Thursday, June 18, 2015
Banks, Comic Books and Franklin Graham
Deliver me from your cold phlegmatic preachers. . . .
—Abigail Adams, Letter to John Adams (1776)
At first one might conclude that he’s an evangelist who, seeing himself as a representative of the Lord, tries to find good in the unlikeliest of people. That would explain why in 2014 he showed that he could find good in someone like Vladimir Putin. His other actions, however, suggest he is bigotry’s, rather than the Lord’s, representative.
In June 2013 the national parliament in Russia enacted a law designed to protect its citizens from homosexuality. The law bans, among other things, public displays of affection by two people of the same sex holding hands in public. (Parents and children are not included in the ban.) Symbols, such as the rainbow flag, may not be displayed. It is unlawful to discuss homosexuality in front of minors. Penalties for running afoul of the law range from 5000 rubles to 1 million rubles depending on the offenders.
When discussing the new law, Mr. Putin said Russia must “clean up” or “cleanse” itself of gay people in order to protect its people. Evangelist Franklin Graham, son of Billy, was enthusiastic about Mr. Putin’s actions. Commenting on the Russian law, Franklin said: “In my opinion Putin is right on these issues.” Giving a nod to those who think there is little good to be said for Putin these days, he went on saying: “Obviously, he may be wrong about many things, but he has taken a stand to protect his nation’s children from the damaging effects of any gay and lesbian agenda.” The charity Franklin showed Putin was not reflected in either his comments about a comic book character or his actions towards a bank.
Comic books are fictional creations that have been popular among the young for generations. A popular comic series today involves a character called the “Iceman.” At the end of April 2015 it was disclosed that in the new issue appearing at the end of the month the Iceman would disclose to his readers that he is gay. This, according to Franklin is an attempt to convince young readers that a destructive lifestyle “full of sin” and as he noted in an entry on his face book page, “another attempt to indoctrinate our young people to accept this destructive lifestyle.” More recently it has been disclosed that Franklin is not only caused distress by a comic book but by a bank. Wells Fargo is the offender.
In early June it was reported that Franklin is moving all bank accounts associated with his Christian organization, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, away from Wells Fargo bank. The move is not related to the bank’s banking practices. It has to do with the bank’s advertising. The bank has run ads featuring same sex couples who use the services of Wells Fargo. For the bank to publicly announce” the fact that it has customers who are same sex couples outrages Franklin. Franklin believes that same sex couples should do their banking in the closet and should not have access to the same banks used by heterosexual couples. As he explained when commenting on his displeasure, he wants his followers to “speak out as Christians” about the bank’s advertising. In a face book posting Franklin says: “Have you ever asked yourself-how can we fight the tide of moral decay that is being crammed down our throats by big business, the media, and the gay & lesbian community?. . . But it has dawned on me that we don’t have to do business with them.”
Franklin is as good as his word. Announcing the move from Wells Fargo he said: “This is one way we as Christians can speak out. . . . Let’s just stop doing business with those who promote sin and stand against Almighty God’s laws and His standards. Maybe if enough of us do this, it will get their attention.” He did not say where he thought members of the gay community should bank. Probably not where he does.
Franklin has moved the organization’s bank business away from Wells Fargo and given it BB&T. BB&T is a bank that, he says is: “a good solid bank that’s very good at banking.” He forgot to mention that it sponsored a Gay Pride festival fundraising event in early 2015 that took place in Miami Beach at one of the BB&T’s branches. The event celebrated the marriage of a male couple who had been together for 55 years. The bank’s regional multicultural markets officer issued a news release in which he said the bank was proud to “be a part of this day of pride and celebration of the 2015 Legacy Couples.” The event is organized by the Miami Beach Gay Pride Committee to recognize gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender couples who have been in committed relationships of 10 or more years. The bank has been involved in the Legacy Couples program since its founding in 2009.
Franklin may not want to continue banking at BB&T. Perhaps he can take advantage of the fact that since members of the gay community have begun emerging from closets there is lots of closet space available in this country and one is surely big enough to accommodate him and the $284 million that belongs to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association-especially if he refuses to do business with gay customers.
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Teacher Training Meets Wisconsin
A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.
—Henry Brooks Adams, The Education of Henry Adams
The fact that Scott Walker is now running for president comes as no surprise to whose who knew him in college. When a student he told one of his dorm mates that he was going to be president of the United States someday. Because of that long held ambition his January proposal caused some to think his self-confidence had failed him. Those people thought he was trying to change the rules so that he would qualify for a job in teaching if, unexpectedly, and contrary to his expectations, he did not become the next president of the United States. A close reading of the January proposal, however, makes it obvious that he was acting selflessly when he made the proposal and was not trying to provide an opportunity for himself.
The suggestion that Mr. Walker made in January that will probably become law in June, though not, as it turns out, because of his efforts, was anyone with a college degree would be qualified to become a teacher of students in grades 6-12 in the Wisconsin school system.
In Wisconsin as well as many other states, in order to become a teacher in those grades it is necessary to undergo courses in teacher training. Under Scott’s proposal this notion was set on its head since it provided that those hoping to become teachers did not need to take any college level teacher training courses. All that would be needed to become a teacher in Wisconsin public schools would be a bachelor’s degree and a demonstrated proficiency in the course the prospective teacher wants to teach.
Scott did not, as noted above, suggest this to benefit himself. He is a college drop out and lacks the qualifications required to become a teacher in the unlikely event that he fails to become the 45th president of the United States. He could, of course, return to school to complete the work he failed to complete before becoming a drop out and then a governor, in which case his proposal would benefit him. That seems a bit far-fetched and unlikely to have been the reason for his suggestion.
