Education for Ministry--a Graduation "Speech"

[Tuesday night, I will finish the four-year Education for Ministry (EfM) program of the School of Theology at the University of the South.  EfM is designed to equip students for ministry, including lay ministry, by a program that includes a year studying the Old Testament, a year studying the New Testament, a year studying Church History, and a year looking at theological choices.  Our mentor has given us a final assignment: "Where are you now? Where do you hope to go because of what has happened here? How is that different from where you were going four years ago?" I decided to pose my thoughts as if I were making a speech at our "graduation ceremony"--in fact, since we have no grades, we are all valedictorians and could make an online speech.  Here at least, is mine.  And, because it's only an online "speech", I don't have to worry about length!]

In looking back across the last four years, I want to express my gratitude to our two mentors, Christina Brennan Lee (my first year) and John Sucke (all four years).  When I subbed for John one night a few weeks ago, I realized that there was an awful lot of work preparing and keeping everyone involved in the conversation.  I also want to thank those who have made at least part of the journey with me--Desiree Johnson and Marlyn Neary, for all four years; Chaz Riggi and Vicki Speigel, for three years; Jean Newland and Lyn Stabler, for two years; and Mike Brady, Nancy Breck, Heather Rollins, McGee Lorren, Rebecca Weiner Tompkins, Jane Hill, Patricia Lewis, Andy Gill, Derin Thompson, and Wes Marston, one year each.  Although we have never laid eyes on each other or heard each other's voices, they have become dear friends who have supported each both in the growth of our ministries and in the trials of life, as when I had spinal fusion surgery two years ago. 

A few years ago, when I contemplated my post-Air Force life (now about three and a half years away), I presumed I would find a way to practice government contract law part-time from my home here in Georgia.  I had vague (and expensive) ideas about fixing up space in the workshop behind our house to serve as an office.  But I could never seem to muster much enthusiasm, before two events changed my thoughts in a major way.

First, in 2004, our new rector, Father Bill Anderson, asked me to take on the ministry of a verger--a lay person who assists at the altar in the liturgy.  This doesn't necessarily lead to ordained ministry, but it did lead me to begin to reexamine my future.  Then in 2005, I attended my law school class' 25th reunion--my first--where I learned that one of my classmates, David Meginniss, had given up his law practice, gone to seminary at the University of the South, and was now an Episcopal priest.  More food for thought.

Instead of the sole practitioner legal practice that I really didn't want to do, I began thinking more about filling a role with the Church after my retirement.  I discussed my thoughts with Father Anderson, who arranged for me to talk with our Bishop during one of his Sundays at our church.  Bishop Alexander was generally supportive and encouraging. Then, in the summer of 2008, the Diocese opened an application period for the Diaconate.  I found that three years of EfM or an equivalent was needed to apply, so obviously the time wasn't right for me yet.

I had heard of EfM and was interested, but the nearest place where it was offered was in Atlanta--100 miles away!  I had tried other ways to learn through the Internet.  The best I found was Virtual Theology.net, a site run by two Church of England priests that contains a series of lectures, not intended for theologians, on theology.  I highly recommend it. 

But, at almost the same time I learned of the requirement for EfM, I learned that there was an online version that I could take.  I was put in touch with John Sucke, who told me how to connect on Tuesday nights and I was on my way.

What have I learned from EfM?

• Our Year 1 detailed study of the Old Testament actually clarified and made understandable to me contradictions in the texts of which I already was aware. To the extent that I had considered it (not a great deal), I had somewhat assumed that the Bible had been written sequentially from Genesis to Revelation, with each book being written at one time by one writer. In Year 1, we learned that the earlier books were probably edited and redacted over centuries to reflect changes in the relationship of the people of Israel and their God. Although I had never particularly believed that the words of the text were literally true as statements of fact, I hadn't been able to reconcile the contradictions.
• In Year 2 we turned our focus on the New Testament.  We learned that the first books of the New Testament were not the Gospels, but were some of Paul's letters.  In fact the Gospels were written well after Jesus' resurrection and, despite its placement as the first Gospel, Matthew was not likely written first, Mark was.  We also learned that Paul's letters weren't normally abstract treatises on theological subjects, they were written with specific issues involving the community of believers he was addressing.  (We should be thankful that the church in Corinth had so many issues that he felt the need to write so much!)  As in the Old Testament, context is critical and pulling phrases out of context is usually not illuminating.
• With Year 3 we looked at the history of the church up until the time of the American Revolution. We learned about the early heresies, such as Gnosticism and Montanism, the Church Fathers, including Irenaeus, and the movements toward Monasticism.  We looked at the Reformation (or perhaps I should say Reformations as they differed in their nature from country to country, and sometimes within a country).  We studied our own Anglican tradition and considered its offshoot, Methodism.  To the extent that I had thought about it, I had assumed to church theology was fairly monolithic up to the Reformation (and I was a History minor!).  I could have scarcely been more wrong.
• Year 4 was entitled "Theological Choices".  We completed our review of church history, looking at events of the 19th and 20th centuries.  We considered the rise of fundamentalism and of liberation theology.  We addressed the pluralistic nature of Western society and non-Christian religions.  One thing I noticed is that it seems that all religions are attempting to transcend our current existence--to say that this truly isn't all that there is.  (That, from a religious perspective, is a great flaw of Marxism.  To a true Marxist, this life is all that there is.)

