WORLD AIDS DAY - 1 DECEMBER

LETTER from the Episcopal Presiding Bishop on World AIDS Day 2008

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

The first day of December is marked as World AIDS Day, and has been observed since 1988. Episcopalians join billions of people around the world to remember the devastation caused by the AIDS pandemic over the past generation, and to recommit to ensuring a future without AIDS for generations still to come. As our church year begins, it is especially appropriate to remember, pray, and work together to alleviate the suffering inflicted by this disease and its consequences.

As Episcopalians, we understand that we are part of a body that has AIDS – both the Body of Christ and the larger body of the family of God. More than half of our worldwide Anglican Communion lives in countries destabilized by epidemic rates of HIV infection, including several dioceses of The Episcopal Church. Parish communities in the United States have been responding to HIV and AIDS for more than 25 years.

In the United States, this year’s commemoration comes in a moment of transition for American democracy. A new President and new Congress will shape this nation’s response to HIV/AIDS at home and around the world. Many significant challenges face America’s leaders in the coming years.

We must find ways to build on successes in fighting HIV and AIDS in the developing world. American leadership since 2003 has brought life-saving treatment to more than 1.7 million people in sub-Saharan Africa (in contrast to 50,000 in 2002), while supporting more than 33 million counseling and testing sessions and providing prevention services for nearly 13 million pregnant women. Still, more than 6,000 people continue to die each day as a result of the pandemic, and infection rates in some of the hardest-hit places continue to grow. Earlier this year, Congress and the President pledged significantly increased funding, and renewed strategies, for the global fight against AIDS. It will be up to the new Congress and Administration to keep the promises that have been made by their predecessors.

The incoming Administration of President-elect Obama is soliciting suggestions from citizens for national priorities in the year ahead at www.change.gov. I urge all Episcopalians living in the United States to ask President-elect Obama and his Administration to make the fight against AIDS at home and around the world a priority, even in difficult economic times. The security and well-being of the world depends on health and healing for all. You can join your voice with those of other Episcopalians who will take action in the months and years ahead to advocate for strong U.S. responses to the HIV/AIDS pandemic by signing up for the Episcopal Public Policy Network at www.episcopalchurch.org/eppn.

I commend to Episcopalians the National Episcopal AIDS Coalition, www.neac.org, a grassroots group that has been working in Episcopal communities for more than two decades to support caregivers, give guidance on prevention, and advocate for a more compassionate AIDS policy. In particular, I draw your attention to the online quiz NEAC has developed for Episcopal communities to commemorate this World AIDS Day.

Christians around the world marked the First Sunday of Advent yesterday as a season of hope and expectation, remembering that the “Sun of Righteousness shall rise with healing in his wings” (Malachi 4:2). On this World AIDS Day, I pray that the God who tents with humanity will raise us up to work together to make the divine dream of healing and abundant life for all creation a reality – may your kingdom come, O Lord, and speedily.

Your servant in Christ,
The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop
The Episcopal Church

SIGNS OF ENDINGS ALL AROUND US

Today, the First Sunday of Advent, at St Paul's Cathedral we prayed for all sorts and conditions close-by and far away. Then we sang this hymn

Take our fears, then, Lord
and turn them into hopes for life anew:
Fading light and dying season
sing their Glorias to you.

Speak, O God, your Word among us.
Barren lives your presence fill.
Swell our hearts with songs of gladness,
terrors calm, forebodings still.

Let your promised realm of justice
blossom now throughout the earth;
your dominion bring now near us;
we await the saving birth.

Words Dean W. Nelson (b. 1944) * Music TON-Y-BOTEL, Thomas John Williams (1869-1944)

'GETTING TO KNOW YOU,' INDEED

Episcopal Café is asking readers to participate in something called the Blog Reader Project Survey.

It will take about eight to ten minutes of your time.

What a come-on. Why not participate? It's easy peasy to take part in our rushed lives. So I left this comment:

Thought it would be harmless, so I started to do this "survey," but stopped at the passport question (do I have a current one?). Huh? What does that have to do reading a blog? This is no innocuous survey. You think it's not likely to offend or provoke to strong emotion among your readers? Why would Episcopal Café support such an initiative? Very strange for a religious blog. Who is actually behind this "survey"? Did you do your research? I'm not usually paranoid, but I'm suspicious about the real purpose of these kinds of information gathering. I think you should re-think your participation. Sure, it's voluntary but this avid reader of the Café doesn't buy it.

The comments are moderated, so we'll see if mine is published. And I wonder what other readers of the Café think.

