. The program remains shut down. Similar problems plagued Vietnam: The U.S. embassy in Hanoi began investigating reports of fraud in the country’s growing adoption program in 2007. By January 2008, U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Michael Michalek cabled the U.S. State Department with the results: “These cases offer compelling proof that government-run clinics and orphanages are actively engaged in baby buying and are lying to birth mothers to secure children for international adoption.” Later that year, the United States didn’t renew its adoption agreement with Vietnam, closing the program to Americans. As adoptions to Americans in the two countries ended, Ethiopia’s program soared: In 2004, during the peak of U.S. international adoptions, Americans adopted 284 Ethiopian children. By 2010, that number had risen more than tenfold to 2,511.
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he swelling adoption program brought serious concerns: How could Ethiopia avoid the pitfalls that ensnared other countries? Tom DeFilipo of the D.C.-based Joint Council on International Adoptions says the scandals pushed Ethiopia to develop a better system. The Ethiopia model—developed in conjunction with adoption agencies and advocates like DeFilipo—includes government audits of orphanages and adoption agencies, and a demanding process with layers of protections. Consider an adopted child’s journey: Since Ethiopian law doesn’t allow a birth parent to surrender a baby to an orphanage, the parent presents the child to local officials. The officials investigate and report to regional officials. The regional officials review the case and refer the baby to an orphanage. The orphanage reviews the child’s background and eligibility for adoption and forwards the information to an agency. After the agency reviews the case and matches the child with an adoptive family, agency workers forward the information to the Ethiopian government. The Ministry of Women, Children, and Youth Affairs issues a letter of approval before a judge reviews the case in an Ethiopian court. When that process is complete, the adoptive family forwards the paperwork to the U.S. Embassy. The embassy reviews the information and approves the child for a visa, paving the way for U.S. citizenship. That’s a far different process than Guatemala’s system: The country allowed adoptive families to work through notaries who handled many parts of the process for a fee, instead of allowing layers of government checks. But layers of checks don’t make corruption impossible: Birth parents could lie about why they need to surrender a child. Officials could fail to investigate adequately. Orphanages could fail to check a child’s background or— worst-case scenario—solicit children for adoption. Courts could falter. Agencies and parents could ask too few questions or fall into corruption of their own. DeFilipo believes the layers of safeguards do protect against systematic fraud in Ethiopia, but he doesn’t deny the potential for trouble: “There’s no such thing as eliminating corruption in any human endeavor.” J U LY 3 0 , 2 0 1 1 W O R L D
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series of reports by news agency Voice of America (VOA) painted a dire picture. A Dec. 14 article—“Ethiopia Plans Crackdown on Baby Business”—said Ethiopian officials planned to close dozens of orphanages they said served as transit homes for adoptions. The article also cited a study by Parents for Ethical Adoption Reform (PEAR) that reported evidence of unethical practices by adoption agencies. But the article didn’t mention that the PEAR website reports that 34 families responded to the survey—far fewer than the 4,000 cases the U.S. State Department later investigated. Three days later, a VOA report proclaimed the Ethiopian system “rife with fraud and deception” and quoted a UNICEF official calling the adoption program “a free-forall.” But the report’s evidence of widespread corruption was limited: An Ethiopian judge said she believed some birth families lied about their history because they are destitute; some adoptive families shared bad experiences online; and the U.S. embassy reported it had identified “a few bad actors” in the system.
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‘‘You start to process every delay by knowing that this is God’s sovereignty directing us to the child that He wants to place in our family.’’ —Heidi Bayly Three months later, the Ethiopian government made a ramatic move: Government officials told the U.S. Embassy d in March that they would reduce sharply the number of cases processed each day. The U.S. State Department warned adoptive families to expect “significant delays,” and American families braced for long waits.
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ne thing seems clear: The growing number of adoption cases has stretched the Ethiopian government’s limited capacity. As early as 2007, Haddush Haleform, an Ethiopian official, told The New York Times he didn’t think the country could handle the swelling work load: “We don’t have the capacity to handle all these new agencies, and we have to monitor the quality, not just the quantity.” With a small staff to review paperwork—and a single court to approve adoption cases—the country faces a steep task to manage a bustling international adoption program. Since the announcement, the U.S. State Department has offered resources to help the Ethiopian government manage the system. (Resources could include anything from more computers to more training for staff.) The State Department says the Ethiopian government hasn’t yet indicated what it might need. But the larger question still looms: Is the program systemically corrupt? A month after Ethiopia warned of a slowdown, the U.S. State Department offered a significant assessment of the country’s program. Officials from the State Department and U.S. Customs traveled to Ethiopia to review 4,000 adoption cases by U.S. families. The results: The children generally fit the U.S. definition of an orphan. That was good news for orphans and adoptive families. It meant that while the system has problems, the State Department wasn’t reporting large numbers of exploited children, and it wasn’t declaring the system a free-for-all.
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llegations of corruption in Ethiopia have surfaced on internet adoption forums: Some adoptive parents say their Ethiopian children later told them they weren’t truly orphans. Others reported deplorable living conditions in some orphanages. Last year, a CBS News report about Christian World Adoption (CWA), a Charleston, S.C.–based adoption agency, included an interview with an adopted Ethiopian teenager alleging that CWA paid her father for her and her sisters. In an interview from his Charleston office, CWA’s attorney, Curtis Bostic, told me: “CWA pays nobody—period—for children, and there’s no need to do that.” Bostic also disputed the report’s implication that a CWA worker tried to recruit Ethiopian children for adoption. A video showed the worker telling a crowd of Ethiopian villagers: “If you want your child to be adopted by a family in America, you may stay.” Bostic said the CWA worker traveled to the village with a local orphanage at the invitation of village leaders interested in establishing an orphanage for needy children. He says the worker was explaining the purpose of the team’s visit. Bostic also said that an Ethiopian investigation of CWA didn’t return negative findings, and that the government allows the agency to continue facilitating adoptions. A month after the CBS report, the U.S. State Department said it was concerned about media accounts of agencies recruiting children in Ethiopia. An April 6 State Department notice said adoptive families must file more information for the U.S. Embassy to complete investigations of adoption cases. The Ethiopian government also announced additional steps for adoptive parents. By December, the State Department repeated concerns, but didn’t warn families against pursuing adoption. The obvious question surfaced: If corruption had infected the Ethiopian adoption system, how bad was it?
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ut the good news came with concerns: The State Department reported logistical problems in the Ethiopian system, including inconsistencies in paperwork and missing documents. The U.S. embassy has asked agencies to improve docu mentation about how children arrive in orphanages, and to include more information about their backgrounds. Sometimes that information is hard to track: Some children are abandoned, leaving their background a mystery. Other children don’t have birth certificates. Some birth mothers are reluctant to share the circumstances of their pregnancy, especially if it involves abuse. But adoption experts agree that some orphanages and agencies could do a better job managing documentation.
Chuck Johnson of the D.C.-based National Council for Adoption says agencies and parents could be tempted to bend rules in a foreign country with needy children: “But we’re saying: No bending rules.” For adoption agencies, the process brings a dilemma: Agencies need to maintain a healthy distance from children before orphanages recommend them for adoption. This ensures that agencies aren’t recruiting children. But despite the distance, agencies are also accountable for ensuring the children are truly orphans. Daniel Lauer of Holt International—one of the oldest adop tion agencies in the United States—describes the dilemma. “At one point we’re being asked to be intimately involved with our [orphanage] partners, and also kind of hands-off,” he says. “That’s a real tension.” J U LY 3 0 , 2 0 1 1 W O R L D
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working to help non-adopted children, too. Indeed, adoption agencies say that international adoption should be the last option for Ethiopian children: The first priority is to help families keep children. Holt International reports it helped 3,400 Ethiopian children last year, serving half through family preservation programs that include education, nutrition, and micro-business, according to Lauer: “Everything from capital for a small roadside store to an ox to plow fields to a donkey to move goods to chickens to produce eggs.” Bethany conducts child welfare projects in Ethiopia. AWA helps single mothers develop life skills, and the agency is developing a domestic adoption program. Kjersti Olson of CHSFS says her agency has provided two schools for local children— one serves 625 students in a rural community with no other school. The agency also runs a maternal and child healthcare clinic that serves 40,000 patients a year and conducts family development projects. “A lot of it is family preservation,” says Olson. “And a lot of it is trying to break the cycle of poverty as well.”