Over the four years, I have come to believe that we need to look at the Bible differently than we often do.  Even when we say we don't believe the Bible is literally true, we think in just that way.  We try to reconcile conflicting texts into a single narrative, never considering whether the original writers ever intended such a thing.  We also have trouble with the difference between "truth" and "fact" or, rather, accepting that they aren't necessarily the same thing.  We classify everything these days into fact or fiction and if it isn't factually correct, we say that it is fiction and isn't true.  In Biblical times, no such clear distinction necessarily existed.  People had no difficulty accepting that a writing might not be factual, but could still present truth.  While the Bible can and does contain historical events, I now believe that in many cases it was intended to present theological truths without necessarily being a history book.

In fact, Jesus did that frequently, telling stories that were never intended to describe historical events to make theological points.  He and we call them parables and we seem to have no difficulty accepting that there likely wasn't a historical Good Samaritan, for example.  I believe that many of the stories of the Old Testament are parables.  Even when they may not describe factual events, they describe theological truths about how the people of Israel understood their relationship with God. 

Also, EfM has taught me to begin to think about my faith.  I credit this more to the weekly discussions I have had with my classmates over the last four years than to the weekly readings.  It would be untrue to say that we have been monolithic in our beliefs, but having to explain and (at times) defend my thoughts before a friendly audience has improved and deepened them.  If I could somehow interview the Paul of 2008, I think I would find that I haven't made any dramatic U-turns, but I have begun to see nuances and complexity in Christian theology that I likely didn't know was there before.  Also, by talking and listening to people, I am sure I have been better able to understand faith as it relates to real people making their way through life and not so much as a collection of abstract principles.

So, where am I now?

Besides the obvious--four years older and hopefully, at least four years wiser--I remain a Christian who feels called to practice his faith every day.  I feel that God calls us to be ministers of reconciliation between ourselves and other people and between ourselves and God.  As a practical matter, I must combine that with my full-time job for another three and a half years until I can retire.  I recognize that I have learned a great deal through EfM and, perhaps as important if not more so, I am fully aware that there is so much that I don't know and will not know in this life.  (I think the most dangerous type of Christian is the one who thinks he or she has God all figured out!)  My daily goal is to continue to learn through self-study and whatever other ways present themselves and to do my best in my interactions with others to treat every person with dignity and respect.

Where do I hope to go because of EfM and how is that goal different than when I began?

My goals haven't altered drastically over the last four years.  I still plan to devote a share of my retirement years (I will be only 60 with hopefully a span of years ahead of me) to the church in whatever role God calls me to fulfill.  I plan to apply for the ordination process the next time the Diocese takes applications, probably next year after our new Bishop (to be elected on Saturday) gets settled in.  However that plays out, I can see a ministry here in our community, helping the poor and marginalized to be recognized and helped, always in the context of the church.  One change, not necessarily because of EfM, is that I have come to focus more on the diaconate than the priesthood.  I think this is for two reasons, one positive and one somewhat negative.  The positive one is that the ministry of connecting the church with the world is traditionally connected with the diaconate and that is where I see my calling.  The somewhat negative reason is that this Diocese requires candidates for the priesthood to attend seminary in residence for three years.  In where I am in life, I don't see that as a realistic prospect.  As my priest-in-charge has wisely counseled me, don't focus on what I could not do by not being a priest, but focus on what I could do by being a deacon.  No matter how it turns out, I look forward to the journey with hope and faith.

