Should Illegal Immigrants Be Admitted to College?

At InsideHigherEd.com, Elizabeth Redden writes about the North Carolina Community College System’s effort to develop a stable admissions policy vis-a-vis undocumented immigrants. Last week, the NC Attorney General issued a statement saying that the state’s community college system should return to its former policy of not admitting undocumented immigrants to college-level courses. The AG was primarily concerned about federal law. From an earlier Redden article:

The North Carolina Community College System set off a firestorm in November when it issued a directive indicating that all 58 colleges must begin admitting undocumented students under the open admissions policy. But the state attorney general’s office has now called for reversing course. The office sent out an advisory letter Tuesday suggesting a return to an earlier system policy, propagated in 2001, which limited enrollment of illegal immigrants on the basis that federal law restricts their eligibility for most state and local public benefits. “Postsecondary education is one of those benefits that undocumented or illegal aliens are not eligible to receive,” the 2001 policy reads.

On Trying to Change Christian Attitudes Toward Homosexuality

At the Associated Baptist Press, David Gushee writes a moving editorial on the modern Christian response to homosexuality, a response that is too often based on fear, loathing, and ignorance. Gushee challenges us to extend the “rudiments of Christian love of neighbor” to homosexuals. Among other things, Gushee calls on Christians to stop blaming homosexuals for our social ills, to speak accurately about homosexuality as a sexual orientation, and to recognize the full humanity and dignity of homosexuals as persons made in God’s image. For Baptists, Gushee’s words challenge to us take seriously our long-standing position, rejected by the Southern Baptist Convention, that Jesus Christ is the criterion upon which the Bible is to be interpreted.

Southern Baptist President: Libera Media is Ruining America (Just Look at Canada)

Frank Page, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, rails against the “liberals” in an American Family Association webcast. Writes Bob Allen at EthicsDaily.com:

Page, who completes his two-year service as top elected leader of the nation’s second-largest faith group in June, described the prospect of a future Supreme Court ruling that gay marriage is legal in all 50 states as “a frightening thought.”

“I think it’s going to dramatically change everything,” he said. “The entire societal paradigm is going to shift. Nothing will be the same. The only place where people will be able to sense some sense of normality will be within the walls of Bible-believing churches. Because once they leave the walls of the Bible-believing churches, they are going to live in a world that is totally different.”

Would churches be in peril?

“Just look to Canada,” Page said. “Already in Canada, if you are as a pastor, you speak against homosexuality, you can be jailed. And I’ve told my people in my church, ‘You just have to come visit me in jail, because they may be where we’re headed.’ I’m just saying life is going to change if that happens. Life is going to change as we know it.”

Life in America would never be the same, Page said, unless the people of America were to wake up and ask, “What have we done?” He viewed that as unlikely.

“The liberal control of the media, most of the media, the liberal control of most of education, of most of movies, television–their control is so pervasive and so virulently opposed to a conservative viewpoint of life, they would make it extremely difficult for our nation to ever wake up and do anything about it,” he said.

Follow this link for the complete article.

I wonder if Page has read “Young Goodman Brown.” Perhaps Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story should be added to the Southern Baptists’ Sunday School literature.

Ben Stein’s Expelled

Andy Guess at Inside HigherEd writes about Stein’s upcoming documentary on the teaching of Intelligent Design at American universities and colleges.

Bush Defends War in Iraq, Gas Prices Going Up, and I Love My Bike

The New York Times reports on President Bush’s speech at the Pentagon in which he asserts the Iraq war, now five years old, has made “the world better and the United States safer” (quoting the article). Meanwhile, CNNMoney.com reports that gas prices have just begun to ramp upward. The national average price per gallon is expected to peak at near $4 in late spring. A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll finds that 75% of Americans report financial hardship due to rising gas prices. (In this article, one expert predicts that gas prices will not reach $4 per gallon—that seems to be a minority opinion based on my reading.)

Arthur C. Clarke

CNN.com is reporting the sad news that Arthur C. Clarke has passed away.  Follow this link for the story.  I don’t have time to comment now—more later.

Remembering the 80s: Radio Nigel

Radio Nigel gives life to the 1980s you don’t hear much about these days, an 80s of alternative, punk, and new wave music that for many of us, defined our teenage years. I like Madonna, Journey, and Van Halen as much as the next person, but there was more to the 80s than present-day commercial radio and VH1 would leave you to believe.

Check This Out: How to Save the Planet

This is a very cool video from the Cyclists’ Touring Club, the national bicycling organization in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

HT: Kent.

Don’t Blow That Whistle, Lady

In an amazing example of discriminatory religious beliefs carried to absurd lengths, a Kansas high school (St. Mary’s Academy) refused to allow Michelle Campbell to officiate at a boy’s basketball game. The reason: as a woman, she cannot be allowed to hold a position of authority over boys.

I suppose if Hillary Clinton is elected president this high school will be forced to succeed from the union.

Britain Backed Down by Communist China?

The Daily Mail reports that British Olympic athletes are being forced to sign a contract prohibiting criticism of China’s communist government. If an athlete does not sign the contract, he or she does not compete in China. If one violates the contract while in China, he’ll be put on the next plane home.