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BETHEL GRACE: That tension has led to painstaking “It’s very clear who measures for at least three U.S. agencies her parents are.” facilitating some of the largest numbers of Ethiopian adoptions: America World Adoption (AWA), Bethany Christian Services, and Children’s Home Society and Family Services (CHSFS)—all Christian adoption agencies—say they conduct independent investigations of every child’s case. After an orphanage refers a child for adoption, each agency says it sends Ethiopian staff to investigate paperwork, travel to the child’s village, and videotape interviews with family members, villagers, or local police if possible. Sara Ruiter of Bethany says her agency contracts an independent company to conduct the video profile and employs a full-time investigator trained by the U.S. Embassy: “We’re taking it on ourselves to make sure that any case that comes to us has all the i’s dotted and all the t’s crossed.” The agencies say they have found cases that need further review, but they haven’t found cases of blatant fraud. And Ruiter says when Bethany grew concerned about one orphanage’s inconsistent paperwork, the agency stopped working with the orphanage. With UNICEF estimating as many as 5 million Ethiopian children have lost one or both parents, only a small percentage of Ethiopian children will find adoptive homes. Agencies are
gency workers say newer adoption cases have moved at a significantly slower rate since the announcement. And while they hope the program doesn’t slow even more dramatically, they support the government’s desire to make sure they are processing adoptions correctly. The U.S. State Department says that it’s committed to the Ethiopian program and that the agency is considering a pre-approval process that would add another layer of investigation before cases reach the U.S. Embassy for final approval. Adoptive families, who already pay at least $25,000 per adoption (including travel costs to Ethiopia for two adults), can do more by making sure they choose agencies with good track records and with clear policies on how they review the backgrounds of orphans. Back in Washington, DeFilipo says he hopes a resolution comes quickly so that children eligible for adoption can avoid spending more time in institutions. For children already struggling with health issues in the impoverished country, more time in an orphanage could produce long-term problems. For families like the Baylys, they’ve seen what an adoptive home can mean for an Ethiopian child like their son Tate. And they’re hoping to adopt again: The couple decided to continue with plans to adopt another Ethiopian child just days after the government announced a potential slowdown. Mrs. Bayly says contemplating the possibility of a long wait is difficult, but they’ve already seen the rewards of waiting for their first son: “You start to process every delay by knowing that this is God’s sovereignty directing us to the child that He wants to place in our family.” Back in Greenville, the Andersons say they saw the same dynamic in their own family when they brought Grace home. “It’s very clear that she knows who her parents are,” says Mr. Anderson. “And there’s not a hesitation in the world.” A Email: jdean@worldmag.com
7/11/11 10:01 AM
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7/14/11 12:19 PM
itch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader from Kentucky, has a reputation on Capitol Hill for being a tough face-to-face negotiator. But, as time ticks down toward a possible August default on federal spending obligations, even McConnell seems befuddled by the never-ending haggling over raising the government’s $14.29 trillion borrowing limit. During negotiations last week, McConnell asked a White House official the total of next year’s spending cuts under the Democrats’ proposal. The answer, McConnell said, was about $2 billion—representing just about half of what Washington borrows, in one day. “It was at that point I realized that the White House simply was not serious about cutting spending or debt,” he said. “In the end, the White House gave us three choices . . . a massive tax hike, smoke and mirrors, or default.” So McConnell on July 12 offered a fourth solution, something he called a “last resort.” He proposed giving President Barack Obama the power to raise the debt ceiling in a way that would absolve lawmakers of responsibility. Obama could ask for a debt ceiling increase three times within the next year. Congress, under the plan, could vote on a “resolution of disapproval” of any Obama-proposed debt ceiling increase. Then Obama could veto the rejection. The president’s move to increase the debt ceiling would likely survive a two-thirds congressional majority required to override a veto. Presto, the U.S. Treasury has a higher debt ceiling and Republicans can go on the campaign trail claiming they voted against the increase. Obama wouldn’t even have to offer spending cuts. But McConnell’s gambit to cede authority to the president and maneuver Republicans out of co-ownership of a bad economy quickly turned into another debt ceiling debacle. Eric Erickson from the conservative blog RedState scrawled out a furious response, calling the plan “The Pontius Pilate Pass the Buck Act of 2011.” He urged his readers to mail toy weasels to McConnell’s office. The Heritage Foundation’s Rory Cooper wrote, “We understand that the plan, by design, puts the onus on liberals in Washington to finally propose some way to address out-of-control spending. . . . Unfortunately political maneuvering in a time of such high stakes is not sufficient.” FreedomWorks, the political organization that funded many Tea Party candidates, announced they are “encouraging our million-plus members to help Sen. McConnell find his spine.” In other words, giving the president more power does not top the to-do lists of most conservatives. With the Treasury Department warning that the government could fail to meet its financial obligations if the debt ceiling isn’t increased by Aug. 2—and Moody’s Investors reviewing the rising risk for a possible downgrade of the U.S. triple-A government bond rating—leading lawmakers are feeling pressure to reach a deal with the White House. House Republicans remain the most important constituency needed to STANDOFF: Obama meets back the plan, but Majority with McConnell (right) and Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., other congressional leaders conceded, “Nothing can get during a stormy week. through the House right now.” photo by Charles Dharapak/ap
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With the clock ticking toward government default, both sides appear ready to risk hardship by E B & E L P
TIME BOMB
That is because most of the new House Republicans made their way to Washington on promises to reduce the deficit. Frustrated by smaller-than-expected spending cuts in this spring’s federal budget showdown, the freshmen see the debt ceiling as their last stand. They are new enough to Washington to hope for, even demand, policy victories over political ones. They want to tie any debt limit increase to three things: enforceable caps and controls on spending, cuts that match increases in the federal government’s borrowing power, and no tax hikes. If the president and congressional leaders somehow reach an agreement, a sizable hurdle remains: convincing the rank-and-file members of both parties to go along. Obama has insisted that Congress needs to “pull off the Band-Aid. Eat our peas.” But conservatives balk at the president’s idea of the right vegetable: a trillion-dollar tax increase that’s included in the Democrats’ debt limit deal. Conservatives want . trillion in deficit-reduction over years in exchange for a . trillion hike in the debt ceiling. With an economy that generated only , new jobs last month (where over , approaches the norm), Republican lawmakers believe they are right to oppose additional burdens on taxpayers. In the impasse the White House predicted calamity if the government’s borrowing power is not increased. Obama said he could not guarantee that Social Security checks would go out next month. That, plus a stormy walkout by the president after a July session with lawmakers, has conservatives wondering if Obama’s team really wants to strike a deal before the deadline: Running out the clock may give Democrats a chance to blame Republicans for what comes next. “[Obama] has not made any proposal in writing to deal with entitlements and to deal with any specific cuts,” Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said July . “The president talks a lot, but we can’t vote on a speech.” The United States has never gone into full-blown default before, and government officials aren’t certain what the precise repercussions could be. But the Bipartisan Policy Center recently role-played the scenario, and its report concluded that the U.S. Treasury would “be picking winners and losers”—who to pay and who not to pay. The Treasury Department has about million monthly payments, the report said, and would have to choose to ignore about percent to percent of them. Each day, though, the revenue coming into Treasury and the payments going out are different: On Aug. the Treasury expects to take in billion, with billion in committed spending. But on Aug. , the Treasury takes in billion with billion in committed spending. Other days of the month revenue and spending commitments are equal, so inflows and outflows of cash do not match well, making the task of choosing what bills to pay difficult. For the month of August, if Treasury chose to pay interest on Treasury securities, Department of Defense vendor payments, and benefits for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—then the Treasury couldn’t fund the salaries of active military personnel or federal employees. House freshmen—key to any debt ceiling agreement—appear ready to risk immediate hardships for a long-term change in the federal government’s spending habits. Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia, president of the Republican freshman class, said he expects “some short-term volatility,” but told The New York Times: “In the end, the sun is going to come up tomorrow.” A Email: ebelz@worldmag.com or lpitts@worldmag.com
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Government clashes with a prominent house church are putting religious freedom to the test, just as friendly U.S. churches and prominent ministries plan to welcome a state-sponsored Bible exhibit on U.S. tour
by jamie dean 42
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n a vast concert hall at the upscale Century Theatre in Beijing, a June 11 celebration of the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party came from a striking source: leaders of Chinese churches. Officials from the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) and the China Christian Council (CCC) organized the celebration and concert for more than 1,700 Chinese pastors, lay leaders, and government officials. The pair of government agencies oversees China’s countrywide network of registered churches—the only churches legally recognized by the Chinese government. Standing in front of a giant red flag dotted with white doves, TSPM official Cai Kui summarized church-state relations: “In the past 90 years, the Chinese Communist Party . . . has never stopped caring about and helping Chinese Christianity.” Across town, a few dozen members of Beijing’s largest unregistered church were preparing for the prospect of arrest. Christians from Shouwang Church— a Beijing house church with nearly 1,000 members—were facing their ninth Sunday of attempting to worship outdoors. (Church leaders called the outdoor
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left: PETAR KUJUNDZIC/Reuters/Landov • right: The New York Times/Redux
THE DAWN OF china’s
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na’s civil rights era meetings in April after they said government officials blocked access to the church’s indoor facility.) By the next morning, police detained at least 14 men and women approaching the outdoor plaza for worship. Officers released the church members by midnight, but the pattern continued: By mid-July, police arrested at least 400 Shouwang members attempting to worship outdoors. Dozens remained under informal house arrest, blocked from leaving their homes on Sunday mornings (see “Counting the cost,” May 7, 2011). The conflict represents an unprecedented challenge by Chinese Christians to Chinese officials, and neither side shows signs of relenting. But the showdown highlights another element in the complicated dynamic for Christians in China: the pressure to officially register churches that will operate under government rule. Shouwang leaders have refused to register and join the TSPM network, citing objections to government oversight of
the church. In late June, Shouwang leaders reported that TSPM representatives arrived at detention centers and asked church members to leave the church or abandon outdoor worship. That prompted at least one U.S.-based evangelical group to call for a boycott of TSPM activities—particularly a TSPMsponsored Bible exhibit coming this fall to four U.S. locations, including the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in Charlotte, N.C. But other evangelical groups TALE OF TWO CHURCHES: say the complicated dynamic in Communion is served at China requires a more realistic Xishiku Cathedral, a stateoutlook: They say officially controlled church in Beijing (left); police officers try to registered churches include stop members of the genuine believers who often Shouwang Church as they need as much support as sing hymns after being Christians in churches that detained for gathering to remain officially illegal. worship outdoors. J U LY 3 0 , 2 0 1 1 W O R L D
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First Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) in Wilmington, N.C., has worked with Ritchie’s group, but pastor Ernie Thompson says the church first started a mission in Jiangyin, China, in 1897. The congregation closed the mission in 1951 under pressure from the newly empowered Communist government. More than 50 years later, an opportunity arose to construct a pastor’s training center for registered churches in the same area. Thompson’s congregation helped underwrite the project, along with other American churches.
A CLEAR LINE: Believers attend a Sunday service at Shouwang Church last October (above); the Chinese national flag waves outside a state church in Beijing.
According to a translated version of a Chinese news article celebrating the opening of the training center, the local Chinese “director for all recorded speech” said he hoped the center would help the registered church “become a model of patriotism, to build a harmonious society and promote economic development in Jiangyin City.” Another Chinese news article said the center offered “office space” for TSPM. And the project wasn’t without problems: When the church sent delegates to China one year later, Thompson said they learned that the Chinese government had “rezoned” the new training center’s property to use for other purposes. “The government has compensated the church there by providing property at the new site where the new church and training center will be built,” Thompson said. He wasn’t sure whether the government would pay for the new building. Still, Thompson said his church is committed to continuing the work: “It looks to us as if there are good, faithful Christians working in both the registered and the unregistered churches.”
top: PETAR KUJUNDZIC/Reuters/Landov • bottom: image china/ap
he Three-Self movement began shortly after the Chinese Communist Party took power in 1949. The government-initiated effort promoted the idea of churches pursuing three “selfs”: self-government, self-support, and self-propagation. But Communist officials—who also insisted that churches cut ties with foreign missionaries—maintained control over the TSPM leadership. Though government officials now allow some foreign mission work, they still oversee the TSPM and require that churches register with the government and join the TSPM network. Reports vary on what that oversight means: Some foreign workers say that pastors in some registered churches freely preach biblical Christianity. In other regions, they say that the government restricts activities like Sunday school and outdoor evangelism. The TSPM constitution makes clear the group’s goal is to foster patriotism and devotion to China: “The aim of this organization is to lead Christians to love the nation and the church . . . and enable the church to adapt to the socialist society.” The group’s first duty: “Under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Government, to unite all Chinese Christians to deeply love our socialist homeland and abide by its Constitution, laws, regulations and policies.” Many congregations, like Shouwang, refuse to register, objecting to government oversight. In a June 14 open letter, Shouwang leaders wrote that the congregation is “a house church that exalts only Jesus Christ as Lord: regardless of whether it is today or some time in the future, [we will] never join any nonchurch government entity.” Other Chinese churches have joined the TSPM network, and some evangelical groups have worked with the registered churches: They say those churches include genuine believers with many of the same needs as Christians in unregistered congregations, including a dire need for seminary-trained leadership. The Outreach Foundation—a Tennessee-based group that connects Presbyterian churches to foreign mission projects— works with registered churches in five Chinese provinces. The group helps with Bible schools and seminaries, provides scholarships and books for seminary students, and conducts a week-long English camp for church leaders. Jeff Ritchie, associate director for mission, says working with registered churches has allowed the group to operate openly in the country. And he says the teaching he’s heard in registered churches is “very orthodox. . . . Even more so than some of our own American Christians.” W O R L D J U LY 3 0 , 2 0 1 1
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Following Esther
The issue of worship reflects a deeper struggle for China’s future by promise hsu
top: PETAR KUJUNDZIC/Reuters/Landov • bottom: image china/ap
The choice of Esther for Sunday sermons [transmitted to members online] during the period of outdoor worship is symbolic. Prior to being forced out of the previous rented premises in early April, Shouwang’s Sunday sermons had been around the Acts of the Apostles for a few months. That is about the beginning and expansion of the Christian church. And Shouwang was planning to plant churches in other parts of the city or the country. The book of Esther tells a story of how God delivered the Jewish people from a genocide in Persia plotted by the empire’s highest official. The immediate reason for the plot was that a Jew in the Persian capital refused to kneel down and pay honor to the highest official. In the case of Shouwang, the issue of worship place is a reflection of a deeper struggle over the legality of the nonstate-owned church in China. The government under the atheist Communist rule of course does not want any independent religious organization to exist and expand. But more than 30 years after [economic] reform was put in place, it looks impossible for the authority to control everything. It has considerably shifted its ground on the economy, having to allow non-state-owned companies to exist and expand. Now, it is increasingly faced with the continued rise of the non-stateowned churches, which it has long considered belong only to “the Western culture.” A few weeks or months might be still too short to solve the decades-old problem. As a matter of fact, there have been different opinions about the Shouwang governing committee’s decision to worship outdoors even within the house church. Some people held that the church could worship as separate groups indoors (since Shouwang currently has dozens of family Bible study groups and fellowships) and some others warned that it was too sensitive to hold outdoor services at present when what was called “Jasmine Revolution” was spreading from North Africa to Asia. On May 31, the Shouwang governing committee sent emails to church members announcing Pastor Song Jun, Minister Jiang Lijin, Deacons Ji Cheng and Yuan Yansong left Shouwang Church due to disagreements over outdoor worship. For more than once, the Shouwang governing committee has issued open messages explaining the outdoor worship decision. In a letter, it said, “We ask the Lord to preserve the unity of our church, that despite of our different viewpoints, we may still be able to submit to and bear with one another.” As for how long the outdoor worship will last, Shouwang Church said that if the problem of worship place could not be solved, they would continue to worship outdoors until Christmas 2011. They would reassess the situation and devise new plans for the coming year. That means Shouwang seems to have been prepared for a longer road ahead. In the history of the Christian church, a year or even a decade would not be a long time. But the next few months or even the next few weeks might witness another turning point for the church in a country whose ancient name is, surprisingly, “God’s Land.” —Promise Hsu is the English pen name for a writer who has been a member of Shouwang Church since 2006
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The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA), a New York–based network of Christian organizations and denominations that includes Wycliffe Bible Translators, World Reformed Fellowship, and the Presbyterian Church in America, began meeting with registered church leaders in China in 2008. Sylvia Soon of WEA says the effort has involved developing relationships with TSPM leaders, discussing needs, and voicing concerns. (Soon says the WEA doesn’t fund projects in China, but connects church leaders to Christian organizations that might be able to help.) Soon declined to describe the concerns that WEA has raised with TSPM leaders, saying the talks are private, but she says that the organization has expressed its support for unregistered churches. And she says the group also supports registered churches that preach the gospel: “With the official church in China, the believers there are no less our brothers and sisters than the unregistered churches.”
