Three stories worth your time this week.
There is an infinity of subjects that get posted to the World Wide Web every day. It can be hard to decide what to read. But since I do what I do for a living, I thought today I would recommend three stories I think are important and worth your time.
If you have been following the Highland Park United Methodist Church controversy, but want to understand more, turn to Kansas by way of The New Yorker. Bill McKibben writes about Adam Hamilton, who is running for Senate in Kansas. “Bethany, Kansas is not Dallas,” you may be thinking. And, yes, you’re correct. What makes this story worth your time is that Adam Hamilton has led the largest United Methodist Church in the U.S., the Church of the Resurrection, for 36 years. How large? Something like 24,000 members. And even before the time when the debate over the denomination’s rules about same-sex marriage and LGBTQ ministers was at its highest, he was one of the earliest critics of the policy and whether it was spiritually sound. That exploration in McKibben’s piece is worth reading, as it can help even non-Methodists understand the backdrop of HPUMC’s actions.
The Lab Report Dallas has been doing incredible reporting around the issues with Texas’s foster care system in general, and the chronic (and sometimes deadly) failures of Empower, who until its removal in July, had managed foster care here. In this week’s story, Claire Ballor talks to Courtney Craig, a foster parent whose two foster children were impacted by those failures. It’s a riveting read punctuated by the excellent photography of Allison V. Smith. It (along with previous reporting) is worth keeping front of mind as the Texas Legislature heads into its next session at the start of next year.
Did you know that $1 of the state fees tacked on to your annual auto insurance premium probably helped pay for the Flock cameras tracking your car’s movement through the state? The Texas Tribune reports that 2023 legislation added another $1 to the state fees collected on your insurance policy, and that buck was earmarked for helping combat catalytic converter theft. It raised about $81 million, and a lot of that went to state grants that reimbursed police departments for equipment and manpower dedicated to fighting vehicular crimes, including grants that paid for at least 3,200 Flock cameras. Dallas got $1,690,500, according to the Tribune, the most of any city in the state. Several lawmakers involved in that legislation say they didn’t intend for the fee to go to warrantless surveillance. This is important to note because it seems that the City Council will continue Dallas’ use of Flock cameras, but also because the Dallas Police Department announced it will cancel 321 cameras after Gov. Greg Abbott ruled that state funds can’t be used for them.
Read anything this week that you would recommend? Share with the class in the comments.