The End of Solitude – ChronicleReview.com
I once asked my students about the place that solitude has in their lives. One of them admitted that she finds the prospect of being alone so unsettling that she’ll sit with a friend even when she has a paper to write. Another said, why would anyone want to be alone?
Greenbriar, or Cat Briar (Smilax sp.)
In addition to giving an overview of black religious and political beliefs, this report includes comparisons with Americans as a whole. The report includes responses about homosexuality, gay marriage and abortion. I would like to have seen the response to questions about sex education in the schools added. Fascinating.
While the U.S. is generally considered a highly religious nation, African-Americans are markedly more religious on a variety of measures than the U.S. population as a whole, including level of affiliation with a religion, attendance at religious services, frequency of prayer and religion’s importance in life. Compared with other racial and ethnic groups, African-Americans are among the most likely to report a formal religious affiliation, with fully 87% of African-Americans describing themselves as belonging to one religious group or another, according to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted in 2007 by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life…… Pew Forum: A Religious Portrait of African-Americans
The leaders of the Catholic Church seem genuinely baffled whenever they ignore or excuse anti-Semitism and someone objects. Why, they wonder, were people so upset that the pope met with Kurt Waldheim? There was that Wehrmacht business, but didn’t the former United Nations secretary general lead an otherwise exemplary life? What’s wrong with Carmelite nuns erecting a huge cross at Auschwitz? Can’t we just live and let live? Can’t we stop harping on these unpleasant secular matters that have no significance theologically?
The latest case in point is Richard Williamson, a priest in the ultraconservative movement known as the Society of Saint Pius X. The society is a traditionalist Catholic group that rejects the reforms of Vatican II and still uses the Tridentine Latin Mass. Williamson and three other members of the society were excommunicated in 1988 when movement founder Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, now deceased, consecrated them as bishops in spite of specific orders from Pope John Paul II not to do so. While not obeying the pope is a really big no-no and Lefebvre and his “bishops” have also gone so far as to call recent popes, including John Paul II, “heretical,” the current pope has apparently decided it’s time to make peace. Benedict has just rescinded the excommunication of Williamson and his three comrades. The announcement of the pope’s decision came not long after Swedish television aired an interview in which Williamson denied the existence of gas chambers and said no more than 300,000 Jews had died in Nazi custody.
Charles Bremner – Times Online – WBLG: Cheese threatens Obama’s French honeymoon
The story began last Thursday [1/15/09] when [George Bush] suddenly tripled an already heavy duty on the pungent blue cheese from the southern Massif Central. The idea was to punish Europe for maintaining a longstanding ban on beef from US cattle that had been administered with growth hormones. Roquefort had been under a 100 percent retaliatory duty since 1999.Some in France have been quick to see the new Washington measure as petty, belated revenge against the “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” for their opposition to the 2003 Iraq invasion. The Americans slapped new duty on an array of other EU food imports, including fruit, chocolate and chewing gum, but none was subject to the 300 percent reserved for roquefort…..
Why Do Buddhists Pray To Idols? « Daily Buddhism
I was rared in the Monotheistic traditions and my question is basic. It concerns iconography and the reason why Buddhist pray to idols.Arguably, Buddha himself was suspicious of being venerated. And it would be nice to know how contemporary Buddhist rationalise the practice.
It is intriguing to see the Tibetans do their prostrations and in manner not unlike Orthodox Christians (whose influence on Islamic prayer worship has been remarked). … Answer and comments.
Hardly a day passes that a phone call or a letter doesn’t bring tears to his eyes. “I never knew just how deeply women have been hurt by the church. And after hearing from so many women, I’m no longer comfortable being part of an institution that excludes them.”Over and over again, they tell him of their struggles with faith, of the anguish of sexual abuse, of profound feelings of dejection. And of a rising anger.
“Women have such gifts, such compassion, such wisdom, which we need if the church is to be vibrant,” Bourgeois said. He believes it’s unconscionable for the hierarchy to reject their call, especially when churches are being closed and the number of priests is constantly shrinking.
Some — like a woman who wrote him about being sexually abused by a bishop — are livid that the church, while finding women unworthy for ordination, protects pedophile priests and never threatens to excommunicate them. MORE…
Sierra Club Insider – Now That’s What I Call a President
If anyone was still wondering whether President Barack Obama would make a significant difference in the White House, it took less than a week to settle the question. …
Obama Gets It — But Will It Be In Time?
