Unrest coming in the Congo

The situation has been bad in the Democratic Republic of Congo for a long, long time, and this June 19 Reuters article foreshadows what's about to go down. Top News Article | Reuters.com

Word is that today, transitional President Kabila and four vice-presidents were asked to step down. The Congolese are bracing for riots, looting, food shortages, violence and anarchy.

Pray.

Bong attack!

You may have seen this story last week about a man who went into a police station in Wisconsin, handed the dispatcher a threatening note, and then threw his bong at the bulletproof glass of the dispatcher's window.

The bong shattered, so he then pulled out a shotgun. You have to wonder what he was thinking. "If this toxic bong water doesn't get 'em, I'll shoot?"

Forget "this is your brain on drugs." Use this guy for those commercials.

It sounds like a low-budget 70s horror movie plot, but...

This really happened. A nun at a Romanian convent was found crucified. The convent was being run by a monk who never quite finished his religious studies. He and the other sisters became convinced that the 23-year-old nun, Maricica Irina Cornici, was possessed and needed an exorcism. On a cross.

When the bishop finally shows up to remove the monk, the nuns attack him. Aaaagghhhh!!

The bishop announced that in the future, the Orthodox Church will implement psychological screenings for those entering the monastic life. Ya think?!?

DisciplesWorld : World News

Former soldier's talks prompt investigations

Aidan Delgado is taking his stories and photos from time served in Iraq with the Army reserves to the American people. DisciplesWorld : Special Report

The 11-Year-Old Wife - New York Times

The plight of women and girls in Pakistan is appalling. Yet, we consider Pervez Musharraf an ally, and he's coming to the U.S. next month. I don't expect W to bring it up, but perhaps Laura, Barbara and Jenna could tag-team the Prime Minister. Anyway, the Times' Kristof, as usual, is right on the money. The 11-Year-Old Wife - New York Times

Salon.com News | Deadly immunity

A special investigation by Salon.com and Rolling Stone, June 16 - by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (subscription or day-pass required, it's worth it): "When a study revealed that mercury in childhood vaccines may have caused autism in thousands of kids, the government rushed to conceal the data -- and to prevent parents from suing drug companies for their role in the epidemic."
Salon.com News | Deadly immunity

How do you afford your rock and roll lifestyle?

When did Jerry Hall, the ex-Mrs. Mick Jagger, become a scion of high class and etiquette? I was flipping through the channels and came across this show on VH1 called "Kept" in which a dozen or so young bucks try to prove they are refined enough to be Hall's kept man. The show takes place in an English castle and the men must go through several weeding-out tests involving table manners, art appreciation, fashion and social skills. Now, Hall's ok, and looks fairly well-preserved for a senior citizen, but I always thought she was a Texas gal, and a little rough around the edges herself!VH1.com : Shows : Kept : Art And Etiquette : About the Episode

Humane Borders anniversary story

I don't plan to use my weblog to promote every article I write. But since I mentioned it in my last post, I thought I'd link to it now that it is posted on the DisciplesWorld web site. Amid complex border issues, Humane Borders makes its mark by saving lives

Death and the desert

June 11 is the five year anniversary of the founding of Humane Borders. For five years, they've been working to 'take death out of the migration equation.' Now just about anybody from a Mexican to a Minuteman can agree that our immigration laws and border policies are a tangled up mess, and that's using polite language. Who's to blame, and what to do about it, is where the wheels come off the wagon.

Robin Hoover, a salty, sharp-tongued veteran of the 1980s Sanctuary Movement and pastor of First Christian Church in Tucson, Arizona, is the president of Humane Borders and one of it's founders. Hoover and the group of 85 people met 5 years ago tomorrow at the Pima Friends Meeting House and decided 2 things: immigration laws needed to be changed, but in the meantime, somebody needed to go out to the human beings risking their lives for a few American bucks (often enticed by American corporate recruiters) and give them water so they don't die there, or end up in hospitals in Tucson and Phoenix at taxpayer expense before being deported back and trying again.

Hoover and co. are folks who read Matthew 25:35-40 as marching orders, not allegory or metaphor.

Hoover's also one of my favorite people in the world to interview, because he tells it like it is (and unlike some church leaders, he returns phone calls promptly). You either like the guy or you don't, but you are never unsure where he stands.

I've been working on a Special Report for DisciplesWorld on Humane Borders and hope to have it done and posted this weekend. Meanwhile, here's a link to an op-ed piece Hoover wrote in the Tucson Citizen a year ago.