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ritics of TSPM acknowledge that some registered churches preach orthodox Christianity. David Aikman, a 23-year veteran Time magazine correspondent who for three years served as Beijing bureau chief, says some registered churches are evangelical. But Aikman, who wrote Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China and Changing the Global Balance of Power (Regnery, 2003), said, “It’s quite intolerable and inexcusable” for evangelical groups to support TSPM activities. Aikman cites as recent evidence of longstanding oppression the July report from Shouwang Church leaders showing that TSPM representatives arrived at detention centers to pressure church members to stop meeting. The Shouwang leaders wrote: “Three-Self church personnel showed up at many police stations to persuade, ‘educate’ and even rebuke the imprisoned brothers and sisters in an attempt to get them to leave Shouwang Church and join one of the Three-Self churches or to ask us to unconditionally abandon our outdoor worship.” That report led ChinaAid, a U.S. advocacy group, to call for a boycott of TSPM activities, including the Bible exhibit scheduled for its U.S. tour starting in September with stops in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Dallas, and Charlotte—where it will be hosted at the headquarters of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA). A spokesman for BGEA said the ministry’s representatives working on the exhibit weren’t available for comment. At the Beijing celebration of the Communist Party’s anniversary, TSPM leader Cai Kui said the registered churches’ vision is to “adhere to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party as we always have, adhere to serving the overall interests of the Party and the government, adhere to the policy of independence and autonomy in religion, adhere to being of one heart with and on the same path as the Party . . . then we will certainly create a more brilliant tomorrow for China.” Shouwang Church leaders don’t share that vision and say they will continue to insist on the right to meet at the indoor location they purchased over a year ago, saying that worship is the most important part of the Christian life. And though the church insists its goals aren’t political, Aikman says the conflict has drawn a clear line: “This is the first bona fide civil rights movement in China since the Communist Party came to power in 1949.” A —with reporting by Emily Belz J U LY 3 0 , 2 0 1 1 W O R L D
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SAFE HOUSE
’ , ’ , , , Manhattan where elevators are sometimes a point of access to influential people. In phase two, women start looking for is most often associated with a men’s program jobs and meeting with in lower Manhattan and its storied past. their career counselors. Founded in , Bowery is the third-oldest They send out resumés rescue mission in the country. Eleanor and sometimes begin Roosevelt sang in the chapel as a child, J.C. eight- or -week Penney found salvation there, Fanny Crosby vocational training penned hymns for the mission, and President through a partner orgaWilliam Howard Taft dropped by in . nization. In phase three At the Bowery men’s facility in lower they begin work, try to Manhattan, institutional sounds and smells find a new place to live pervade. Metal chairs squeak on linoleum. (often sharing an apartDeep voices fill the space as men line up for ment), and develop a the evening meal. Seemingly a world away, life plan. Sixty women red doors provide an entrance into the Bowery have graduated from Women’s Center on the Upper East Side. the program since Decorator fabrics and coordinated throw A WORLD AWAY: The inviting main entrance (above); Vivian Hernandez by meeting five requirements: They must pillows accent tastefully arranged common (top right); Cynthia DeJesus (bottom be connected with Christ, connected to rooms. French doors open onto a bucolic terleft); two residents show off a family, committed to being clean and raced patio area. Bedrooms have Pottery Barn Pottery Barn–style bedroom. sober, have a job and a place to live, and décor rather than the military-style bunks of have a plan for the future. the men’s shelter. Cynthia DeJesus graduated from the program in . The For women coming out of abusive relationships, prostitution, women’s program helped her overcome her nine-year heroin or the chaos of substance abuse, the order, security, and beauty addiction: “Now when anger, low self-esteem, and distrust of this house can be a balm. Women’s Program Director Debbie kick in, I don’t think about getting high. . . . Now I go to God. I Jonnes says, “We provide a safe and secure environment where think about my kids. I think about how I can be a better someone can come to know the love of Christ.” For many mother and grandmother.” She enjoys her new life: “Being women it’s the first place that has afforded them the security clean feels great!” Vivian Hernandez, life skills manager at the and stability to take stock of their lives and deal with the Bowery Mission women’s program, hopes other women follow personal issues that have so often driven them to addictions in Cynthia’s path, so in class she cuts no slack. No shuffling and unhealthy relationships. through papers. No talking. No forgetting your pencil. Phase one of the -month women’s program focuses on Hernandez even told one woman, “No, you can’t close the discipleship, life skills, counseling, and career development. window. I don’t think my hot flashes can take it.” Despite the Residents read several Christian books and write about what noise of the sudden downpour outside her classroom, the window they learned. They learn computer skills and how to write a stayed open. Her combination of structure and passionate teachresumé and cover letter. Women also craft an “elevator story”— ing works. The morning’s lesson was on wisdom and foolishness explaining their skills and what job they are seeking in the from Proverbs :. All eyes were on Hernandez. Eleven women time it takes to ride an elevator with someone—a useful tool in
by JILL LACEY in New York City
The name “Bowery Mission”
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Photography by JAMES ALLEN WALKER
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discussed the merits of wisdom and the consequences of foolishness. “No area is more ravaged by foolishness than morality,” Hernandez said. “It has consequences.” This prompted a heartfelt round of “mm hmm,” “amen” and a quiet “yes.” Hernandez told students she knew firsthand the consequences of immorality: “As you all know I am living with the [] virus.” They’ve learned her story: Hernandez grew up in a middle-class, stable home, the daughter of a New York policeman and a teacher, but that all changed when Hernandez was and a drunk driver killed her mother. Her father died soon after of heart disease. Her brother died of a few years later. Hernandez began using drugs to numb herself to the pain. Never dealing with her underlying grief, she became addicted to crack cocaine. “I didn’t know how to process anything that had happened in my life,” Hernandez explained. “I needed Jesus .” Her personal history provided the chance to explain the difference between God’s forgiveness and the consequences that must still be endured, sometimes over a lifetime. The women rigorously discussed this seemingly at-odds concept. “It’s like when you have to keep dealing with your ex over childcare issues— that’s an ongoing consequence,” one woman said. The discussion of biblical oneness for these women, some ex-prostitutes, was both bracing and hopeful. “You know sometimes in sex we were looking for intimacy, but actually we never felt so far away from it.” Hernandez said: “Sharing yourself with so many men, there’s not much room left for a husband. But we can all be virgins again if we are committed to God’s plan for sex in our lives.” Increasingly, the path to the Bowery Center is not a drunken stumble but a trip through cyberspace. Raised by an alcoholic mother, Gail Smith had a history of giving too much love, money, and herself to men who gave little in return. After she lost her job in the financial sector and gave one too many loans to an abusive boyfriend, Smith found herself homeless and sleeping on her sister’s couch. She researched the Bowery women’s home online but was hesitant: “It took me a while to look at it. You know as a kid you hear about the ‘Bowery bums.’” Still, Smith saw her brother was turning his life around at the Bowery men’s program downtown. She liked the idea that she could enter a LOCATION: New York City, N.Y. residency program SIZE: residents, graduates and not just a shelter. in five years She went through the STAFFING: Six full-time employees red doors. A and dozens of volunteers
BOWERY MISSION WOMEN’S CENTER
ANNUAL BUDGET: ,, all privately funded WEBSITE: bowery.org/programs/ programs-women
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—Jill Lacey for many years edited Compassion and Culture; note: Last names of Gail and Samantha (in sidebar) were changed to protect privacy HANDOUT PHOTOS
MORE THAN MEALS “I was in my lowest pit,” says Samantha Smith, a -year crack addict and former prostitute. “But I knew God was saying, ‘Enough!’ I mean, a lot of weird things started to happen.” She marvels at her path to sobriety. “I would run into people that I would be trying to buy drugs from and they would start talking about and [addiction programs].” One day in Cincinnati, Samantha was high and lying on the floor of a crack house. The radio in the corner started playing a gospel program. She broke down and prayed, “Lord please don’t let me die.” She knew she needed a long-term approach. Her mother found the Capital City Rescue Mission () in Albany, N.Y., and volunteered to take care of her kids. Samantha arrived in Albany with one bag of clothes: “I was terrified, I didn’t know anyone,” she says. “I just knew I was ready to stop using.” The New Faith Family Center at accommodates up to women like Samantha in its residential two-year program. When Perry and Susan Jones came to direct the Mission in , their goal was to move individuals toward long-term recovery, not just provide them with meals and shelter. “I knew we needed to deal with the bad attitudes and issues of reconciliation,” Perry says. The women’s program began in and occupies four residential buildings. Along with a comfortable apartment, women receive career training, life and parenting skills, spiritual support, and counseling. “God started to show me some hard things about myself and my anger, bitterness, resentment toward others in my life.” Samantha says. At the age of she was sexually molested. Other trauma followed, but God began stripping her of destructive thought patterns and behavior. He also gave her a new identity: “He said to me, ‘You are not a mother, a sister, a prostitute. You are a child of God.’” Her life started to change: “I couldn’t even pick up a drink. But the hardest thing for me, the last thing to go, was sexual desire.” Even after completing the program she struggled in that area and became pregnant. “I was so ashamed of what people might think of me,” Samantha says. “I used to come around and visit Perry and Susan all the time. Then I just stopped.” Samantha recalls “a little voice in my head saying, ‘You can get an abortion.’” But God spoke louder, saying, “I know all things. I know you.” She finally returned to the mission “and told Perry what was going on. He put his arms around me in a big hug and just prayed with me.” She tears up remembering that moment of grace: “All I remember is the love everyone gave me.” Now Samantha is looking to the future. “I get a chance to be a mom and be there and be clean.” —J.L.
