11.24.06
Narrow platform: abortion and same-sex marriage
The leader of the Christian Coalition has resigned because he couldn’t get the group to move beyond abortion and same-sex marriage:
The Florida pastor recently tapped to lead the Christian Coalition of America resigned his position in a dispute about conservative philosophy – more than a month before he was to fully assume his post, he said this week.
The Rev. Joel Hunter, of Northland, A Church Distributed, in Longwood, Fla., said he quit as president-elect of the group founded by evangelist Pat Robertson because he realized he would be unable to broaden the organization’s agenda beyond opposing abortion and same-sex marriage.
He hoped to include issues such as easing poverty and saving the environment. “These are issues that Jesus would want us to care about,” Hunter said.
The resignation took place Tuesday during an organization board meeting. Hunter said he was not asked to leave.
“They pretty much said, “These issues are fine, but they’re not our issues; that’s not our base,’ ” Hunter said. A statement issued by the coalition said Hunter resigned because of “differences in philosophy and vision.” The organization, headed by President Roberta Combs, claims a mailing list of 2.5 million.
Hunter’s move signals more tumult for a group that has fallen on hard times. Members have complained the coalition’s agenda has become too liberal and diffuse.
Hunter hoped to revive the group by expanding its agenda to include what he called “compassion issues.” He also planned to teach evangelicals how to “vote with their life,” or integrate and apply their Christian values to public life.
The coalition’s rejection of Hunter’s approach means it is unwilling to part with its partisan, Republican roots, Hunter said. “To tell you the truth, I feel like there are literally millions of evangelical Christians that don’t have a home right now,” Hunter said.
Door-to-door atheists
Following an entertaining rant, a little documentary of door-to-door atheists plying their trade in Salt Lake City, UT. Hard to say whether they had much success at conversion, but certainly successful entertainment.
It’s all in how you look at it
Sometimes a change in your point of view is all that’s required. Watch this little video all the way through.
Another religious note
Perhaps the news shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, coming as it does from a country best known for its meatballs and the bright blue and yellow warehouses selling cheap and cheerful furniture around the globe. Still, preacher men the world over must be reeling. A new poll taken of Swedes indicates that more people trust IKEA than the church in the largely Protestant country.
According to the poll, taken by the business weekly Dagens Industri, 80 percent of Swedes said they had “much or very much trust” in the world’s largest furniture store chain, which was founded by Ingvar Kamprad. But only 46 percent of the 800 people surveyed said they trusted the Swedish church, which counts 80 percent of the 9 million residents living in Sweden as members.
IKEA isn’t the only company Swedes trust more than the church — the list also includes Volvo (69 percent), Ericsson (59), Saab (57) and pharmaceutical giant Astra Zeneca (47) as well as four other companies that beat out the church on the trust factor. Indeed, the church landed in slot 14, behind Sweden’s public television station, its universities, small business, the central bank and the daily paper Dagens Nyheter.
There was, however, some positive news for the church: It got better marks than the conservative party of Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt (30 percent). And it fared better than foreign companies like Coca-Cola, which only 22 percent of Swedes said they trusted.
Yet another interesting religion
Religions interest me, and I once considered seriously graduate work in theology. I mentioned earlier this morning how I couldn’t get my head around the “evil” of wearing a condom, so perhaps a look at a different religion will be helpful:
It’s shortly after dawn on February 15th on the remote island of Tanna in the South Pacific. The oppressive humidity and heat of the rainy season is already building, the pigs and chickens are slowly stirring, and – as on every February 15th for the last 45 years – one of the world’s strangest religious ceremonies is about to take place.
The village of Sulphur Bay is waking up, as it does every morning, directly under an active volcano. The cone of Mount Yasur steeples up above it, thumping periodically as blisters of magma burst inside its crater, and scattering ash onto the dead plains around its base like a carbon snowfall. On the coastal side of the village is a black sand beach running with steaming rivulets of scalding spring water, too hot to touch but ideal for washing clothes and dishes. Between the devil and the deep, the palm and thatch huts are arranged quite untypically for a Melanesian village: not around a central clan hut or banyan tree but framing a large, deserted square like a parade ground. This is because Sulphur Bay is one of a handful of villages in this part of the world where the people neither worship the Christ of the missionaries nor practice the traditional kastom (custom) religion of their ancestors, but who live with a god of their own: a spirit messiah known as John Frum.