Jan. 26, 2009 | The greatest task of the Obama administration — and the next 10 presidents — is to avoid catastrophic global warming. The latest science warns that the unstable West Antarctic ice sheet has been warming significantly since the 1950s, the rate of Greenland summer ice loss tripled last year, and the planet as a whole lost 2 trillion tons of ice in the last five years. The best mid-range estimate for sea level rise by the year 2100 is 5 feet, much higher than U.N. scientists projected just two years ago.Fortunately, Obama clearly gets it. He devoted more of his inaugural address to clean energy and global warming than even the strongest advocate could have imagined, asserting, “We will work tirelessly to … roll back the specter of a warming planet.” More important, he has assembled a team with unmatched knowledge and commitment to solve the climate problem.
But the path toward a carbon-reduced future will not be an easy one….
apocalypse whenever – mistercomedy – Open Salon
As hopeful as I am on this morning after, the cynic in me always is ready for things to go kerflooey on a global scale. What with the Gaza situation, China back to its repressive, pre-Olympics mindset and Russia seemingly nostalgic for a Cold War redux, my mind starts to wax apocalyptic. And when things get real scary, like most people, I think about starting my own religious cult. I’ve obviously got the leadership thing down, having been captain of my high-school debate team. If you’re not inclined to join my cult, maybe you’ll want to start your own, and in the that spirit, I’ve put together some tips to make your cult as successful as possible.
Elena’s Motorcyle Ride through Chernobyl
Nuclear Dolly
Elena’s father is a nuclear scientist, and so she is able to get permission to travel in what she calls The Land of Wolves. Her avocation seems to be the recording of the disastrous results of the USSR’s various follies. This entire site, along with her other sites, deserves serious attention and prolonged contemplation.
Like most little girls, I was raised to believe that virginity is a sacred gift a woman should reserve for just the right man. But college taught me that this concept is just a tool to keep the status quo intact. Deflowering is historically oppressive—early European marriages began with a dowry, in which a father would sell his virginal daughter to the man whose family could offer the most agricultural wealth. Dads were basically their daughters’ pimps.
When I learned this, it became apparent to me that idealized virginity is just a tool to keep women in their place. But then I realized something else: if virginity is considered that valuable, what’s to stop me from benefiting from that? …
UN Officials To Measure Environmental Destruction in Gaza From Israeli Holocaust
NEW YORK, New York, January 22, 2009 (ENS) – Senior United Nations officials today began to assess humanitarian needs in Gaza, getting a first-hand look a the destruction inflicted on the area’s 1.5 million residents and their environment during three weeks of Israeli military operations.
Obama Freezes Pending Federal Rules, Wolves May Benefit
Wildlife conservationists say the freeze will delay and possibly prevent the removal of gray wolves from the federal endangered species list in Montana, Idaho, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, and also in portions of Washington, Oregon, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.
Hanoi Environmental Police Seize Tons of Illegal Wildlife Parts
HANOI, Vietnam, January 21, 2009 (ENS) – In their largest-ever seizure of illegally traded wildlife products, Hanoi’s Environmental Police have confiscated more than two metric tons of tiger bones, bear paws and gall bladders, and heaps of bones from various other increasingly rare wild animals.Environmental Police officers began investigating after they stopped a man transporting a set of tiger bones and 10 kilograms of serow bones and horns by motorbike in the city’s Ba Dinh district.
Japan Launches World’s First Greenhouse Gas Observing Satellite
TOKYO, Japan, January 23, 2009 (ENS) – The first satellite dedicated to monitoring greenhouse gas emissions as part of global efforts to combat climate change was launched into space today from Japan.The IBUKI, which means “breath,” will circle the globe every 100 minutes at an altitude of some 670 kilometers (416 miles) and will monitor the levels of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane at 56,000 locations.
Catholic church welcomes married priest | KATU.com – Portland, Oregon | Local & Regional
BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) – The day after his ordination as a Roman Catholic priest, Father Tom McMichael stood in front of the altar at Assumption Church after Sunday Mass, while members of the congregation raised both hands in a gesture of welcome and blessing.The welcoming of a new priest is a special moment for any church, but this moment may have been more special than most: At McMichael’s side was Karin McMichael, his wife of 23 years. …
This is a more common thing than most people know, one that the Church keeps tightly to its vest in the debate over a married priesthood.
The real bottom line is…the bottom line. Married priests would cost the church billions in increased salaries, residential requirements, retirement plans, and other expenses.
This is the same underlying reason that business does not want marriage for homosexuals, BTW. It’s much cheaper to keep the people stirred up about protecting marriage than it is to deal with the cost of giving people their rights as human beings, and with your religious flunkies doing the stirring for you, you don’t even have to admit that your hands are dirty.