Although Scott’s proposal went nowhere when first introduced, thanks to Mary Czaja, a Wisconsin legislator, his proposal has reappeared in greatly enhanced form and in a few days may become law. It made its appearance, appropriately enough, in the Wisconsin state biennial budget for 2015-2017 and was part of a bill reducing funding for higher education and K-12 education.
At a late night meeting of the Wisconsin Legislative Joint Finance Committee during the week of May 24, 2015 and thanks to the quick thinking of Representative Mary Czaja, a provision was inserted into the state biennial budget for 2015-2017 that went even further than the provision proposed by Scott earlier in the year. The provision she inserted would not only eliminate the need for those who would teach to have any teacher training but provides that anyone can teach non-core subjects, even high school dropouts. The only requirement imposed on a high school drop out wanting to become a teacher is that the school wishing to hire such a person makes a determination that the person being hired is proficient and has relevant experience in the subject he or she wants to teach.
Mary’s provision was adopted as part of the budget without a hearing.
Mary admitted that if her provision becomes law it will be easier for individuals in Wisconsin to enter the teaching profession than it is in any other state. However, she is confident that teachers meeting the new standards will be just as qualified as those meeting today’s requirements. In an interview she explained that: “The districts are going to be the ones that hire these people, and I firmly believe that they’re not going to throw somebody in there that isn’t doing a good job. This is just flexibilities. They don’t have to use it.”
Mary’s proposal is not met with enthusiasm by professional educators. Tony Evers, the State Superintendent observed that: “We are sliding toward the bottom in standards for those who teach our students. It doesn’t make sense. We have spent years developing licensing standards to improve the quality of the teacher in the classroom. . . Now we’re throwing out those standards. . . . This motion presents a race to the bottom.” That race, of course, is exactly the race Wisconsin is offering the country by giving us Scott Walker as a possible candidate. Were he to become the Republican candidate for the 2016 presidential election, Wisconsin would clearly win the race to the bottom notwithstanding the fierce competition provided by most of the other Republican wannabes.
Friday, June 5, 2015
The NSA and the TSA
Secrecy and a free, democratic government don’t mix. Harry S. Truman
The week beginning June 1 was an exciting week for national security. The most exciting thing, of course, was that the Senate got back from its Memorial Day holiday and began working on a Sunday which is highly unusual. It did it because it knew it had less than 24 hours to complete work on an urgent piece of legislation. (It was so urgent that Members of the House finished their work before going on vacation. Senators decided to vacation first and legislate second.) The urgent matter pertained to preserving the right of government spies to collect Americans’ phone records in bulk.
Many Americans and members of Congress had no idea that the government was collecting phone records in bulk because that was a secret. It would still be a secret were it not for Edward J. Snowden. He let us know that unbeknownst to most of us inside and outside of government, the NSA had been collecting information about millions of Americans’ phone calls. A few members of Congress who served on committees dealing with national security knew of the practices but they believed their obligation to maintain confidentiality trumped any obligation they had to protect citizens from the NSA’s spying.
When Mr. Snowden disclosed the NSA’s activities, people in and out of Congress were furious. They were furious that it was going on and many of them were equally furious at Edward J. Snowden for alerting them to the practice. They said he was guilty of treason. That did not, however, keep them from demanding that the bulk collection of phone records be stopped.
The senators came back to work after their vacation with almost 18 hours left to protect the country from acts of terrorism. But then a strange thing happened. They couldn’t agree on how to deal with the bulk collection of phone records and at midnight on May 31, the NSA lost its authority to collect Americans’ phone records in bulk. It was blocked because of the actions of Senator Rand Paul who was concerned about the mass gathering of information about U.S. citizens by the NSA. As he said, when filibustering against proposed action by the Senate to permit the NSA to continue its bulk collection of phone records: “We already don’t catch terrorists with collecting all the data. So should we put television monitors in every house to try to prevent terrorist attacks? There is a zero sum game here that leads us down a slippery slope to where there would be no freedom left.”
Senator John McCain was a big supporter of the bulk collection of phone records by the NSA and was upset by Mr. Paul’s concern for the privacy rights of American citizens although that is not quite how he said it. He said Mr. Paul, (who hopes to become the next president) places “a higher priority on his fundraising and his ambitions than on the security of the nation.” Senator McCain said, without offering any evidence to support his statement, that letting the Act lapse “really does raise the risk to the public. It does eliminate one of the tools that the intelligence community has to identify homegrown terrorists.” Mr. McCain probably was unaware that on January 12, 2014 the Washington Post reported that an analysis of 225 terrorism cases inside the United States since 9/11 concluded that the bulk collection of phone records had “no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism.”
On June 2 the Senators put aside their differences and decided to follow the lead of the House and take the bulk collection of phone records away from the NSA and give it to the phone companies. (A side benefit of the act passed by the House is that the secret activities of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court will become more transparent.) Those changes are applauded by those who like to see government’s intrusions into the private lives of its citizens curbed.
On the very same day that the Senate decided to act to protect civil liberties there was a report from the Inspector General that federal undercover agents had been testing the security of TSA checkpoints at the country’s airports. The report said that the agents made 70 attempts to get through airport security carrying fake bombs or fake weapons and successfully passed through security 67 times without being detected. One agent even had a fake bomb strapped to his back that was not detected in a pat down. One possible explanation for the ability of the agents to get through security is that the TSA inspectors are so sophisticated that they can distinguish between fake bombs and fake weapons. The other explanation is that they are not very good at what they do. That is the accepted explanation and within hours after the disclosure of the lapses, the acting head of TSA was removed from office and a replacement appointed.
It’s a pity that those managing TSA recognize the need to protect citizens travelling by air from terrorists whereas many members of Congress have a hard time recognizing the importance of protecting citizens from the erosion of their civil rights.