"Verily I sell unto you"

Is God becoming a business partner on Main Street, or are some savvy entrepreneurs just making hay on the pretense?

... There are now Christian real estate agencies, cellular and long-distance services, financial planners, computer repair guys, furniture stores, bed-and breakfast associations, diets, yoga and karate instructors, and goat breeders. These companies -- in contrast to religious bookstores, for example -- do earthly things in, they say, a Christian way.

Unlike Curves, Domino's or Coors, for example, which have been criticized for tithing their earnings to archconservative causes -- and unlike the Chick-fil-A fast-food chain, closed on Sundays because of its founder's religious beliefs -- these Christian companies link their work directly and overtly to their missions. ("Christian," in these cases, is generally taken to mean "born again," in which the business owner has a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" that guarantees eternal life, and the responsibility to offer others the same opportunity.) The mission statement of Houston-based auto-repair franchiser Christian Brothers Automotive ("Christian" as in Christian, not a surname), for instance, reads: "To glorify God by providing ethical and excellent automotive repair service for our customers, according to Colossians 3:17, 'And whatever you do in word and deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.'"

* * *

"I got saved at an Amway meeting, so the marketplace is where I invite Christ into my life," says Chuck Ripka, 46, co-founder of Riverview Community Bank in Otsego, Minn. ("We invited Jesus to be the CEO of our bank," he says, attributing the bank's "supernatural" growth -- from $5.5 million in start-up capital to $103 million in 27 months -- to divine intervention.) While the bank's name may sound generic (and the company Web site is "God"-free), the Ten Commandments banner in the foyer, the "God Bless You" sign at the tellers station, and the painting in the CEO's office of two businessmen shaking hands with Jesus, might tip customers off. "God has allowed us to be who we are: We're Christians and we're bankers, and we're allowed to mix the two. To me, it's seamless. We're a bank first, but in the midst of it all, when customers express their own needs, I am able to pray along with them," says Ripka, who customarily asks God's blessing for reporters at the end of interviews. ...

"When someone asks, 'Who's your long-distance carrier?' it's a way for me to have a foot in the door to share the message of Christ," says Chandler, who also works as a sales agent for Blessed Hope Communications. Ripka of Riverview Community Bank says he has had 105 people "invite Christ into their lives" on bank premises. (He also claims over 70 faith healings.)

I will read and respond to, with much greater than the usual interest, your comments.

Back to Ohio (and then Tennessee)

Paul Hackett nearly pulled it off yesterday.

No, he didn't get elected to Congress. But he did collect 48.2 % of the vote in a southwestern Ohio district in which the previous four Democratic congressional candidates had garnered half that amount. The GOP spent five hundred thousand bucks and dialed every single Republican household in the district with George Bush's pre-recorded pleading to hold onto a district that has been safe for them for the past ten years.

Texas bloggers raised $2100 for the Hackett campaign. Thanks to everyone who dug deep.

On the other side of the Buckeye State, twenty reservists from the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Corps, have been killed in the last two days. The emotions in the Cleveland suburb of Brook Park are raw from the news.

Next week I'll be in Cincinnatti for some business and some vacation, and hopefully we'll get to meet some Ohioans whom we've only known previously online. We'll chat and chew over the news above, probably talk about the Coingate scandal enveloping the Republican state leaders, and I'll try to glean some insight about what these things may mean for the possibility of Ohio going blue in 2006 (and 08), and if any of that wisdom can be migrated to Texas.

Before I head north, I'll be in Austin for the steering committee meeting of the Van Os for Attorney General campaign (check out the newly designed website). I'll blog about that next week from Cincy, along with our visit to the Underground Railroad Museum, the Harriet Beecher Stowe home, and the Reds-Giants baseball game we'll get to see from one of the suites at Great American Ballpark.

But this weekend you need to tune in to Justice Sunday II, starring our very own Tom DeLay. Bill Frist was uninvited, despite the event being held in his home state of Tennessee, apparently because he dared to learn that stem cell research is actually good science. Some details about the other speakers can be found here and here.

Update: At DriveDemocracy.org, Trevor wonders if the believers on the Right are concerned that DeLay grants special favors to Saipan, where officials forced "pregnant garment workers...to have abortions to keep their jobs". And the real imponderable is how a man nicknamed 'The Hammer' became a hero to the people who worship Jesus, who was nailed to a cross ...

The Taos-ification of Marfa

For anyone who has spent time in West Texas -- and it's always capitalized as if it is its own country, because it is -- the region leaves a singular impression, no matter where you've been; Big Bend, Terlingua, Fort Davis and Balmorhea, and certainly Marfa and the Lights. Rustic, remote, desolate, its sprawling sparseness -- "wide open spaces", as the cowboys (and girls) sing -- always seemed, to me, to be at the very end of the Earth.

