Pope Calls for Environmental Wake-up

According to this BBC report, today is "Save Creation Day." Pope Benedict joined about 300,000 young Roman Catholics for an eco-friendly festival. "Before it's too late, we need to make courageous choices that will recreate a strong alliance between man and Earth," he said. He is installing solar panels on the roof of the main audience hall at the Vatican and is paying for a forestry project to offset the Vatican's carbon emissions.

Well, well. How about that? I don't believe I've heard too many Baptist or Methodist leaders or fundamentalist church leaders talking about 'saving creation.' I wonder if, at that specious 'Creation Museum' in rural Kentucky, there is information on how to save creation.

Of course, so many 'religious' folks are interested in making money, that they don't want to step on the toes of big business here in America. Note the Bush tax breaks for the rich and his diminution of government controls on pollution and public land grabs for businessmen. Naturally, big oil, big coal and big gas have been doing very well under the Bush/Cheney administration. Government deregulation of the electric industry as well as pollution breaks have allowed this giant industry to spoil our nation from one coast to the other.

Good for the Pope. Too bad that he doesn't have the power to immediately impact the world. Yet, he has planted a seed in the minds of many youths all over the world. Let's hope that the seed grows and is not trotted-on by greedy folks who love their money.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Imaginary Life Journey

First a childhood, limitless and without renunciation or goals.
O unselfconscious joy.
Then suddenly terror, barriers, schools, drudgery,and collapse into temptation and loss.
Defiance. The one bent becomes the bender,and thrusts upon others that which it suffered.
Loved, feared, rescuer, fighter, winner and conqueror, blow by blow.
And then alone in cold, light, open space,yet still deep within the mature erected form,a gasping for the clear air of the first one, the old one . . .
Then God leaps out from behind his hiding place.

(Schöneck, September 13, 1923)

"Just be quiet and sit down. The reason is you're drunk. And this is the edge of the roof."

Last night on Bill Moyer's Journal, poet Robert Bly was one of the guests. He read some of his poems as well as one from Rumi, the 13th century mystical poet:

ROBERT BLY: "I don't like it here. I want to go back. According to the old knowers, if you're absent from the one you love even for one second, that ruins the whole thing. There must be someone, just to find one sign of the other world in this town would be helpful." I feel that in Minneapolis.

"Just to find one sign of the other world in this town would be helpful. You know the great Chinese Saimer bird got caught in this net. What can I do? I'm only a wren. My desire-body, don't come strolling over this way. Sit where you are. It's a good place."

"When you want dessert, you choose something rich. When you choose wine, you look for what's clear and firm. What is the rest?" Talking about-- "What is the rest?" The rest is television. "What is the rest? The rest is mirages and blurry pictures and milk mixed with water. The rest is self-hatred and mocking other people and bombing. So, just be quiet and sit down. The reason is you're drunk. And this is the edge of the roof."

It's a good poem, even for the United States right now.

BILL MOYERS: Why?

ROBERT BLY: Um, look for what's clear and firm. "What is the rest? The rest is mirages and blurry pictures and milk mixed with water." That is the way to cheat in the old days. "The rest is self-hatred and mocking other people and bombing. So, just be quiet and sit down." That'd be a good thing to say to Bush. "Just be quiet and sit down. The reason is you're drunk. And this is the edge of the roof."

-------------------------------------------------

That'd be a good thing to say to Bush. "Just be quiet and sit down. The reason is you're drunk. And this is the edge of the roof."

Drunk. It used to be alcohol. Bush says he's done with booze.

Drunk. It could be something else.

Power? Knowledge of ineptitude? Righteousness? Delusions of Grandeur? Loss?

Drunk on the edge of a roof.

Chilling reality for us all.

Liberal Toledo Catholic Parish in National News

Corpus Christi University Parish, on the University of Toledo campus, is featured in an article in the National Catholic Reporter today. The title of the article is, "Liberal Catholicism endures in pastoral church."

Here is a section of the article:

At least in the United States, many observers believe that a broad liberal instinct is firmly entrenched at the grass roots.

“I think the genie has been let out of the bottle, and there is no putting it back in,” said Richard Gaillardetz, a prominent lay theologian at the University of Toledo, Ohio, even though he conceded that “liberal Catholicism … no longer enjoys the ecclesiastical support to which many had become accustomed in the ’70s, ’80s and early ’90s.”

