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Where the rich write the laws, it becomes a crime to be poor.

An article in Public Health Perspectives argues that mass incarceration in the U.S. is creating new health care challenges. Whereas prisoners are guaranteed health care, former prisoners are not. Ex-prisoners with health or mental issues leave prison are often unable to find work. They leave prison and plunge into the moral vacuum of our private health care system. Now that our nation is the prison capital of the world this problem affects an ever larger percentage of our population.

 We have a problem, you know, and it’s only getting worse. It doesn’t strike us equally – it’s a problem that mostly affects young men, minorities, and people without high school diplomas. It’s worse in the US than anywhere else in the world – and five times as bad in the state of Louisiana than it is in Iran. Its survivors usually don’t make good advocates – not while they fight for employment, hold onto their families, and, in some states, lose the right to vote. The problem of mass incarceration is a problem some don’t want to address, because the felon class represents those who must have known they would trade for their crimes a piece of their lives. But the health risk of prison doesn’t end when their sentences do. In some cases, it has only just begun – and not just for them. Jason Silverstein

What does it say about our nation that prison is now a safer place statistically for black males than trying to live in a unjust culture without a safety net? Are poor people from minority populations born to be cheap labor for the rich? Why else do we let the working poor go without health care?

It is one of the great ironies of American society: prisoners are constitutionally guaranteed health care, but former prisoners are not. The prison health paradox is one dramatic way to think about the health disparities of impoverished minorities in the United States. In 2010, Evelyn Patterson found that “prison appears to be a healthier place than the typical environment of the nonincarcerated black male population.” Indeed, during incarceration, black-white mortality differences vanish. But once released, we see something else entirely. The mortality rate skyrockets. The deadliest time is the first two weeks after release, when former inmates have a 12.7 times higher risk of death than the general population and a 129 times higher risk of drug overdose. Jason Silverstein

I repeat, in a nation where the rich write the laws, it becomes a crime to be poor.

http://blogs.plos.org/publichealth/2013/01/22/beyond-crime-and-punishment/

It’s 10 days until our pilgrimage to Rev. Jim’s Dam Bar on Sunday afternoon March 10.  Some of us will gather at St. Andrew’s parking lot at 1:30 to carpool, but we can make other arrangements for those who need it. The drive takes about an hour.

Rev. Jim’s Dam Bar has not learned the sacred nature of all sentient life, so we vegetarians will need to bring our own lunch. Those willing to tie themselves to the Tree of Woe by feasting on the earthly remains of brother pig and sister cow will be sated on burgers and such.

Hopefully, this will be a chance to meet our fellow blogsters as well as witness what has been called one of the “seven wonders of the honkytonk spirituality.” Actually, I just made that last part up. Let us know if you can come and we will reserve a spot for you at what has been called the “Mecca of Meat,” and the “Bodhi Tree of Beer.”  But once again, I lie.

No one has stepped forward with skyping abilities but hopefully we can post pictures on the web for those who cannot make it.

Death isn’t like on television. Most people do not die with a wise saying tying the plot line together at life’s last minute. Death is often powerful and sacred, but it is seldom tidy. When I was in training for ministry, one of the chaplains heard a student say some empty pious phrase to a grieving family about “death with dignity.”  The chaplain rounded us all up. He was clearly angry. At that point none of us had seen anyone die, so we had no idea what we were talking about. “You know what death with dignity is? Do you? Death with dignity is when they don’t poo on themselves!”

I didn’t sleep that night after the chaplain’s comment. I kept trying to get the horrible image out of my head that he had painted. If death is not the simple clear climax of life like in movies, if people do not die with a dramatic sigh, but instead with a disturbing gurgle, what can any of us say that will be helpful at the time of death- either to the dying, or to those who remain behind in the crater of a former love?

I have ministered long enough to learn that most words do not help at times of death. Words like “God never gives us more than we can carry,” or “She’s in a better place,” are as likely to wound as heal. They are a clear message to the grievers not to share the jagged aspect of their wounds, nor to speak honestly about life’s unfairness. Such words are intended to maintain the numb balance of the comforter, not to address the agony of the griever.

But I have also learned that it can be helpful to a grieving person when friends stop to listen and to simply care. It is often healing for other people who loved the deceased to gather and to share wonderful memories. It is often helpful to think about what we have learned about living from those we have lost. It helps to remember a torch has been passed. But it is vital that we be honest about what has happened. We usually pretend that the world was created to serve our human plans, but life has its own purposes. If we empty ourselves into life as it really is, we can almost always find something to love. And, conversely, if we think we can hold back any of life’s treasure from the river of time we are soon to be devastated.

The secret, I believe, is to realize that life is change, and to say “yes” to the changes of life. This is why babies are the only real priests at a funeral. It is in the restless cries and giggles of the infants that grieving families can remember that life is not confined to human biographies. If we try to understand death in terms of our brief human lives we have to invent monstrous cosmologies to make sense of it all. When babies gurgle at a funeral, the heart knows what the mind cannot. Life goes on.

Life is a shape shifter assuming many forms. The only cure I have discovered for human grief is to realize that the river of time is our home. Our lives and loves allow that river to assume faces for us to love, but the only cure for a broken heart is to love life itself, which is the one lover behind them all.

The colors of a rainbow so pretty in the sky, Are there on the faces of people going by. I see friends shaking hands saying  “how do you do.” They’re really saying “I love you.”

I hear babies cry. I watch them grow.  They’ll learn more than I’ll never know.  And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

“What a wonderful world” -Louis Armstrong

The mind cannot think its way back into this profound depth of living, but the heart knows it at once when at a funeral a baby cries.

Confession: I love reading soft and even pseudo-science. I read it like Greek tragedy where a hero (the mind) untethers from his or her principles and descends into madness. Often there are brilliant insights even in that madness.

Confession two: I read this article because it sounded fun. It wouldn’t surprise me if political differences were expressions of much deeper psychological traits that might even show up in consumer choices like beer. I think there is the seed of insight here, but early on I realized the article wouldn’t be as much fun as I hoped.

Vishal Singh has published an article in the Journal of Psychological Science. He teaches in the New York School of Business which should be our first clue that this study may not be the hardest of science. But my beef isn’t with him or his study. I am responding to an article about the study on Salon.com.

My suspicion that the author of the article had a bias against conservatives and was cherry picking science to prove those assumptions occurred early on. The article mentions “an ever growing body of research” which is always a very dangerous phrase. That phrase can tempt us to base our conclusions not only on the tenuous evidence the author presents, but also on an imagined landslide of future research that will fill in the gaps. The author did not go far down that route, but such sloppy terms were often the backbone of his argument.

“The study hypothesis was simple: In counties characterized by strong Republican voting or religiosity, generics and new products would fare considerably worse at the checkout counter than established brands. Just picture a liberal and a conservative at the laundry detergent aisle. The basic idea is that the conservative more often reaches for the pricier but more established Tide (a Procter & Gamble product), rather than the cheaper in-store generic variant (more often favored, presumably, by the liberal).”

So a “scientific” study lumped together those who vote Republican and those who are religious into one category called “conservative.” That group would then would provide the sample for this test. But how does one scientifically measure a trait like “religious?” Wouldn’t that depend on what behaviors the researcher thought to be “religious?” And how is it in any way scientific to assume a person identified as “religious” can then be casually thrown in the same bucket with those who voted Republican?

 “Conservatives, after all, are known to be more uncomfortable with uncertainty, and less open to new experiences. There’s every reason to expect this to translate into consumer behavior — particularly with respect to one’s allegiance to brands. “A major function of branding,” write the study authors, “is to reduce uncertainty and simplify decision-making.” Their study design therefore sought to test whether “aspects of conservative values — such as preference for tradition and convention, and dislike of ambiguity and complexity,” would be “reflected in higher reliance on national brands as opposed to generics.””

Wait a minute. It may prove to be true that conservatives are more uncomfortable with uncertainty, but is it really something we “know” to begin with? Doesn’t this method of using stereotypes to group people run the danger of hiding your conclusion in the yardstick you will later use to measure your sample?