Tuesday night will be hard.  My closest analogy is to the end of my law school days and moving on from my relationships with my classmates.  But looking back across the years to 1980, I can't recall that I recognized that at that time.  I think I was too young to value those relationships as I should have.  I can only give thanks to God for the reconnecting of those bonds in recent years through reunions and modern things like Facebook.  But now I'm old enough to fully understand that, even though we may well keep in touch through e-mail and Facebook and a nascent EfM Alumni Association, it will not be the same, and we will likely not all be connected in a discussion again.  I expect as I type my final comments into the Blackboard system (I won't miss that system!), the pride and elation I feel at successfully completing EfM will be overwhelmed by the pain of parting.  I suspect I won't be the only one.

One of my final EfM tasks was to provide an opening prayer for our next-to-last session last week.  We all have done that over the last four years.  I had always found a prayer that I thought fit the occasion, but this time I wrote my own.  I reproduce it here.  May God be with all of my EfM colleagues over the last four years for all the years to come!

Father,

As we approach the end of another academic year,
We thank you for the opportunity to study and grow together in the knowledge of you and your love of your children,
And we thank you for the bonds of affection that have grown between us;
As we go forth into the world,
Be with us whether we are merely parting for the summer or completing our time together,
Bless us and our loved ones and keep us and them in health,
Help us to remember that the search for knowledge, wisdom, and understanding never end,
Guide us to discern our own vocations to serve you,
And help us to use the knowledge that we have gained to bring forward your Kingdom;
All this we ask in your name, and in the names of your Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Farewell, Newspapers?

I read the news stories yesterday that the New Orleans Times-Picayune and three newspapers in Alabama would reduce their print frequency to a few days a week and cut a few (a lot?) employees.  Our own local Telegraph of Macon, Georgia, has reduced the size of its Monday and Tuesday editions to the point you can almost see through them.

I tend to straddle the electronic divide--I'm comfortable with the internet (to put it mildly!) but I still have an attachment to hard copy newspapers, magazines, and books.  (I haven't yet surrendered to the suggestions of my friends and gotten a Kindle.)  But the story caused me to think back to old newspapers I remember that are gone.

When I lived in Florida in the '60s, we read the afternoon papers Miami News, Orlando Evening Star, and the Cocoa Tribune.  The News disappeared in 1988, the Evening Star (which I delivered for a time) in 1973, and the Tribune merged into its newer morning sibling Today, now Florida Today.  Then we moved to Houston, where we had the morning Houston Post and the afternoon Houston Chronicle.  Years after we left, in 1995, the Chronicle absorbed the Post and switched to the morning.  When we moved to Springfield, Illinois, in 1970, we had the morning Illinois State Journal and afternoon Illinois State Register, both papers of some antiquity.  They have since merged into a morning State Journal-Register.

The carnage doesn't stop there.  In my mother's hometown of Mobile, Alabama, we had the morning Mobile Register and afternoon Mobile Press.  Now (since 1997) there's just the morning Press-Register, soon to be a three day per week paper.  When we lived in San Antonio, we had the San Antonio Light and the San Antonio Express-News.  The Light went out in 1993.

I don't know that there's an answer to this.  I don't want to be like King Canute and try to order the tide to stay out, but I fear that something valuable is being lost. 

I did note that the Times-Picayune and the Alabama papers are owned by Advance Publications, which has already done something similar to its papers in Michigan.  Here's a comment to an article in today's Washington Post on the reductions:

As an Ann Arborite, I've experienced the Newhouse [the billionaire family that owns Advance Publications] model first-hand. And here's what's not being mentioned, or glossed over, in the press coverage: they don't just reduce their print frequency, they completely shut down the company that published the old paper, fire all the employees, including every reporter and editor, tnen launch a "new" company to publish the online website and new "paper product" (that's what they called it here).

Some of the former paper's staff are offered jobs at the new company, at significantly reduced salaries. But the size of the newsroom staff is only a small percentage of the former newspaper's, and most of them are newcomers--some recent college graduates, others with less-than-stellar career paths, plus local "community contributors"--i.e. amateurs who write for little or no payment.

Here in Ann Arbor, that's meant a serious decline in reporting quality. In the couple of years since its laucnch, most of the experienced reporters who started at the new company have bailed--many to the Detroit Free Press--leaving behind a revolving dooor of inexperienced journalists, freelancers and amateurs.

