Our Daily Train | A blog by Jeremy Styron

This story should make you angry.

OREGON CITY — A Clackamas County jury sent a clear signal Tuesday that parents who rely solely on faith healing to treat their children face prison if a child dies.

Jeffrey and Marci Beagley were found guilty Tuesday of criminally negligent homicide in the death of their 16-year-old son, Neil. The boy died in June 2008 of complications from an undiagnosed congenital urinary blockage after his parents attempted to heal him with prayer, anointing with oil and laying on of hands.

They are the first members of Oregon City’s Followers of Christ church convicted of homicide in the congregation’s long history of children dying from from treatable medical conditions.

“This is a signal to the religious community that they should be on notice that their activities will be scrutinized,” said Steven K. Green, director of Willamette University’s Center for Religion and Democracy. Other prosecutors may be emboldened to take similar cases to court, the law professor said.

Prosecutor Greg Horner asked that the Beagleys immediately be taken in to custody. Clackamas County Presiding Judge Steven L. Maurer denied the request, saying the Beagleys were not a flight risk or threat to the community.

Friends and family reacted to the 10-2 verdicts with stunned silence. Marci Beagley hugged her mother in the courthouse lobby as both women wept. Other family members quietly stood by.

The Beagleys will be sentenced Feb. 18. The maximum penalty for criminally negligent homicide is 10 years, but the Beagleys likely will receive no more than 18 months in prison and could be sentenced to probation.

…

Prosecutors focused on the Beagleys’ lifelong rejection of medical care and on a family dynamic that placed immense pressure on Neil Beagley to conform to his church’s reliance on faith healing.

They noted that Neil had limited contact with people outside his church who might have noticed health problems. He was home-schooled, and his social life did not extend beyond other church members.

Defense attorneys presented jurors with a picture of a typical hard-working suburban family whose lives blended daily with the secular world. They showed the jury family pictures and videos of Neil growing up and depicted the Beagleys as part of the mainstream and anything but isolated and clannish.

Three doctors testified for the defense, generally saying that Neil Beagley’s symptoms wouldn’t necessarily have appeared life-threatening.

In his closing argument, prosecutor Greg Horner noted that the Beagleys would not take their son to a physician but relied on medical experts to defend their actions.

It is “a rich irony,” Horner said.

Jurors were asked to consider whether the Beagleys’ actions were “a gross deviation” from what a reasonable person would have done in a similar situation.

The state did not have to prove that the Beagleys intended to cause Neil’s death or that they knew he was going to die.

Defense attorneys downplayed the religious aspects of the case while prosecutors said the law, faith and parental duties were inseparably bound.

Neil Beagley “grew up in a world where medicine is weakness, faith is strength,” prosecutor Steven Mygrant told jurors.

Neil embraced the church’s belief that seeking medical care shows a lack of faith. None of his relatives used doctors. And Neil was unable to make an informed health-care decision because he didn’t know he was on the verge of death, prosecutors said.

“For me, this case was not about faith healing and it was not a referendum on the church,” Mackeson said. “It was about two parents who loved their son and did not know how sick he was.”

The jury agreed with Mackeson — up to a point.

The Beagleys are decent people who made a fatal mistake, said juror Robert Zegar. The couple should have known their son needed more than prayer, but they ignored warnings, including the death of another family member, Zegar said.

Last summer, another jury found church members Raylene and Carl Brent Worthington not guilty of manslaughter in the death of their 15-month-old daughter, Ava. Raylene Worthington is the Beagley’s daughter and Neil Beagley’s sister. Carl Worthington was convicted on a lesser charge.

Prosecutors successfully argued that they should be allowed to discuss the Worthington case because the Beagleys were present when Ava died. That pre-trial victory helped pave a path to Tuesday’s guilty verdict.

Maurer’s decision to allow references to the Worthington case “was a very big difference,” said attorney Mark Cogan, who represented Carl Worthington. “That was the biggest difference between the two trials.”