Gaillardetz argued that in the United States, liberal Catholicism is less an ideology than a “pastoral phenomenon … alive in parishes that have a flourishing catechumenate, vibrant liturgies, thoughtful and relevant preaching, and multiple lay ministerial opportunities,” as well as “in a growing number of intentional Christian communities that are determined to keep alive a vision of the church that they associate with Vatican II.”

Looking around, observers such as Gaillardetz say that the moderate-to-liberal camp probably represents a disproportionate share of the church’s ministerial workforce, meaning priests, deacons, religious, and laity, as well as the theological guild.

A priest I knew years ago said to me that the Catholic Church will split into two groups: conservative and liberal. He told me this 20 years ago. I think he is correct. It is already happening to the Episcopal Church with many fundamentalists joining the African Diocese.

Toledo's Bishop, Leonard Blair, is way to the right on the theological scale; he even removed all women who were in some pastoral positions when he became bishop. One can only guess what his next fundamentalist dictum will be.

Nonetheless, the liberal Catholic Church will endure, whether with or without the 'official' sanctioning of the papacy. Many married priests are already serving Catholic congregations 'in exile' throughout the country. Liberal Catholics have matured far faster than the average Catholic who is still stuck in the grade school religion class mentality. These Catholics are well read and understand both the history and the hypocrisy of the church over the years. They are fed up with hierarchical structure and antiquated church doctrine.

They know, for the most part, that the Gospels were not biographical sketches of the life of Jesus but rather a Jewish midrash story, embellishing the character of the man called Jesus. They believe in birth control and divorce, and think that the church has no business in one's bedroom. They almost always are people seeking peace through justice. They believe in women as priests and the marriage of priests. They are free-thinking adults who come to their own conclusions and do not need to be given a list of do's and don'ts by an all-male misogynistic church.

The only thing stopping the split is the fear of reprisal; after all, the Catholic Church has unleashed its mighty power on many people over the ages. Few fully-functioning priests wish to rile their local bishop with talk of liberalizing the church.

So, the liberal Catholic Church remains a church in the shadows, in exile for the time being. But not for long.

Texas Executes 400th Person Since 1982

The Houston Chronicle reports:

"Yesterday Texas executed Johnny Ray Conner for the murder of a Houston grocery clerk during a failed robbery in 1998. He was the 400th person to be executed in Texas since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982. "It's the 400th execution in Texas," said Hooman Hedayati, of Texas Students Against the Death Penalty. "That's really important because it shows how Texas executes people. It needs to stop. It's a barbaric practice."

Barbaric indeed. Say, who was that recent governor from Texas who, in his lust for blood, holds the record for executions?

Tricycling Through Life

The Tenuous Case for Strategic Patience in Iraq

Anthony Cordesman, director of the Center for Strategic Studies, was the guest this morning on C-Span's Washington Journal. He is the author of the newest study on Iraq, The Tenuous Case for Strategic Patience in Iraq. You can read the report here. The man knows his stuff, to put it colloquially. He is a scholar of the middle East, Iraq in particular.

I was embarrassed for him with some of the callers, ignorant callers. One suggested to him that Iraq needs to have a democracy so that it becomes 'a civilized nation.' It did not take too long for Mr. Cordesman to assure the caller that Iraq had been a civilized nation for thousands of years before the British and Americans de-civilized it.

Another embarrassing call suggested that the problem in Iraq was the fault of the Democrats as did one other caller who said that if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, Americans would need to have an arsenal of guns in their homes, just as the Iraqi people.

The host asked Cordesman about the Dick Cheney question and answer he gave in a recent interview where Cheney was asked why, in 1991, he said that no American life was worth being sacrificed in going into Baghdad to get Saddam, but now he thinks it was the right thing to do. Cheney answered, "because of 9-11." Cordesman, instead of being unkind to Cheney, said that the Administration's biggest blunder was having no plan for the after-Saddam topple. That stupidity, he suggested, has caused much bloodshed, both ours and the Iraqis.

"American mentality is to blame," he declared. "We think in short terms only." He went on to lecture us on the consequences of such football logic. We fail to see the big picture, the long-term consequences, just like the British when they occupied Iraq.

His tone was one of despair; his hope for any meaningful outcome to the fiasco there was at best dim. One could detect in his voice and words that he had great pity for the people of Iraq and the awful consequences they have suffered at the hands of the British and Americans for the past 75 years. And the dumbed-down callers proved his conjecture very well.

