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:

"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane" - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Immigration Reform on a State Level

Helene Slessarev-Jamir, a blogger at Sojourners God's Politics blog, says that after a trip to Washington to meet with lawmakers regarding immigration reform, she is confident that federal immigration reform will not happen anytime soon.  She contends here for fighting for immigration reform at the state level, where laws such as those in Arizona and Utah have set an example that many other states are considering imitating. This morning's Diane Rehm Show takes up the topic, comparing and contrasting the harsh Arizona law with the more progressive Utah law.  You can listen to the broadcast here.


History shows that economic downturns almost always result in a fingering of immigrants.  This go round, those immigrants happen to be Latin American.  Robert Bentley stated during his campaign that he would consider an Arizona-style immigration legislation for Alabama.  With a Republican-dominated government, he shouldn't have too much resistance.  Should Alabama follow the model of Arizona, whose law has already resulted in numerous Hispanic parents keeping their children out of school in order to avoid prosecution?  Certainly no one would assert that there is any long term benefit of an uneducated cohort of minority citizens (recall that children born in the US, even to an undocumented immigrant) is good for the long-term well-being of the country or state.  And are Republicans willing to alienate the largest and fastest growing minority group in America for the sake of winning the next few elections?


I don't have the answers.  I know that immigration reform is essential, and I am called to hospitality towards the alien and the outcast.  Is there a way to enforce law while remaining humane?  I think the Utah law comes much closer to this goal, though admittedly with shortcomings.

Resident Work Hours

With all the fuss about medical residents' work hours, including the change this year to limit intern hours to 16 per shift, what evidence is there that patient safety improves?  Not much.  Well what about physician quality?  Not much good evidence there, either.  It turns out that physicians, who are charged with making evidence-based decisions regarding patient care, haven't done likewise in the realm of physician training, as discussed in the MedPage Today article No Harm From Cuts in Residents' Hours.

 

 

Death and Taxes

For the past few months, we have been participating in a book club at the home of Mikey and Lindsay Hannon, where we have had the great fortune of getting to know Shelly Douglass.  Shelly is wonderful, a bona fide hippie who has spent her life trying to live a life consistent with her reading of the New Testament - sharing what she has with those who need it, loving her neighbor as herself and going to jail for protesting nuclear weapons.  Shelly and her husband, Jim, run a Catholic Worker hospitality house in Ensley, Alabama called Mary's House.

In a couple of weeks, Rachel and I will participate in Mary's House Lenten Retreat.  Shane Claiborne is the guest speaker, and he will be talking about The Gospel in the Empire: Consistent Living in the Belly of the Beast (As you can probably guess from the title, Shane's reading of Revelation most likely does not line up with that of John Hagee or Tim LaHaye).



Anyway, I didn't know much about Shane Claiborne before I heard about the retreat, but recently I have read a little bit of his stuff, and he seems pretty smart.  He's a staunch opponent of what he would call an empire characterized by an ethic of death.  He's not wild about military spending, and he is advocating this year for Christians to engage in civil disobedience on one of the two sure things (taxes) in response to it's role in precipitating the other (death).  You can read his interesting post here.

As a good hippie, our friend Shelly and her husband intentionally make just below the taxable income so that they don't contribute to the military industrial complex.  Given that you (like me) are not interested in cutting income to below that of the poverty line, what do you think?  How do you feel about withholding from the government a small amount in protest of their use of your funds?  As tax day approaches (April 18, for those who share my gift for tardiness) and in the wake of the most recent US military action in Libya, would you be willing to engage in what he calls the "third way?"

Friday Pick of the Week

I love a cover.  Perhaps it was all those collegiate years standing on coolers at band parties singing along with stirring renditions of "You Never Even Call Me By My Name" and "California Love."  Regardless, there is something special about someone who can take a classic and make it their own, all the while honoring the original artist.  Today's pick certainly meets the criteria of classic, and I think the Civil Wars make it their own.  I first saw the duo with Rachel, as well as Courtney and Ivan Wright, when they put on a free afternoon show at Urban Standard last summer.  They released their first full album in February to much critical acclaim.  Check them out.