UPDATE

My comment was approved, with the following

Editor's note: The Blog Reader Project is well-known and widely respected throughout the secular blogosphere. It is used by all of the bloggers in the Advertising Liberally collective including the Peabody Award winning Talking Points Memo. The Cafe may, at some point, want to solicit advertising. Our preliminary research indicates that even seemingly Mom and Pop concerns want information above and beyond what Webalizer or Google Analytics can provide. Hence, the survey.

Peer-liberal blog approval or not, I find the potential use of it for advertising on the Café irksome. 'Tis the season to spend, after all. Why wasn't this stated in the 'invitation'? Does that matter to the readers? Apparently not, because people are admitting they've done the survey.

SOFA

RickB at Ten Percent has an astute commentary on the agreement between Iraq and the US to remove US forces from that country. I was struck by yesterday's New York Times headline: "Iraq Approves Deal Charting End of U.S. Role" and how the reader had to search really deep in the article about the details. Of course, the head line should have read: "Iraq Approves Deal Charting End of U.S. Occupation," but as a commenter on Rick's piece notes,

I don’t know if you have seen the Justice for Iraq blog [I add the link] that has something by Sami Ramadani who says SOFA is an illusion and the American establishment want to stay in Iraq for as long as the oil is there and it is a good political vantage point. SOFA is about getting the UN out of the way and the US are arguing for a military presence.

MUMBAI ATTACKS

Look at any newspaper front page in the last day or two and you'll see screaming headlines about the blood and gore in Mumbai, India. As for analysis, there's little, because most people have just not followed India closely. Those people sort of thing, mainly because what's happening is not european or USA focussed (unless, of course, they start counting westerns caught in the mess). Or maybe it's just the holiday this week and people are away eating turkey and we'll read more after they're back from quality family time. Alot of the American bloggers reactions remind me of the reactions to the Georgian invasion into South Ossetia last summer: taken by surprise and a show of ignorance about the area and its politics - and even the media did not do its homework and still (along with both major party candidates) claim it was Russia's provocation.

But on my regular/daily/favourite blog reads, they are paying attention.

Craig Murray

The attacks in Mumbai are appalling, but the truth is that to date the numbers killed are small by the standards of inter-communal religious violence in India.

But this time Westerners are involved, so there is far more media attention than when it is "Only Indians".

Lenin's Tomb goes to some length...

The shocking and depressing news from India would seem to defy any glib conclusions or slogans beyond the patently obvious - namely, that this grotesque hunting and killing of innocents is likely to succeed in (what appears to be) its principle aim of generating both a repressive response from the Indian state and a communal reaction.

Moon of Alabama has some here and here:

There was no clear target.

The major attacks were on a railway station, two big hotels, a multiplex movie theater and a bar. Two taxis were blown up. Two terrorists allegedly were at a hospital.

Of the dead only 6 were foreigners, of the wounded 7. While those hotels and the bar frequently have foreigners those numbers and the attack on the railway station and the cinema do not fit to an "attack on foreigners" scheme.

Ten Percent cites the Tomb article & points us to twitter.

And the commentator Tariq Ali chimes in, too.

The terrorist assault on Mumbai’s five-star hotels was well planned, but did not require a great deal of logistic intelligence: all the targets were soft. The aim was to create mayhem by shining the spotlight on India and its problems and in that the terrorists were successful. The identity of the black-hooded group remains a mystery.

All I can say is

Lord, have mercy
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

A THANKSGIVING LITANY

Daily Reading for November 27 • Thanksgiving Day

Give thanks to the Lord who is good.
God’s love is everlasting.

Come, let us praise God joyfully.
Let us come to God with thanksgiving.

For the good world; for things great and small, beautiful and awesome; for seen and unseen splendors:
Thank you, God.

For human life; for talking and moving and thinking together; for common hopes and hardship shared from birth until our dying:
Thank you, God.

For work to do and strength to work; for the comradeship of labor; for exchanges of good humor and encouragement:
Thank you, God.

For marriage; for the mystery and joy of flesh made one; for mutual forgiveness and burdens shared; for secrets kept in love:
Thank you, God.

For family; for living together and eating together; for family amusements and family pleasures:
Thank you, God.

For children; for their energy and curiosity; for their brave play and their startling frankness; for their sudden sympathies:
Thank you, God.

For the young; for their high hopes; for their irreverence toward worn-out values; for their search for freedom; for their solemn vows:
Thank you, God.

For growing up and growing old; for wisdom deepened by experience; for rest in leisure; and for time made precious by its passing:
Thank you, God.

For your help in times of doubt and sorrow; for healing our diseases; for preserving us in temptation and danger:
Thank you, God.

