Across the Great Divide

Huckabee and the Megachurch Religion.

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is also an ordained Baptist minister. So naturally, you'd expect him to go to church on Sunday.

A quick Yellow Pages search found 62 Baptist churches within a 15 mile radius of Des Moines, Iowa. Yet Huckabee chose this nondenominational suburban megachurch for his morning worship.

"Megachurch" appears to be Huckabee's new affiliation.

Crossroads Family Church may be nondenominational, but it is listed as one of the Kenneth Hagin-affiliated Rhema Churches, which also includes Mac Hammond's Living Word Christian Center. Hagin's Rhema Bible Training Center has turned out prosperity gospel super-evangelist Kenneth Copeland and thousands of other preachers and missionaries since 1974.

Copeland is a Huckabee contributor, and Huckabee received six days of exposure on Copeland's national telecast in late November.

This story quotes the pastor as saying the candidate "just wanted to worship with us today."

No doubt. In an election, you gotta go with the numbers.

Trouble in Hammond Land?

Today, pastor Mac Hammond concluded his "Living Word Live" Sunday broadcast with a brief announcement that the long-running one-hour slot on KARE 11 will shrink to 30 minutes next week.

The new program will actually be "The Winner's Way," which is already being produced for national broadcast over the INSP network. In other words, Hammond is buying half the local TV time he's commanded for years, and will eliminate the production costs for a one-hour program.

Does the cost cutting reflect a financial squeeze going on at Living Word? Has Hammond determined that his flagship broadcast wasn't bringing in enough revenue or new members — and that a half-hour show off the shelf could do as well?

Although Hammond did not answer the altar call from Sen Grassley's investigation of televangelists, his ministry does have connections to several of the Big Six. This could be an early sign that the publicity is having an effect on the prosperity gospel industry.

Note also, Hammond's name arises in this story about tax dodger Robert Beale:

For about 10 years until the mid-1990s, Beale said he was a major contributor and board member of Living Word Christian Center, a large Brooklyn Park church where Mac Hammond is senior pastor.

Hammond said through his daughter-in-law and assistant, Kristin Hammond, that he and Beale "had points of disagreement and taxes were one of them." Hammond said "he was very sorry for what has happened to Bob."

Playing in the Dirt is Only One Pressure on Public Lands.

The New York Times continues its series on conflicts over public land use with this story about off-roading.

The Bureau of Land Management is responsible for overseeing use on large expanses of the American west.  These arid lands are under increasing pressure to be opened for oil and gas development, mining and other uses that place added stress on ecosystems that appear hardy but are easily disrupted .

Recently, the Bangs Canyon area out our back door in Colorado went through a planning effort that resulted in closing some trails, restricting others and opening some new routes. Recreational users of all types have access to the area. It seems to be working.

But there's still room for conflict in this big country, and compromise doesn't sit well with everyone. For those  accustomed to going wherever and however they want, any restrictions chafe, and those who object to any  motorized travel fight to close old roads through wild areas.

Members of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, an environmental group that wants greater restrictions placed on motorized users, have tallied the total miles of motorized trails that would be allowed (about 15,000 miles) and the number of currently roadless acres that would no longer be eligible for federal wilderness protections (more than 2.5 million acres).

Lawyers for the group estimate that 82 percent of the lands in Utah that the Bureau of Land Management said had wilderness character in 1999 are now open for energy, mining or motorized recreation.

“Everybody’s losing something they thought they had,” said Clifton Koontz, an avid dirt motorbike rider and co-founder of Ride With Respect, a group that teaches people about the bikes and how to minimize damage to the environment.

In November, I biked and hiked through some of the Bangs Canyon lands. The slide show will give you a flavor. [Roll over the image to get the controls.]

 

Dark Night of the Seoul.

With 23 million souls, Seoul is the second largest urban expanse on the planet. You can see it clearly splayed across this night map of the two Koreas.

Although North Korea's population is 23 million to the South's 50 million, it's plain to see the gap between the two economies is far greater.

From Strange Maps.

The Bookman Goeth.

As a writer, bookseller, marketer and book lover, I've crossed paths with Brian Baxter numerous times over the years — dating back to the early 1970s when I worked in a B. Dalton with the woman who'd marry him. Brian was a breeze of bookish glee then and nothing has dimmed his impact — especially with he's in a roomful of books.

This article captures the high points of his career and the video conveys some of his charm. Nothing is likely to replace him.

Sadly, there are fewer stores and many fewer booksellers of the Baxter sort. It's positively painful for me to enter a chain bookstore today knowing my request for help will be met with a blank look followed by a fruitless trek to a computer screen.

Selling anything but best sellers today has largely become a matter of who has the best on-line algorithms.

If I sound like an old fart lamenting the loss of the good old days, so be it. But once upon a time, going to a book store was as fun for me as going to a great neighborhood bar.

Now one of the community's great bartenders is retiring and I'm buying books from a vending machine.

Character in Abundance.

Even Hitler didn't wake up going, "let me do the most evil thing I can do today." I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was "good."

