Friday Pick of the Week

Today's pick is from a few years ago, back when I had the time and schedule that afforded regular viewings of Late Night with Conan O'Brien.  The song's intro immediately captured my attention.  I watched with building anticipation as the barefoot, unkempt band from Louisville drew me into the screen.  Even years after the performance, My Morning Jacket's "One Big Holiday" remains one of my best television memories.  I've followed them through the subsequent years, and I am pumped about their upcoming album Circuital, which will be out May 31.  Without further ado, I present the Friday Pick of the Week.

Easter

Happy Resurrection, friends.  So here's something you may not have known about me: there is music perpetually playing in the background of my mind.  I think that places me somewhere on the spectrum of schizophrenia.  Thankfully, the music doesn't tell me to hurt myself or others.  Anyway, this morning's selection of the subconscious was appropriate for Easter.  Enjoy:

Good Friday

"I'll tell you this, and I bet you never had anyone tell you this before, Jesus is gangster."

Protesters at Five Points. Photo borrowed from Gordon Bell.

Over the past few months, Rachel and I have gotten to know a group of people that are different from anyone I've known before.  These folks love Jesus, and they talk about Him like he actually matters.  Shelly Douglass, who I've mentioned before, lives out one of the most consistent theologies I've come across.  I've learned a lot from our new friends, but I've yet to develop the conviction (or is it the courage?) to stand with them as they cry out for justice, at least at a protest rally.

A group of them that regularly stages protests at Five Points South in Birmingham's Southside, typically holding signs against war or nuclear weapons.  Commemorating Good Friday, they've staged a Station of the Cross today as an objection to the death penalty and state-sponsored killing.  One of the protesters is dressed in the white jumpsuit of an Alabama death row inmate, and he is strapped to a cross with an IV running into his arm.  They hold signs that say things like, "Execute Justice, not People," "Let Him Who is Without Sin Start the Injection," and "Blessed are the Merciful..."  Though their numbers may be few, the scene is a powerful statement against capital punishment on a day remembering the execution of Roman criminal.

While I am terrified of protesting, I did stop by and say hello to my friends who were there.  And in dropping by, I had the good fortune to meet Johnny, a conspicuously intoxicated but remarkably congenial man who introduced himself as "a street-person."  Johnny is 5 days removed from a 25-year prison term, and is celebrating his release by partaking generously in libations.  Given his state of mind, I unsuccessfully tried to dismiss him.  His persistence was unshakable.  And then something interesting happened: Johnny started to preach.

Rachel works at a homeless shelter, and I am familiar with the ways in which addicts and panhandlers can manipulate religious "heart-strings" to get something out of us.  But I decided to hear Johnny out, and I shortly realized he knows Jesus in a way I don't.  In spite of the alcohol slurring his speech and giving Johnny a slight attention-deficit, he rattled off in colorful language what he'd done, ranging from theft to homicide, with a wide swath in between.  "And I know God was with me the whole time," he continued, "because that's who Jesus was with.  He was with the whores and the homeless and the criminals - the people like me.  I'll tell you this, and I bet you never had anyone tell you this before, Jesus is gangster.  He didn't play.  I'm telling you, he didn't play the radio.  Jesus is f*cking gangster."

Amen.

Friday Pick of the Week

Happy Friday, friends.  This week's artist is described as an "art rock band from Brooklyn," which guarantees their popularity among the hipster crowd.  I first came across TV on the Radio when they performed "Golden Age" on Saturday Night Live a couple years back, and I loved their energy.  Others love their energy, too, as Spin magazine named Return to Cookie Mountain their 2006 album of the year, and Rolling Stone called their last album, Dear Science, the best of 2008.  They've just released a new sampling, 9 Types of Light, from which our pick of the week is selected.



The band is currently in the process of mourning, as bassist/keyboardist Gerard Smith died this week only a month after being diagnosed with lung cancer.  He was 36.

