Evangelical leaders try to unite behind Rick Santorum (The Christian Science Monitor)

Washington – In a bid to sway the South Carolina vote, national evangelical leaders, meeting at a ranch west of Houston, on Saturday rallied behind former Sen. Rick Santorum for the GOP presidential nomination.

Many came into the meeting committed to other candidates, especially former Speaker Newt Gingrich. All of the candidates, except former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, sent surrogates to make a case for support.

But in the end, evangelical leaders want to use whatever clout they have to help a strong conservative advance in South Carolina?s Jan. 21 primary, upsetting frontrunner Mitt Romney, who is viewed as too moderate ? or too Mormon.

�??There was a desire to see a true conservative emerge to secure the nomination, and the overwhelming belief was that a true conservative has the best chance of winning a direct election against Barack Obama,�?

?What?s the point if we do not get a true conservative?? he added.

Election 101: Where the GOP candidates stand on immigration, abortion and other social issues

But with so much at stake in the 2012 vote, it's not clear that either the GOP candidates or the voters are likely to defer to an 85-to-25 vote in a back room in Houston. 

?What we are seeing today is nothing like the influence we saw in the 1980s and ?90s,? says Robert Jones, who heads the Public Religion Research Institute in Washington. ?The days of kingmakers in a small room deciding the GOP nominee are over.?

�??Focus on Family laid off hundreds of people, the Crystal Cathedral is for sale, and the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition are no more," he adds. 

South Carolina looms large for Christian conservatives, who see their failure to unite around a single candidate in 2008 ? then, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee or former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee ? as swinging the GOP nomination to Sen. John McCain, a moderate on social issues. Governor Romney is currently leading in South Carolina polls, followed by Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, Gingrich, and Santorum. 

?There is hope and expectation that, with the constituencies represented here, it will have an impact on South Carolina,? said Mr. Perkins. Christian conservatives account for 60 percent of the likely GOP primary vote in South Carolina. ?I was amazed at the unity that was here.?

At issue is how to winnow the GOP primary field, before it?s too late to stop frontrunner Romney, who is viewed as not consistent on issues such as abortion rights, which he formerly supported. There are too many social conservative candidates in the race, and they are dividing the social conservative vote, they say.

The aim of Saturday�??s meeting is to find out whether there is a viable alternative to Romney, says Richard Land, president of the ethics and religious liberty committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, in an interview on C-Span�??s Newsmakers on Friday, to be aired Jan. 15.

?Most social conservatives find Romney a more attractive candidate than they did John McCain,? he said. ?This isn?t anti-Romney, but wouldn?t it be nice to find out if a social conservative is viable both in the primary and the general election??

However, if polls show that Romney continues to be more viable in the general election campaign than a conservative alternative, than Romney will be the GOP nominee, he added. ?Do not underestimate Barack Obama?s unique ability to unite social conservatives and others around whomever he is running against in a general election.?

The Monitor's Weekly News Quiz for Jan. 9-13, 2012

Underwire Taking the Pulse of Pop Culture

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Songpier Lets Anyone Make a Music App in Minutes

• By Eliot Van Buskirk
• June 6, 2011  | 
• 6:01 pm  | 
• Categories: music

Apps might be the flavor of the minute, but they’re no passing fad. If you think it’s nuts that your phone, tablet and soon car and television will run apps, just wait until your refrigerator and air conditioner get in on the action.

Every song can and should be an app. Now, it can, for free — no app designers required.

If you’re in a band (or even if you’re not but have managed to record some music) it’s now possible for you to create an app in minutes that anyone can install on their phone or tablet.

Pierlane’s Songpier, released for public beta Monday, walks even the most Luddite of drummers through the process of creating a web-based app for Apple iOS or Android. (Songpier also works with other smartphones, but was designed specifically with iOS and Android smartphones and tablets in mind.)

Songpier apps are web apps, as opposed to apps in the traditional sense of being downloaded from the iTunes or Android app stores. However, users can access these apps the same way they access other apps — by tapping a neat-looking icon on their home screens — and they feel just like regular apps. They load fast, perform responsively and include an artist’s song, pictures, events, merchandise, a link to their website and more — just about everything you would expect from a standard music app from a band.