Investigative and high-quality "beat" reporting have nearly vanished. The website's lead stories seem, for the most part, seemed designed to draw the most page views from outraged commenters, without regard to their importance, while the content-thin, twice-weekly paper product primarily reprints current web stories, and has become little more than a subscription-based "shopper" for carrying advertising supplements from major chain retailers.

All this may be a reasonable survival strategy for the Newhouse company, but here in Ann Arbor it's meant the death of anything resembling serious jounalism. That's what New Orleans has to look forward to.

Traveling Back to 1940 (the Census)

If you're into genealogy, as I am, there's a once-every-ten-years event, when the U.S. Census Bureau releases the detailed information on the census taken 72 years before, which had been until now protected by privacy laws.  (I guess I shouldn't complain; the UK Census is kept confidential for 100 years and their 1911 Census was just released last year.)  This month, to not inconsiderable fanfare, the 1940 Census was made public.

Our census is like a strobe light which flashes every ten years, brightly illuminating on April 1 and then going dark.  Events which occur in between get missed.  For example, anyone looking in future years for me (they'll have to wait for another 20 years to see the first one in 1960), would find me as a 4-year-old in Dayton, Ohio, a 14-year-old in Houston, Texas, a married 24-year-old in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, a married (to someone else and with children) 34-year-old in San Antonio, Texas, a 44-year-old in Perry, Georgia, and a married (but now without children at home) 54-year-old in Perry.  A lot of data, but it completely misses my living in Cocoa Beach, Florida, Springfield, Illinois, and Montgomery, Alabama!

My parents and my in-laws were children in 1940, ranging in ages from 10 to 19, so I knew they would have been counted.  The census were taken differently in 1940 than in 2010.  Temporary Government employees, called enumerators, went door-to-door in April 1940 and recorded their information on forms.  Those forms are now available.  However, they aren't indexed by name yet (that will take a while), so you have to have a pretty good idea where the family you're looking for lived.

My father's family lived at 1033 West Washington Street in Springfield, Illinois in April, 1940.  I know that house, because me grandparents still lived there in the 1970s, when we moved to Springfield.

The enumerator visited the house on April 9, 1940, and spoke to my grandmother, Rosamond Davison, who was then 45.  My grandfather Ralph F. Davison was also 45.  He was an office worker for the Illinois Bell Telephone Company and made $2,940 in 1939.  My father, Ralph S. Davison was then 19. He was listed as a "new worker" but, no one knew he would be going off to war within a couple of years to become a B-17 navigator flying out of England.  He would make the military his first career, retiring in 1967.  I suspect if the enumerator had asked him about the military, that would have not featured highly in his plans!  My dad's two younger sisters, Delores (age 16) and Ellen (age 14) also lived in the house.  All of them were born in Illinois, except for my grandmother, who was born in Missouri.  They had moved to Springfield from Danville, Illinois since 1935.  Apparently all had completed 4 years of high school, except my grandfather who had 8 years of school and my aunt Ellen, who had so far only finished two years of high school.  I still wonder about that figure for my grandfather. I knew all that (except for the schooling), but it's kind of a melancholy thing to realize that they're all gone now, my dad being the last to die in 2008, just short of his 87th birthday.

My mother's family lived at 316 Dexter Avenue in Mobile, Alabama, in 1940.  I knew Dexter Avenue as my grandmother continued to live there into the 1970s, but at 307, where they moved within a year or so after the census.  I found out about a year or so ago through online city directories about 316 Dexter, which was not the house I remembered and was not the house they lived in in 1930.

The enumerator visted their house on April 9, and spoke to my other grandmother, Erminia McCormick who was then 45 as well.  (I find it curious that all four of my grandparents were the same age!)  She was a teacher in the Mobile Public Schools.  By 1961, she had retired and then started a private school, probably for first and second graders in a large back room of her house.  I got to make good use of it during several extended summer stays in the 1960s.  Happy memories!  My grandfather and namesake, Paul S. McCormick, was an electrical engineer with the "power company" (Alabama Power?). He made $2900 in 1939 and she made $916.  My mother, Aimee McCormick, was only 10 at the time.  The surprise was to find that her family lived in Huntsville, Alabama in 1935!  That brought back a very old memory of my mother telling me when I was quite young of living for a little while in Huntsville.  I had quite forgotten it.  My grandfather had finished college (Auburn!), my grandmother had finished high school and my mother third grade.  They're all gone as well.  I never knew my grandfather as he died in 1956 when I was 7 months old, but my mother and grandmother died within a few months of each other in 1985.  All three are buried in Mobile.