Find more TV on the Radio songs at Myspace Music

John M. Perkins

Recently Rachel and I had the opportunity to see Dr. John M. Perkins speak at South Highland Presbyterian Church.  Perkins was born to a family of black sharecroppers in rural Mississippi.  After his brother was shot by a sheriff, Perkins realized he needed to get out of Mississippi and headed to California.  In California, he became a Christian and soon realized he was being called back to Mississippi in the heat of the civil rights movement.  There he has labored for years, fighting for civil rights and community development.  He has played an integral role in Christian Community Development Association.

Now in his ninth decade, Dr. Perkins remains vibrant and sharp.  His message was particularly challenging in his charges of how we have shaped Christianity to fit within our culture.  I am a white southern Christian, he is black southern Christian.  We use our faith to support our -isms: capitalism, communism, socialism.  We pick and choose what scriptures we need to endorse our political party.  In the words of Jesus, this should not be so!  Dr. Perkins calls us to Christianity first and foremost.

I wrestle with this: how can I engage my culture in a redemptive but a-political way?  So many political issues are tied to the gospel.  How do I stand for for these issues without attaching myself to the machinery around them?  Currently Rachel and I are reading through Ched Meyer's Binding the Strong Man in a book group.  Meyers argues that the gospel is absolutely political in nature.  We are called to challenge American imperialism, to advocate for the poor, to fight for a consistent ethic of the sanctity of life, and to stand (and ultimately die) with the oppressed.  Meyers shows how Jesus's fight was not only spiritual in nature, but also political.  My immediate inclination is to attach myself to a political system that advocates for these issues.  But Perkins pushes back, as politics will inevitably tempt me to mistake my politics for my faith.  Apparently fleshing this out is a bit more difficult than I hoped it would be.

'Living Christ is a living cross. Without it is a living death.' Guess the theologian.

'Each of us are hipocrites. We must establish the boundaries of our hipocrisy that they may be narrowed perpetually towards consistency.' -S. Claiborne

Bama reps want AZ style immigration law. Now AZ has passed birther bill rep says his state is now as backward as AL. npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics

Friday Pick of the Week

This week's pick comes to you from miles away.  Malaysia to be precise.  Earlier this week, Rachel sent me this link from NPR, and after 30 seconds I was hooked.  Yuna's voice is powerfully simple but captivating, one that would, in the dim lights of a bar, draw you out of cheap conversation and into her world.  She's new eon the scene in the states, but back home in Malaysia she has an avid following.  I plan to add her debut EP Decorate to my collection.

A Letter to My Legislators

Jim Wallis at Sojourners God's Politics Blog has posted today an entry entitled "Woe to you, legislators,"  where he employs a scathing verse from Isaiah that seems remarkably pertinent.  In it he offers a link to a form letter written to representatives regarding the current budget.  I've rarely been one to write a congressman.  In fact, I don't really know anyone who does write their representatives, save for my postally-prolific Aunt Nancy.  Anyway, I decided to give it a shot.  Modifying their message a bit, here's what I sent:

Subject: A request regarding the federal budget


I find the current tone and direction of the conversation regarding the federal budget concerning.  From the plan offered by Congressman Ryan to the strict cuts made to the current fiscal budget, the choices being discussed by Congress are morally lacking.  Lawmakers seem to be sacrificing proven, essential programs that benefit low income earners, seniors and the international community while maintaining corporate subsidies, tax loopholes and a military budget that dwarfs the combined budgets of all combined foes.

As your constituent, I urge you to oppose any budget proposal that cuts domestic and international programs that benefit the poor, especially children, including:

1. Critical child health and family nutrition programs
2. Proven work and income supports that lift families out of poverty
3. Support for education, especially in low-income communities
4. International aid that directly and literally save lives.

I know that the political climate in Washington is challenging, and I am aware that difficult choices must be made.  I recognize too that political affiliations can limit a lawmaker.  But I pray that you will have the courage to defend the afflicted in the face of opposition.

