GUARDIAN AMERICA

Today, it was announced that the Guardian has launched a new US-based newspaper - Guardian America. I'll just have a wait-and-see attitude about this foray into America. Personally, I'm pleased the new paper will adhere to the same style book as the UK version.

FEAST OF ST JAMES OF JERUSALEM, 23 OCTOBER NT

Today is the Feast of St James of Jerusalem, bishop and martyr, referred to in the New Testament as the brother of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Appointed readings.

ART IN FLAMES

Brand verwoest Armando Museum (ANP foto)

Email today from a Dutch friend:

The Armando Museum in Amersfoort burned down...
First time I cried when seeing a building burn! Powerless bystanders stood there and cried too.
Armando, my favourite Dutch painter... I love his trees and flags...
---
Many of his monumental works gone now...
Also some neighbouring houses (very beautiful, very posh) went up in flames.
C'est la vie, n'est-ce pas?
Thank God there wasn't any fire when Marc Mulders (royal Jubilee window New Church) exhibited many of his works there!! And the building was so nicely restored (former neo-classicist church)...
Damnit!!

Radio Netherlands -

The monumental building was destroyed by a fire in the centre of Amersfoort yesterday afternoon. It no longer served as a church but housed a museum devoted to the work of contemporary Dutch artist Armando. "Everything lost within two hours" bemoans de Volkskrant, quoting a local councillor as saying "A major museum has been lost to us. This is a very sad day for the town."

As an emotional museum director Gerard de Klein told de Volkskrant, the timing could not have been worse. Disaster struck during an exhibition that featured works by the likes of Albrecht Dürer and Jacob van Ruisdael, insured to the tune of 3 million euros: "It was the crowning achievement of our first ten years ... we had unique works on loan ... and now they're just piles of smouldering embers."

"Armando mourns the work of others" reveals AD, reporting how the artist himself was hurt most by the loss of the works on loan, which he described as "irreplaceable". But when the paper asked him if the disaster reflected one of his favourite themes, the transitory nature of life, he replied philosophically "Yes, I suppose you could see it like that..."

BEYOND THE ATHEISM-RELIGION DIVIDE

SPEAKING OF FAITH Beyond the atheism-religion divide

Krista Tippett has a conversation with Harvey Cox, the Harvard theologian who wrote The Secular City in the mid 1960s and more recently, When Jesus Came to Harvard: Making Moral Choices Today. They discuss many topics, but two comments by Cox struck out to me particularly.

On small-scale activism

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Mr Cox: Now, as far as trying to help make the world somewhat better, we have more students involved now in soup kitchens and shelters and in tutoring kids down in the ghetto than we've ever had. They're just out there all over the place and also in various places in the world doing these things on their vacations. But it's kind of small scale. I mean, they want to do things on a small scale where they can see some real difference and have — are pretty skeptical about big scale changes the way, say, the kids in the '60s were when they thought they were really going to change the world.

Ms. Tippett: Right. They were going to change the world. Yeah. These kids are pragmatic aren't they? They…

Mr. Cox: Yes, yes. That's right. And probably smarter and wiser for it.

Ms. Tippett: Yeah.

Mr. Cox: But they're very admirable in many instances. And there is some me-too-ism. There's no doubt about that. But I don't think it's the commanding sentiment of these students at all.

On the illusions of free market capitalism

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Ms. Tippett: [...] You talked about these qualities we associate with the market with, of omniscient, omnipresence, and omnipotent.

Mr. Cox: Yeah. Even with its own rituals and its priests and its ceremonies. It's all there.[...] So it suggested to me that people need some kind of a transcended framework of values and meanings or they just can't get on with it. And we've made the market, to my mind, alas, we've made the market really kind of the great adjudicator of all these things. And it's dehumanizing. It's producing, in many people, a kind of anxiety that a consumer society produces. And it can't go on forever. The kind of economy we have is based on infinite expansion. That's what it's about. It's going to expand every year. And we live on a finite planet. So somewhere or another, there's going to be a collision or taking a little costs accounting that has to go on here.

Read the rest of Beyond the atheism-religion divide...

TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Here are the readings (Proper 24, Year C, RCL) appointed for the Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost. In today's Gospel reading we hear the parable about the widow's persistence before the unfair judge; our cries today are still for justice and liberation.

MICHAEL MUKASEY

Text of my letter to Senator Patrick Leahy, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee:

The question that you should ask the AG nominee is "How would you feel about these methods of 'robust interrogation' being used against US troops if captured by an enemy?" It's acceptable for the US to treat horribly the detainees at Guantánamo, but I reckon there'd be an outcry of disgust if the so-called "enemy" were to do the same thing to American citizens and this country's "partners." I read in the papers about the "grilling" members of the Senate Judiciary Cmte gave to Judge Mukasey and was appalled by their soft-ball questions and his vague answers. Let's face it, he's too much alligned with the policies of the current administration. And his ties to former NYC Mayor Guiliani would make me question his credibility. News reports quote you as saying that Mukasey's appearance before the committee was better than Gonzales' and that Mukasey will be confirmed. Why? Y'all are lawyers, so I guess y'all stick up for each other, with no moral fibre in y'alls bodies. That's why I'm thoroughly disgusted with the congressional leadership, our representatives, and your too often collusion with the actions of the current president and his cronies. Don't give me this bullshit that you are standing up for justice and democracy, because you are not, Senator. You are not at all. I am requesting that you vote not to confirm Judge Mukasey as AG.

BUT IS HE HOUSEBROKEN?

Makes the heart glad, but we'll see what happens -- ASSOCIATED PRESS - Patty Cooper sits in her wheelchair with her miniature pony, Earl, in Warren, Vt., Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2007. The Central Vermont Community Land Trust usually has no objection to seeing-eye dogs or other service animals moving into its apartments. But Cooper's service animal is a horse of a different color: a black and white miniature pony. Now the housing organization is trying to figure out whether it can accommodate a disabled woman's new companion...


(AP Photo/Toby Talbot)

CALL OUT FOR CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE AT WELCH'S OFFICE MON 22 OCT

Back in March, a number of local activists visited Peter Welch's Burlington office, to protest his votes for continuing to fund the US occupation of Iraq. Nothing's really changed, folks. Welch continues to cater to the war industry's interests and to follow the terrible Nancy Pelosi's orders.

On Monday, 22 October, 3:oo PM there'll be another sit-in at the office of Peter Welch, 30 Main Street, Ste 350.

Broadsides

In the last month, Welch has voted in favor of the “emergency” federal budget bill that included billions more for the war and voted in favor congressional resolution condemning the now infamous MoveOn advertisement. So let me simply that for you: Welch voted to give more money for war and to condemn the anti-war movement. But – almost laughably – he continues to declare that “no one is more opposed to the war” than he is. Sorry, Peter, but talk is cheap. And, as you should know by now, the votes are what matter.

Letter to the Editor: Best to knock down the Moran Plant

BURLINGTON FREE PRESS Letter to the Editor from a reader in Milton - 19 October 2007

Best to knock down the Moran Plant

It appeared that the fate of the Moran Plant was settled more or less. Burlington citizens responded to a survey on what to do with the ugly lakefront eyesore a.k.a. the Moran Plant. The majority said get rid of it. Put up a park or other space that the majority of people who live or visit Burlington can enjoy.

Now we read the plant is back on the table to become retail space (with little or no parking). A rock- and ice-climbing facility, ice rink, and boat house and/or dock. The questions I have are: How many of the 100,000 or so people in this area are rock or ice climbers? Same goes for sailboaters and ice skaters. My guess is the whole bunch would number less than 5 percent.

Speaking of skating, a few hours with a couple of ATVs outfitted with snow plows and Burlington could have a huge ice rink right on the lake. Oh, and those retail shops. The Burlington Free Press article says there would be limited or no parking at Moran park, so if you wanted to shop in one of the rapidly going bankrupt retail shops or dine at the almost always empty restaurant, you would have to park your car in the city and either walk or bus to the fabulous new facility.

I would suggest calling one of the companies that are successful at turning old buildings into rubble. I'm sure they can do the same to the Moran Plant for much less than $21 million!