The Beagleys were at the Worthington home for 24 hours before Ava died. No one called for an ambulance or tried to revive the Ava when she stopped breathing.

Neil Beagley died three and a half months later in similar circumstances.

He became ill in March 2008 with a cold that developed into something Marci Beagley and other relatives believed could be life-threatening. The Beagleys treated him with faith healing but did not take him to a doctor.

Neil recovered but got sick again in early June 2008. After a week or so, he became too weak to walk. Jeffrey Beagley had to carry him to the bathroom. Marci Beagley fed him in small meals, but Neil couldn’t keep his food down.

When he died, as with Ava Worthington, no one called 9-1-1.

Credit: Public Policy Polling

This just in: A majority of Democrats and Independents are rooting for the New Orleans Saints to win the Super Bowl, while a small majority of Republicans will be pulling for the Indianapolis Colts, according to this study.

Overall 32% of voters we polled on our last national survey said they’d be rooting for the New Orleans Saints this Sunday, with 22% going for the Indianapolis Colts and 46% expressing no preference.

There’s a significant partisan divide within those numbers, as Democrats prefer the Saints by a 36-21 margin while Republicans say they want the Colts to be victorious by a closer 26-25 spread. Independents lean toward the Saints as well, 33-20.

Here is the press release from Public Policy Polling.

I think these numbers can be attributed to a few factors. First, the majority of Americans are pulling for the Saints because it’s the team’s first trip to the Big Dance. Everyone likes rooting for the underdog or whichever Cinderella team is wowing fans. The second reason has to do with New Orleans itself. Obviously, America in general wants to see the team win because it would be good for the people of New Orleans. Not that well-wishes and winning a sports title is going to make up for the thousands lost in Katrina, but at least it’s something. Finally, Democrats and Independents are probably pulling for the Saints for the latter reason, given Commander Genius and FEMA’s ineptness in helping a city consisting of 67 percent black folk.

***

Interesting. Rarely do I check the “Politics” and “Sports” categories when finishing these posts. I’ll have to look for more opportunities to do so.

As I read a lot of news Web sites, blogs and magazines, it’s not hard to spot instances of bad grammar or punctuation, even in sources that should have a firm grasp of rudimentary punctuation rules, such as using a comma to join two independent clauses (A subject and verb on both sides of “and” or “but” consist of two sentences that could, in theory, standalone. Without a comma, such a conjoined sentence becomes a run-on sentence.)

But then again, I’m a bit of a prude when it comes to errors in printed type. Of course, saying that opens the way for someone to nitpick every sentence I’ve written sleepy and after midnight since 2008. I understand that we’re all human, but it really is distracting seeing stuff like “Jones said he lost his job, because he had a disagreement with his boss.” So, here are a few of the more common errors that I find in general writing and from sources which should know better. I should keep a running list — like this delightful site — but I’m afraid I would need a completely separate blog. If you’re curious, here are some basics.

• Because — No comma before “because” ever. Ever. Ever. Why? Because it looks hideous and doesn’t make any sense. And because the writing gods say so.
• And and or — Use a comma before “and” or “or” if two complete sentences appear on both sides of “and” or “or.” That means a subject and verb. Don’t use a comma if one clause is independent and the other is dependent (not a complete sentence on its own). This one is serious.
• Their, they’re, there — “Their” is a pronoun. “They’re” is “they are.” Even more serious.
• Its, it’s — “Its” is a pronoun. “It’s” is “it is.” Super-cereal serious.
• Whose, who’s — “Whose” is an adjective or pronoun. “Who’s” is “who is.” Falls into the cereal category of serious.
• Which, witch, bomb, baum, bow, beau, bough, bear, bare, hour, our, sell, sale, cent, scent, break, brake, seem, seam, etc. — Examples of English language debris.
• ! — Use once or twice in your lifetime. That’s your limit.
• , — Most misunderstood, misused, abused and mangled mark in the history of written language.
• ; — Most useless mark in the history of written language and what smart people use when they want to feel smarter. Or, as Kurt Vonnegut said: “If you really want to hurt your parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts. But do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.”
• — — Denotes a sudden break in thought inside a sentence. I have this one — this is my favorite punctuation mark — down pat! I just reached my exclamation mark limit for the next 50 years.
• () — Denotes extra information inside a sentence that could be excluded but is included anyway because the writer, in all his language prowess (See Faulkner and Milton, the latter of whom often included entire paragraphs of parenthetical text inside a single sentence. Now that’s talent! … [Lifetime exclamation quota met.]), seeks to make his text as belabored, chunky and hard to muddle through as possible.