Sincerely,

Frank Williams

Juan Crow

Last week, the Alabama State House passed a comprehensive immigration bill patterned after the controversial Arizona law enacted last summer.  The Senate is expected to take up a similar bill later this spring.  Tough economic times generally coincide with harsh views towards immigrants, and Alabama lawmakers are rallying their constituents by making undocumented residency in the state a crime of trespassing, punishable by a year in prison.  Like the Arizona law, Alabama's version will require law enforcement officials to demand papers on those whom they deem suspicious (read: Hispanic), and the law promises a boon to Alabama's overpopulated prison system.


Birmingham News blogger John Archibald discusses the measure here, where he points out that all but one of the names co-sponsoring the bill have a common denominator: English heritage.  Perhaps this is an opportunity to learn from our governmental predecessors -- get tough on immigration now, or the immigrants will engage you in an unjust war, commit genocide against you and force you to march to Oklahoma.  If the Creeks, Choctaw, Cherokee and Chickasaw tribes had passed some tough, "don't tread on me" legislation, maybe they wouldn't be dealing with an influx of Latinos right now.

Or maybe they would.  In truth, we know the story.  And regardless of how hard the locals resisted the immigrants, the story did not change.  It's time for Alabamians to get the message: immigrants are here, and more are coming.  Alabama saw a 7.5% increase in population from 2000 to 2010 (this Interactive 2010 Census Map is really cool), but the increase in Hispanics was 145%.  No amount of unfriendly legislation is going to slow that wave, especially legislation that cannot reasonably be enforced.  While passing a law like Arizona's will serve to perhaps deter a few, it will moreso drive the current Hispanic population further into hiding.  Kids won't go to school because of their parents' immigration status.  The oppressed group will become more isolated, creating a haven for an underworld of gangs and mafias, bringing with them drug and human trafficking.

Every state has issues with immigration, and the federal government stays away from it like the plague.  Alabamians who pride themselves on their morality and hospitality need to re-examine their attitudes regarding immigration, perhaps looking to Utah as an example of how church and state can come together to create an environment that realistically deals with the challenges of immigration into the future.

For another perspective, Jake Olzen of God's Politics blogged about the burgeoning Immigrants Rights Movement here.

The Souls of Black Folk

"HEREIN lie buried many things which if read with patience may show the strange meaning of being black here in the dawning of the Twentieth Century. This meaning is not without interest to you, Gentle Reader; for the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line." - W.E.B. Du Bois

A cornerstone of African-American studies, The Souls of Black Folk is a series of essays spanning from religion to economics, and from politics to music.  W.E.B. Du Bois had a unique perspective of the meaning of being black in America at the turn of the century.  Raised as the lone black child in a New England town, Du Bois claims he didn't realize the significance of his skin color until he was an elementary student barred from a playmate's home.  His higher-education opportunities were limited by that same skin color, and thus he headed south to study at Fisk University in Nashville.  He spent time teaching in rural schools for a time before moving back north to become the first African-American to graduate from Harvard.  He studied at the University of Berlin and held teaching positions at Wilberforce and UPenn before returning to the South to teach at Atlanta University.

Du Bois writes in a style that will strike today's reader as remarkably humble regarding his race.  His ideas at the time, however, were far from mild.  Booker T. Washington was the leading black voice of his day, and he advocated social policies of "separate but equal" standing among the races, working to ensure blacks had access to trade schools and agricultural policies that would provide the race an opportunity to accrew financial and social standing before moving towards integration.  Du Bois, however, was adamantly opposed to Jim Crow and segregation, challenging that equal rights are essential to the progression of African-American, and ultimately American, society.  The Souls of Black Folk laid the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement that ensued a half-century later.