John Frum is the son of God, but he’s not Jesus. He’s a black Melanesian, but sometimes a white man – or, according to others, a black American GI. He’s a kastom messiah, come to turn the people of Tanna back to their old ways before the missionaries – but he’s also a universal avatar of change, a successor to Buddha or Jesus or Mohammed. Like Jesus, he’s poised to return – or, perhaps, he’s already here. He’s a volcano god, with an army of the dead who live down in the crater, and a spirit who approaches the men of Tanna when they drink their intoxicating kava and bring their spirits into communion with him. Back in the days of colonial rule when he first appeared, the British thought he was one of the locals dressing up and spouting nonsense to foment rebellion. They arrested a succession of ‘troublemakers’, pillorying them before their community to expose the deception, but the locals knew perfectly well that John Frum was neither this man nor that one. Apart from anything else, he continued to appear. So, a new tactic: anyone who was found to be talking John Frum nonsense was hauled off to jail in Port Vila, the administrative capital over a hundred miles away. But these ‘ringleaders’ became martyrs to the growing religion, and the stories of how John appeared to them in jail are now part of the canon of oral traditions, hymns and revelations of the new religion.
To anthropologists, John Frum was an example of one of the strangest and most exotic phenomena to be observed in traditional cultures: the cargo cult. All across Melanesia, from New Guinea to the Solomon Islands to Tanna’s archipelago, the New Hebrides, dozens of unconnected communities, thousands of miles apart and speaking unrelated languages, seemed spontaneously to generate the same set of bizarre beliefs. A new dispensation was on the way, when the white man would vanish from the islands, and his cargo – Western goods – would be diverted by magical means to the local people, who were its rightful owners.
Proxemics: the study of personal space
“Personal space”—the amount of free space we need to feel comfortable—is being carried over into the digital worlds of Second Self and the like:
Chances are that in the last week someone has irritated you by standing too close, talking too loud or making eye contact for too long. They have offended you with the high-pitched shrill emanating from the earphones of their iPod or by spreading their legs unnecessarily wide on a packed subway car.
But what makes you feel hostile toward “close talkers,” as the show “Seinfeld” dubbed people who get within necking distance of you when they speak? Or toward strangers who stand very near to you on line? Or toward people who take the bathroom stall next to yours when every other one is available?
Communications scholars began studying personal space and people’s perception of it decades ago, in a field known as proxemics. But with the population in the United States climbing above 300 million, urban corridors becoming denser and people with wealth searching for new ways to separate themselves from the masses, interest in the issue of personal space — that invisible force field around your body — is intensifying.
Scientists who say Americans share patterns of movement and behaviors to protect their personal space have recently found new evidence in a cyber game.
Lobbyists are busy trying to control Congress
Things have heated up for lobbyists, whose greatest desire is to control legislation to favor the companies that pay them. For example, drug companies:
Drug companies are particularly hungry for Democratic help, including the industry’s trade association. “We woke up the day after the election to a new world,” said Ken Johnson, spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. “We’re going to have tough days ahead of us.”
A post-election e-mail to executives at the drug company GlaxoSmithKline details just how tough. “We now have fewer allies in the Senate,” says the internal memo, obtained by The Washington Post. “Thus, there is greater risk over the next two years that bad amendments will be offered to pending legislation.” The company’s primary concerns are bills that would allow more imported drugs and would force price competition for drugs bought under Medicare.
The defeat of Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) “creates a big hole we will need to fill,” the e-mail says. Sen.-elect Jon Tester (D-Mont.) “is expected to be a problem,” it says, and the elevation to the Senate of Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) “will strengthen his ability to challenge us.”
The e-mail also mentions that Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) “has worked closely” with the company and that the firm’s PAC had supported six Democratic senators who faced reelection. “These relationships should help us moderate proposals offered by Senate Democrats,” the e-mail says.
Explaining the memo, GlaxoSmithKline spokeswoman Patricia Seif said: “It’s important that we’re knowledgeable about the positions of the members of the next Congress.”