For the church into which we have been called; for the good news we received by Word and Sacrament; for our life together in the Lord:
We praise you, God.

For your Holy Spirit, who guides our steps and brings us gifts of faith and love; who prays in us and prompts our grateful worship:
We praise you, God.

Above all, O God, for your Son Jesus Christ, who lived and died and lives again for our salvation; for our hope in him; and for the joy of serving him:
We thank and praise you, Eternal God, for all your goodness to us.

Give thanks to the Lord who is good.
God’s love is everlasting. Amen.

“Litany of Thanksgiving” from the Book of Common Worship (1993), quoted in The Wideness of God’s Mercy: Litanies to Enlarge Our Prayer, revised and updated edition, compiled and adapted by Jeffery Rowthorn with W. Alfred Tisdale. Copyright © 2007. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY.

(This litany was posted today on Episcopal Café's Speaking to the Soul. Many thanks.)

CONTINUING QUESTIONS REGARDING BURLINGTON'S 'CATEGATE'

In today's Burlington Free Press:

Council wants more information on Cate affair

Several Burlington city councilors want more information about the firing and reinstatement of the city's waterfront director.

The Parks and Recreation Commission reinstated Adam Cate last week after the administration of Mayor Bob Kiss fired him following a prolonged investigation

But if you go to the last bit of the Briggs article, there's this:

Kiss said that while the process was lengthy, "time can't be the measure of a successful process." He added that the Cate suspension and investigation had been a personnel issue. He said it was "certainly not political."

C'mon, how disingenuous can he get! Whether good ol' boy or not, all government personnel issues - hiring and firing (or resigning) - whether federal, state or municipal, are 'political.' An uninformed public may accept Mr Mayor's explanation. Open and transparent government in Burlington still needs work. Surely Burlington citizens deserve as much information as possible about 'Categate.'

NO COMPENSATION FOR INDONESIAN BLOOD BATH

"I never thought they would kill us because we were just ordinary people," says Saih. "I only realised [what they were going to do] when they began the countdown... Een, twee, drie." Three soldiers started shooting the men in the back.

DutchNews.nl in partnership with NRC International:

Dutch refuse compensation for Indonesian massacre

The Dutch state will not pay compensation to a survivor and nine family members of Indonesians in the village of Rawagede who were massacred by Dutch soldiers 60 years ago because the case is too old.
___________
The Indonesians’ attorney, Liesbeth Zegveld, told AP news service on Monday that she was surprised by the ruling. "I am surprised they dare to invoke this," she said referring to the statute in which a time limit is specified for compensation claims. "I find it unreasonable," she added.... more

The ruling sounds hypocritical to me. Sixty years is not too old. Victims of the 1939-45 war continue to be 'compensated.'

I wrote about the massacre in Java here and here.

THIS PROGRAM MADE POSSIBLE BY.....

A comment over at GMD:

Has anyone else noticed that lately the sponsorship list for NPR News / All Things Considered has included funding the the Department of Homeland Security???

I just mention it in case anyone still thinks of NPR as any kind of neutral news organization (I guess it was here that someone suggested NPR = Nice Polite Republicans).

But it still gives me the heebie-jeebies. The blurb is about how DHS is working to help employers by "confirming" the employable status of foreign workers. Uh huh. I don't think they've made those services available to the farmers of Vermont.

I'm no fan of National Propaganda Radio. I'd call the DHS 'sponsorship' an invitation for media collusion; they've done everything else in the past 8 years to push the government agenda. Not to mention any criticism of DHS by NPR could now be seen as....dissident. I wonder what the NPR ombudsperson would say.

AND WELL THEY SHOULD BE WORRIED

RADIO NETHERLANDS WORLDWIDE Press Review

Shooting
Free giveaway newspaper De Pers reports that Dutch soldiers in the Afghan province of Uruzgan are afraid to use their guns for fear of legal repercussions.

Wim van den Burg of the military union AFMP says "There is so much uncertainty over their legal position that it leads to hesitation. That can be life-threatening".

Mr Van den Burg says that despite the fact that more than 4,000 people have been killed in Afghanistan since early this year, the cabinet still pretends the Netherlands is involved in a peace mission.

"Dutch soldiers in Afghanistan are treated differently - from a legal perspective - to their US counterparts even if they face the same combat situation".

According to De Pers, the Dutch military criminal code is behind the times.
Labour MP Angelien Eijsink will ask Defence Minister Eimert van Middelkoop for clarification later this week.

"I have also heard reports that soldiers are sometimes afraid to take action. There are loopholes in the law. They need to be fixed fast."

