A Prayer for America - by Pastor Southwick D.D.

Thanks, Cyracuz

A must-read on the issues involved when you talk about 'culture of poverty' is a recent feature in The New Yorker (from Jan. 15): Expectations, by Katherine Boo. An awe-inspiring piece of reportage.

It's - let me copy/paste for convenience - "a long feature on efforts to turn around the Denver Public School system and improve the lives of some Latino students at the infamous Manual High School." Or: "an account of Denver, Colorado's Manual High School, its mostly Mexican student body, and the unsuccessful efforts of the exceptional .. Denver Superintendent of the Schools Michael Bennet to change it."

But, by implication, its about much more than that.

I read it in one go, recognized much from what Ive seen close-up, but also felt I had learned as much as in a whole course at the end.

See: rave reviews from poster and readers on an Education Week blog.

Problem: It's not online at newyorker.com

Solution: For the time being, at least, you can find the text here.

Better government, more freedom, less of those pesky Babylonian regulations, etc. To make an exodus like the Puritain fathers had to for any freedom.

You weren't alive in the 1950s, were you?

One assumes you meant Puritan fathers. You don't know anything more about them than you do about the 1950s, do you?

Of course, i've long understood that ignorance never hinders, but in fact usually enhances, religious fervor.

Your boys "the Puritan fathers" didn't emmigrate some much because they wanted religious freedom as that they wanted some place in which they could practice their own particular brand of Calvinism without "polluting" outside influences. The ones who called themselves the "Pilgrims" first went to Holland, but soon left, since the Dutch largely practiced religious tolerance.

Once they got the Massachusetts Bay Company set up, the Puritans had their shining city on the hill--and they quickly drove out anyone who did not hew the line on what they took to be correct theology. That's why they drove out Roger Williams, and that's why they drove out Anne Hutchinson. They didn't want freedom--they wanted what they considered to be religious purity, and they didn't intend to allow any dissenting opinions.

I suspect you would probably approve of such a set-up, though.