There’s more, of course — for the record, starting a sentence with “there” or “its” is lazy writing — but I wore myself out on that last bullet point, thus the lazy writing. For your amusement, here’s one case of many in which an ill-placed apostrophe can be weep-inducing … or funny. Take your pick.

Credit: Apostrophe Catastrophes

Here is Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) speaking on the proposal to change the nation’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy on gays in the military (His comments start at 51:50):

Chambliss states:

… Today we know we have gay and lesbian soldiers serving. They’ve served in the past. They’re going to serve in the future, and they’re going to serve in a very valiant way.

But the primary purpose of the armed forces is to prepare for and prevail in combat should the need arise. Military life is fundamentally different from civilian life, and military society is characterized by its own laws, rules, customs and traditions – including restrictions on personal behavior that would not be acceptable in civilian society.

Examples include alcohol use, adultery, fraternization and body art. If we change this rule of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” what are we going to do with these other issues?

The armed forces must maintain personnel policies that excludes persons whose presence in the armed forces would create an unacceptable risk to the armed forces high standards, the morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion.

In my opinion, the presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would very likely create an unacceptable risk to those high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and effective unit cohesion and effectiveness. I’m opposed to this change, and I look forward to a very spirited debate on this issue….

How do these folks manage to summon enough brain cells to tie their shoes in the morning, much less run for office? Does Chambliss actually imply that changing the military’s policy on gays in the military will open the floodgates to “alcohol use, adultery, fraternization and body art?” Andrew Sullivan seems to think so, since Chambliss said: “armed forces must maintain personnel policies that excludes persons whose presence in the armed forces would create an unacceptable risk to the armed forces high standards, the morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion.”

As Sullivan pithily notes, it’s “unimaginable!” that soldiers would spiral down into alcohol use.

But in truth, it’s hard to know what Chambliss meant since he contradicts himself between this statement:

Today we know we have gay and lesbian soldiers serving.

and this one:

In my opinion, the presence in the armed forces of persons who demonstrate a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts would very likely create an unacceptable risk to those high standards of morale …

Of course, we all know that gays are incapable by their nature of anything resembling morals, good order or discipline!

If you are prejudiced against gay folks or black folks or Hispanics or Jews or Native Americans (an impossibility since we wiped them out years ago) or pink leprechauns, heck, just come out and say it.

At least that would be more genuine.

As a point of fact, I actually agree in the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy conjured up by the Clinton administration and probably agree with Chambliss (on his general premise, not the part about equating alcohol use and the like to gays) if he wasn’t so disingenuous in his presentation. My sexual orientation as a straight person isn’t anyone’s business anymore than a gay person’s. Making sexuality open in the military would seem to make a pointless show of orientation. And if equality is what that gay people are after, that undermines it. So do gay pride parades and any other such demonstrations, as I have said previously.

In true-to-form fashion, FOX News in the below clip summons a Republican talking head, of the Ronald Reagon variety — Art Laffer was a member of President Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board — to skewer President Obama’s 2011 budget plan. Here’s the video:

As Laffer claims, and as mediamatters.org disputes,

Laffer claimed that in fiscal 2011, “all of the Bush tax cuts expire,” ignoring that President Obama’s budget plan allows those cuts to expire only for those making more than $250,000 per year

How many times does Obama have to cite the $250,000 figure?? He’s only been using it since the campaign and still states that it is the mark someone has to reach to be denied tax cuts. Has this sunk in at all?