No wonder people misinterpreted Will Smith's quite clear statement about Hitler's self-deception. There's plenty of evidence in the day's news that Hitler wasn't the only one who has trouble seeing his own wrongdoing.

*****

Kyle Okposo left the University of Minnesota hockey team in mid-season to join the New York Islanders. Said the Islanders general manager, Garth Snow: "Kyle is the complete package. He has skill and character in abundance."

Just not in immediate evidence.

You may be forgiven for imagining Okposo was a college student before he quit on his teammates, but this quote from Snow should set you straight. The Islanders had sent Okposo to trade school, and they yanked him:

"They have a responsibility to coach, to make Kyle a better player, and they were not doing that," Snow told the Star Tribune. "He just wasn't getting better — bottom line. And to me, that's the frustrating part. We entrusted the coach there to turn him into a better hockey player, and it wasn't happening. We feel more comfortable in him developing right under our watch."

*****
It will shock those who know me to learn I have never made a mistake, at least by this measure:

Both the Ransavages and Campbells acknowledge the drunken-driving offenses were serious mistakes and they are glad the government is trying to keep adopted children safe. But both say they were one-time mistakes. Neither has any other criminal record.

A story in the same edition of the Strib would seem to differ:

Mothers Against Drunk Driving said research shows that an impaired driver doesn't get pulled over until at least his or her 50th time — and that figure is low, said Steve Simon, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School who heads a state task force on drunken-driving laws.

*****

[Mario Augustin Lewis, whose indoor marijuana-growing operation provided the first clues in the mortgage fraud case] a former real estate agent at LHS Mortgage, apologized for his crimes, although he insisted that he was never out to hurt anyone, including the lenders who financed the nine houses he bought with proceeds from the fraud.

Lewis overstated the purchase price of homes and pocketed more than $430,000 in the fraud.

*****

[The mother of Joseph McEnroe, who helped kill six family members of Christmas Eve] told The Seattle Times that her eldest son was a "good Christian" and she was shocked he had been arrested in the slayings.

*****

For his part, Meshbesher noted outside the courtroom that he knows Antrim's family and that he still is learning the details of the case, but that it appears that the alleged sexual contact [between a girl's hockey coach and a 16-year-old player] was "consensual."

*****

[A school employee fired for failing to maintain appropriate boundaries while discussion sexual orientation with student] insists that his run for the school board wasn't vindictive. He told the Star Tribune this fall that he had always wanted to be on the board but couldn't run as a district employee. He ran on a fiscally conservative platform.

*****

A council member who "has a history of discussing his girlfriend and his personal matters with employees at the city" also likes to hand out unsolicited relationship advice.

Mengelkoch said she found it "weird" and was disturbed that a man she barely knew would talk to her about his sex life — especially at a fundraiser for a youth ambassador program at which half the attendees were minors.

"I'm 20. He's old," she said. "It's a little on the creepy side."

Schaffer, 68, acknowledged having spoken inappropriately but said it was a mistake. "I volunteered too much information. I didn't say anything in a crass or coarse way," he said.

Schaffer said he was offering "fatherly" relationship advice that was intimate but not graphic. He told Mengelkoch about how his girlfriend had asked him to make love to her and how he had then told his girlfriend that he would not do so unless they were exclusive.

"I made [Mengelkoch] uncomfortable, and I didn't pick up on it right away," he said. "Like a lot of dumb older men, I just fell into being too honest."

It Was Three Years Ago Today.

After three years, I think the banner on this blog — How can people disagree and still build a decent world? — still reflects its aspirations. But on a daily basis, much of the content is based on whatever draws my skeptical eye.

So the posts may not always seem to fit the idealism.

But neither do I.

Instead of picking a lane as self-appointed expert, corporate lackey, secular moralist or political operative, I'm trying to be my human and inconsistent self. That means being a curious, sarcastic, caring, enlightened, pompous, tolerant and polarizing old white businessman semi-artist.

When I deal with policy, politics and conviction here, it's to try to show how they intersect with one real life. You're free to differ.

I also have a place where I can be more measured and focused. With the New Year approaching, I've resolved to do more posting over at the Growth & Justice blog. Here are some of the recent subjects:

A law professor who's trying to reconcile biblical teaching with government tax policy says Minnesota is closest to God.

Can philanthropy replace public funding of services?

As the income gap widens, so does the tax gap.

Some cities are making a good case for the value of what they provide (by colleague Dane Smith).

[Actually, it was three years ago this month I started this thing. And 20 years ago I walked out of the door from corporate life to start the company I was preparing to leave three years ago. No serial follows. Everything worked out fine.]

Transpartisan? We Used to Call it Middle-of-the-Road.

Can some members of Congress be trusted to regularly take good ideas from ALL political points of view, and meld them into legislation that’s at once pragmatic and imaginative, cost-effective and far-seeing?

A poll by Radical Middle proponent Mark Satin ranks "transpartisan" members of Congress.