7/11/11 10:27 AM
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. , , . , - , ,
Bad news from Broadway “We Preach Christ and Him
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—Albin Sadar is a New York City writer
Bad news for the mentally ill In December , a Montgomery County, Va., special magistrate ordered that Virginia Tech student Seung-Hui Cho receive treatment for mental illness. His roommate was concerned about Cho’s suicidal tendencies, but Cho left a hospital by ALICIA after an overnight stay CONSTANT with an order to attend outpatient treatment—which he apparently never received. On April , , Cho opened fire on the Virginia Tech campus. He killed students and faculty, wounded others, and took his own life. Could it happen again? In Virginia alone mentally ill persons who posed a threat to themselves or others were turned away from psychiatric facilities over the past year, according to a state report released in June. The
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Crucified.” What if that Scripture from Corinthians—chiseled in Old English font and boldly blazing in gold paint atop the altar of Manhattan’s Broadway Presbyterian Church—seeped through the floor and into the by ALBIN basement below? Once it SADAR did. Now it rarely does. Directly beneath its altar in the cluttered but cozy church basement is Broadway Community, Inc. (), an outreach of Broadway Presbyterian Church (). At the corner of th Street and Broadway, aspires to serve the poor and homeless of the neighborhood around Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary. Serving the poor through meant having a massive feeding program. But one volunteer, Chris Fay, said, “We saw the same people coming for food, year after year. We saw very few breakthroughs. The people who volunteered for the soup kitchen didn’t know anything about the individuals who ate there. We were doing it to feel better
about ourselves” (“Manhattan Lesson,” Jan. , ). Fay became ’s executive director and began practicing effective compassion in the name of Christ. He and others began emphasizing the gospel along with life and work skills. They required intense accountability, including mandatory random drug testing. They worked with fewer people but helped them take a path to solid employment, putting those wanting to change into an integrated, complete job readiness “boot camp” designed to break the poverty cycle. But Fay left later in , and soon replaced mandatory drug testing with the hope that all individuals, when asked, would be honest about their drug or alcohol use. began once again focusing on food and services for up to people a day, primarily on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. It also offered an à la carte menu of programs including food service training, assistance, and basic computer literacy. Eleanor Donaldson, a former missionary to Africa with a degree in clinical social work, served as director from to . She acknowledges that gradually lost its gospel base. Before becoming overwhelmed with administrative duties and the larger SLUG: numbers Caption
a Christian perspective. ’s chef of years, Michael Ennes, says a prayer still begins the lunch program, but it is all-inclusive: He “thanks the Lord and all his prophets, by all the names we call them.” He mentions “first, among others, Jesus Christ,” and includes the phrase, “As-Salaamu Alaykum” (Arabic for “Peace be unto you”). The executive director position at has been vacant since August of last year. In her retirement, the thoughtful and soft-spoken Eleanor Donaldson says, “Prayer is what is really needed. God answers, and that’s the start of things.” A
Photography by ELBERT CHU
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CAUSES LOST
seeking help, she loved to take care of people’s deepest need for the gospel. She, along with others, often prayed with folks one-on-one. Over time, these mentoring roles slipped away. The person in charge of social services is now Hakim Rasheed, a Muslim. ADRIFT: staff He says does deal and volunteers with people’s spiriserve food to the tual needs, although homeless but not the good news. not necessarily from
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report calls the practice “streeting”— putting mentally ill people back on the streets because no one will treat them. “This is a problem in all of the United States,” said Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, a psychiatrist and founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center, a national nonprofit organization based in Virginia that promotes treatment of the mentally ill. To save money, states for decades have been cutting the number of beds in statefunded psychiatric hospitals, sometimes portrayed as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest monsters. From to the number of psychiatric hospital beds per , people plummeted from to , according to the Stanley Medical Research Institute (). With nowhere to turn, “streeted” patients often become homeless and eventually land in jail. Nationally, three
times more people suffering from serious mental illness are in jail than in hospitals, according to a report. On average, percent to percent of inmates are mentally ill. The problem is worst in Arizona and Nevada, where prisons have times more mentally ill people than hospitals. The January shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson was no accident, Torrey says. In the months leading up to Jared Loughner’s rampage that killed six and wounded , Pima County shut down beds and made it very difficult for a mentally ill patient to be hospitalized against his will. Loughner had displayed concerning signs of illness such as random outbursts, but he never received treatment. “It’s hard to keep these people on medications because half of them don’t
even realize they’re sick,” Torrey said. “They’ll tell their doctors, ‘I’ll be fine, as soon as the stops putting these voices in my head.’ And many of these people are the ones who commit felonies and violent acts.” Untreated mentally ill patients often cost states even more money than hospitalization. Broward County, Fla., pays a day to house a regular inmate and a day for a mentally ill inmate. The average Texas inmate costs taxpayers about , per year, but mentally ill prisoners cost almost twice as much. And the mentally ill are often repeat offenders. State government bureaucracies, with each department focused on its own budget, continue to cut mental health budgets despite the cost to other agencies. The Stanley study estimated that in Nevada, a mentally ill homeless man could cost the county at least million over years on the streets before he dies. Cuts to state psychiatric hospitals also drive more mentally ill people to already-overloaded emergency rooms. In South Carolina, where the mental health budget shrank by million, “hospital emergency rooms have become the safety net for the mentally ill,” said a recent South Carolina Hospital Association report, producing “a huge influx” of mentally ill patients for which the is unequipped. Torrey, who for years volunteered in Washington providing services to the homeless and mentally ill, said for-profit privatization isn’t always the answer: “They treat the easy patients and they ignore the more difficult patients because those cost more money.” Medicare and Medicaid don’t cover all the costs for mentally ill patients, so hospitals typically lose money on every case. The best facilities he’s encountered are faith-based, nonprofit organizations that dedicate themselves to treating patients no one else will treat. Church groups run most shelters in the D.C. area, Torrey said, stepping in where the government won’t: “Homeless shelters would fall apart without faith-based organizations.” A —Alicia Constant is a Virginia journalist J U LY 3 0 , 2 0 1 1
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Church clean &club funny C
C to growing up poor. So poor, he says, that instead of the deodorant called Sure, he could afford only the deodorant called Prehaps. Instead of “I can’t believe it’s not Butter!” he had to settle for “I can’t believe we can’t afford I can’t believe it’s not Butter.” He could use only a generic weight loss program called food poisoning. And he never felt like a million bucks. Instead he felt like a coupon. When Cox admits this to a group of strangers, they laugh—which is just what he wants. Cox, , is one of contestants at July’s Clean Comedy Challenge in Lima, Ohio. The comedians, many of them Christians, descended on this tiny town for three nights of competition billed as church clean and club funny. The event’s founder, Leslie Norris Townsend, says this is the only event like it in the country. She hatched the idea two years ago after attending a convention for Christian comedians. The week was full of seminars on how to be funny and how to get gigs. But Townsend says it lacked what up-and-coming funny people need most: stage time.
So inside the Chippewa Room of a Howard Johnson Hotel, contestants from seven states are taking the next step toward becoming stand-up artists. This is admittedly a long way from the big time. But the comics seem so addicted to any limelight that at least two are willing to miss their wives’ birthdays to chase laughs in Lima. Some are brand new to the comedy world. Others have spent a decade telling jokes. Throughout the weekend they use one-liners or longer narratives to poke fun at marriage, weight gain, reality television, homeschooling, church matchmaking, and politics. Nearly all of them gulp down water to battle the dry mouth and nerves before heading to the stage. They all learn that handling a joke is like holding a Fabergé egg. And when a flat joke is met by silence, the comedian’s pain soon becomes the audience’s too. Risking rejection is worth it because the growing entertainment niche known as Clean Comedy is catching, they believe, as audiences tire of mainstream comedians who grow raunchier and raunchier. Videos of Christian
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MIC: MICHAEL FLIPPO/ISTOCK • PHOTOS: MICHAEL WILLIAMS/GENESIS PHOTOS FOR WORLD
They stay up late, earn but a little, chase laughs in small towns, and all because they believe in the growing entertainment niche known as Clean Comedy ,
MIC: MICHAEL FLIPPO/ISTOCK • PHOTOS: MICHAEL WILLIAMS/GENESIS PHOTOS FOR WORLD
COMEDY CENTRAL: Cox; Simpson; Regan; Townsend; Clean Comedy Challenge audience members (from top).
comedian Tim Hawkins receive more than million YouTube views. A series titled “Thou Shalt Laugh” is on its fifth volume. One Wichita, Kan., church has started the “Kingdom Comedy Club,” which hosts nationally known Christian comedians. And a series of Christian comedy shows started by a campus minister at Arizona State University is four years later attracting more and more students. For the country’s only Clean Comedy competition, judges this year include a cruise ship entertainment booker, a California-based producer, and a couple of clean comedian pros, like Dennis Regan. Regan has had multiple appearances on the Late Show with David Letterman—the holy grail for comedians—and throughout the weekend contestants reverently refer to his “four Lettermans.” Everyone is dreaming that Lima somehow one day will lead to Letterman. But the competition’s first night did not go so well for Marty Simpson. The -year-old from Columbia, S.C., took up comedy three years ago. A former high-school football coach, Simpson yearned for something to give him the same pregame butterflies, and found it in comedy. He has performed in churches and clubs in states. “Comedy is the best bang for the buck,” he says. “You stand up, grab the mic, tell a joke, and the audience laughs.” In this competition, Simpson, once a quarterback, did the equivalent of throwing an interception: He debuted a brand new act with a new character on the challenge’s first day. Acting like a coach, Simpson took the stage with a whistle around his neck. But when the first seconds went by with zero laughter, Simpson couldn’t remember the rest of his new material. “I was left with sweat beads on my head,” Simpson said, and five minutes is a long time to sweat on stage. “I’m just glad it’s a three-day competition.” The next day the judges, seated American Idol style, say Simpson did not fully commit to his new character. “Why are you doing comedy?” asks judge and talent manager Jan Maxwell Smith. “Until you figure it out none of this will really matter.” “At least I am positioned for the most improved award,” Simpson cracks. For last year’s challenge winner, the answer to the judge’s question is simple. Jonnie Wethington says the laughter is like “tiny hugs from strangers. There’s a th-grader inside all of us who wants that.” But Wethington also has another calling. He’s involved in college ministry at a Nashville church. Not long after he started doing comedy, the church’s leaders asked him to make the weekly announcements every Sunday in a fun way that would help the congregation of pay attention. Today Wethington doesn’t care if he gets paid at a comedy club or not. He uses those jobs in the secular world to sharpen his funny bone for church performances: “I don’t want to be that guy with minutes of communion wafer jokes.” Wethington is alluding to the dominant stereotype that Christian comedians aren’t funny. When C.J. Harlow, a contestant from Kentucky, performs at comedy clubs on nights that include secular comics, he says he often feels like he’s “in a gunfight with a knife.” “Everyone else is super dirty so maybe I’m the light in the middle of all that,” he said. Harlow, , started doing comedy four years ago after thinking about it for a decade. A former J U LY 3 0 , 2 0 1 1
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Michael Williams/Genesis Photos for world
When an alcoholic comic said he Marine, he first used his routines couldn’t get sober living at his to entertain fellow soldiers with parent’s house, Simpson invited nightly skits while deployed to him to live with his family. That Somalia. During his first gigs back comedian spent 21 clean days with home he took note cards on stage Simpson, Simpson’s wife, and two to read. children. He now has been sober “I don’t have dogs, kids, or a for 20 months. wife,” he says as a way of explainThe ongoing challenge for ing why he decided to try life as a Christian comedy is how to define full-time comedian. “I have a clean.“Some may do a Viagra joke picture of a plant, but it died.” and call it clean because there are Last year Harlow performed commercials on TV about it,” said from Florida to Rhode Island, but Regan, who served as one of the made only $15,000. He keeps a judges. tent, sleeping bag, and an air At its most basic level, clean mattress in his car, and sometimes comedy means zero curse words on the road the car becomes his and vulgarity. A comedian for bedroom. nearly 25 years, Regan used to get Proverbs may say that “a joyful laughs using dirty words sprinkled heart is good medicine,” but throughout his jokes. Once he tried churches and comedy often make telling the exact same joke with all strange bedfellows. Comedians the bad language taken out, and mostly make fun of things and the audience didn’t laugh. jokes usually are birthed through “For the most part comedians dark times, and often at the don’t do clean because it is very expense of others. hard,” Regan said. “But if you work A recent job at a Christian to do things in a more thoughtful college for Harlow included a way, you will become a better contract warning that he could comedian.” forfeit his pay if he used jokes that Regan said the clean comedy included bathroom references or field was so small two decades ago the word hell. A popular story that he knew all the comedians. among the comics here is that Now it’s crowded. Simpson organizers at a church event once compares it to where Christian told a comedian that she couldn’t music was about 30 years ago—a use the word pantyhose. niche market with a handful of not “The church has always been so widely known artists. Today worried you will offend someChristian music spans genres and body,” says the Clean Comedy can be bought in most stores. The Challenge organizer, Townsend, comics at July’s comedy challenge who in 1996 came in second place are hoping they can catch what may in the stand-up comedy category be a coming Christian comedy wave. of Star Search. “I believe that Jesus So they spend the weekend would have a smile on His face honing their craft: They work on most of the time. He would be how not to forget jokes, how to keep going to comedy clubs.” LAUGH TIME: Harlow on stage (top); a safety parachute of laughs to pull if an act Harlow believes there are valuable Cox receives the trophy from Townsend. is bombing, and how to handle another not ways for comedy to reach churchgoers. He infrequent hurdle: hecklers in the crowd. used to struggle with marijuana addiction Though he didn’t win the competition after his rocky first and sometimes incorporates that into his jokes. He believes night, Simpson takes solace in the fact that the judges said he that being honest about it and including it as part of his had one of the best sets on the final night. That performance comedic testimony may touch people in the audience who are included a sound-effects-heavy story about putting an electric struggling with the same thing. collar on his barking dog. Response to that set boosts Simpson Cox, whose poor man routine ultimately wins him the enough to head over to a nearby restaurant for open mic night. challenge’s championship trophy, is a public high-school Never mind that it’s nearing 1 a.m. and he already has spent teacher. He was able to share his Christian testimony to many the last three days telling jokes. of his Auburn, Ala., students for the first time when they came “I think the ministry of laughter is coming, ” Simpson said to his performances at a local coffee shop. before disappearing inside the restaurant to grab the While Cox and others see the audience as a mission field, microphone—and hope for more laughs. A Simpson believes he also is called to minister to other comedians. Email: lpitts@worldmag.com
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CulturE timE to battlE thE britiSh! timE to battlE thE
Should Christians Embrace Evolution? Biblical and Scientific Responses EditEd by NormaN C. NEviN Thirteen scientists and theologians examine the claim that Christians must either embrace evolution or be opposed to science. They set out a clear framework for relevant biblical, theological, and scientific issues and answer crucial questions. ISBN 978-1-59638-230-5 | 220 pages | $14.99
WorlD maGaZiNE Book-ofthe-Year
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They get around
guess who headlined a pro-life fundraiser in ohio: the beach boys by Arsenio Orteza
photos by Megan Leigh
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GOOD VIBRATIONS: Stamos and Love (far left), the Schindler family (left), and the Lettermen (bottom).