Regardless, I thought one commenter to this post got it right when he said Reagan’s famed tax cuts for the top 1 percent of earners didn’t “trickle down” at all, and indeed, it was a full two years before the unemployment rate in the early 1980s approached anywhere near where Reagan said it would — 6.9 percent — after the savior-esque tax cuts for the rich.

Here’s that telling information (Thanks jarossiter):

Reagan was sworn into office in 1981 – and 22 months LATER the unemployment rate was 10.4%

How long did it take Reagan to reduce the unemployment rate to below 8%?
1/1981 – unemployment rate 7.5% …. Reagan sworn in.
1/1981 – 7.4%
3/1981 – 7.4%
4/1981 – 7.2%
5/1981 – 7.5%
6/1981 – 7.5%
7/1981 – 7.2%
8/1981 – 7.4% * Reagan CUTS taxes for top 1% & said unemployment would DROP to 6.9%
9/1981 – 7.6%
10/1981 – 7.9%
11/1981 – 8.3%
12/1981 – 8.5%

1/1982 – 8.6%
2/1982 – 8.9%
3/1982 – 9.0%
4/1982 – 9.3%
5/1982 – 9.4%
6/1982 – 9.6%
7/1982 – 9.8%
8/1982 – 9.8%
9/1982 – 10.1%
10/1982 – 10.4%
11/1982 – 10.8%
12/1982 – 10.8%

1/1983 – 10.4%
2/1983 – 10.4%
3/1983 – 10.3%
4/1983 – 10.3%
5/1983 – 10.1%
6/1983 – 10.1%
7/1983 – 9.4%
6/1983 – 9.5%
7/1983 – 9.4%
8/1983 – 9.5%
9/1983 – 9.2%
10/1983 – 8.8%
11/1983 – 8.5%
12/1983 – 8.3%

1/1984 – 8.0%
2/1984 – 7.8%

Took Reagan 28 MONTHS to get unemployment rate back down below 8%.

***Stock Market C R A S H E D in 1987.

It can withstand interviews with Larry King, Michael Moore … and, of course, jail time.

How unprecedented was the meeting and Q&A between President Obama and Republican leaders? I’m not sure, but it seems that nothing of this nature has taken place in decades, if ever. Here’s a portion of Obama’s speech prior to the Q&A session.

It seems like we have clambered through this partisan quagmire for the last two-three decades or more, and as someone who is opposed to the two party system (because issues aren’t always, and rarely are, two-sided) I thought a meeting such as this between the president and the opposition party had the potential to be incredibly constructive.

The key point, I thought, from President Obama’s brief speech Friday at a Republican caucus, was this:

I don’t believe that the American people want us to focus on our job security. They want us to focus on their job security.

Which, of course, cuts to the quick of a longstanding problem among politicians that they too often embrace causes only for the sake of winning them votes in the next election rather than embracing causes to make this country we love a better place.

You can read about the question and answer session with the president here and here.

Here is Part 1 of The New York Times’ account of the event, and here is Part 2.

When thinking about social conservatism or the Tea Party crowd and the like, I’m often struck by the mountain of contradictions implied by their ideologies. On some points, they say small government is the way to go. On other points, they tout more government intervention. The implication is, itself, a non sequitar. Anyone who can’t see the contradictions in the Republican Party’s stances on moral issues (pro-big government) versus its stances on national economics (con-big government) needs to look again and realize that the Republican Party is one ball of ideological contradictions.

Here are some Republican causes, divided into their contradictory parts:

For more government intervention, fight against:

• Abortion
• Gay rights
• Stem cell research
• Immigration reform
• The separation of church and state
• Drugs

For less government intervention, fight for:

• The deregulation of Wall Street and other economic sectors
• Gun rights
• Tax cuts for the rich but not for the middle class
• Limited or zero health care reform.

CNN has created an interactive graphic allowing users to view any of 189,577 Twitter comments in response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union from Wednesday. The categories of commentators are “Support Obama,” “Oppose Obama,” “Mixed Reaction,” “Great Speech” and “Obama Too Liberal.”