His top two? Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine and Rep. Rush Holt of New Jersey. Minnesota Rep. Jim Ramstad, California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar and Connecticut Sen. Joe Leiberman are also named. Among presidential hopefuls, McCain and Obama make the cut.

I can't speak for others on the list, but Rush Holt was a good guy when I knew him in college and shortly after. One of the few PhDs in Congress, he was studying physics at NYU last time I saw him. He was working on a study for the transit authority to determine why the New York subways were so noisy.

The answer, it turned out, was the trains' wheels were out of round. The solution was to replace all the wheels, but that was too expensive, so the subways stayed noisy.

I don't think that experience inspired him to go into public service, but it probably helped shape a certain pragmatism once he did.

Kicking the Sugar Habit.

Fat poor people are proof there's no hunger in America, right?

We should cut off immediately any government program that provides food, supplements, school lunches or nutritional counseling to ghettos, trailer parks, Section 8 housing or any other place where darker people congregate.

'Cuz you know they got all they need. They're just leechin' off us. They're draggin' us down.

They come here from Chicago just for the free cheese.

I know this guy on the fringes. Kind heart, good intentions but brain chemistry I can't begin to fathom. He was belugaing.

On cheap soda alone, he took in about half his daily caloric requirements. Without, of course, meeting the nutritional ones. He couldn't see the sugar roller coaster he was on, the reorder his body sent to his wallet every time the dose started to fade.

Just stop the pop, we said. You'll feel better and lose weight.

How many times did we say it? But the discount market soda cost less than the diet brand I was pushing.

The little bag of salad I bought cost more than he spent on real food all day. And at the price of tonight's  polenta, for a lot less effort McDonald's would sell him.... Who am I kidding? I don't know what stuff costs at McDonald's.

He would never buy the baby arugula and polenta for dinner. In his neighborhood, he couldn't find any if he wanted to. But a double cheeseburger and large fries from the drive through when someone else should be driving? No problemo.

Who knows what got through, but the sugar moved down the menu. His face has slimmed down. He says he feels better.

Hey, man, ever think of walking there next time?

Okay, one step at a time.

The Scandal of Slavery in Westchester County.

The story of poor Audrey Davison is starting to make the rounds among the anti-tax blogs.

Audrey Davison lives alone, gets a $620 Social Security check each month and worries about the sharply rising taxes on her four-bedroom house. Davison, 76, raised her family there and after 43 years, she really doesn't want to leave Greenburgh.

Greenburgh doesn't want her to leave, either.

The town is pushing a program that would let seniors work part-time, for $7 an hour, to help pay off some of their property taxes.

The proposal has caused a stir in Greenburgh, a town of 90,000 in Westchester County, which has the nation's third-highest homeowner property taxes. The plan would be unusual if not unique in New York, but similar programs are considered successes in Colorado, Massachusetts, South Carolina and elsewhere.

Davison, who suffers from arthritis and sciatica and needs a walker to get around on her bad days, said she pays about $12,000 a year in property taxes — perhaps $2,000 to the town — and has already taken out a reverse mortgage to pay her bills.

Anti-Strib blames liberals for her plight and calls it "The New Slavery." Mitch pays it forward under a simple "Slavery" and sarcastically ties the Greenburgh, NY, property tax to the "happy to pay for a better Minnesota" campaign of a few years ago. (New York ranks 4th for state and local property taxes. Minnesota's 26th.)

A 76-year-old woman who sometimes uses a walker makes an appealing martyr for the anti-tax campaign. There's no need to look any deeper into the story if it reinforces a perception of government insensitivity and rampant spending.

But there is more to the story.

As the article notes, Davison lives in the county with nation's third highest property tax rates. What it doesn't say is that her town is among the wealthiest spots in the country.

Greenburgh, NY, ranks tied for 13th in the nation for households with country club memberships. The median home price is $592,000 and the median family income is $111,843. The comparable numbers in Eden Prairie, MN — which ranked 10th among Money Magazine's Best Places to live — are $289,250 and $105,177. You can tab through other comparisons here. Greenburgh outscores many of top 10 best places on a number of measures.

Audrey Davison wants to continue living alone in a four-bedroom house in one of the most prosperous places on the planet and not pay the taxes that sustain the area's high-performing schools, many libraries and very low crime rate. If she were a government agency, she'd be instructed by the same commenters above to reassess her priorities and try to live within her means. If she were welfare recipient, she'd be told to exercise some personal responsibility and get a j0b or go live with family members.

There's more.

Davison says she "pays about $12,000 a year in property taxes — perhaps $2,000 to the town." But that doesn't seem to be the case.

According to county records, a house at the address listed to an A. Davison — which was mortgaged 44 years ago and appears to be occupied by the original owner — only paid $4,707 in property taxes in 2007, up about $317 from the prior year. About $1,815 of that amount went to the town and the county combined.

Property taxes are regressive and do fall disproportionately on retired homeowners who want to stay in their homes. An argument can certainly be made for reducing the impact of taxes on people with modest, fixed incomes. And maybe her tax bill is a hardship to this woman.

But I wouldn't build my campaign to get rid of government on this case.