A
lot has changed during the 28 years since James Watt, President Reagan’s secretary of the interior, made headlines by forbidding the Beach Boys to perform at the National Mall on the Fourth of July because they attracted an “undesirable element.” Now rappers get invited to the White House—and the Beach Boys headline concerts to raise funds for the Terry Schiavo Life and Hope Network. The 2011 version of the annual Terry Schiavo Life & Hope Concert took place on June 12 at the Fraze Pavilion in Kettering, Ohio. A near capacity crowd of 4,000 paid $35 per ticket to hear not only the Beach Boys but also the uproarious stand-up comedy of the “Master of Ceremonies” Jim Labriola (best remembered for his recurring role as “Benny Baroni” on Home Improvement) and the gregarious showmanship of the Lettermen, the popular 1960s vocal group (“When I Fall in Love,” “Goin’ Out of My Head/Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You”) currently led by founding member Tony Butala and his frequent fellow Lettermen for the last 25 years, Donovan Tea and Mark Preston.
As for the woman after whom the event was named, she was represented by May Schindler, Suzanne Schindler Vitadamo, and Bobby Schindler—her mother, sister, and brother, respectively. They briefly took the stage after the Lettermen had performed and the winners of the silent auction had been announced to express their gratitude to the audience and to remind its members that, although it was their family member whose tragic story seized the nation’s imagination and galvanized the pro-life movement in 2005, there are many other people in her situation who are still fighting for their lives and for whom the evening’s funds were being raised. The Schindlers’ remarks weren’t the only reminder of the concert’s purpose. Besides the banner draped across the top of the stage, concertgoers were given a 20-page program, several pages of which comprised a recap of the Schiavo saga. “Contrary to what has and continues to be reported by many in the media today,” it read, “Terri was not kept alive by any machines, was not brain dead, was not in a coma, nor was she in a ‘persistent vegetative state’ or dying of any terminal illness.” The entry goes on to summarize the legal details of the case (including Schiavo’s husband’s use of his power-of-attorney rights to bring about her “court-ordered starvation and dehydration”) and to draw attention to the “tens of thousands of brain injured individuals living today in a similar capacity to Terri’s.” “The Lord really blessed us,” concluded Schiavo’s mother from the stage in reference to the concert’s success. “So now please enjoy, and I mean really enjoy, the Beach Boys!” In a sense, what followed for the next two hours was a typical 21st-century Beach Boys concert. The eight-member ensemble, led by the baseball-cap- wearing founding Beach Boy Mike Love and longtime Beach Boy Bruce Johnston, played 33 songs beginning with “Surfin’”
(the band’s first single), ending with “Fun, Fun, Fun,” and hitting nearly every one of the group’s other several-dozen hits along the way. While at 70 Love still sings lead on the songs originally bearing his vocal stamp, band attrition (the death in 1983 of Dennis Wilson, the death in 1998 of Carl Wilson, the departure in 1998 of Al Jardine, the solo career of the rejuvenated head Beach Boy Brian Wilson) has made the creative assigning of other lead-vocal duties necessary. Johnston now sings lead on “God Only Knows” and “Good Vibrations,” the drummer (and former member of the Cowsills) John Cowsill sings lead on “Darlin’” and “Help Me, Rhonda,” and the lead guitarist Scott Totten, the bassist Randell Kirsch, and the rhythm guitarist Christian Love (Mike’s son) take turns on others. And, of course, harmonies abound. Close your eyes and you can almost believe it’s 1974, the year the Beach Boys’ Endless Summer topped the charts, again. What couldn’t help jolting the crowd back to the present was the presence of John Stamos, the General Hospital, Full House, and now Glee star who has been moonlighting as an occasional Beach Boy since the early ’90s and was announced as a participant in the Schiavo concert only three days before the event. At 48, Stamos remains possessed of both youthful good looks and energy, the former of which probably explained the presence of teenaged girls in the crowd and the latter of which served his drumming, his guitar playing, his between-song “ageist” comedy at Mike Love’s expense (Stamos called him “Dad” at one point), and his onstage high jinks in general. He also provided the evening’s only explicit reminders of the Beach Boys’ history, singing the Dennis Wilson–penned ballad “Forever” and going out of his way near show’s end to include Jardine and the departed or estranged Wilsons in his expression of gratitude for what the band’s music has meant to the world for the last half century. But it was by pulling two brown-robed Franciscan monks onto the stage to sing and dance during “Fun, Fun, Fun” that Stamos left his most indelible mark on the evening. It was, after all, a sight that one doesn’t see everyday—and evidence that when it comes to the Beach Boys’ audience these days, a more “desirable element” would be hard to find. A J U LY 3 0 , 2 0 1 1 W O R L D
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A.D.
Wesley: A Heart Transformed Can Change the World Step into eighteenth-century England and experience the transformation of one man, whose heart-wrenching search for peace haunts him even as he pours himself into a life of service and evangelism. This feature film, based on the personal diaries of John Wesley, is a story that reads like a Hollywood screenplay—house fire, near shipwreck on the high seas, adventure in a new world, and ill-fated romance! Uncover Wesley’s spiritual struggle and renewal as never before while you learn about his controversial “Method.” Marked by confrontation, tension, and mob violence, Wesley’s perseverance compelled him to a new type of itinerant, open-air ministry to the lowest classes of society. John Wesley is well known as the spiritual father of Methodism. His heartfelt struggles, his passion for authentic faith expressing itself through meaningful kingdom work, and his message of saving grace resonate with audiences of all ages. Directed by the Reverend John Jackman, the feature-length film stars Burgess Jenkins, June Lockhart, Kevin McCarthy, R. Keith Harris, and Carrie Anne Hunt. 2 hours. $ 99 DVD - #501370D, $24.99
Picking up where the events of the acclaimed Passion of the Christ left off, A.D. vividly recreates the turbulent years following the death of Christ. The earliest experiences of the Christian church after Jesus' ascension are powerfully dramatized in this remarkably authentic TV miniseries epic covering the years A.D. 30-69. The perfect resource for any church or home study group wishing to explore the New Testament period, the Early Church, or the Book of Acts. This Biblically and historically accurate drama comes complete with a 56-page study guide in PDF, providing a 12-week course. Performances from an all-star cast, together with the scope of the project, also make this great Bible-based family entertainment. This Vincenzo Labella production features: Anthony Andrews, Colleen Dewhurst, Ava Gardner, David Hedison, John Houseman, Richard Kiley, James Mason, Susan Sarandon, Ben Vereen and many others. $ 99 DVD - #109269D, $29.99
Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace
Peter and Paul
What is a moral person to do in a time of savage immorality? That question tormented Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German clergyman of great distinction who actively opposed Hitler and the Nazis. His convictions cost him his life. The Nazis hanged him on April 9, 1945, less than a month before the end of the war. Bonhoeffer’s last years, his participation in the German resistance and his moral struggle are dramatized in this film. More than just a biographical portrait, Bonhoeffer: Agent of Grace sheds light on the little-known efforts of the German resistance. It brings to a wide audience the heroic rebellion of Bonhoeffer, a highly regarded Lutheran minister who could have kept his peace and saved his life on several occasions but instead paid the ultimate price for his beliefs. Starring Ulrich Tukur, Robert Joy, Johanna Klante and Ulrich Noethen. Drama, widescreen, 90 minutes (includes Spanish, Portuguese, German, optional English subtitles, actors’ bios). $ 99 DVD - #4638D,
This Emmy Award-winning production, starring Anthony Hopkins and Robert Foxworth, captures the vitality, intensity, and humanity of two who were entrusted by Christ to carry the Gospel into all the world. Based on the Scriptures by and about Peter and Paul, this video shows how they were driven by a heavenly vision for a different kind of world. They paid a horrendous price for their devotion—Peter crucified and Paul beheaded—but their ministries transcended the cruelty of their enemies to become important pillars of the Christian Church. Drama, 194 minutes (includes Spanish, optional English subtitles, actors’ bios). $ 99 DVD - #4628D,
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Notebook
LIFESTYLE TECHNOLOGY SCIENCE HOUSES OF GOD SPORTS MONEY RELIGION
Foodie fight LIFESTYLE: “Solemn” pig slaughtering and “honoring” of soon-to-beeaten goats suggests idolatry BY SUSAN OLASKY
KRIEG BARRIE
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W - cafeterias serve processed foods, those in affluent Aspen, Colo., spare no expense: School cooks make ketchup from scratch and roast their own beets. For the past two years the Aspen public schools, for the sake of health and the planet, have also observed Meatless Monday. According to The New York Times, restaurants in the exclusive mountain city have embraced the campaign, backed by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, to go meatless once a week. Aspen city council members, concerned about gaining a flaky image, balked at issuing a public resolution in support of Meatless Monday. Nevertheless, the national Meatless Monday Campaign proclaimed Aspen “the nation’s first true Meatless Monday community.” (Not to be confused with meatless Friday, which might suggest religious motivations.) Even the local hospital encourages its cardiac rehab patients to frequent restaurants that don’t serve meat on Mondays. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has also been thinking about meat. He announced recently his challenge: to eat only meat that J U LY 3 0 , 2 0 1 1
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7/11/11 12:35 PM
Notebook > Lifestyle
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GREEN MISERY? Boyd Cohen, of a carbon-credit-trading company based in Vancouver, Canada, recently ranked the top “climate-ready” cities in the United States. These are cities where officials are promoting less energy use and “investing in appropriate climate change adaption solutions.” Cohen measured membership in certain environmental organizations, the number of “green” buildings per capita, university leadership, transit access and use, clean tech investment, and emissions. The top : San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Washington, Denver, San Diego, New York, Philadelphia, San Jose, and Chicago. Those cities might be gaining praise from environmentalists, but two of them also landed on a less prestigious list—America’s Most Miserable Cities— compiled by Forbes. It used factors, including serious ones like crime and unemployment, and less serious ones like the success of local sports teams, to find the most miserable cities. Chicago was in th place, and Washington th. Government officials are not responsible for Chicago’s bad weather, but public policies have helped to create long commutes, high taxes, and high crime. Washington has dreadful traffic and long commutes, high income taxes, and lousy sports teams. Perhaps taxpayers in those cities would prefer that officials focus on relieving misery before taking on climate change. Meanwhile, California remains the state of golden contrasts. Its three large cities named after saints—San Francisco, San Diego, and San Jose—are all in the top of green cities. Eight other California cities make Forbes’ list of the most miserable cities. Stockton is No. , with Merced, Modesto, and Sacramento in places three through five. (Miami is No. .) Other California cities on the list: Vallejo, Fresno, Salinas, and Bakersfield. —S.O.