Artists can add lyrics for their Songpier songs, and use the apps to sell records, T-shirts and other merchandise by entering simple titles and URLs.

The main exception to that rule: They’re about as easy to build as a MySpace page, and most bands are clearly capable of that.

We know this because we just made one this morning. You just enter the elements (songs, buy links, your label, description, genre, release date, influences, album art/title, background image and so on), previewing them on a mocked-up smartphone or tablet to see how the end result will look.

The resulting app works in regular or landscape mode, and you even get to upload your own app icon, to which SongPier adds the trademark rounded corners, so that it looks great on the user’s home screen — although, because the resulting app is a web app that runs within the browser, rather than a native iOS or Android app, users will have to create a bookmark on their homescreens in order to tap on the icon to launch it.

Luckily, the app instructs the user on how to do this the first time they visit your app’s web location (screenshot to the below left), but it’s not as seamless as installing the app from the iTunes or Android app store.

If the artist wants it to, a SongPier app can integrate with Facebook and Twitter so that when they enter news, pictures and tour dates, it can automatically tweet them out or post them on your Facebook wall in addition to pushing them out to whoever has the app installed, so that SongPier can act as your “post once, view everywhere” social media hub.

In case you missed it, here’s the app I made for my old side project, Planet Vegas. To view it on a mobile phone, tablet or computer, visit http://songpier.com/planet?vegas/ or scan the QR code to the right.

See? It works — and again, I made this in minutes (sorry, Mobile Roadie).

Pierlane will soon announce “a partnership with a major U.S. company” in the coming month, according to what Pierland spokesman Wolfgang Senges told Evolver.fm. He added to the mystery by suggesting that it’s not a label or Apple.

Any guesses on what this mystery company could be? Send them our way.

See Also:

• Best, Worst Artist Apps for Fans With iPhones
• SXSW: ShareSquare’s ‘Most Scanned Bands’ Contest Points to Next-Generation Artist Marketing
• Viinyl Explains Why Each Song Should Have Its Own URL
• SXSW 2011: ‘Clickable’ QR Code Posters for the Win
• How and Why Every Song Can Be an App
• Why Drop 50K? Artists, Labels Build Their Own Apps For Less
  

Tags: Evolver.fm, music apps, Songpier

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Gingrich defends Bain criticisms in SC GOP forum (AP)

CHARLESTON, S.C. – Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said Saturday that Republicans will err if they don't scrutinize Mitt Romney's role in a private equity firm called Bain Capital.

Gingrich, the former House speaker, said President Barack Obama will hammer away at Bain if Romney is the nominee this fall.

"I don't see how you can expect us to have a presidential campaign in which an entire sector is avoided," Gingrich said on a Fox News program that included five of the six Republican candidates. Each fielded South Carolina voters' questions for almost 20 minutes.

Many Republican and conservative leaders have rebuked Gingrich for criticizing Romney's role at Bain. The private equity firm had a mixed record of job-creation at the companies it restructured in the 1980s and `90s.

Program host Mike Huckabee, who ran for president in 2008, gently reprimanded Gingrich for citing Romney by name. The candidates appeared separately, never confronting each other. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas did not participate.

The South Carolina GOP primary is Jan. 21.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, said he wants the federal government "out of the housing business" so the free market can work. Mortgage interest payments should remain tax-deductible, he said.

When a woman said expressions of Christian faith are under attack, Romney, a Mormon, said, "I will stand up for the ability of Americans to worship the god they choose." That would include public displays of manger scenes, menorahs and other religious symbols, he said.

Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman was asked why he supports legalized abortion in cases of rape and incest if he believes life begins at conception.

"I am pro-life," Huntsman said. "I have stipulations." Exceptions for rape and incest represent "where I am. I always have been, and I hope it's good enough for you," he said.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum noted that he does not support legalized abortions in cases of rape or incest. But he supports the death penalty, he said, because it does not involve "innocent life."