DUTCH 'CANNABIS SUMMIT'

DutchNews.nl

Mayors want to licence growing marijuana

Monday 24 November 2008

Marijuana should be grown under government licence and supplied to the 700 or so coffee shops that sell cannabis in the Netherlands, according to over 30 Dutch mayors.

This is the conclusion of the ‘cannabis summit’ on Friday at which the mayors discussed the country’s policy on soft drugs.

The mayor of Eindhoven, Rob van Gijzel, said his city is prepared to run a ‘monitored pilot scheme’ to assess if a system of licenced growers reduces drugs-related crime....more

Also from DutchNews.nl: Drugs - Weeding out the myths

YES WE CAN!

Not to be missed from The Independent:

Obama has surrounded himself with to Clintonista foreign policy hawks. Amazing (but not surprising) that the hawks who supported and advised Hillary in the primaries now get Obama's listening ear. Don't blame me, I voted for Nader.

XENOPHILIA

The lavish hospitality of God is radically different from Martha Stewart's. As ludicrous as that sounds, it all boils down to imitating the table manners of Jesus.

Today is the Last Sunday after Pentecost, also known as Christ the King Sunday or Stir-Up Sunday.

PROFITING FROM PEOPLES' MISERY

Chris Floyd's blog appears in the side-bar over at Dennis Perrin's, so it's gotta be a good read. I've been checking it out the past few weeks. Here's something the Democrats don't want to admit, but what Mr Floyd had to say recently in his post last Thursday.

So perhaps we do wrong to criticize Obama and Brown, on policy grounds, for their intention to kill more civilians and kindle more hatred and sorrow in Afghanistan. After all, we are told over and over how very intelligent these two leaders are, how well-read, how penetrating, far-seeing and deep-delving they are, especially in comparison to their fatuous predecessors. The glaringly obvious folly – in human terms, and on the moral plane – of escalating the war in Afghanistan, and possibly expanding it into Pakistan, cannot have escaped such perceptive men. Therefore, we can only conclude that their policies, like those of their predecessors, are based on altogether different considerations, ones in which the lives of the Afghan people, and the genuine security of their own people, are of little concern.

For this is the hard truth – the blood-and-iron truth – that our age has taught us so well: war is always a win-win proposition for the corporate-militarist state that has devoured the American Republic. Even if the particular conflict itself ends badly or inconclusively, it always engenders vast profits and increased power and privilege for the corporate-militarist elite -- and the temporary managers they graciously allow the American people to "choose" from a rigorously sifted, highly circumscribed menu of "viable" candidates. So it doesn't matter if this war or that war is "ill-conceived" or "badly managed" or a "serious mistake" or "the wrong war at the wrong time," or if its public justifications are based on lies or ignorance or arrogance, or if it bankrupts the treasury, beggars the citizenry, and destabilizes the world. The small, golden, coddled circle still reaps dividends of profit and dominance.

STATUS QUO HEALTH CARE DELIVERY

Yesterday it was announced that the president-elect has chosen former senator Tom Daschle to be HHS secretary. When he was a senator, he was one of the biggest recipients of campaign donations from the health care industry. Since he left the senate, he’s had a position advising a Washington legal and lobbying firm on a number of issues, notably health care. That firm’s lobbying clients include a number of pharmaceutical companies.

Indeed, in yesterday's NYT:

Although Mr. Daschle’s work might not preclude his appointment, it could raise the possibility that the administration could require him to recuse himself from any matter related to either the Mayo Clinic or some of the clients he advised at Alston & Bird — a potentially broad swath of the health secretary’s portfolio.

No presidential administration has sought to extend its conflict-of-interest policies to previous employers as Mr. Obama has pledged to do, earning high marks from government ethics groups. Mr. Daschle’s selection reflects a clash, widely predicted by Washington lawyers and lobbyists, between Mr. Obama’s unusually sweeping self-imposed ethics rules and his desire to recruit experienced policy hands.

Change we can believe in.

In a pathetic round-table discussion last night on PBS’s Newshour, Judy Woodruff was joined by

Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans, a national trade association representing health insurance providers;

Stuart Butler, vice president for domestic and economic policy at the Heritage Foundation;

Chris Jennings, former senior health policy adviser to president Clinton, now president of Jennings Policy Strategies, a health policy consulting firm;

and Uwe Reinhardt, professor of economics and public affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University (he of managed care, which gave “consumers” a “choice,” but was controlled by insurance companies that put profits before patient care).

All these expert analysts used the current financial crisis as an explanation and excuse for preventing Obama's "desire" for real and serious health care reform. All are tied to the status quo of health care delivery in this country.