The book is well-written, and provides insight into the challenges afflicting African-Americans in the South over a century ago.  Sadly, many of the same issues remain.  While legislated racism fell during the civil rights movement (Though some are pointedly calling the wave of Arizona-style immigration legislation "Juan Crowe"), racism and disparities still remain a blight on our country.   The overt, explicit racism of a generation ago is slowly dying away, but it is being replaced with a much more insidious implicit racism that is often imperceptible by its perpetrators.  Implicit racism occurs in subconcious attitudes that we hold that affect the way we treat other races.  For instance, while I would never use an ethnic slur (I am far too P.C. for that), I will (unconsciously) apply an unfair stereotype to an obese, slightly unkempt African-American patient with a chief complaint of "abdominal pain."  While I may not perceive my racism, the patient suredly will.

Du Bois's topics range from reconstruction to education, and he does a masterful job of using story to convey injustice.  The book also details some history I find interesting, none more than the last chapter which provides an anthropological history of the "Negro Spiritual."  Another essay details the conflicted grief he suffers in the death of his child, whom was denied entry to an all-white hospital before succumbing to illness.  Importantly, Du Bois introduces the concept of "the Veil" through which blacks separated from the general population and a common symbol employed in African-American discourse.

Just sat behind a car advertising "Prophetic Airbrush." Fortunately, they have a website: http://propheticairbrush.webs.com/aboutus.htm

T. Boone's Got a Plan

Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens is backing a bipartisan bill in the House of Representatives to provide tax incentives for heavy-duty truck manufacturers to begin building vehicles that run on natural gas.  You can learn more about it here, where Joe Nocera of the New York Times advocates for the legislation.  As Nocera points out, big rigs consume 23% of the fuel used for transportation in the US, and natural gas supplies in this country are projected to last for a century.  Thoughts?

Poverty Tax

Alabamians complain that their taxes are too high.  According to Bob Blalock of the Birmingham News, for the most part, they are right.  Despite Alabama having the lowest per capita state and local taxes, the lower and middle classes bear an unconscionable portion of that burden.  In fact, according to the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy, that portion of the population pays 2.5 times as much of their income as the wealthiest families.  Alabama, in essence, has been an exercise in conservative taxation strategies - and has abysmal results to show for it.  It is time for tax reform in Alabama, including important changes like eliminating taxes on groceries.  However, with total governmental control by the Republicans, you can count on more policies that protect the assets of the wealthiest Alabamians at a continued cost to the poor.

The Elephant in the Sanctuary

Mimi Haddad, the founder and president of Christians for Biblical Equity, has a great post at the Sojourners blog regarding domestic violence and the church.  You can check it out here.

Friday Pick of the Week

I hope to always maintain a broad spectrum in my musical catalog, but I love getting back to my favorite artists, and I get excited when they put out new albums.  A couple of my favorite acts are coming out with new music this spring, with My Morning Jacket releasing Circuital in a few weeks and Fleet Foxes set to drop Helplessness Blues.  I am particularly pumped about the latter.  I loved Fleet Foxes self-titled first album, as well as the follow-up EP Sun Giant.  No albums even come close in the numbers of plays on my ipod since Parker Ingle passed the music along.

May is the release date for Helplessness Blues (Robin Pecknold says it is "a real laugh riot"), as well as the ensuing tour, and along with Parker and his main-squeeze Leanne, Chris Barefield, Rachel and I are going to see their show at the Tabernacle in Atlanta.  The Foxes have kindly passed along a sampling of music from the new album, including this video of "Grown Ocean," which is set to a video-documentary of the making of the album.  Watching it makes me feel cool.  Without further ado:

(As an aside, My Morning Jacket is also in the business of passing along free music.  Click the above link to their website, where they are in the process of mailing out weekly selections.  The next one will come from Circuital.  Enjoy!)