“So what did the study find? Across 26 different product categories — coffees, diapers, household cleaners, mayonnaise, and much else — the study found that in Republican or religious counties, generic and new brands captured considerably less market share. “More conservative counties did not have higher penetration of new products in any of the categories,” write the authors. As for generics: In 19 out of 26 product categories, they fared worse in more religious counties. (The study controlled for demographic factors, as well as store size and variations in the quality of generic products.)”

If I fit anywhere on the political spectrum it would be way to the left of liberal, but I can’t help but be concerned with the way conservatives are portrayed in this article. That the author begins with a bias is suggested by the fact that he has already written one book called “The Republican War on Science,” and a second book coming out in April, “The Republican Brain: The science of why they deny science- and reality.” I might agree with much of what he says, but to present his biased opinion as science is a disservice to the conservatives he demeans and to the science he misuses to do it.

I suspect there is an insight buried in all this bad science. It may be true that conservatives are more likely to drink brand beers and liberals to drink more exotic brands. I suspect it may be true that being conservative or liberal may say more about our temperaments than our mere political positions. That possibility is important to explore, but the approach used in this article will hide more than it reveals. Science can answer our questions of truth but it is a deadly when we try to scientifically measure human values. It is one thing to say conservative and liberal are different, but once we say one value is better than another, we have left the domain of legitimate science and entered the smokey and dangerous illusions of pseudo-science.

http://www.salon.com/2013/02/27/conservatives_and_lilberals_drink_different_beer_partner/

Getting to Yes is a book on negotiating based on the Harvard Negotiation Project. The book can be very helpful in teaching us how to communicate with someone through difficult issues.

The book is a treasure trove of helpful methods: separate the people from the problem, look for mutual interests instead of focusing on opposing positions, insist on objective criteria of measurement, etc.

One of my favorite suggestions from the book is to be soft on the people and hard on the problem.

It is important when we discuss the issues of the day to have the kind of relationship where we can separate criticisms of ideas and actions from the people who hold those ideas or perform those actions.

Every human idea is true in some ways and false in others. Every political system under the sun is good in some ways and bad in others. Criticizing a belief or practice does not mean they are always wrong, it means to analyse how they are good and how they are bad.

We need tenderness for people and toughness for testing our ideas and practices. Usually, we do it the other way around. I’m sure when outsiders began to criticize the Nazi’s, some Germans got defensive. They would think of the nice and patriotic Nazi’s they knew and treat any criticism as an attack on their friends. But the real question for them and for us should be what do our ideas and actions mean for the world at large.

We all need to calibrate our favorite ideas and practices to the good of all. One helpful skill in doing that is to be soft on the people and hard on the problem.

Chuck Hagel has passed his contentious confirmation process and now is officially our Secretary of Defense. He was sworn in a small ceremony using a Bible, which is ironic since his job description will be to break the sixth, eighth and ninth commandments.  For those readers not versed in scripture, that means he, like any Secretary of Defense, will be swearing to kill (defend America even when we are not being attacked,) rob (use violent means to protect American business interests,) and lie (present the party line even if it is deceptive,) all for our great nation.

The oath of office was administered by a representative of those masters of honesty, the Pentagon. Theoretically, it will be the last time Mr. Hagel will be asked to tell the truth for some time.

saw no mention of Lockheed when I watched the program online or when I looked at the Nova website. And there was never any mention of Lockheed in the body of the program, even though that huge defense company is heavily involved in drone development, which I didn’t know and I’m sure vast numbers of online viewers–unless they are in the Air Force or CIA–also probably did not know.

Anyone who watches PBS should never assume shows are still made in the public interest, nor that they are commercial free just because they are on public television. These days there is no need to take advertising breaks because these days, with product placement in almost every show, it’s all one big commercial.

http://fair.org/take-action/activism-updates/pbs-ombud-nova-disagree-on-drone-disclosure/

If I am a radical today, it is because my childhood heroes led me there unwittingly. As a boy I loved Mark Twain. It was a matter of time until I tripped across his radical writings condeming US imperialism in the Philippines. His “War Prayer” took my breath away. It forever removed my inability to see through the deadly nature of patriotic religion. In Twain’s masterpiece, a minister gives the typical patriotic prayer, only to have a stranger translate what it really means:

“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

As a child, I loved Helen Keller. The fact that she was able to live such an important life even though she could not see our hear made my obstacles seem small. I loved that she spoke with such great clarity and kindness. It was a matter of time until I realized her “kindness” was an expression of her socialism, and that I, myself, was trying to love others within an economic and political mindset that would make that love impossible.

And so it went. I loved the humility of St. Francis, but that lead me to his rejection of wealth and privilege. I loved the compassion of Schweitzer, but that lead to his writings de-mythologizing the New Testament. I loved Tolstoy’s mystical Christianity, but that lead to his anarchist writings. I loved the courage of Gandhi, but that meant if I was going to love as deeply as he, I would have to disobey unjust rules.

I was not born with a nose for trouble, but my heroes led me there unwittingly. Few of us would seek as children to be radical, but where else could love lead?

The church becomes a magnet for hypocrisy when it teaches that God lives in heaven and Satan in hell.  Who wouldn’t at least pretend to love goodness if that were the ticket to eternal reward?  Who wouldn’t at least pretend to hate evil if they knew that it would eventually be caught and punished with eternal torture?

A religion about salvation from hell will always be motivated by fear. A religion that focuses on heaven will always be motivated by greed. Both forms of religion lead not to a life of love, but only to an enlarged and calculating selfishness.

A religion motivated by love will be willing to pay any cost for the privilege of loving. True lovers of God would be those willing to go to hell if they knew that’s where God lived. A true lover would prefer an eternity of punishment if the alternative were loveless treasure.

I do not know about the afterlife, but in this world serving evil is much more likely to lead to mansions on streets of gold. Serving good is much more likely to put you through hell. But the true lover does not bat an eye at such choices. The true lover chooses to the punishments for loving over the rewards for cruelty every time.

Liberals and conservatives may feel themselves to be opposites, but they are actually two poles on one continuum. When a nation such as ours has fallen captive to nationalism, militarism and to economic feudalism, it is no longer enough to choose between those poles. At that point, to hold onto sanity we must step outside the context of our nation, religion, or political party and remember our humanity. In other words, we must step out of the continuum of liberal and conservative and become radicals.

By “radicals” I mean to place human beings as our highest political value. Our “roots” into one common humanity become the context of every radical decision. We never place this ultimate good within any lesser utilitarian context. For example, radicals do not try to solve issues like health care within the context of capitalism, instead, we place the economic system within the context of the common good of humankind. And we do not believe the propaganda that our own nation is inherently good and our nation’s enemy is inherently evil.

Argo, Ben Affleck’s liberal interpretation of the Iranian hostage crisis is a case in point. To his credit he does give lip service to the part of the story most Americans leave out. The movie briefly mentions the Shah as the reason for Iranian frustrations. But it does not allow the audience to emotionally absorb the fact that it was the United States that undermined Iran’s democratically elected leadership and imposed the dictator.

Argo presents the Shah’s atrocities in a capsuled cartoon form denuding it of its political meaning for Iranians. The people of Iran felt invaded by the United States. It is very possible that they seized the hostages to have leverage against a future invasion. When conservatives leave out these details and liberals minimize them, Iranians come across as simply insane. After the facts of history are presented in tepid fashion, the audience of Argo is bombarded with images of Iranians as angry and violent mobs whose central grievance is the fear of western innovation.

The timing of the movie could not be worse. Our nation’s leaders are determining our response to Iran’s nuclear power program. If the recent past is any indication, conservatives will beat the war drums and liberals will reluctantly concede. Both will agree that our nation, for all it’s past flaws, has a responsibility to lead the world. Both sides will forget our own violence against the people of Iran and will see them, not as victims of our aggression, but as angry and irrational religious zealots who hate us out of jealousy.

And because they are both puppets dancing along the same continuum, liberals and conservatives will both agree on making their decisions within the context of American exceptional-ism. If enough Americans do not remember our common humanity with the Iranian people, the rest of the story may be written in blood.