Judy Woodruff did not invite any working people, patients or physicians into the discussion mix. The Newshour's experts don't know what the citizens want, but speaking for their corporate connections, they presume to know what's best for us. Not once during the discussion was single payer mentioned.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, has introduced a bill - HR676 - for single payer, making it unlawful to sell private health insurance for benefits that are medically necessary.

57% of Americans, when asked about their choice for health care delivery, have said they want it government sponsored. (70% of Democratic primary voters want it.) Even back in August, the Democratic platform snuffed out single payer in the mix for health care reform solutions.

In the interest of a true discussion and debate, why didn’t Woodruff have representatives from the California Nurses Association or Physicians for a National Healthcare Program? Both groups have called for single payer. (Although the CNA supported Obama.) Why not include Vermont’s own Dr Deb Richter, former president of PNHP or its founders Dr. Steffie Woolhandler and Dr. David Himmelstein?

BLOOD SAVERS

The Coffee Memorial Blood Center in Amarillo, Texas, is working with area hospitals to reduce unnecessary blood transfusions in an effort to address low blood supplies. The Northwest Texas Healthcare System has tapped a company with a Web-based program that can analyze whether or not patients should have received a blood transfusion, helping to educate staff on blood use. The Baptist St. Anthony's Health System is using Cell Saver, a device that collects patients' blood during surgery and prepares to pump it back if needed.

This idea is nothing new. When at St Luke's in Houston, already Texas Heart Institute had developed ways to save blood during surgeries. Fortunately, some doctors have been educated about efficiency in transfusion medicine. The days of only whole blood transfusion are over.

NPR ON IRAN AND URANIUM

Today, the much ado headline on NPR's World news site belies the actual facts: Iran Has Enough Uranium For Single Atomic Bomb, with the following "story"

The International Atomic Energy Agency reports that Iran has produced close to 1,400 pounds of low-enriched uranium. If that material were to be enriched further, experts say it would probably be enough to make a single atomic bomb. The achievement is largely symbolic at this point.

My emphasis in bold.

If you click "listen now" to Mike Shuster and Steve Inskeep, on today's Morning Edition, these words and phrases stand out:

"If that material were to be enriched, it would probably..."

"that sounds kind of frightening"

"largely theortetical"

"theoretically" [I counted that word used three times.]

"symbolic figure"

"If they so chose, they maybe could go on to enrich it in a bomb"

"a theoretical threshold"

But the general sense, very subtly presented, in their exchange is that Iran should not be trusted. Moon of Alabama blog gives some further examples of false, sensational reporting by the MSM.

CHENEY & GONZALES INDICTED BY TEXAS GRAND JURY

HOMOPHOBIC INCIDENCES GROWING IN THE NETHERLANDS

RADIO NETHERLANDS WORLDWIDE --

According to reports in the Dutch media, many attacks on gay and lesbians are carried out by young immigrants. But the recent report shows that only 15 percent of the perpetrators are non-native. René van Soeren of the Dutch organisation for gays and lesbians, COC, says he is not surprised by these findings.

The COC is getting signals from its own community that - in the Netherlands' bigger cities in particular - these crimes are indeed very often committed by people from an immigrant background. But in the rural part of the country, which is the larger part, they're mostly perpetrated by native people, Mr Van Soeren says.... more

SWAB RELAUNCH

In a yet another Burlington Free Press PR puff piece yesterday it is claimed the Centers for Disease Control has named Burlington as America's healthiest city [sic] The CDC would never in a million years state this; the article is pure City of Burlington interpretation with the Free Press acting as its mouthpiece.

Nowhere in that article will you read that toxic waste products continue to be added to our drinking water.

Yes, Safe Water Advocates of Burlington are back, under new leadership.

Come One, Come All, to the Website Launch Party for SWAB VT (Safe Water Advocates of Burlington, Vermont), at Bite Me Organic Pizzeria, 457 St. Paul St., on Wednesday from 6 to 9! Slices are buy-one, get-one-free. The Itinerary is as follows:

6:00: Sign the petition to End Water Fluoridation!
6:30: Documentary Showing: "Professional Perspectives"
7:00: Campaign Leaders explain the nature of SWAB VT's campaign to end water fluoridation, clarify the volunteer opportunities, and hold a Q&A session about fluoridation and the What's In Our Water? campaign.
8:00: www.swabvt.org makes its Debut!

Please, invite three friends to this event, and show up yourselves! The space is small but we want it to be cozy! We can't wait to see you and get this party kicked off right!

Wishing you well,
Carlie, Kevin and Geoff of SWAB VT: Advocating for your right to safe tap water.