Of course, they still have Joe Lieberman, whose wife is a drug-company lobbyist.
Can Bush still think we’re winning?
And can he still deny that Iraq is now in the midst of a civil war, with US troops in the middle? Juan Cole reports:
The Iraqi government imposed a curfew on Baghdad and closed the Baghdad and Basra airports, cutting the country off from the outside worlds. Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that Basra ports were also closed “until further notice.”
How bad the situation is in Iraq is suggested by this email I just got from a professional who used to be in Iraq but now is in a nearby country:
It is desperate in Iraq, worse then ever and there is no end in sight. I had lunch with [a former high ranking medical educator in Iraq] two days ago. [He]noted that Iraq no longer has neuro-surgeons, no cardiac surgeons, few pediatric doctors – they are all gone, killed or fled to neighboring countries like him. He was given seven days to get out or be killed. He is one of the lucky ones. He and his family have an opportunity for a new life in the US. But what about all the others. Where are they to go?
Another friend, a Sunni sheikh of the Shammar tribe noted to me that thousands of former officers are prepared to assault the G[reen] Z[one]. It is no longer a matter of can they do it, they are only mulling over the timing. The breach of the Green Zone security the other day was a test of their ability to get in, and not a real attempt at a coup, though it is reported as such. Every Iraqi I talk to says unambiguously that the resistance attached to the former regime would take out the Shiite militias with barely a fight, but that the resistance will not commit wholesale revenge against the Shiite population. They just want to get rid of the “carpet baggers” from Iran.
Muqtada al-Sadr, the young Shiite nationalist cleric, is said to be afraid that he cannot constrain his Mahdi Army militiamen from taking revenge on the Sunni Arab community for Thursday’s mass slaughter.
Why no action on bad election technology?
Paul Krugman makes a good point:
You know what really had me terrified on Nov. 7? The all-too-real possibility of a highly suspect result. What would we have done if the Republicans had held on to the House by a narrow margin, but circumstantial evidence strongly suggested that a combination of vote suppression and defective — or rigged — electronic voting machines made the difference?
Fortunately, it wasn’t a close election. But the fact that our electoral system worked well enough to register an overwhelming Democratic landslide doesn’t mean that things are O.K. There were many problems with voting in this election — and in at least one Congressional race, the evidence strongly suggests that paperless voting machines failed to count thousands of votes, and that the disappearance of these votes delivered the race to the wrong candidate.
Here’s the background: Florida’s 13th Congressional District is currently represented by Katherine Harris, who as Florida’s secretary of state during the 2000 recount famously acted as a partisan Republican rather than a fair referee. This year Ms. Harris didn’t run for re-election, making an unsuccessful bid for the Senate instead. But according to the official vote count, the Republicans held on to her seat, with Vern Buchanan, the G.O.P. candidate, narrowly defeating Christine Jennings, the Democrat.
And more oversight
It makes one wonder what the GOP in Congress was doing, other than enriching themselves and their big-business friends. Jay Rockefeller:
The incoming chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee says he will have a “cleanup agenda” ready when Democrats take power in January.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia said the agenda will include reviews of the Bush administration’s warrantless eavesdropping and the CIA’s secret prisons.
Rockefeller said he wants to correct what he called a “lack of oversight” by the committee that gave free rein to the Bush administration in the war on terror.
“It’s not understandable to me, but the majority party sort of didn’t want to do a lot of oversight,” Rockefeller said in an interview aired Thursday on CNN Radio.
Rockefeller said the committee, which oversees U.S. intelligence operations, should be “holding people accountable, and what I hope to do is be aggressive on that.”
The four-term Democrat will be taking over the chairmanship of the committee from Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas.
Rockefeller has criticized Roberts’ handling of the committee’s probe into the faulty intelligence underpinning the administration’s arguments for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
He said he wants the committee to finish that contentious review, which has been delayed since before the 2004 elections.
Rockefeller expressed concern over the warrantless domestic surveillance program to Vice President Dick Cheney soon after the National Security Agency launched the effort following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
He said he plans to resist allowing the NSA to continue its eavesdropping program, which the Bush administration calls a “terrorist surveillance program.”