Update from Waterfront Watchdogs petitioning drive:

We have over 500 signatures so far in our efforts to help get the demolition of the Moran Plant on the 2008 Annual City Election ballot! A total of 1,300 signatures is needed by the end of January of 2008 for this to be a sucess. Contact us at 802-355-5247 if you can donate some time to go door-to-door for signatures.

DEBORAH KERR, CONSUMMATE ACTOR

Deborah Jane Kerr (Deborah Kerr Viertel), actor, born September 30 1921; died October 16 2007.

Guardian

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She worked steadily, averaging one film a year, with directors of stature, and often opposite chums such as David Niven, Robert Mitchum and Cary Grant. The result was a career that sailed on rather majestically, like an elegant ocean liner, only occasionally hitting a squall or rough passage. There was little to interest gossip columnists or to shock the public and, at least on the surface, she seemed rather serene in the midst of such a frantic profession.
---
But it is as a screen actor that Kerr will be best remembered, since she had the beauty, the reserve and the inner quality that the camera loves.
---
In 1998 she was made a CBE, but said that she felt too frail to travel to London to receive it personally. In 45 films, in as many years, she seldom, if ever, gave a weak performance and certainly never gave a less than professional one.

I was astounded by her filmography. These are the films I loved; when I saw them I was coming out. (It certainly wasn't the Bye Bye Birdie-ish teenaged angst of the early 60s.) I could relate to the characters:

Tea and Sympathy

Furthermore, Mr. Anderson was employed to adapt his own play, and he has done so with a stubborn insistence on the candor and integrity of his theme. His schoolboy, an 18-year-old "off horse," is still the victim of dark suspicions of his mates. He is suspected of being unmasculine, for which his mates have a crueler name. The wife is still moved to be compassionate with her whole being toward this tormented lad. And her husband is still quite plainly something less than a bona fide man.

Still the drama is here in all its aspects—the drama of a lonely prep-school boy who finds sympathy and affection only in a woman who finds little in her man. It is a drama that teems with nuances, that clearly notes some painful facts of modern life in a stratum of society that sometimes does its children all sorts of unsuspected wrongs. And it is a drama that hints not only at some of the nastier types in boys' boarding schools but also at some of the less attractive product that is turned out by these hives of "sportsmanship."

Separate Tables

Most brilliant and true of the performers is Deborah Kerr: She makes the shy and sad young woman... come poignantly alive.

The Chalk Garden

As for the strange and distant woman who comes into their lives as a governess to handle the youngster (and as an expert on gardening in chalky soil), she is a beautifully strong and valiant lady as played by Deborah Kerr, free of the cool and prickly nature that Siobhan McKenna gave her on Broadway.

LOCAL RADIO SHOW WITH PRESIDING BISHOP KATHARINE JEFFERTS SCHORI

Presiding Bishop (of The Episcopal Church) Katharine Jefferts Schori will be interviewed on the Mark Johnson Show on WDEV on Monday, October 22, at 9:00 A.M. EST.

The show may be heard at 550 AM and 96.1 FM for those who are anywhere near Waterbury, or by tuning in online. The shows are not at this time archived, so you will need to listen live.

The phone number, if you wish to call in during the show, is 877-291-8255.

LUKE THE EVANGELIST AND PHYSICIAN, 18 OCTOBER NT

The Lord created medicines out of the earth,
and the sensible will not despise them.
And he gave skill to human beings
that he might be glorified in his marvelous works.
By them the physician heals and takes away pain;
the pharmacist makes a mixture from them.
God's works will never be finished;
and from him health spreads over all the earth.

-- from Ecclesiasticus, the first lesson in the readings appointed for use on the Feast of St Luke.

FREE PRESS NIMBY EDITORIAL

BURLINGTON FREE PRESS Editorial: Supply, not location, is the low-cost-housing issue 17 October 2007 (my emphasis)---

The Burlington School Board resolution asking the City Council to spread low-income housing more evenly around the city adds a twist that would place more obstacles in the way of creating low-cost housing.

The School Board resolution passed Oct. 9 was part of the search for a way to reduce the concentration of students from poor families in the two elementary schools in the Old North End where much of the city's low-cost housing is found.