My father-in-law's family was a little more of a challenge.  I knew the house they lived in; my mother-in-law still does, but a map of 1940 Northport, Alabama, bears only a superficial resemblance to the Northport I've visited.  I was able to find the district and got lucky, finding the family on page 1 of 51!

As you might guess with their being on page 1, they were visited early on April 2.  One surprise for me was that the street they lived on was then called Bridge Street!  (It's not been called that since at least the late '70s when I met them and I have no idea which bridge it refers to.)  He spoke to my wife's grandfather, E. Edward Mayfield, age 55.  He was a carpenter but had been out of work for 20 weeks.  He made $1200 in 1939.  Her grandmother "Metta" (actually Matta, misspellings are an occupational hazard with the census) was 47.  He had finished 7 years of school and she 6 years.  There were four children in the home (one daughter apparently had already married and moved out.  My future father-in-law Hugh was 16 and had finished one year of high school and worked as a newsboy for the city paper (the Tuscaloosa News?).  He had two older brothers, Walter (age 25) and Edward (age 23).  Walter had finished high school and was a clerk for a household appliance company. He had worked 48 hours the week before and made $1100 the year before.  Edward finished 8 years of school and had been a mechanic for an auto garage, but had been out of work for 16 weeks.  Again, they're all gone; my father-in-law died of cancer in 2000.

My mother-in-law's family had been the hardest one to find.  Fortunately, she's still alive (not just for this reason.  I knew that in 1940, she lived in El Dorado, Arkansas, but I didn't know where.  She told me the street address--715 West Block Street--but I had no idea where that was.  Google Maps to the rescue!  Fortunately the street is still there, no sure thing across 70 years and I found the batch of forms to leaf through.

They were visited on April 15 (or it least it looks like it).  In a bizarre coincidence, the enumerator's name was Mrs. Ruby Mayfield, no relation as far as we know, but the same last name as my mother-in-law's future husband a bit more than ten years in the future!  Mrs. Mayfield talked to my wife's grandmother, Georgia Belle De Priest, age 36.  Unusually for 1940, she was a single mother, having divorced her husband John De Priest.  (He would die of a heart attack in a bus station in 1944 in Lufkin, Texas.)  She was a florist in a retail flower shop and had finished high school.  Her two children, John H. De Priest (age 13) and "E. Jean" (actually Gene) (age 10) (my future mother-in-law), lived with her as did her mother, 74-yearl old Cora [Cotton] Smith.  When I described what I found to my mother-in-law, she remembered the next-door neighbors, who show up in the lines just above her family.

Getting back in my time machine and coming forward by 72 years, I am struck by several points:

1.  In just a few years my father and father-in-law would be off to war.  Fortunately and obviously both survived, but both maintained a lifelong connection with the military.  But many young men counted in that spring of 1940 didn't come home and start families of their own.

2.  America wasn't fully out of the Great Depression in 1940 and many were still out of work as in my father-in-law's family.  We forget that the Depression wouldn't really end until the mother of all stimulus packages, World War II, came and revved up the economy to full employment.

3.  Education levels were far lower on average than what we would consider acceptable.  Someone going to college then was a true achievement.

I can't help but wonder what the 1950 census will show in 10 years.  My mother was about to finish college in 1950 at Auburn and my father was at Georgia Tech, about to graduate.  He still had his English wife, Jane, at that point, but they would divorce at some point before he met my mother in May 1954 in Mobile.

Health Care: Freedom to Not Care?

Over the last two years or so, as our country has debated reforming our health care system, I have been hearing a decent amount of mean-spiritedness toward those who can't get affordable health insurance or who can't get it all.  I used to believe that Americans generally shared a commitment to the goal of universal access to health care and that the debate was over whether the Affordable Care Act (aka "Obamacare") was a constitutional way or, even if it is, the best way to get there.

I'm not so sure anymore.  While I think most Americans do still share that goal, based on what I hear people say, a far too large segment have come to the conclusion that we should continue to be the only major industrialized country in the world without it.  They seem to think that the poor (and not-so-poor) and the sick are in some way different from us and undeserving of being a part of us.  I even heard today someone who called himself a libertarian say that we should repeal the Reagan-era law that requires hospitals receiving Federal funds to provide emergency care without regard to ability to pay and that, if people can't pay, tough luck, deny them care.