Gadhafi to Obama: "We're still boys, but you gosta stop bombing us. Oh yeah, I hope you win your election." http://www.npr.org/2011/04/06/135182505/gadhafi-to-obama-stop-war-good-luck-in-election

When questioned about the violence ensuing from Terry Jones Quran-burning stunt, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) suggested that congress needs to take up the issue of freedom of speech, given the country's current situation in war.  Funny how, when faced with deciding between civil rights and war, lawmakers choose war.

A kid having a kid...

When I was in high school, an old girlfriend turned up one day.  It turns out she'd started shooting up while we were dating.  All of a sudden she's back in my life, strung out and pregnant - and HIV positive.  "Doctors never give you what you want, Neal honey," she'd say.  She delivered the baby and then she died.  Then the baby died, and I found out I had HIV.  And then I'd end the play saying, "So remember, a kid having a kid doesn't do either kid any good."

When I was in high school, the AIM Program was an abstinence sex ed program based in my hometown of Troy.  Several friends and I participated in a play we performed at numerous high schools around southeastern Alabama (for those interested, I think Reid Jones still has a VHS somewhere).  While my thoughts have changed a bit on sex-ed since those days, my interest in reproductive health has remained.

Each week, the CDC puts out something called the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which essentially provides statistics on who's dying of what in America.  They also provide some nice articles on relevant issues in health.  This week's article is a selection on teen pregnancy, where rates in the US continue to tower above the developed world, even as much as 9 times the rates of some countries.  Apparently pregnancy rates among those 15-19 have dropped (hooray!), but rates among blacks and Hispanics remain disproportionately high.  Teens in the American South have rates higher than the rest of the country.

Some statistics are particularly concerning.  In Alabama, abstinence-only sexual education programs are the only ones permitted.  These stats show that only half of kids are getting any sex information from their parents, and a high percentage of those having sex are not getting any accurate sexual education from anyone.  If we want to fight teen pregnancy rates, particularly among minorities, we need to re-evaluate sex-ed.  Contrary to popular belief, if you tell kids about sex, they are not more likely to do it.  And if they do decide to have sex, at least they will be making informed decisions.

MMWR Teen Pregnancy

Hooray for Railroad Park

Birmingham recently opened Railroad Park, a green space offering playgrounds, trails and an amphitheater situated near the heart of the rail lines that were once the heart of the Magic City.  In between sifting through vegan recipes and learning to plant heirloom vegetables, voters at The Daily Green (the self-proclaimed "Consumers' Guide to the Green Revolution") selected the park as the 2011 People's Choice for Best New Park in the US.  So that's good.  You can read more at al.com.

Old wives sing-song of coming flowers,
but the roars and flashes and stinging drops
are not so quaint.
Violence and lust intermingle in the
amygdala of the sky and this is a dangerous world.

A moral budget

For years in church, I have heard that if you want to see where your priorities lie, look at your budget.  Hannah Lythe, blogging at Jim Wallis's God's Politics Blog, comments here on budget cuts proposed by the House on international development and public health programs.  The head of USAID suggests that scaling back current programs for malaria, vaccinations and provision of skilled birth attendants will result in the death of 70,000 children.  70,000.  How can Republicans, the chosen party of the "religious right," be allowed to even suggest such cuts without a deafening outcry from the church?  Is maintaining tax cuts really our chief priority?  If these are where our priorities lie, may God have mercy on our souls.

Friday Pick of the Week

Happy Friday, friends.  Today's selection is from NPR's coverage of Austin's South by Southwest festival.  NPR set up a camera and a microphone in a room at the Driskill Hotel and invited artists to come by and perform.  While (despite Christopher Hanlon's influence) I've never fancied myself a fan of club music, today's pick is Austra, an up and coming act out of Toronto's club scene.  Austra gets credit for stepping out of their comfort zone and into a pseudo-unplugged setting (nevermind the music is coming from a laptop).  Though I'll probably never invite you to go with me to Austra show, I think they sound pretty cool here, vaguely reminding me of one of my favorite new bands of 2010, The xx.  Without further ado, here's Friday: