Monthly Archives: May 2007

Orrin Hatch Gets the Smackdown at Utah Grocery

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“Cleanup on aisle nine; rhetorical blood on the floor.”

It’s a pleasure to read this fine rebuke and wonder “What would I say if I ran into one of my senators in the Dom’s Natural Market aisle?” Sadly, I actually have things in common with at least one of my Illinois senators – I’d be able to talk to Sen. Obama about hybrid cars and maybe a bit about community organizing. Durbin would be a tougher case, but he’s gained my grudging respect since the Dems got into power – although my patience with the party leadership is slipping now that they seem unable to exercise much oversight on the war in Iraq and its conduct.

But if I ran into Hatch at the local Smith’s, I’d be shaking and inarticulate with outrage, and wouldn’t think of anything to say until long after the opportunity to speak truth to power passed. So good for this guy putting the righteous smackdown on Orrin. How does that man sleep at night, indeed.

One Utah » Blog Archive » “Senator Hatch — How Do You Sleep At Night?”

Two weeks ago I was again shopping at Smiths and found myself alone in the organic food aisle with none other than Senator Orrin Hatch. I had that moment of, “God – that’s Hatch! Should I continue shopping or do I take a moment and rebuke him?” After all, it’s not everyday we common folk shop next to the yahoos who are fucking up our country. So I reached out my hand. “Senator Hatch, your support of President Bush and this war has been an absolute disaster.”And then we threw down.

He politely replied, “Thousands of terrorists are in America plotting our destruction.” I countered, “Then why on earth are we in Iraq?” Hatch insisted that Al Qaeda was operating there prior to 911. He explained in his condescending tone that he sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee and therefore knows more than me. “As a citizen I knew Iraq didn’t have WMDs – how could I know what you didn’t?” I started to explain how UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter debunked the intelligence but Hatch cut me off, “Ritter is full of crap.” With out skipping a beat I responded, “Scott Ritter was right and you where wrong and now tens of thousands of innocent people have been murdered!”

“We haven’t kill them…they are killing each other.”

“Because we destroyed their country!”

“Saddam had bio-chemical weapons.”

“We sold them to him.”

“You have your information wrong…”

I had no patience for his talking points. I’m determined to just give him an earful.

“How could you support warrantless wiretaps?”

“That was blown out of proportion…”

“This administration has condoned torture!”

“No they haven’t.”

“Dick Cheney outed an American spy!”

“Well, there have been some mistakes – but you are misinformed…”

“The Old Testament demanded an eye for an eye. After 911 you went for a whole body for an eye – but it was the wrong body!”

His very Mormon wife rolled up with the cart and seeing the nature of our debate, obediently backed away. I was on a roll with no intent to stop.

“You no longer have credibility! Bush no longer has credibility! You have been dead wrong about everything…”

At this point he was through with me. And in truth, I had been a rowdy ass punk. He concluded, “There is no point talking to you — I know you represent a growing number upset about the war – but we can’t talk anymore.”

As he walked away I delivered my final rebuke:

“The blood of thousands of innocent people are on your hands – I don’t know how you sleep at night!” He rolled his cart away and I stood alone, tremendously pleased with myself. “That felt good!” I rushed home to write everything down.

The Braid Blog – Tearing Apart and Putting Together

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The Braid Blog – Two Communities Coming Together To Make…

Oh, my Dog. Well, the old Holy Moly blog from holy-innocents.org has now been refurbished and pointed to the new onebreadonebody.org site. Redirected, too. The new site has a paltry “click here for more news and events” link on just the main page. Will have to inquire about having a “Blog” link added to the links template on the side as well.

This was complicated; I didn’t realize David had upgraded the HI blog installation to WordPress 2.2, while this site is still at 2.1, pending a few plugins that need to be updated first.

This difference in versions caused conflicts with a lot of the plugins that I wanted on the HI site, so although most of them work, Flickr Photo Album does not. Yet.

There is apparently a fix, but it’s been a long day and David has done more than his share of codehacking.

UPDATE: there is an official version of the above fix – may be more authoritative.

Longnecks r best

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Flickr

There was a swan jam on my way to work today — this pair were installed at the retention pond at the rear of our building to discourage a large flock of Canada geese from sticking around all summer, and of course they have a nesting site that their trainer built for them with bales of hay and bits of straw. A large work crew disturbed them today with a big sod-laying project, and both adult swans and their little cygnets took off for freedom.

Problem was, they waddled all the way to the end of the parking lot and were headed up the bike path that, a  mile or so away, leads through a forest preserve. The work crew was trying to head them off, but they weren’t succeeding, since they were standing between the swans and their home in our retention pond, and the workers were flapping their bright yellow safety jackets, too.

When I came by, they had caused a considerable swan jam on the main road, plus there were several bicyclists that were stymied. Both adult swans were in a very defensive-looking posture, with their necks curled up as if to strike and their back and tail feathers all ruffled. The little cygnets huddled in a downy clump under their mother, obviously frightened and confused.