I have to believe that this is very much a minority view, and that most Americans, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, believe that we do have an obligation to help those who need it.  In fact, if we call ourselves Christians and have any sense of what that means, we must know that, to answer Cain, we are our brothers' and sisters' keepers (Gen. 4:9).  (In fact, if you consider yourself a good Catholic, you should know that your Church expressly considers access to basic health care to be part of the common good, which everyone has a right to enjoy.)

I recognize that, despite liking many of its components (but not the individual mandate), most people don't like Obamacare.  But, I suspect that if you ask them what we should do if the Republicans get their wish and the Act is struck down or repealed, you get a fairly incoherent answer, like the one Mitt Romney gave Jay Leno last night on The Tonight Show (as reported by the Washington Post):

LENO: So you would make the law stand for children and people with preexisting conditions.

ROMNEY: People with preexisting conditions—as long as they’ve been insured before, they’re going to continue to have insurance.

LENO: Suppose they were never insured?

ROMNEY: Well, if they’re 45 years old, and they show up, and they say, I want insurance, because I’ve got a heart disease, it’s like, `Hey guys, we can’t play the game like that. You’ve got to get insurance when you’re well, and if you get ill, then you’re going to be covered.’

LENO: I know guys at work in the auto industry, and they’re just not covered...they’ve just never been able to get insurance. And then they get to e 30, 35, and were never able to get insurance before. Now they have it. That seems like a good thing.

ROMNEY: We’ll look at a circumstance where someone was ill, and hasn’t been insured so far. But people who have had the chance to be insured—if yu’re working in an auto business for instance, the companies carry insurance, they insure all their employees—you look at the circumstances that exist. But people who have done their best to get insured, are going to be able to be covered. But you don’t want everyone saying, `I’m going to sit back until I get sick and then go buy insurance.’ That doesn’t make sense. But you have to find rules that get people in that are playing by the rules.

Romney's recognition of the adverse selection problem that the individual mandate is designed to solve makes sense; after all, he included that mandate when he was governor of Massachusetts.  The bigger problem is that, when asked what should be done for those with pre-existing conditions, who lack insurance, he couldn't, or wouldn't, answer.

And then we come to the Supreme Court.  As noted by Dahlia Lithwick on Slate.com, "It’s always a bit strange to hear people with government-funded single-payer health plans describe the need for other Americans to be free from health insurance. But after the aggressive battery of questions from the court’s conservatives this morning, it’s clear that we can only be truly free when the young are released from the obligation to subsidize the old and the ailing."  Now, if the justices are, as I think, in the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan, as I am, it isn't totally Government-funded--we pay premiums--and it isn't single payer.  But her basic point is a good one.  Those most against Obamacare are those who already have insurance.  We have it; why should we care about anyone else?  Tough luck, suckers!  Justice Scalia even seemed to not have a problem with getting rid of the obligation for hospitals to provide ER care to all.  (“Well, don't obligate yourself to that.”)

This morning in America’s highest court, freedom seems to be less about the absence of constraint than about the absence of shared responsibility, community, or real concern for those who don’t want anything so much as healthy children, or to be cared for when they are old. Until today, I couldn’t really understand why this case was framed as a discussion of “liberty.” This case isn’t so much about freedom from government-mandated broccoli or gyms. It’s about freedom from our obligations to one another, freedom from the modern world in which we live. It’s about the freedom to ignore the injured, walk away from those in peril, to never pick up the phone or eat food that’s been inspected. It’s about the freedom to be left alone. And now we know the court is worried about freedom: the freedom to live like it’s 1804.

Some Republicans, Like Paul Ryan, seem to idolize the selfish theology of Ayn Rand.  Is this fantasy the kind of country we want to live in?

NetsforLife

 


After our Eucharist Sunday at St. Christopher's, the Rev. Janice Tidwell, a deacon at Christ Church in Macon, spoke to us about the NetsForLife program to help eradicate malaria in sub-Saharan Africa.  This program, which is strongly supported by Episcopal Relief & Development and our Diocese of Atlanta, provides specially treated mosquito nets to 17 countries.  The nets both directly keep mosquitos from biting and infecting people, often younng children, and the treatment in the nets kills the anopheles mosquito--the only known mosquito to transmit malaria--thus helping to break the infection cycle.  Research has shown that when three-quarters of the people in a community use the nets properly, malaria transmission is cut by 50%, child deaths are cut by 20%, and the mosquito population drops by as much as 90%!  Since 2008, NetsforLife has delivered over $5.6 million nets and this helped reduce worldwide malaria deaths by about 200,000 last year (according to World Heath Organization statistics).