Email: solasky@worldmag.com
7/11/11 12:37 PM
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slaughtering; another watches a goat-killing and wants to “honor our goat” by wasting as little of it as possible. Myers concludes, “The full strangeness of this culture sinks in when one reads affectionate accounts (again in Best Food Writing ) of children clamoring to kill their own cow—or wanting to see a pig shot, then ripped open with a chain saw: ‘!’” In a similar vein, New York Times writer Virginia Heffernan mused recently about “the great clash that now reverberates through American culture: the clash between foodies and techies.” She pits efficiency against purism and asks, Who has time to cook by scratch? She celebrates the late Poppy Cannon, author of The Can-Opener Cookbook, who described America as “the land of the mix, the jar, the frozenfood package.” For Heffernan, convenience is a good thing because it frees women to do other things with their time. She writes, “Cannonstyle invocations of efficiency and convenience still drive foodies crazy. The concept of convenience in food preparation is steeply at odds with the idea that all food is sacramental, and eating expensive, rich foods is a devotional act that is somehow also politically progressive.” Is food just fuel for the body, or is it something pleasurable but not central to our day, or is eating it a devotional act? Is it possible to make food—a good thing—into an ultimate thing? A
ZUCKERBERG: JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES • CITIES: ISTOCK
he kills himself. He’s not talking about stalking and shooting wild game but slaughtering the chickens, pigs, goats, and cows he eats. According to the /Fortune website, the -year-old billionaire said, “Every year I have a yearly personal challenge. . . . I decided to make this year’s challenge around being more thankful for what I have. I ... eventually decided that forcing myself to get personally involved and thank the animals whose lives I take in order to eat them was the best day-to-day way to remind myself to be thankful. So every day when I can’t eat meat I am reminded of why not and how lucky I am, and when I do get the chance to eat meat it’s especially good.” That Zuckerberg thinks the best way to give thanks is by killing his own meat might sound weird to most people, but not to some foodies. In a trenchant Atlantic essay, “The Moral Crusade Against Foodies,” B.R. Myers dissects the books and essays written by the current crop of food writers. His subtitle—“Gluttony dressed up as foodie-ism is still gluttony”— gives a sense of his conclusions. Several times in the essay he touches on the fascination some foodies have with butchering their own meat, including “crowding around to watch the slaughter of a pig— even getting in its face just before the shot.” Myers quotes one foodie describing “solemn” and “respectful” behavior at a pig
Notebook > Technology
Hearing rooms
Websites allow users to create their own concerts BY ALISSA WILKINSON
>>
ZUCKERBERG: JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES • CITIES: ISTOCK
TURNTABLE.FM: AHNDOUT • DRAFT HORSE: BRIAN SNYDER/REUTERS/LANDOV • COMMUNICATION: ISTOCK
M memories that center around sharing music with friends: spending lazy teenage days listening to records or CDs, or discovering a new favorite musician at a concert venue. Today, new websites are making it easier to keep
sharing and discovering music along with friends—even if they’re far away. Turntable.fm (available for free to invited users or those with Facebook friends who are
users) gives an outlet to wouldbe DJs. The site is populated by “rooms” (like concert venues) that typically play a certain sort of music. Each room has one to five DJs who take turns picking music—and anyone can become a DJ. Just want to listen? If you’re “in” a room, you can vote on the current song choice (“awesome” or “lame”). DJs earn points based on song ratings, and if nobody likes the choice, the DJ loses a turn. For an experience more like the record player in your bedroom, try Listening Room (listeningroom. net), which has no voting—users simply sign up and create a room, add songs to the room, and then invite friends to join the room and do the same.
HORSE POWER While high-speed internet is readily available in many areas of the United States, some rural regions still lack access, relying instead on slow or unreliable providers—or no access at all. A number of factors, including low population density and difficult terrain, have made it unwieldy or unattractive to install the fiber optic cables needed for broadband in these areas. But who knew draft horses could help? In mountainous Vermont, where Fairpoint Communication hopes to bring high-speed internet to the entire state by , an old technology is helping bring in the new: Belgian draft horses have been recruited (along with their owners) to help run cable through difficult terrain. —A.W.
Do you still have a landline phone? You may soon be in a minority: In its recent wireless communication report, the reported that . percent of adults ages - have ditched their landlines entirely in favor of cell phones—the first time this number has tipped into the majority in any age range. About percent of adults ages - and - live in wireless-only households. Another trend indicates the way we think about our phones is changing. In May, Nielsen reported that percent of mobile consumers in the United States now use smartphones—devices like Android phones or iPhones on which we not only send and receive calls, but write and read email, Tweet, play games, take photos and video, track finances, read books, and do a host of other activities. And percent of customers buying new mobile phones in the past three months bought a smartphone instead of a more traditional cell phone—up from percent one year ago. Not only are answering machines going the way of the dinosaur, but phones that only make calls someday will be a thing of the past. —A.W. Available in Apple’s App Store: Download ’s iPad app today
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Notebook > Science A team of surgeons performed the world’s first transplant of a synthetic organ in Sweden this summer, removing a cancerous windpipe from a -year-old patient and replacing it with one crafted from his own cells. Stem cells from the patient’s bone marrow were seeded onto a porous, polymer replica of his windpipe, eliminating the need for a donor or for drugs to prevent rejection of the implant. The surgeons think the breakthrough approach could be used for some other organs as well. —D.J.D.
Japanese report sparks hopes for a new source of important metals BY DANIEL JAMES DEVINE
>> Protective panel? A July editorial in Nature criticized the U.S. Department of Energy () for how it handles scientific misconduct investigations. In , which funds percent of U.S. physical sciences research through its . billion Office of Science, oversaw an independent panel’s investigation into charges of data fabrication against a research group that had received grant money. The panel found no misconduct, yet a federal judge has blocked the public release of its investigative report. Court documents reveal that officials who were overseeing the investigation didn’t read the final report themselves or even save a copy of it. Further, these agency officials are the same ones responsible for issuing the grant money in the first place, suggesting they had an interest in smoothing over disputes. The Washington, D.C.–based Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group, thinks should establish an office of research integrity dedicated to handling misconduct allegations. —D.J.D.
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J they have found a new source for the costly “rare earth” metals essential for technologies like smartphones and hybrid cars: the seafloor. Yasuhiro Kato and his colleagues at the University of Tokyo reported in Nature Geoscience this month that two-fifths of a square mile of Pacific Ocean mud could contain enough rare earth elements to meet one-fifth of annual global demand. Visionaries may have salivated at the news, but many mining experts scoffed, comparing the prospect of extracting rare earths from as deep as , feet underwater to mining the Moon. “There’s never been a mine in production at anywhere near those depths, and there won’t be in our lifetime,” Al Shefsky, the president of a rare earth exploration company, told the Financial Post. But with mining technologies already being developed for shallower waters, others think extracting the rare earths could become feasible in the near future as demand and prices for the metals continue a steep, upward trend. China, which currently controls the global supply of rare earth ELEMENTAL: A bastnaesite mineral sample containing elements ( percent), sent tremors rare earth; Kato (top) with a through markets last year when it rare earth sample from temporarily blocked exports of the about , feet below metals to Japan during a territorial the Pacific Ocean. dispute. This month, a Chinese official hinted the country would relax export restrictions after a public rebuke by the World Trade Organization. Uncertainty over the supply of rare earths has spiked prices. Dysprosium, which possesses unique magnetic properties for which many rare earths are valued, was priced at a kilogram last year. Today it’s ,. A rare earth mine in Mountain Pass, Calif., reopened last year and is expected to bring U.S. production back into a market it once dominated. Laptops, power tool motors, the U.S. military’s Predator drones, and hundreds of other technologies depend on the metals.
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Rare surprise
Email: ddevine@worldmag.com
7/13/11 3:41 PM
SANTOSH VERMA/GENESIS PHOTOS
FRESH WIND
Notebook > Houses of God
CREDIT
Santosh Verma/genesis photos
The Love of Christ Fellowship in Bandra, India, a suburb of Mumbai, occupies the upper floor of this house. A family lives on the ground floor.