Low-cost housing faces enough controversies that create barriers toward serving people in real need. Too many people see such housing simply as a government handout and a magnet for people who need expensive taxpayer-funded services. Brian Pine, the city's Community and Economic Development Office assistant director for housing, is right to worry that the School Board resolution might lead the City Council to slow down efforts to add subsidized units in the Old North End.

The city planning tools for creating a diverse neighborhood of households with varying income levels is the kind of policy initiative that has a better chance of succeeding -- if at all -- in new developments. Forced attempts to change the socio-economic makeup of an existing neighborhood in a mature city near full development, like Burlington, can be cost-prohibitive and disruptive.

There are solid economic reasons low-cost housing tends to be clustered in certain parts of a community, mainly cost. The tight housing market is putting the squeeze on even solidly middle-income families.

A policy that would create low-cost housing in existing higher-rent neighborhoods makes little sense. Creating a low-cost home in such a neighborhood would require a much greater subsidy than in some other areas of the city. Targeting areas with relatively cheaper housing costs allows those doing the necessary subsidizing -- often with taxpayer dollars -- to get the most for their money.

Also, few people living in a neighborhood of single-family homes are likely to welcome seeing apartments go up in their midst because such buildings would be out of character with what's already there.

For most people who have trouble finding a home they can afford -- different from a home they like that they can afford -- the chief issue is availability, not location. North Street resident Mary Davis put that concern succinctly when she told the Free Press, "It could be anywhere. Just get it to where people can actually afford to live in Burlington."

While the School Board's action might be well-intentioned, the vision behind the resolution is disturbingly utopian, creating a Burlington where each neighborhood reflects the broad diversity -- social, economic, cultural, racial and ethnic -- of the entire city. Solutions to real-world problems are rarely found in utopia.

COMMENT: Always loyal to it's corporate and developer interests, the Free Press is dead wrong. Integrating affordable housing in all parts of the city, not segregating it in certain areas only, is not utopian at all. It is a moral issue to keep our neighborhoods diverse and representative of the whole range of people who make up our communities, rather than create pockets of privilege and pockets of the poor.

Targeting areas with relatively cheaper housing costs allows those doing the necessary subsidizing -- often with taxpayer dollars -- to get the most for their money. What the Freeps is really saying: "those" people don't deserve the housing - not with our taxes!

The other message is: NOT IN WESTLAKE! The developers of that hotel and condo project at Battery and Cherry Streets had agreed to build units of affordable housing behind the development; they are petitioning the city now to renege on that agreement and put up commercial property in that space. And it's all related to the still undecided zoning rewrite which favours the rich cat developers' pockets. Contact your ward councilors, especially the immoral Prog and Republicans!

I have no clue what Councilors Shannon or Keogh plan in response to Ward 5 consituents. TONIGHT people in Ward 4/7 can get up and speak directly to the four city councilors those wards (Ellis, Wright, Decelles, Gutchell) at the 7pm NPA meeting. There will be the usual open forum and councilors report.... 7 pm, Hunt Middle School Library. Channel 17 will be there, so what is said tonight will air across the city within days. If you live in these wards, please be aware of this opportunity to speak up!

Related: Burlington Free Press article published 15 October 2007: Affordable housing: How much is too much?.

MCKINNEY AS A GREEN????

No kidding.

Last month, Cynthia McKinney asked the US Greens not to consider her as a candidate of the party. It's been quite a dance she's been playing. But last Sunday it was announced that Ms McKinney will appear on the California primary ballot as the Green Party candidate.

IF IT'S A LOSING PROPOSITION, COUNT POLLINA IN

If It’s a Losing Proposition, Count Pollina In.

By Michael Colby Broadsides 15 October 2007

---
As we all should know by now, Pollina-the-placeholder is being called upon once again to step up and lose for a coalition of Progressives and Democrats who apparently can’t find the energy, creativity or vision to find anyone with a real chance of taking on Republican Governor Jim Douglas. Cue the laugh track. Or, if you’re in the Governor’s office, cue the “Hail to the Chief” music for another two years.

While Pollina is certainly loving all the attention he’s getting of late, I’d recommend he not get too used to it. Because the real Democratic Party players aren’t going to let this story go on for much longer. Why? They still despise Pollina for his clumsy romp upon the political landscape for the past twenty-plus years, a romp that has him either snuggling or bashing the Dems depending on what’s best for one person: Himself. Principles? Forgetaboutit.