Santorum acknowledged voting to raise the federal debt ceiling at least five times while in Congress. But he said he consistently worked to reduce federal spending and to make the government more efficient.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry touted his call for a 20 percent flat tax, which would eliminate many existing loopholes. He would keep the deductibility of charitable gifts, local taxes and mortgage interest payments, he said.

Perry said he would dramatically reduce federal intervention in state actions regarding labor, the environment, voting laws and other matters.

As debate roars over Haley Barbour pardons, five released convicts vanish (The Christian Science Monitor)

Atlanta – Five prisoners pardoned and released Sunday by outgoing Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) have gone missing amid a burgeoning debate about whether the 200-plus individuals given clemency by the governor merited mercy under the state constitution.

Mr. Barbour's decision to pardon a record number of convicted Mississippians ? a controversial final act of his term-limited governorship ? has sparked shock, anger, and even fear. Family members of at least one victim say they're worried about their safety.

The mass pardon has set off a national debate about whether Barbour exceeded his executive authority or whether the pardons were an appropriate remedy to an unjust legal system.

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On Wednesday, circuit judge Tomie Green, after a complaint by state Attorney General Jim Hood, blocked the release of 21 of the convicts because they may not have met a public notice requirement under the state constitution. Judge Green also mandated that the five men released over the weekend report back to the state and attend a Jan. 23 hearing, but Mr. Hood said Thursday that the men can't be found.

"These convicts got out and hit the road," Hood said, according to CNN. �??This is probably going to end up in some attempt by us to have fugitive warrants issued for these people. There�??s going to be a national search for some of them.�?

The five pardoned prisoners, according to the Associated Press, are four convicted murderers ? David Gatlin, Charles Hooker, Anthony McCray, and Joseph Ozment ? and one convicted robber, Nathan Kern, who was serving a life sentence. All of them had worked as inmate trusties at the Governor's Mansion.

Barbour's actions, says University of Notre Dame law professor Jimmy Gurul�, a former federal prosecutor, exceeded accepted norms of executive power, especially by giving freedom to convicted murderers without properly notifying the victims' families.

?The symbolism of this, the message that it sends to families, is so insensitive and so insulting to the memory of these murder victims. It's mind-boggling,? says Professor Gurul�.

Others say that Barbour's pardons highlight the necessity of clemency as an executive power. Some point to Alexander Hamilton's position in The Federalist Papers where he noted that ?without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too ... cruel.?

?I'm sure the governor has seen, as the rest of us have, the increasingly unjust nature of our court system these days,? writes Mary Kate Cary, a former Barbour speechwriter, in a U.S. News & World Report op-ed. ?Is there anyone who thinks our criminal justice system isn't tough enough? Haley Barbour is a smart, humane man. He understands the need for mercy and compassion in our criminal justice system. He's done nothing wrong.?

Much of the anger stems from the fact that the public wasn't privy to Barbour's private deliberations and fact-finding in each case. ?It's very difficult to answer if Barbour went too far without more complete knowledge of these individual cases,? says John Winkle, a political science professor at Ole Miss in Oxford.

?Approximately 90 percent of these individuals were no longer in custody, and a majority of them had been out for years,? Barbour explained in a statement. ?The pardons were intended to allow them to find gainful employment or acquire professional licenses as well as hunt and vote. My decision about clemency was based upon the recommendation of the Parole Board in more than 90 percent of the cases.?

Meanwhile, incoming Gov. Phil Bryant (R) has asked lawmakers to study whether a constitutional amendment may be necessary to limit the executive branch's pardon powers in the state. ?The governor believes a constitutional amendment is the right way to address such an important issue,? Mick Bullock, Governor Bryant's spokesman, said in a statement.

Green has set a Jan. 23 hearing to determine whether Barbour's pardons were, in fact, legal. Twenty-one of those pardoned remain in custody as the state searches for the five missing ex-convicts, who, under the conditions of a Mississippi pardon, are technically no longer required to check in with the state. Unless Green makes a different finding, their criminal records are clean.

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