It only costs $12 to buy a a net.  Help support the Episcopal Church's NetsforLife Inspiration Fund, where a group of donors has promise to match every gift made through May 25, 2012, up to a total of $430,000!  (Of course, you don't have to be an Episcopalian to do this.)

Why I like "Obamacare"

I haven't cared much for the term "Obamacare", mainly because it's pejorative usage quickly became more about the President and less about the care.  I saw in a Politico article today that the Obama campaign has decided to embrace the term and emphasize the things that people like about the Affordable Care Act, often until they learn that these things are a part of it.  I think that's wise.  There is no point for the re-election campaign to try to pretend that President Obama didn't have anything to do with it, so they should try to turn the term of abuse to their advantage.

I suppose this is a planned bumper sticker:

What do I like about Obamacare?

First, it's a first step, and an important one, on the goal of providing real access to health care to all Americans.  I have trouble understanding how anyone can oppose that as a goal, although there can be different ways of reaching that goal.  The Catholic Church expressly considers access to basic health care to be part of the common good, which everyone has a right to enjoy.  My own denomination, the Episcopal Church, as well as many others, also supports the creation of a system that provides basic health care.  When people talk about repealing Obamacare, we should ask what they would set in its place and how would that point us towards that goal?

Second, on a personal level, Obamacare has allowed us to include our adult son on my health insurance policy.  Before, when he turned 22, he came off my policy and the only options were far more expensive.  According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 2.5 million more young adults now have health insurance because of this.  Because this group is generally very healthy, the impact on premiums has been small (about 1%). 

Third, preventive services, including cancer screenings, vaccinations, and well-child visits, are now provided with no co-pay, co-insurance or deductible.  I make a point of reviewing my plan each year and I had always been amazed at how poorly we covered preventive services.  We would make it more expensive for the patient to be checked than to treat the preventable disease, even if the cost of the health care needed to treat the disease was far more expensive!  With this new requirement of Obamacare, we will spend less over time and have a generally healthier society.

Fourth, insurance companies can no longer cancel your insurance coverage, often retroactively, because of a technical mistake or minor omission on an application.  This was called rescission, and would usually happen when you had a major, expensive, illness.  Your company would go back and look for a technical reason to rescind your policy and not only refuse to cover you, but demand that you repay anything they had paid on your behalf!  Now, to do this, the company has to show that you intentionally misrepresented or omitted significant information.

Fifth, a serious illness will no longer prevent a person from having access to affordable insurance.  Some people have been uninsured, not by choice, but because they have pre-existing conditions that caused them to either be unable to get insurance at all or they had to get policies that excluded the condition that was most likely to cause them to need health care in the first place!  In the 1980s, when I was director of the child support office in Montgomery, Alabama, one of my clients could not afford to get off welfare (which she wanted to do) because she would then lose her Medicaid coverage and one of her children had a severe medical condition that would not be insurable.  Now, under Obamacare, the Pre-Existing Insurance Plan, or PCIP, provides primary and specialty care, hospital care, and prescription drugs, with no exclusions for pre-existing conditions.  A citizen or legal resident must have been without coverage and either have a pre-existing condition or been denied coverage because of one. 

And these are things that are in effect now. 

We need to remember what the point of health insurance is.  It is to spread the costs of health care more evenly across the population over time.  I have had health insurance through my employer for over 26 years.  In all but two of those years, I likely paid more in premiums than my plan paid out for my health care, so in those years I helped cover other peoples' costs, with the understanding that this could have to work the other way.  And it did.  In 2010, I paid far, far less in premiums than my plan paid for my health care.  So other people helped cover my health care in 2010.  And there is nothing wrong with this, in either direction!  This is how a community works, helping one another for the common good. 

War and Justice

A week or so ago, a friend of mine posted a story on Facebook about Attorney General Eric Holder's speech at Northwestern on the legal justification for killing without trial terrorists who are American citizens.  (You can read the speech at http://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/ag/speeches/2012/ag-speech-1203051.html).  She said that she had doubts, but that wasn't an area of law she had much experience with.  I replied that I hadn't read his speech, but that I did have experience in that area (28 years as a military lawyer before my retirement) and I would find it and read it.  Now I have.