Or so I thought. Salon notifies us it's being taken over by the Californians:

A classic Western showdown has come to the hottest little town in the country. Set amid the cedar-shaded, yucca-dotted lands of West Texas, surrounded by grasslands as wide as the Serengeti, Marfa may be the last un-Starbucked place in America. In the past few years, a covey of A-list artists, corporate players and real estate speculators have descended on the tiny town (pop. 2,121). Enchanted by its spare beauty -- think "The Last Picture Show" with a Christian Liagre makeover -- they're also drawn by elite cultural institutions like the Chinati Foundation, dedicated to hip installation art, and the Lannan Foundation, a prestigious literary organization.

Trailing in the trendsetters' wake has been the national media. Marfa's press clips glow like newly lit luminaria. Publications such as Vanity Fair, Elle and ArtForum venerate Marfa's Victorian ranch houses and Texas Territorial adobes, the burgeoning art scene and its rich patrons. The movie "Giant" was filmed in Marfa 50 years ago, when its stars James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson could be seen kicking around town. These days, the scene makers include Dan Rather, Frances McDormand, Dwight Yoakam and Tommy Lee Jones. A National Public Radio station is coming. The real estate madness already has. Four years ago, Marfa adobes were selling for $40,000. They're now $200,000 and no doubt a good deal higher after the recent New York Times story, "The Great Marfa Land Boom."

It's a familiar pattern. Western havens like Aspen, Colo., Taos, N.M., and Missoula, Mont., were Marfas once, playgrounds for coast-hugging hipsters who could slip into jeans and the rustic camaraderie of the outback. But those towns are full up now, victims of their popularity. Now the sagebrush Medici come to Texas, piloting the corporate Gulfstream into tiny Marfa Municipal airport and bellying up to the jes-folks atmosphere of Joe's Bar, where the Bud Light costs $1.75. The town remains an aesthete's dream, devoid of Olive Gardens, Best Buys and any sign of the suburban middle class. Rather, Marfa is the honest texture of adobe and fine art set against a big sky. It's the simplicity of line and the haunting emptiness of the land.

*snip*

Today, on Marfa's main street, tony art galleries and wine shops are driving away traditional cafes and shops, whose local owners can't afford the new sky-high rents. Everywhere you go the townsfolk, independent Texans to the core, lament the changes to their community. The term "ChiNazi" is used locally to describe anyone from out of town who arrives with artistic ambitions and a superior attitude. Observes one local cattle rancher, who asked to remain anonymous: "We're filling up with triple A's -- artists, assholes and attorneys."

Rest at the link.

Regarding the Bolton appointment

Will Pitt explains why we just have to eat it:

Democratic reaction to (Bolton's recess appointment) was vehement. “John Bolton is a person who, in his personal relationship with government employees, has been abominable, mean, unreasonable and bizarre,” said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. Senator Chris Dodd, echoing Reid, said, “He's damaged goods. This is a person who lacks credibility. This would be the first U.N. ambassador since 1948 we've ever sent there under a recess appointment. That's not what you want to send up, a person that doesn't have the confidence of the Congress.”

That and a dollar won’t get you a Grande Whatever at the local Starbucks. It sure won’t stop Bush from sending this cretin to represent us in that world body in a day when international cooperation is not only important, but vital to the safety and survival of our republic.

But hey, why should we expect any different? Karl Rove and Lewis Libby betrayed our national security by outing a CIA agent who was keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists. They did this to keep the lid on the lies and disinformation being spread about the threat posed by Iraq. A good portion of those lies were put forth by John Bolton. Unless history decides to do an about face, Rove and Libby will walk away from their crimes once Fitzgerald is put out to pasture, and Bolton will slip into the UN building by way of the back door.

It is what it is, and there is probably no stopping it. Perhaps, though, there is an object lesson in this. The American people are about to get yet another IMAX-sized example of what happens in government when the powerful do not suffer accountability. Perhaps the American people will remember this when they go to the polls in the 2006 midterms. Until then, however, we will continue to choke on it.

Uh, yeah. He's right.

The real question is: are we (that's 'we' meaning you and I) going to keep eating it, or are we going to start fighting back?

Update: Via Prairie Weather, the American Prospect explains why Bolton is essentially neutered anyway. And Pete suggests some alternate Boltons that would've worked out better.

Mix city council candidates and bloggers and what do you get?

One of the causes of global warming.

Blogging live from Kaveh Kanes in downtown H-Town, where brunch and free Wi-Fi are being served. A semi-full report later, but I'll put it over here.

Update: Discussion and comments from nine candidates and seven bloggers is here.

Texans for Hackett is rolling

42 people have clicked on the links furnished by Greg (who hatched the idea) and participating Texas bloggers and have contributed almost $1,200, with an average donation of $28.45 . Richard Morrison fired up his listserv and collected a fourth of that total.

That's as of this morning.

An absolutely amazing example of the power of the netroots. Let's take it all the way to the finish line next Tuesday.