You’ve got to hand it to Pollina, though, because he’s certainly made a nice political career out of losing. I mean, think about it, the guy has lost every political campaign he’s run since 1984 and he’s still considered a viable candidate in 2008. But I think that says as much about Pollina’s acceptance of losing as it does about the political culture in Vermont – especially the way the mainstream media – and now the blogosphere — covers it.

Read all of If It’s a Losing Proposition, Count Pollina In...

HILLARY THE HAWK

Clinton would use violence against Tehran

By Suzanne Goldenberg The Guardian 15 October 2007

Hillary Clinton today moved to secure her position as the most hawkish Democrat in the 2008 presidential race, saying she would consider the use of force to compel Iran to abandon its nuclear programme.

In an article for Foreign Affairs magazine intended as a blueprint for the foreign policy of a future Clinton White House, the Democratic frontrunner argues that Iran poses a long term strategic challenge to American and its allies, and that it must not be permitted to build or acquire nuclear weapons.
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The article, the latest in a series of position papers from the leading Democratic and Republican contenders for the White House, offers a glimpse at Ms Clinton's efforts to appeal to Democrats seeking a repudiation of the current regime's world view when they begin voting in primaries next January, as well as to the broader electorate that will vote in November 2008.

It arrives only days after Ms Clinton was severely criticised by her Democratic rivals for backing a Senate resolution calling on the US government to declare Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the elite division of Tehran's military, a terrorist entity.

The measure has been argued strenuously by the vice-president, Dick Cheney, and other neocons, but such a sweeping designation does not appear to have the support of the state department.

Ms Clinton was the only Democratic candidate to support the resolution, and her rivals said her vote could help the Bush administration make a future case for war against Iran.

Unlike the five other candidates to sketch out their vision of foreign policy to date, Ms Clinton gave little indication of her comprehensive world view.

Read all of Clinton would use violence against Tehran

BODY PARTS

Via an email from an acquaintance --

The human body is a machine that is full of wonder. This collection of human body facts will leave you wondering why in the heck we were designed the way we were.

Scientists say the higher your I. Q., the more you dream.

The largest cell in the human body is the female egg and the smallest is the male sperm.

You use 200 muscles to take one step.

The average woman is 5 inches shorter than the average man.

Your big toes have two bones each while the rest have three.

A pair of human feet contains 250,000 sweat glands.

A full bladder is roughly the size of a soft ball.

The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve razor blades.

The human brain cell can hold 5 times more information than the Encyclopedia Britannica.

It takes the food seven seconds to get from your mouth to your stomach.

The average human dream lasts 2-3 seconds.

Men without hair on their chests are more likely to get cirrhosis of the liver than men with hair.

At the moment of conception, you spent about half an hour as a single cell.

There are about one trillion bacteria on each of your feet.

Your body gives off enough heat in 30 minutes to bring half a gallon of water to a boil. Could it be that the population increase in the world is the reason for global warming?

The enamel in your teeth is the hardest substance in your body, and your teeth start growing 6 months before you are born.

When you are looking at someone you love, your pupils dilate, they do the same when you are looking at someone you hate.

Blonds have more hair than dark-haired people.

Your thumb is the same length as your nose, and I bet you are placing your thumb on your NOSE, aren't you? I DID AND IT IS...

LATIMER, RIDLEY & CRANMER 16 OCTOBER 1555, 1556

If you will build a glorious church unto God, see first yourselves to be in charity with your neighbours, and suffer not them to be offended by your works. Then, when ye come into your parish-church, you bring with you the holy temple of God; as Saint Paul saith, ‘You yourselves be the very holy temples of God:’ and Christ saith by his prophet, ‘In you will I rest, and intend to make my mansion and abiding place.’

O heavenly Father, the author and fountain of all truth, the bottomless sea of all understanding, send, we beseech thee, thy Holy Spirit into our hearts, and lighten our understandings with the beams of thy heavenly grace. We ask this, O merciful Father, for thy dear Son our Saviour Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.*

Today we celebrate the feasts of three Anglican bishops and martyrs for their faith.
Here are the appointed readings for use on this day.