The program allows the NSA to listen in on international communications involving people suspected of having ties to terrorists without a court’s approval first, as a 1978 law requires.
Some legal scholars have called the program an illegal intrusion on Americans’ privacy, but the Bush administration defended it as a necessary tool in the battle against the al Qaeda terrorist network.
In August, a federal judge in Michigan overturned the program and ordered it ended.
The government appealed, and President Bush has urged Congress to give him the power to continue the program, but the legislation has stalled and appears unlikely to pass in the current lame-duck session.
Bush signed a bill limiting the rights of prisoners designated “enemy combatants” to challenge their detention at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere.
Rockefeller led a fight to amend the legislation to be more favorable for challenges, but each time Democrats came up a few votes short in the Senate.
Rockefeller said he would revisit the issue and “the whole question of accountability, to know what’s going on where and be informed, even if it’s just the intelligence committees of the House and Senate.”
He said his committee will likely take a hard look at the “secret prisons” being run by the CIA around the globe.
Bush acknowledged the existence of those facilities in September when he announced that top al Qaeda prisoners would be transferred to the U.S. prison camp at the Guantánamo Bay naval base for trial before military tribunals.
This is what Congress is supposed to do
Though you’d never know if from the GOP example. But now the Democrats are going to be in charge—the adults, not to put too fine a point on it:
Seeking information about detention of terrorism suspects, abuse of detainees and government secrecy, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are reviving dozens of demands for classified documents that until now have been rebuffed or ignored by the Justice Department and other agencies.
“I expect real answers, or we’ll have testimony under oath until we get them,” Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, who will head the committee beginning in January, said in an interview this week. “We’re entitled to know these answers, and in many instances we don’t get them because people are hiding their mistakes. And that’s no excuse.” Read the rest of this entry »
Organizational-chart wiki
CogMap is a wiki that provides organizational charts of various companies. You can look a company up, review the chart, amend or extend it, and so over time (the theory is) the charts will become increasingly useful and accurate. Of course, it depends on interest and individual participation. I looked up a couple of companies that I’ve worked for, but they’re not included. So it will take some time before we know whether this will actually be productive. In the meantime, you can do your bit for your organization.
The Vatican rethinking its position on condoms
According to this report, the Vatican may be shifting its position on the use of condoms:
The Roman Catholic church has taken the first step towards what could be a historic shift away from its total ban on the use of condoms.
Pope Benedict XVI’s “health minister” is understood to be urging him to accept that in restricted circumstances – specifically the prevention of Aids – barrier contraception is the lesser of two evils.
While it is a positive step, it’s still hard for me to get my head around the notion that using a condom is “evil.” I suppose it’s just a step from using condoms to torturing innocents—oh, wait, the Church itself tortured innocents, so that’s okay.
The rest of the story: Read the rest of this entry »
Pentagon: the biggest waste & fraud in the US?
The Pentagon is unable to account for 25% of what it spends. Currently, it is estimated that $2.3 TRILLION has gone missing: unaccounted for. This is what happens when Congress totally abandons its oversight function, which the GOP did. Here’s a 2-minute video clip discussing the waste—and telling how those who try to work on the problem are reassigned or fired.
The Democratic Congress will have much to do, but here’s hoping they can take some steps to staunch the flow of total waste.
Vetivery morning shave
Vetiver is an aroma much loved by the French, among others. Perhaps it is they responsible for the spelling “vetyver,” which one also sees. I was surprised to see that the fragrance is distilled from a (useful) grass, but not surprised that it comes from the roots, for vetiver is an earthy, mysterious smell.
I have a number of Vetiver shaving soaps and creams, and this morning used the cream from Saint Charles Shave. I’m alternating soaps and creams these days, so tomorrow will use QED’s vetiver soap.
The brush was my Savile Row 3228, a large brush, and I probably should have developed the lather in a bowl. But by (new) habit, I worked it up on my face, adding water until I had a nice thick lather.
Gillette Fatboy set on 3: a very mild shave. I’ve upped it to 4 for next time. Still, careful attention and some blade buffing resulted in a pleasant and smooth shave. Pashana aftershave.
Megs testing adorability
Megs experiments with adorability. You also see her BFF, the sisal fish. She still needs to work on the expression on her face.