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Notebook > Sports
Dramatic swings
Amid tragedy, JOSH HAMILTON has offered hope born of grace BY MARK BERGIN
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HEARTACHE: Stone (left); his funeral in Brownwood (above); Hamilton (below).
praying for them and knowing that God has a plan. You don’t always know what that plan is when those things happen, but you will. And you go on.” Hamilton’s confidence in the plans of God is born of loss and redemption in his own life. A decade ago, he responded to hardship very differently, doubting the hand of God after suffering injuries in a car accident. He turned to alcohol and cocaine as replacements for the high baseball could not provide during rehabilitation. Within three years, he was completely out of the game with little hope of return. In his autobiography Beyond Belief (FaithWords, ), Hamilton describes his road back, not just to baseball but to faith. It began with a simple prayer for rescue and has culminated in a new life of family, baseball success, and regular public statements about the kindness of Jesus, even amid pain. Perhaps no player in Major League Baseball today was better equipped to handle such proximity to Shannon Stone’s tragic death. Two days after the incident, Hamilton lifted the Rangers to victory with a game-ending tworun home run in the bottom of the ninth inning. And on the high of yet another swing, Hamilton said: “It’s been so up and down, been a very emotional weekend. I’m still thinking about everything that happened to Mr. Stone and the Stone family. I’m still grieving about the whole situation. This takes you from one extreme to the other pretty quickly. I’m just glad I had the opportunity. I just feel blessed.” A
STONE: BROWNWOOD BULLETIN • FUNERAL: JOYCE MARSHALL/STAR-TELEGRAM/AP • HAMILTON: JONATHAN FERREY/GETTY IMAGES
details of a man’s death. Stone was a firefighter and, more importantly, a father taking his young son to his first ball game. The pair had driven three hours from Brownwood and bought young Cooper a new glove. They had sat in left field behind Cooper’s favorite player—and might have gone home with a baseball tossed from his very hand. Tragedy intervened. Amid the heartache, Hamilton directed his thoughts and words toward the family: “I can’t imagine what they’re going through right now. I can’t imagine. All I can think about is
Email: mbergin@worldmag.com
7/13/11 8:23 PM
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T Josh Hamilton, swinging from dramatic highs to crushing lows and back again is nothing new. Over the last dozen years, the -year-old slugger has gone from first overall pick in the Major League draft to a drug-addicted junkie whose baseball career appeared over to an American League all-star and . But what is new for Hamilton is his uncanny steadiness amid such swings. On July at Rangers Ballpark, a fan sitting with his -year-old son just beyond the left field fence hollered out to Hamilton in the second inning with a simple and ordinary request: Would he toss the next foul ball he collected into the stands rather than to the team’s ball girl? Hamilton turned and made a mental note: “The first person I saw was the dad and the boy. And it looked like somebody who would love to have a baseball.” Several pitches later, an Oakland batter smacked a ball foul down the left field line that bounced off the wall toward Hamilton. The Gold Glove caliber outfielder scooped up the ball and flipped it to the expectant father. But in his excitement to make the catch, Shannon Stone lost his balance, fell over the railing to a concrete walkway feet below, and was pronounced dead at the hospital less than an hour later. The incident stunned the baseball world. Reporters struggled to avoid the indecency of describing a game in stories that also included
Notebook > Money NOT WORKING America’s unemployment rate ticked up to . percent in June— from May’s . percent—as private companies added only , workers to their payrolls. Financially distressed state and local governments, meanwhile, continued to jettison jobs, resulting in a net June job gain of only ,. (Experts say the economy needs ,-, new jobs each month to keep pace with
Back to square one STONE: BROWNWOOD BULLETIN • FUNERAL: JOYCE MARSHALL/STAR-TELEGRAM/AP • HAMILTON: JONATHAN FERREY/GETTY IMAGES
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Stock prices at the final bell on June masked a volatile quarter BY JOSEPH SLIFE
>>
population growth.) More than million people were out of work at mid-year, including . million who have been without work for six months or more. Since March, the ranks of the unemployed have increased by more than
T U.S. ended a tumultuous second quarter roughly back where it began. When the final bell sounded June , the Dow Jones industrial average was up . percent for the April-June period, while the S&P index of large company stocks was down a mere . percent. The minor moves masked the quarter’s volatility, which included a fear-inducing decline that continued for six straight weeks. But in the waning days of the three-month period, both the Dow industrials and
the S&P enjoyed their biggest weekly gains in two years, lifting the market back to its starting point. The six-month tallies for showed a . percent increase for the Dow and a percent gain for the S&P . While stocks rose as the quarter closed, the yield on two-year Treasury bonds touched a record low of . percent before rebounding slightly. The minuscule yields suggest that many investors are still seeking safety in government bonds, rather than putting their money at risk elsewhere.
half a million. —J.S.
9.1% 9.2% MAY
JUNE
GIVE IT BACK Employing its expanded authority under the Dodd-Frank financial-regulation overhaul bill, the board of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation approved a rule that will allow the to seize up to two years of pay from senior executives and directors of failed financial institutions. The money will be recovered if an executive or director failed to conduct his or her responsibilities “with the degree of skill and care an ordinarily prudent person in a like position would exercise under similar circumstances.” The “clawback” authorization is part of a broader rule that sets the framework for liquidation of failed institutions, including certain “nonbanks” that play a major role in the U.S. financial system. The collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings—which was not a bank under U.S. law and therefore not subject to intervention and liquidation—helped spark the financial crisis. —J.S. Joseph Slife is the assistant editor of SoundMindInvesting.com
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Notebook > Religion
Liberty’s loss
Same-sex marriage in New York threatens the rights of those who oppose it BY TIM DALRYMPLE
I
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W of same-sex marriage takes effect in New York on July , one in nine Americans will live in places where gay couples can marry with the imprimatur of the state. For the estimated , same-sex couples in New York, the new law brings changes to their state taxes and healthcare benefits, as well as their access to adoption and inheritance laws. But what will it mean for churches and ministries in the state, or for Christian professionals and business owners who may not be comfortable offering their services to same-sex couples for moral and religious reasons? Republican state senators negotiated a provision to protect churches, parachurch ministries, and religious nonprofits, as well as their clergy and employees, from lawsuits or state penalties if they should refuse to provide their services or facilities for same-sex ceremonies. They also won inclusion of a “poison pill,” so that a court decision striking the religious conscience provision would invalidate the entire law. Yet this does not mean that the new law will have no consequences for
ACNA GROWS
churches and believers who object to gay marriage. When sexual liberty and religious liberty are pitted against one another, says the Alliance Defense Fund’s Austin R. Nimocks, the elevation of one always diminishes the other. The religious liberties and conscience rights of individual professionals and business owners, Nimocks says, are in particular peril. Since they do not fall beneath the “religious umbrella” the law creates, wedding planners or florists or clothiers who decline to offer their services to same-sex couples may face lawsuits or other forms of government pressure. Marriage counselors and adoption attorneys, if they are not employees of a religious group, also could be accused of illegal discrimination if they do not serve gay couples.
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was officially constituted only two years ago, and yet it serves , Anglicans in nearly , congregations across the United States and Canada. In its first months (the most recent data reaches to six months ago), the added nearly churches, a percent increase; of the new churches were church plants. The number of people baptized in the over the age of is nearly equal to the number under . That the is reaching so many adolescents and adults who have never known Christ, said Duncan, is “one sign among many that something quite extraordinary is unfolding.” —T.D.
ILLUSTRATION: RACHEL BEATTY • GENE J. PUSKAR/AP
Summer is the season for conventions and councils and annual meetings of the various Christian denominations in the United States. Many report decline. Yet Robert Duncan, Primate of the Anglican Church in North America (), reported quite the opposite in his State of the Church address on June in Long Beach, Calif. As The Episcopal Church in the United States and the Anglican Church of Canada became increasingly liberal in their theology, distressed churches and dioceses disaffiliated and sought the care of Anglican Provinces in other parts of the world.
Even those beneath the “religious umbrella” may be less protected than they would like to believe. In spite of the conscience provision, there are “huge gaping holes” in the language of the law, says Nimocks. Ultimately, the long-term consequences of the law are unknown. Yet gay couples will take offense if they are not offered the same services traditional couples receive, and the same well-funded activists who pushed the same-sex marriage bill into law will continue to make their case in the courts and in the statehouses.
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the world market Classifieds are priced at $23 per line with an average of 33 characters per line and a minimum of two lines. Bold text and uppercase available for $5 per line; special fonts and highlighting available for an additional charge. You will receive a 10 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 confirmation will be required of all advertisers. contact: Connie Moses, world, P.O. Box 20002, Asheville, nc 28802; phone: 828.232.5481; fax: 828.253.1556; email: cmoses@worldmag.com
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i Is God calling you to disciple young men? Consider serving Him at Chamberlain-Hunt in Academics, Activities & Athletics or Administration & Support Staff. For an employment application and/or more information about ministry opportunities to Cadets, please contact the Principal’s Office at www.chamberlain-hunt.com. 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. Contact Headmaster Tom Jahl at thomas.jahl@cono.org. i Executive Director needed for small, classical Christian school for grades 7-12 entering its 13th year in St. Louis County, Missouri. For more information go to heritageclassical.org and click the employment tab.
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FREE BOOKLET Good News for the Afflicted By Herman Hoeksema
Many questions and much grief arise from affliction and trials, yet our Heavenly Father guides and shapes His people through affliction. This wonderful set of meditations draws from God’s Word the soothing and comforting words of Jesus Christ for all of His children and shows the purpose of affliction in the life of the child of God. “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” REQUEST YOUR FREE COPY TODAY! Write, phone, fax or email: The Evangelism Committee of the Protestant Reformed Church 1777 E. Richton Rd. • Crete, IL 60417 Phone: (708) 672-4600, Fax (708) 672-4601 Email: Evangelism@prccrete.org Visit our website, www.PRCCrete.org, for live and archived sermons!
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NEWS KNOWLEDGE TRUTH From the publishers of WORLD Magazine
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drastically improving its own marriages. Portland, Ore.
“June memories”
“Tour d’America” ( )
( )
I loved the latest edition of with the Tour d’America coverage. The candidates’ jerseys were creative and the detail on the bicycles was perfect. It was a brilliant comparison. , Brea, Calif. “Couples in community” ( ) Thank you so much for your two-part series on dating in the church. As a single, -yearold woman, I found it very applicable. I often think, regarding Christian guys I know, “Just ask us out! Let’s figure out where this road leads! It’s not as if you’re asking for my hand in marriage!” I was so grateful that my own church recently initiated meetings for married couples and singles called “An Evening Devoted to Marriage.” Our first meeting last week cast a vision of marriage as a mystery worth pursuing.
raised, the training was to value marriage and family highly while avoiding dangerous interactions with the opposite sex.
Lynden, Wash.
Marion, Ind.
I am concerned about Oregon’s second attempt to institute homosexual marriage, and uncertain how to oppose successfully these relentless, aggressive attempts. Thank you for showing the way: The church needs to set an example by
Joel Belz asked about failures we celebrate. This year, I’m celebrating my daughter’s th birthday with great joy. I was an unwed mother, and God used her to bring me to a right relationship with Him. . Atlanta, Ga.
Moravia, Ecuador /
Attleboro, Mass.
What can churches do to help young couples persevere to make it down the aisle? Married couples can come alongside engaged couples and give them much needed support, encouragement, and accountability. My husband Steve and I are blessed because our pastor and his wife availed themselves to us throughout our year of courtship, marriage counseling, and wedding details.
I was a senior preseminary student at Calvin College when I first picked up my free, thin, and flimsy copy of in the mailroom. It caught my interest years ago and still holds it today. I depended upon to keep informed as I studied through two seminary degrees, pastored three churches, and raised four children. This issue was another fine example of the news and features I have grown to love and expect. I was convicted, as usual, when “Iceberg parables” (June ) lanced an unknown boil on my preacher’s heart.
around the world
Durham, N.C.
These articles have come into my life at exactly the right time. I have never married and am in my upper s. I have started asking Christian married couples, “Why are you still married?” and others, “What happened? How could your church have helped you avoid divorce?” In the culture in which I was Send photos and letters to: mailbag@worldmag.com
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“Has Newt Gingrich changed?” (June 18)
If it is true that Gingrich’s adultery and his fear of public exposure kept President Clinton from probable impeachment, does today’s American “democracy” have any semblance of what our Founding Fathers had in mind in establishing this country? John Novotney
Prague, Czech Republic
For some years I have felt that something happened soon after Gingrich’s “Contract with America.” He went off track. Great reporting!
arents, my pride and piety doomed me p for God’s holy judgment. But for the grace of God, there go I. James Williams
Papillion, Neb.
“Homeward bound” (June 18) It is encouraging to read about Wallace and Eleanor Turnbull’s efforts to help Haitian students be educated in the United States and then return to Haiti to help renew their country. As many of them have become Christians, they are better able to cope with life and to learn skills to help the people in Haiti. Stewart West
Apex, N.C.