The Blade Strikes Again

In this day of media conglomerates, there are few independent newspapers left. One of the best is Ohio's own Pulitzer Prize-winning Toledo Blade, where my grandfather once worked as night city editor. In the past 2 months, The Blade began asking why the state was investing its money in rare coins. Their digging uncovered 'Coingate' - a trail of corruption and cronyism including the latest revelation that the state p---ed away, uh, I mean, 'invested', $215 million of its Workers Comp money in hedge funds. The governor, state treasurer and others - all Republicans - knew about it through much of 2004 but kept it quiet because of the November elections.

Follow this link to see a list of the Blade's stories - if you start at the bottom and skim the headlines all the way up, you get the picture.
toledoblade.com

Full Text of the Downing Street Memo

A British newspaper reported this on May 1 and it's been all over the international press. The Downing Street Memo clearly shows that as early as July 2002, the Bush Administration's strategy was to make the facts and investigation fit its strategy to invade Iraq. Yet our mainstream press took another month to ask about it. And so after giving Bush that much time to think about how to respond, Tim Russert finally popped the question. Of course, Bush trotted out the usual catchwords and phrases about how the world is better off without Saddam in power. Did Russert call bullsh-- or even ask a follow up question? Of course not.
Here's the full text of the memo, props to the folks who set up this web site. Read it. Text of the Downing Street Memo :: After Downing Street Dot Org :: In Support of a Resolution of Inquiry

Love, death and miniature golf part 3

The last stop on this morning’s little road trip from sacred to profane came when I read this story on Salon.com by writer Jon Mooallem, who visited “The Universe Within” exhibit in San Francisco.

I See Dead People (Salon.com subscription required, but you can read the first few paragraphs for free.)

“Touring shows of corpses have become a worldwide phenomenon -- and cause for scandal, Mooallem writes. “Why are we so eager to look at a man holding his own flayed skin?”

The Web site for The Universe Within makes it look both benign and scientific, but questions have been raised and not fully answered about where the bodies (real corpses) came from.

Some people, like Mooallem, will end up praising the “wonder” of it all. Neato. Good for you.

Call me old-fashioned, superstitious and uncool, but just reading the story repulsed me. Horror and wonder are two sides of the same coin, after all – and there have always been those who transgress and/or blur the line in the name of art and science, as well as lesser pursuits.

Love, death and miniature golf part 2

At the wedding reception, I met John Ventura, a co-worker of my husband’s and a professional putt-putt golfer just back from a tournament in Richmond, Indiana. He was sick all day Thursday, almost decided not to go, shot poorly on Friday, then stayed up until 4 a.m. with his fellow putters drinking beer out on the course. A few hours later, he got up and shot the best four rounds in Indiana history.

Then this morning on ESPN (always the first channel on in our house in the morning) I caught the end of a piece about a funeral home in Palatine, Ill. with a mini-golf course in the basement. I tried to find out more about it on ESPN’s web site but had to settle for this link from Roadside America.

Love, death and miniature golf part 1

What could be more sacred? A man, a woman, a minister, an outdoor gazebo adorned with flowers, a warm evening breeze and a few white fluffy clouds in an otherwise-blue sky…but then came another sing-songy reading of 1 Cor. 13:4-7. If I ever became a minister, I thought to myself, I’d steer couples toward Song of Songs 8:6-7 – “Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If one offered for love all the wealth of his house, it would be utterly scorned.”

And I thought of my neighbor, a woman who, like me, turned 40 this year, and while I’m watching two people vow for better and for worse, she and her husband and their two kids, instead of riding bikes and swimming and jumping on the trampoline and barbecuing like last summer, are consumed by her battle against brain cancer. Despite chemo and radiation therapies, her odds are not good.

Sitting at the wedding listening to a young woman drone her way through “love is never boastful, proud or rude”…I thought, we need to equip people with “love is as strong as death,” because they’ll need it someday. I believe love is stronger than death. But I don’t envy those whose life circumstances put that to the test.

Free Lori Berenson

There's been a lot of coverage, mostly in the international press, of the story of Schapelle Corby, the 27 year-old Australian model who was sentenced to 20 years in an Indonesian prison because authorities there found 4 kilograms of marijuana in her luggage. Many Australians say she was framed. Things have gotten nasty between Australia and Indonesia.

This story reminded me though, of another young women who's been sitting in a foreign jail on trumped-up charges for some time now - Lori Berenson. I can't believe our government doesn't have to wherewithal to lean on Peru to free her.

Still Working to Free a New Yorker in Peru (The New York Times - 8 May 2005)

'Family' organization's new boycott target: Ford

Hmmm...let's see if this makes sense. Attempting to do economic damage to an American automaker that employs thousands of families so they can keep food on the table and a roof over their head because (gasp!) that company dares to support gay employees? In the name of "families?"
American Family Association boycotting Ford over gay employees
P.S. I drive a 2002 Ford Taurus and I'm dang proud of it!!