Also, moveon.org held its first “real time dial test” of the speech, with about 10,000 moveon.org members participating. Understanding that this chart represents progressive reactions, here are those results:

Also, here are some thoughts from The Atlantic’s James Fallows and Andrew Sullivan.

The New York Times chimed in today with its unsigned editorial, lauding Obama as a “gifted orator,” with the ability to “inspire with grand vision and the simple truth frankly spoken,” and here are a some more comments from various luminaries posted by the San Francisco Chronicle:

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican
“Today’s announcement is fantastic news for job creation in California. … The Obama administration is strongly supporting California’s high-speed rail project, which is the largest public works project in the nation and will create jobs, save billions of pounds of greenhouse gases and be the first true high-speed rail system to break ground in the nation.”

Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena

“As families across the country tighten their belt, we need to do some trimming of the fat in Washington, too. However, I’m going to watch very carefully to make sure that the president lives up to his promise to go through the budget line by line, rather than make across-the-board spending cuts that might do more harm than good to our local and national economies.”

Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, Republican

“We want results, not rhetoric. We want cooperation, not partisanship. … All Americans agree we need a health care system that is affordable, accessible and high quality. But most Americans do not want to turn over the best medical care system in the world to the federal government.”

Rep. Lois Capps, D-Santa Barbara

“I commend President Obama for calling for the repeal of the so-called “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. … We have been actively working on this issue in Congress and are more than ready to work with the president to ensure that this misguided policy is repealed as quickly as possible.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky

“I’m hopeful the administration’s new focus on the economy will lead it to say no to more spending and debt, more bailouts, and more government.”

Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez

“(Obama) hit it out of the park. He made it very clear why we’re in this struggle to change the economy – and took the Congress, took the Senate especially, to the woodshed for not getting these things done.”

J.D. Salinger, the author of “The Catcher in the Rye,” died Wednesday in his home in New Hampshire. You can read about it his life here and here and here.

Here, I’ve compiled some of the more meaningful quotes from “The Catcher in the Rye,” one of the most celebrated novels in American literature:

I was half in love with her by the time we sat down.  That’s the thing about girls.  Every time they do something pretty, even if they’re not much to look at, or even if they’re sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are.  Girls.  Jesus Christ.  They can drive you crazy.  They really can. — Chapter 10

People never notice anything. — Chapter 2

Anyway, I’m sort of glad they’ve got the atomic bomb invented.  If there’s ever another war, I’m going to sit right the hell on top of it.  I’ll volunteer for it, I swear to God I will. — Chapter 18

Boy, when you’re dead, they really fix you up.  I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something.  Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery.  People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap.  Who wants flowers when you’re dead?  Nobody. — Chapter 20

“Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all.  Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around – nobody big, I mean – except me.  And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff.  What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff – I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them.  That’s all I do all day.  I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all.  I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be.”  — Chapter 22

I don’t even know what I was running for – I guess I just felt like it. — Chapter 1

“Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.”
“Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it.”
Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it’s a game, all right — I’ll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren’t any hot-shots, then what’s a game about it? Nothing. No game. — Chapter 2

These intellectual guys don’t like to have an intellectual conversation with you unless they’re running the whole thing. They always want you to shut up when they shut up, and go back to your room when they go back to their room. — Chapter 19

That’s the whole trouble. You can’t ever find a place that’s nice and peaceful, because there isn’t any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you’re not looking, somebody’ll sneak up and write “Fuck you” right under your nose. Try it sometime. I think, even, if I ever die, and they stick me in a cemetery, and I have a tombstone and all, it’ll say “Holden Caulfield” on it, and then what year I was born and what year I died, and then right under that it’ll say “Fuck you.” I’m positive, in fact. — Chapter 25

I’d bet a thousand bucks that Jesus never sent old Judas to Hell. I still would, too, if I had a thousand bucks. I think any one of the Disciples would’ve sent him to Hell and all — and fast, too — but I’ll bet anything Jesus didn’t do it. — Chapter 14