I called the building office and was told that the police were on the way, the swans’ trainer was on the way, and some building people were on the way to get the sod crew to back off and let the swans head back to their pond.

I should mention that the swans and their fuzzy little progeny have been the source of much excitement and comment at the office, so it was Topic 1 this morning. Apparently, it got a little out of hand down at the scene of the swan jam – people getting out of cars to try to help herd them – but eventually the trainer got them calmed down and led them back to the pond, very slowly. The little cygnets must have been tuckered out, because it’s a long way for their little feet to piddle-paddle.

After about an hour, an email went around the office with the subject line:

THE SWANS ARE SAFE AND BACK IN THEIR POND!!!

A general cheer went up.

After work, I drove over by the pond side of the building to observe them. They were swimming around contentedly, and then the parents made a beeline for their feeding station in the corner of the pond, not far from where I was standing. A couple of uninvited guests were there – a pair of Canada geese that the swans tolerate. Normally, there are a dozen or more adult geese by now, and almost as many goslings. It got pretty messy out in the parking lot when they decided to go on stately parade, so the building decided a pair of swans might be the thing.

I noticed that the swans’ necks are long enough to get into the feed tub, but the geese are SOL – their necks are too short. They had to settle for the bits of feed scattered about after the mother swan was finished feeding. She settled herself on her nest on the one dud egg that’s still there, and the little goslings all crept up under her wings on one side and were either trying to get warm, or eat bits of feed or bugs that were in her feathers, or both. They looked so cute stretching up to get under her wings.

Via: Flickr Title: Longnecks r best By: GinnyRED57
Originally uploaded: 25 May ’07, 6.44pm CDT PST

MUGABE, THE ANGLICAN CHURCH AND THE “ILLEGAL SANCTIONS

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This continues to be the dirty little story that keeps bubbling away under the surface of the Anglican Communion in Africa.

Zimbabwejournalists.com: MUGABE, THE ANGLICAN CHURCH AND THE “ILLEGAL SANCTIONS

The drive to sanitise the offensive regime of Robert Mugabe has sucked in the Church, with the Anglican Church being the most high profile to have openly expressed views that chime with the daily propaganda that is churned out of the government controlled media. The Pastoral Letter of its Bishops released after the Episcopal Synod in April demonstrates how pliant and subjugated the Anglican Church has become to the regime of Robert Mugabe.One would be forgiven for thinking this report was authored in the Munhumutapa Building as it bore an uncanny resemblance with, and has all the hallmarks of a George Charamba literary product. It has since emerged that some men of the cloth are dissociating themselves from this ecclesiastical fraud.

Students of African history would recall the assertion about “missionaries being forerunners of colonialism” throughout the length and breadth of the continent. The Nolbert Kunongas, Obadiah Msindos, Trevor Manhanga and other state apologists are craving to fill the void left by the late Border Gezi in delivering the church vote to the regime.

The Anglican Pastoral Report of April confirmed the widely held suspicions of the politicisation of the pulpit. The Anglican Bishops’ report was a PR coup for an embattled Robert Mugabe as it lent ecclesiastical approval to his obnoxious views about “illegal sanctions”. Kunonga and his fellow primates regard themselves as part of the African Church, and feel duty bound to stand “shoulder to shoulder” with this dictatorship.

One would have thought that the Pastoral letter would empathise with the suffering of its congregation and spoken about the causation of such suffering. Instead, the report parroted the official line that the suffering was a consequence of sanctions. There was a glaring lack of understanding of the dynamics at play in the country and clearly one could see nothing but a resonance with the daily propaganda stuff churned out daily in the Herald and other state media.

That the Herald gave the Report a ringing and rapturous endorsement speaks volumes for how grateful the regime was for the support from these men of cloth. It was in stark contrast to the reception that was given to the Pastoral Letter that was released by the Catholic Bishops at Easter.

The Pastoral Letter led to the Catholic Bishops being labelled opponents of the state and would therefore be treated as such, whilst the Anglican Bishops were garlanded and lauded for their patriotism. The Anglican Bishops report demonstrated just how far removed these primates are from the harsh reality that obtain in the country.

[tags]Anglican, Zimbabwe, BadBishop, Kunonga, Corrupt[/tags]

The Lead: More Disinvited Bishops

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 Well, there’s a familiar name: the “bad bishop of Harare” has also not received an invitation to Lambeth, along with another politically tricky bishop from the Southern Cone who is allied with the regressive, repressive wing of the Anglican Communion.  Apparently “contumacy” is a form of stubborn unrepentant behavior, or contempt of rules or church canon maybe, and I expect it’s related to a word I know from Shakespeare, “contumely,” which currently means “abusive language.”

“Invitations to the 2008 conference have been mailed to over 800 bishops by the Conference’s host, the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams. Invitations to two other diocesan bishops, including the controversial Bishop of Harare, Dr Nolbert Kunonga, have been held pending further “consultation,” said Canon Kearon, the ACC secretary general. Dr Williams is “seeking further advice” on inviting Dr Kunonga, Canon Kearon told The Church of England Newspaper but noted his case and that of “one or two others” had “nothing to do with the Windsor process.”