Before I go into what he said, a little background for framework.  There is a fundamental difference between war and criminal prosecution.  Military operations are not predicated on the commission of a crime.  If I take an enemy soldier prisoner, we are allowed under international legal norms to detain that person for the duration of the conflict, without any assertion that what that soldier was a crime.  For that reason, we aren't required to hold any kind of hearing to keep him.  Similarly, if we attack an enemy soldier, we aren't doing it because he committed a crime, its simply because he's an enemy soldier.  (And, yes, history shows that women can and do fight, be captured and die in combat.  I am simply using the masculine pronoun for simplicity.)

When I say "enemy soldier", that has a meaning in the law.  An enemy soldier is considered a "lawful combatant".  To have that status, he must be a member of an armed force of a state and wear some type of distinguishing clothing.  Everyone else is an "unlawful combatant".  A civilian has no legal right to engage in combat, and, as long as they aren't attacking our forces, civilians can't be targeted.  Members of non-state actors like al Qaeda don't qualify as "lawful combatants".  This doesn't mean that they have no rights if detained; it means they must be treated humanely and their status determined by a lawfully constituted tribunal.

Sorry about the length of this digression, but you will see nowhere do I talk about citizenship or trials or due process.

Now, in his speech, Attorney General Holder talked about the successes we have had trying terrorists in Article III civilian courts.  This was in opposition to proposals that all such trials be by military commissions at Guantanamo.  He said there are times that it makes sense to use a court and there are times when it make sense to use a commission.  Some of the considerations are status (the accused is not a member of an al Qaeda linked group), citizenship (by statute, U.S. citizens can't be tried by a commission), the offense charged (commissions have a more limited list of offenses they can address), and international cooperation (some countries won't cooperate with us if a person were to be tried by commission).

He then turned to when we can use lethal force.  He pointed out that the use of "all necessary and appropriate force" against the threat of attacks by the Taliban, al Qaeda and similar groups was authorized by Congress in 2001 (Authorization for Use of Military Force, Pub. L. 107-40).  This therefore qualifies as an armed conflict and under international law, we can take action against enemy belligerents wherever they may be found.  While we must respect another country's sovereignty, established norms allow us to act without a country's consent, if that country is unwilling or unable to deal with a threat in its territory.

It is completely legal to target the adversary's chain of command, including senior military leaders.  Holder referred to the World War II targeting and shooting down of the plane which carried Japanese Admiral Yamamoto.  This concept was a justification for the killing of Osama bin Laden.

If a US citizen takes part in the planning or execution of violent attacks against Americans, their citizenship does not give them immunity from targeting.  Even with that lack of immunity, the Government believes that the Fifth Amendment's Due Process clause does require a determination that the individual poses an imminent threat  of violent attack against the US, capture is not feasible, and that the operation be conducted in a manner
consistent with the four fundamental law of war principles which govern the use of force.

The principle of necessity requires that the target have definite military value.  (An example of this principle can be seen from the Saddam Hussein's Victory Arch in Baghdad.  In Desert Storm, when General Schwarzkopf wanted to have the Air Force destroy it, he complained that the lawyers wouldn't permit it without a showing of necessity, which he couldn't make.  It's still there today.)

The principle of distinction means that only lawful targets--combatants, civilians directly participating in hostilities (including the chain of command), and military objectives--may be targeted intentionally.  Under the principle of proportionality, the anticipated collateral damage must not be excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage.  (There is no rule that collateral damage must be completely avoided.)  The principle of humanity requires that we not use weapons that inflict unnecessary suffering.  (The textbook application of that rule is the prohibition of glass shrapnel, which can't been seen as well on x-rays.)

Are there limitations to this concept?  Holder said that this concept only applies when a U.S. citizen who is a part of al Qaeda is found outside of the U.S.  There is no "hunting license" in the United States and it is contrary to our traditions to have our military carrying combat operations on U.S. soil.

For that is what they are--combat operations.  (We are now transitioning to what Paul thinks of this.)  For that reason, they must be carried out by our military and not the FBI or CIA and absolutely not by contractors.  But, I think from a legal point of view, this is no different than if an American citizen decided to serve as a senior German officer during World War II.  That citizen would be as much a legitimate military target as the German citizen serving with him.  The same concept applies today.

[To comply with Defense Department rules, I probably should say that the views presented here are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Defense or its components.]