U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy; wikipedia

If you are a college graduate who needed student loans to get that degree – ever more precious in an economic downturn and a competitive work environment – you should be thanking Ted Kennedy today. If you’re a female who got to play sports in schools forced to fund women’s athletics with some semblance of equity to men’s, thank Kennedy for Title IX. If you’re a person who grew up in poverty, working your tail off at minimum-wage jobs and still had too much month at the end of the money, you can thank Kennedy for his push to raise – more than once – the minimum wage. If you or your child are disabled and you’re offered decent education and a chance at work without discrimination? Kennedy and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Kennedy, who served in the Senate for 46 years, died last night at the age of 77 from complications of a brain tumor. He was a life-long Catholic. While he was involved in just about every piece of major legislation that brought a better life to the working poor, the issues closest to his heart were equal rights, health care and education – both improving it in general and improving access to higher education for people of little means. I often think of critics of Kennedy’s – the college-educated pro-life advocates who focus solely on his stance on abortion and stem-cell research – and wonder: Do they realize that their college educations, the brains they trained in university classrooms and now use to mount arguments against killing the unborn, are, in part, gifts from the late Senator? Women, minorities and the poor especially should recognize that without Kennedy’s passion for improving access to higher education for all, many would not have made it into those classrooms. (more…)

Can you find your way to a hospital? When you get there, can you pay?

You can’t open any newspaper editorial page these days without seeing arguments for and against health care reform. You can’t turn on television coverage of Town Halls around the issue without seeing sometimes gun-toting – as was the case in Phoenix last week – and always sign-toting people protesting the public option as though giving health care to the most vulnerable among us (the very young, the very old, and the very poor) was akin to, well, acting like Hitler.

The comparison, of course, is specious, the crutch of those who cannot argue their case based on merits alone. It is also, as pundits on both the right and the left have explained, trivializing to the millions who suffered under Hilter’s cruel attempt to purify the human race.

But setting that craziness aside, we are still left with the problem of millions of Americans living without access to health care, and, for purposes of God Blogging, a question about people of faith and what they should do about it. According to the folks over at Faith For Health (and a couple of representatives of local Christian communities), believers should get pay attention to what radical discipleship calls one to when reflecting on health care reform. (more…)

… is leaving the East Valley Tribune today. Ryan Gabrielson, who, along with Paul Giblin, won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for local reporting, will begin his year long investigative reporting fellowship at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism September 1. Let the choir sing Amen. Not because Arizona is losing him, but because the nation is about to be exposed to a brilliant, young investigative mind through the work Ryan will do during his fellowship.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the Maricopa Community College District might be rejoicing at Ryan’s leaving, as investigations he did illuminated all sorts of questionable dealings in the Sheriff’s office and the CC District. It must be noted, however, that Ryan told me shortly after winning the Pulitzer that Arpaio actually called him to congratulate him, an act Ryan said said “showed a lot of class.” (It also shows that the sheriff, demonized by the left, is a human being.)

I knew about Ryan before I actually met him, hearing stories of his reporting at a weekly paper that he toiled at before I came on board. When I started covering higher education for the Tucson Citizen, Ryan and I met at Arizona Board of Regents meetings, and the first and best thing I noticed about him was how gracious and kind he was. Reporters – especially good ones – can develop egos that interfere with their humanity. Not so Ryan. When he won the Pulitzer, all I could think was, “It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”

With newspapers laying off reporters at record pace, and with a not-irrational fear growing that government will get away with all sorts of nasty doings with no watchdogs barking at their heels, it is nice to know that somewhere, in the brave new world of journalism, there are places still committed to further grooming of the best and the brightest among us. Good luck, Ryan. We’ll miss you.

If you want to follow some of Ryan’s thoughts about journalism,  check out his blog, Conspiracy to Commit Journalism, he hopes to highlight some of the best in investigative journalism.