Silent Screams of a Survivor: Toledo Author Mitch Garwolinski

Toledo resident Mitch Garwolinski has written a detailed account of his childhood experiences in Nazi controlled Poland in WWII. A summary can be found here. My wife's brother gave her the book yesterday; he is a runner and often runs with Mitch. That's how he got the book.

It's an easy but stomach-curdling read like all accounts of Nazis both living and now dead. One more episode in the file, 'man's inhumanity to man.'

The author is also a cancer survivor which begs the question: how much can one person endure in life? He is in therapy too, trying to get rid of those horrible experiences as well as the guilt for the three murders he committed. Writing the book was one way to help him try to put the past aside, if that is ever possible.

He speaks to groups around the Toledo area about his experiences, often to high school audiences. He hopes that his life story will have some effect on the youth of the area. Surely some in the audience will find his story compelling and it may also serve as an impetus to them to reach for higher ideals during their own lives.

Presently the city of Toledo has been 'threatened' with an unwelcome visit by a neo Nazi group this Sunday. These boneheads will stimulate the residents and news media into action just as they have planned. Shortly after their verbiage is finished, they will drive back to their places of residence satisfied with the ugliness they perpetrated in the name of their god of hate. One wonders if they have families, wives, and children. Do they go to church? What do they see in the mirror each morning? What do they dream of at night? What will be said of them at their funeral service? What will be written in their obituary? On their tombstone?

Man's inhumanity to man. Alive and thriving in America. Thank God there are men like Mitch Garolinski who educate our youth on evil.

John Pilger's Warning to Journalists

Author John Pilger has penned a scorching warning to those who call themselves journalists. The Unseen lies: Journalism as Propaganda is an article that lays bare the shenanigans of so-called journalists who are little more than government pimps. Pilger berates especially the 'journalists' and news media in the run-up to the Iraq invasion. But Clinton doesn't get off the hook either. He says of the former president, "Bill Clinton [was] the most violent president of the late 20th century."

The article is fascinating and jaw-dropping in detail. The man knows his stuff about propaganda, a theme I have visited regularly on this blog.

Read it and weep; cross your fingers that there are a few honest mud-raking journalists still willing to expose the fascism and warmongering tendencies of this nation and our allies, especially the UK.

I'm not smarter, but maybe I'm wiser

Frank Rich had an interesting article in the New York Times on Sunday titled, "Patriots Who Love the Troops to Death."

He mentions Michael Ignatieff, a former Bush War cheerleader, who acknowledged "that those who “truly showed good judgment on Iraq” might have had no more information than those who got it wrong, but did not make the mistake of confusing “wishes for reality.”"

Although I don't like to toot my own horn: me too.

The title: Patriots Who Love the Troops to Death is morbidly humorous but deadly accurate. I have to scoff at these war-lovers who, when confronted by these thousands of useless American military deaths, offhandedly remark: 'it's an all-volunteer army,' s if 'they were asking for it.' Or that other callous statement flowing from their lips; ' Vietnam saw 50,000 dead.' Which statement is more ignorant is up for grabs. Did you see that recent Young College Republican Convention video where the reporter asked these young men about supporting the war, then asked 'why haven't you joined the military?' The bobbing, weaving, and ducking was classic Dick Cheney.

Yes, these 'patriots' love the Bush War. Broad definition of patriotism, no doubt. Does a true patriot follow the leader blindly and mindlessly? Does the leader receive carte blanche from his citizens? One might ask: when does dogged party loyalty dilute patriotism?

Today we read that Afghanistan is more dangerous than it was a few years ago according to President Hamid Karzai. The poppy crop was enormous this year. Karzai told the press yesterday about finding bin Laden, "We are not closer, we are not further away from it."

Six full years after 9-11, the mastermind is still on the loose, but Saddam Hussein is dead. And so are more American soldiers than Americans who died on 9-11. Brilliant.

I am still troubled by the fact that so many of my fellow citizens were bamboozled by the Bush/Cheney rhetoric and rush to invade Iraq while bin Laden sat in his mountain hideout. What happened to my fellow citizens? Was their need for vengeance so great than they were willing to use Hussein as a scapegoat for bin Laden? Any dastardly dictator will suffice?

What were they thinking? Why do wisdom and logic fail during patriotic passion? Perhaps the better question is: have we learned any lesson from this major mistake? Or, will some charlatan a few years down the road once again lead us astray with a wave of the flag?