William Grove
Fort Worth, Texas
I was concerned by the way you evaluated Newt’s ability to be president. Why not talk about how he was effective politically in 1994 and how he stands on issues? I read two of his books and he shows great knowledge of what is wrong with this country and how to change it. I don’t know if I will vote for him, but I have a great deal of respect for his approach. John Isaac
“Keeping the faith” (June 4) Erskine College and the ARP Church are justified in paying attention to what stance their members hold regarding Scripture. I moved my family across the country to attend a graduate school that labeled itself Christian, but did not do due diligence to find out where most members of the faculty stood on important theological issues. I spent thousands of dollars to earn credits that cannot be transferred and experienced a crisis of faith before I decided to leave the school. Moving away from the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture is the first step into a theologically liberal (and non- Christian) abyss. Steve Stucky
“Iceberg parables” (June 18)
Castle Rock, Colo.
I accept Marvin Olasky’s challenge to use more stories that pierce. I left a church that made it clear that it wanted “uplifting” messages which, translated, meant “pat-on-the-back” sermons. One member said he did not like being beat up every Sunday. Translated: “Do not preach on sin.” The walk of imitating Christ is the crucified life. Gary Turner
“Living in the middle” (June 4) Thank you for such a wonderful and comforting column. God has just started to move quickly in a business area of my life. Just when I was going to throw in the towel, He sent me several positive answers one after another. After a stint in the desert, what a powerful reminder of God’s sovereignty and timing.
Lebanon, Ore.
Lisa Meek
Arnold, Md.
Thank you for the story about Gingrich. It is a sad story but one that needs to be told because of the responsibility of the presidency. And it is a good reminder to pray for our leaders. Eric Freeman
Jenison, Mich.
“Just listen” (June 18) Janie Cheaney’s column was fantastic. Perhaps her best advice was to ignore Christopher Hitchens’ insistence that our prayers will make no difference because “the Hound of Heaven may be on the hunt.” Amen. I see in him a sinner undeserving of God’s grace just as I am. The last thing this man needs is the mocking and gloating of Christians. Joshua Burba
Nashville, Tenn.
Cheaney’s last line about “The Hound of Heaven” brought me to tears. Although I was raised in a loving home by godly
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Bothell, Wash.
I am so tired of the feel good, no substance messages that keep the flock at Christianity 101. A sermon is more than information: Iceberg parables connect to the whole man, not just the head. Sermons need to pierce. In Jeremiah, God talks about a circumcision of the heart; each pastor needs to be a spiritual heart surgeon under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Bob Corbin
Parrish, Fla.
“Fractured policy” (June 4) I’ve worked in the oil industry for 42 years and have experience “fracking” oil and gas deposits in shale. Today’s technology makes contaminating fresh water zones with hydrocarbons a very low risk. People need good information, not the emotionalism put out by the EPA and others with an agenda that is not realistic. Mark J. Anthony
Colorado Springs, Colo.
Corrections P.G. Wodehouse set most of his stories and novels in Britain in the first decades of the 1900s (“Bygone Britain,” July 2, p. 64). Steven Spielberg was not involved in making Return of the Jedi (“Getting religion,” June 18, p. 40). New York’s same-sex marriage law takes effect July 24, with licenses available July 25. (“Exempting religion,” July16 , p. 5).
LETTERS AND PHOTOS Email: mailbag@worldmag.com Write: world Mailbag, P.O. Box 20002, Asheville, nc 28802-9998 Fax: 828.253.1556 Include full name and address. Letters may be edited to yield brevity and clarity.
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Andrée Seu
A VISITOR’S GUIDE
KRIEG BARRIE
T
From waiting room to visiting room, navigating behind prison walls
about visiting an inmate is that you probably will not be successful the first time around. But since there must always be a first time in order for a second time, you must sweat that out. On your initial visit you will have violated some rule, even if you did the homework. You will have on the wrong shoes, or the wrong shirt, or an underwire bra that sets off the metal detector. You may hope that there is a Job Lot nearby where you can purchase acceptable replacements cheaply. The prison waiting room, earthly analog of Purgatory, is a showcase of the mean and kind extremes of human nature. Mean is the delight taken by the desk guard watching the nervous first-timer feel like a fool trying to figure out the locker. Kind is the visitor who discretely approaches and says, “Push up on the lever a little.” I have also met two nice correction officers too, one man and one woman—I later found out the man was a Christian—who must be very strong indeed, because there is a tremendous pull, in any subculture, to adopt the attitude of that subculture. To not resist it strenuously is to become part of it automatically. It’s that “inner ring” thing C.S. Lewis talks about in The Weight of Glory when describing the official rules versus the unstated rules of any ingrown organization: “The second lieutenant Boris Dubretskoi discovers that there exist in the army two different systems or hierarchies. The one is printed in some little red book and anyone can easily read up. . . . The other is not printed anywhere. . . . You are never formally and explicitly admitted by anyone. You discover gradually, in almost indefinable ways, that it exists and that you are outside it, and then later, perhaps, that you are inside it. There are what correspond to passwords, but they too are spontaneous and informal.” My last time I waited so long to be called up that I finally put on my most docile demeanor and asked the desk officer if he had paged my inmate yet. “I don’t page anyone.” He lingered triumphantly over the word page to emphasize my ignorance, and let me twist in the wind till I came up with the right vocabulary: “I mean, did you call him?” I wanted to mention that I was not the criminal, but I didn’t say it because I wanted my visit more. You are allowed to take with you into the visiting room the following items: driver’s license, locker key, coins for the food dispenser machines. They all must be in one clear plastic bag. The first-timer will not have
Email: aseu@worldmag.com
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plastic baggies in her purse (unless she’s some kind of weirdo). She will ask the desk if he has a baggie she can borrow for her worth of coins, and he will say no, as if she should know better. I usually come with two baggies, one to give. Once I brought in a box of Ziploc sandwich bags to donate (unopened box, because I am catching on to prison-think) and the desk guy refused it. Some prisons are fancier than others. A friend who was recently bused from his facility at Somerset, Pa., to Graterford to await a court date in nearby Philadelphia told me, “When I got to Graterford, I remembered I did something wrong.” That was funny, but of course, whatever the relative liberties, the main thing about prison is that you can’t walk out the door. The actual visiting room generally consists of rows of chairs punctuated by end tables, and little black globes on the ceiling watching you at all times—something like the millions of government surveillance cameras nationwide that keep an eternal eye on our sidewalks, schools, parks, bridges, and other locations, and are capable of networking to share information about our citizenry. But I digress. I have to admit that I always enjoy my time at prison. The interesting thing is that I feel everyone does. One would expect a glumness, but one would be wrong. People sit for six-hour stretches and look into each other’s faces rather than at televisions. Some women get what they have always wanted from their man: undivided attention. A J U LY 3 0 , 2 0 1 1
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Marvin Olasky
FILM SCHOOL
Cinema classics offer an opportunity to train youth in the art of patient watching
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LOREY SEBASTIAN/PARAMOUNT PICTURES
R, character in last year’s movie True Grit, is a -year-old in with determination so steely and speech so precise that some reviewers have complained. They claim that Mattie could not have existed, since the -year-old girls they know are flibbertigibbets. They’re wrong: Some students I know are just like Mattie, capable of intense concentration rather than multitasking. Some of their ability is due to parents who showed children that books, board games, toy soldiers, Lego blocks, and other activities without flashes and beeps can be so fascinating that time stops. These parents shielded their sub-teen children from electronic addiction and their teenagers from drug and sexual activity. Some parents, though, say —and that can be a problem when children grow up inexperienced in discernment and therefore subject to manipulation by those who equate adult with adultery. As I was mulling over that problem, a new issue of Academic Questions, the journal of the National Association of Scholars, arrived and surprised me. Academic Questions has a traditionalist orientation that often leads to articles praising Great Books curricula, so it was semi-shocking to see a slew of articles praising the study of popular culture—and particularly movies from past generations that can train students to watch patiently. Some writers went way back. English professor Thomas Bertonneau praised The Adventures of Robin Hood () for its “heroic narrative and medieval balladry.” He noted, “The film’s appeal is adult, involving the expectation that to appreciate it children and adolescents must rise to the adult level. The dialogue is noticeably literate.” True, true—and the movie even ends with a marriage. Art professor Michael J. Lewis praised Alfred Hitchcock and particularly “the celebrated scene in North by Northwest () where Cary Grant is terrorized by a crop duster plane”—but only after a lengthy scene in which nothing happens, as Grant impatiently walks and waits on the road next to the cornfields. Today’s directors prefer quickSTEELY DETERMINATION: Mattie Ross in True Grit. cut slam-bangs, but
Hitchcock later explained that the waiting, waiting, waiting was essential to show “what the cornfield was like, how flat and exposed it was. . . . Without that vicarious physical sense of space, the scene would be only a rapid-fire montage of scenes of a man running from a plane, and utterly uninvolving, as in so many modern action films.” In another Hitchcock movie, Rear Window (), a wheelchair-bound man (played by Jimmy Stewart) looks out his window and into the windows of neighbors. Trying to make sense of what he sees, he comes to believe that a man has killed his invalid wife. Recently, I watched part of the film in a room full of college freshmen stimulated not just to react to slam-bang action but to think and plan along with Stewart. Thinking of True Grit and the need to teach patient watching and discernment, I’d also recommend some Westerns from the - period: That’s after they had graduated from their childhood but before their descent into irony, America-hatred, and violence for violence’s sake. Might as well start with some starring Jimmy Stewart and directed by Anthony Mann: Winchester , Bend of the River, The Naked Spur, The Far Country, and The Man from Laramie. Director John Ford’s Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Rio Grande, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance are brilliant. If you’re looking for cool-down activities during a hot July, I’d also recommend High Noon and Shane, both box-office hits during the early years of that golden age of Westerns. French cinéastes love severe Westerns directed by Budd Boetticher, including The Tall T, Buchanan Rides Alone, Ride Lonesome, Lonesome and Comanche Station, and for once they’re not wrong. The classic era ended in with Sam Peckinpah’s Ride the High Country. Some of those titles suggest a solution to our problem of distractibility and running with the crowd: Our children need to ride the high country, even if they ride lonesome. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention one opportunity during the school year to help kids gain discernment and learn to concentrate: God’s World Publications, the parent company of , also publishes God’s World News, six different monthly magazines that present current events for students from pre-K to high school. A Email: molasky@worldmag.com
7/8/11 2:18 PM
How can we do what’s right when it’s so easy to do wrong?
LOREY SEBASTIAN/PARAMOUNT PICTURES
These DVD sessions and accompanying guide encourage participants to examine themselves and how ethical and character issues relate to their home, school and workplace.
© 2011 BreakPoint Inc
“We’re in an ethical mess ... Why are we surprised? It’s an inescapable consequence of neglecting moral training.” — Chuck Colson
Order today at www.doingtherightthing.com Alpha USA 15 OLASKY.indd 3
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There’s still
health care for people of faith after health care reform If you are a committed Christian and do not want to purchase mandatory health insurance that forces you to help pay for abortions and other unbiblical medical practices, you can put your faith into practice by sharing medical needs with fellow believers through Samaritan Ministries. The provisions below are on pages 327 and 328 of last year’s 2,409-page health care law, and they protect people of faith who join in sharing medical needs through health care sharing ministries.
“…an organization, members of which share a common set of ethical or religious beliefs and share medical expenses among members in accordance with those beliefs…” Sec. 1501 (b) of HR 3590 at pg. 327, 328 Every month the more than 17,000* households of Samaritan Ministries share more than $4 million* in medical needs directly—one household to another. They also pray for one another and send notes of encouragement. The monthly share for a family of any size has never exceeded $320*, and is even less for singles, couples, and single-parent families. Also, there are reduced share amounts for members aged 25 and under, and 65 and over.
For more information call us toll-free 1-888-268-4377, or visit us online at: www.samaritanministries.org. Follow us on Twitter (@samaritanmin) and Facebook (SamaritanMinistries). * As of May 2011
Biblical faith applied to health care www.samaritanministries.org
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