*Via Speaking to the Soul - From The Second Sermon on the Card by Hugh Latimer and a prayer by Nicholas Ridley, both quoted in 2000 Years of Prayer, compiled by Michael Counsell. Copyright © 1999.

"PEACE" PRIZES

"Peace" Prizes by jesseray - General, Your Tank is a Powerful Vehicle - 12 October 2007 --

In light of Al Gore's recent winning of the Nobel Peace Prize, I'd like to put up a few choice descriptions of recent winners. Here's last month's Rock Rap Confidential profile of Gore:

DEAD EARTH WALKING... Al Gore's biggest hypocrisy isn't the fact that, after two decades of telling us how to raise our kids, on July 4 one of his offspring was yet again arrested for drug possession.

Gore's biggest hypocrisy isn't even the fact that he started an anti-rock witch hunt via Congressional hearings and the PMRC in the 1980s and then was a front man for the July 7 Live Earth concerts at which Madonna and the Beastie Boys-artists attacked as scum by the PMRC, starting with Mrs. Gore--performed.

Nor is Gore's most devious double standard the fact that the rightwing group Focus on the Family-spiritually and structurally a part of the PMRC-opposes Earth Day.

No, Al Gore's biggest hypocrisy is that he portrays himself as an environmentalist at all. Gore is a major shareholder of Occidental Petroleum, one of the world's worst polluters. He is pro-nuclear war (ask the Japanese what that does for the environment), having voted for the first-strike MX missile after promising he wouldn't. Al Gore says nuclear power is the solution to climate change and he's backed both Gulf wars, which have done untold damage to the ecosystems we all need to survive. He is an avid supporter of the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), whose founder John Bryson is the head of major polluter Southern California Edison. NRDC helped ram through Gore's pet project NAFTA, which has undermined environmental standards throughout the western hemisphere. When WTI Corporation, financed mainly by major Gore contributor Jackson Stephens, wanted an operating permit for a hazardous waste incinerator located near an Ohio elementary school, Gore as vice-president did not object. The permit was issued.

As for global warming itself, Gore worked to derail the international Kyoto Protocol by making sure it wasn't submitted to the U.S. Senate for approval.

Al Gore works the same hustle that Bono does. He describes himself as a leader who reveals important new dangers, then fronts for the people and institutions who've caused the problem in the first place.

We don't need to be told that global warming exists. We already know that. We need to actually solve the problem but we can't because we let someone like Al Gore speak for us while he co-opts our culture, a culture that he said as a Senator that he hates and wants to destroy.

Read all of "PEACE" PRIZES...

TERESA OF AVILA, REFORMER AND CONTEMPLATIVE, 15 OCTOBER

Speaking to the Soul - The soul that truly loves God loves all good, seeks all good, protects all good, praises all good, joins itself to good people, helps and defends them, and embraces all the virtues: it only loves what is true and worth loving.

Do you think it possible that one who truly loves God cares, or can care, for vanities, or riches, or worldly things, or pleasures or honours? Neither can such a soul quarrel or feel envy, for it aims at nothing save pleasing the Beloved. It dies with longing for his love and gives its life in striving how to please him better. -- Teresa of Avila, quoted in The Joy of the Saints: Spiritual Readings throughout the Year, edited by Robert Llewelyn (Templegate, 1988).


Here are the readings appointed for use on the Feast of Teresa of Avila.

The Psalm in Today's Readings

Psalm 42:1-7 Page 643, BCP

Quemadmodum

1 As the deer longs for the water-brooks, *
so longs my soul for you, O God.

2 My soul is athirst for God, athirst for the living God; *
when shall I come to appear before the presence of God?

3 My tears have been my food day and night, *
while all day long they say to me,
"Where now is your God?"

4 I pour out my soul when I think on these things: *
how I went with the multitude and led them into the house of God,

5 With the voice of praise and thanksgiving, *
among those who keep holy-day.

6 Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul? *
and why are you so disquieted within me?

7 Put your trust in God; *
for I will yet give thanks to him,
who is the help of my countenance, and my God.