Deus Misereatur

  Single-cause interpretations are a huge problem. They are tools used by ideologues to convince people to step into the “Us vs. Them” morass. It stirs polarization and partisanship. Single-cause interpretations are a serious problem. But a single-cause interpretation is not to be found in the 368-page hardback “ Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment ” written by Michael Javen Fortner , who was Assistant Professor and Academic Dean of Urban Studies at the CUNY School of Professional Studies and is presently Associate Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, California. It’s a slow read filled with details, data, and reports of and by real people. It is an essential read, especially if one is concerned with penal reforms, or restoring racial relationships.   Fortner put this book together “because the literature on mass incarceration neglected the voices of working- and middle-class African Americans dealing ...

  I am pretty sure it happens more often than we think. We pick up an article or book because it potentially confirms what we think may be the case. And then as we’re reading, we feel more established in our perspective. The trick is to think through the pros and cons of what we are reading, and especially so if we agree with many of the conclusions. That tactic takes a bit of self-restraint and self-control. I had to exercise such self-discipline as I worked my way through the 256-page hardback “ Hate Crime Hoax: How the Left is Selling a Fake Race War ”. The African American author, Wilfred Reilly , is assistant professor of Political Sciences at the historically black Kentucky State University, and has compiled a compelling sample list of highly reported hate crimes, weeding through the stories and investigations, and bringing out the conclusions of courts, police, confessions, etc. that exposed these incidents as hoaxes. He also shows that undergirding much of the sensational r...

  Unlike Marduk and the gods of the nations, when you made humankind, you said: “ Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so ” (Genesis 1:29-30). Truly, LORD God, you made us not because you needed us. You made us not because you were lonely and lacked love. You made us not because you needed us to scratch some itch. You made us because you are love and goodness, and so desired to give and lavish that love and goodness on us! Therefore, with the 24 elders and creatures that surround your throne, we adore and worship you: “ Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were create...