In 2002 the EU banned Dr Kunonga from travel to Europe in response to his complicity with the crimes of the regime of Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe. A spokesman for the ACC noted Bishop Robinson Cavalcanti of Recife would not be invited either. In 2005 Bishop Cavalcanti and 32 of his clergy were deposed by the Primate of Brazil for contumacy. They and over 90 per cent of the communicants in the diocese transferred to the jurisdiction of the Province of the Southern Cone under the jurisdiction of Archbishop Gregory Venables.

Gosh, I… So let me get this straight (to coin a phrase).

Bp. V. Gene Robinson is not invited, although his standing as a regularly elected and sustained bishop is not in question, and he is seen as a divisive focal point by many, and a role model by many. Bp. Martyn Minns is not invited, and it’s not clear whether it’s because it’s because he’d be a divisive figure or whether it’s because his elevation was a little irregular.  Border-crossing and poaching are frowned on but occasionally flouted in the Anglican world, and he’s now a Bishop of Nigeria under the leadership of Abp. Akinola, who vexed our Presiding Bishop by popping over to Virginia to conduct the service without bothering to make a courtesy call. Meanwhile, Kunonga and Cavalcante are on the bubble and not yet invited because they’re troublesome to the comity of the Communion and also kind of embarassing, public-relationswise. Cavalcanti was the border-crossing bishop who, with 4 other conservative (retired) US bishops, confirmed a bunch of people in Ohio “irregularly.” Kunonga is just beyond the pale. Way beyond.

Bp. Gene is considered as troublesome, bad, divisive, or embarassing as the other four bishops? Meanwhile… how many closeted gay bishops from Britain and other countries have already sent their RSVPs to the Archbishop of Canterbury? Rather a lot, really, one suspects. A well-known “outing” action from 1995 put the number at about 15 in Britain alone, including 5 that were still in the closet.  That was more than 10 years ago, so numb

I don’t know what the right line to take is; if all the outraged supporters that have already posted their reactions stay away, on both sides of the fence, then what you have is the people in the middle going to Lambeth, which isn’t so very bad. But Bp. Akinola is probably still going, even though his protege’ Bp. Martyn has been snubbed, and all those of his ilk too. If the progressives stay away, the regressives have full play.

Meanwhile: lots of hunger. Lots of poverty. War. Disease. Bad water. Lack of education. Lack of medical care. It’s such a waste of time and resources, all this wrangling over who puts what where and whether or not they are worthy or sinful before the Lord to teach the people and administer the sacraments.

Via The Lead

Testing 123: An-archos Media Plugin

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I’ve been frustrated by my inability to post the occasional bit of flash or video using WordPress – the software is coded to be pretty strict about XHTML niceties, and the method for embedding anything involves a tedious routine: turn off the rich text editor, hand-code the embedded stuff or figure out the built-in but n00b-unfriendly custom fields, publish, and turn the rich text editor back on (which is a process in itself, as unless you’re a good WP codehax0r, you have to uncheck a little box buried in your user profile).

So: here’s that weird Flash video showing how to create “Reality Simpsons.”

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.metacafe.com/fplayer/580206/reality_simpsons__marge.swf" width="400" height="345" wmode="transparent" /]

And if that worked, perhaps this…

Download Bill Douglas Into the Twilight

Or maybe this…

Tutu: God Must Be Weeping

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Via The Lead:

The Times of London reports on a recent conversation with the former archbishop:

“What is sad to me is that we are investing so much time and energy in the subject of homosexuality at a time when the world is groaning from poverty, disease and corruption. God must be weeping.”

Just as he opposed discrimination against people because of the colour of their skin or their gender, he said he opposes discrimination against gays.

“I cannot have fought about the injustice of apartheid and keep quiet about the injustice of being being penalised for something about which they can do nothing, their sexual orientation,” he said.

You can’t blame The Times or The Lead for burying the lede – there are two big stories here (well, big in the Anglican world):

Desmond Tutu, the former Anglican Archbishop and anti-apartheid activist who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, said yesterday that his prostate cancer had returned but that he was in “good health”.

Archbishop Tutu, whose cancer was first diagnosed in 1996, said the illness had come back after a period of remission. But he added: “I am fine. I am slightly older than I was yesterday.”

He said his oncologist had told him he had “a good cancer”, and that the prayers of others were helping to keep him alive. “I owe a great deal to the many who sustain me with their prayers.”

I really love Archbishop Tutu — he was one of the reasons I was drawn to the Episcopal Church in the first place (that and a raging case of Anglophilia). It’s shocking how many men I know – Episcopal priests all — who have or have had prostate cancer.

I’ll have to be sure to keep the good Archbishop in my prayers for his health and well-being.  And also pray that he learns to use that little word “no” more often – he finds it difficult to turn people down when he’s asked to help with some worthy cause.