Junk Bond Avalanche Looms for Credit Markets

When the Mayans envisioned the world coming to an end in 2012 — at least in the Hollywood telling — they didn’t count junk bonds among the disasters that would lead to worldwide disaster.

Maybe they should have, because 2012 also is the beginning of a three-year period in which more than $700 billion in risky, high-yield corporate debt begins to come due, an extraordinary surge that some analysts fear could create a glut in the debt markets.

With huge bills about to hit corporations and the federal government around the same time, the worry is that some companies will have trouble getting new loans, spurring defaults and a wave of bankruptcies.

The United States government alone will need to borrow nearly $2 trillion in 2012, to bridge the projected budget deficit for that year and to refinance existing debt.

Indeed, worries about the growth of national, or sovereign, debt prompted Moody’s Investors Service to warn on Monday that the United States and other Western nations were moving “substantially” closer to losing their top-notch Aaa credit ratings.

Sovereign debt aside, the approaching scramble for corporate financing could strain the broader economy as jobs are cut, consumer spending is scaled back and credit is tightened for both consumers and businesses.

The apocalyptic talk is not limited to perpetual bears and the rest of the doom-and-gloom crowd. Even Moody’s, which is known for its sober public statements, is sounding the alarm.

“An avalanche is brewing in 2012 and beyond if companies don’t get out in front of this,” said Kevin Cassidy, a senior credit officer at Moody’s.

Read the rest here.

Social Security to start cashing Uncle Sam's IOUs

PARKERSBURG, W.Va. — The retirement nest egg of an entire generation is stashed away in this small town along the Ohio River: $2.5 trillion in IOUs from the federal government, payable to the Social Security Administration.

It's time to start cashing them in.

For more than two decades, Social Security collected more money in payroll taxes than it paid out in benefits — billions more each year.

Not anymore. This year, for the first time since the 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security, the retirement program is projected to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes — nearly $29 billion more.

Sounds like a good time to start tapping the nest egg. Too bad the federal government already spent that money over the years on other programs, preferring to borrow from Social Security rather than foreign creditors. In return, the Treasury Department issued a stack of IOUs — in the form of Treasury bonds — which are kept in a nondescript office building just down the street from Parkersburg's municipal offices.

Now the government will have to borrow even more money, much of it abroad, to start paying back the IOUs, and the timing couldn't be worse. The government is projected to post a record $1.5 trillion budget deficit this year, followed by trillion dollar deficits for years to come.

Read the rest here.
Hat tip The Young Fogey.

Credit Agency Warns U.S. and Others of Risk to Top Rating

PARIS — Major Western economies have moved “substantially” closer to losing their top-notch credit ratings, with the United States and Britain under the most pressure, Moody’s Investors Service said Monday in a reminder that the global debt crisis is not limited to the small or weak.

The ratings of the Aaa governments — which also include Germany, France, Spain and the Nordic countries — are currently “stable,” Moody’s analysts wrote in the report. But, it added, “their ‘distance-to-downgrade’ has in all cases substantially diminished.”

“Growth alone will not resolve an increasingly complicated debt equation,” Moody’s said. “Preserving debt affordability” — the ratio of interest payments to government revenue — “at levels consistent with Aaa ratings will invariably require fiscal adjustments of a magnitude that, in some cases, will test social cohesion.”

Read the rest here.

Rush issues an ultimatum

I am a little behind on this story because I religiously avoid anything connected to the obnoxious windbag. But I have heard from multiple sources now that Rush Limbaugh has vowed to leave the United States if Health Care Reform passes. Where will he go?

Costa Rica.

Yep. Limbaugh will protest America's slow slide into socialist communism by emigrating to one of the most progressive countries on the planet. Costa Rica already has Universal National Health Insurance and has for decades been ranked higher than the United States by The World Health Organization in terms of both its health care system and the overall health of its population. Costa Rica abolished its armed forces concluding it was a waste of money that could be better expended on other things like education and... universal national health insurance. Costa Rica is one of the most environmentally friendly countries on Earth with large tracks of the country set aside as wildlife refuges and parks.

Of course with this new threat to their nation they may have to rethink their decision to disband the armed forces.

On a side note; why is it that everytime I hear Rush Limbaugh's name I keep recalling that old quote from the (in)famous Hollywood film star and libertine Tallulah Bankhead? (Que the deep southern drawl with the floor length mink coat, dark glasses and long cigarette holder...)

"Well you know dahling, my daddy warned me about men and alcohol. But he forgot to mention cocaine."

Bob Hope on Health Care Reform

In Defense of Ulysses S. Grant

RONALD REAGAN deserves posterity’s honor, and so it makes sense that the capital’s airport and a major building there are named for him. But the proposal to substitute his image for that of Ulysses S. Grant on the $50 bill is a travesty that would dishonor the nation’s bedrock principles of union, freedom and equality — and damage its historical identity. Although slandered since his death, Grant, as general and as president, stood second only to Abraham Lincoln as the vindicator of those principles in the Civil War era.

Born to humble circumstances, Grant endured personal setbacks and terrible poverty to become the indispensable general of the Union Army. Although not himself an abolitionist, he recognized from the very start that the Civil War would cause, as he wrote, “the doom of slavery.” Above all, he despised the Southern secessionists as traitors who would destroy democratic republican government, of which, Lincoln said in his first inaugural, there was no “better or equal hope in the world.”

Read the rest here.

The author makes some interesting points. But it seems he also downplays the rampant corruption in the Grant Administration. I have hitherto ranked Grant higher than many historians. (See my rankings here.) However I am not sold on his belonging in the same pantheon as the truly "Great" presidents.

Notice to customers: We reserve the right rip you off. Thank you for banking with us.

Jacksonville, FL based EverBank – a bank with approximately $8 billion in assets and 1800 employees according to the company website – recently sent this notice to customers (courtesy of Warren Bevan):

"Non-FDIC Insured Metals Select Changes" -
Section 6.3.7. General Terms: We have added language clarifying our right to close your account. We may close your Metals Select Account at anytime upon reasonable notice to you. If we believe that it is necessary to close your account immediately in order to limit losses by you or us [GG: We really don’t give a s**t about you; it’s us that we care about], we may close your account prior to providing notice to you. Notice from us to one of you is notice to all of you [GG: the nerve of these people!]. If we close your account, we reserve the right to convert your Precious Metals to U.S. dollars and tender the balance to you by mail [GG: I am willing to bet my entire Gold stash that when you receive these "converted" dollars, they will be nowhere near the market price of physical. What did you think that whole "limit losses" thing meant?] .

Source

Addendum: I link the source of the report out of respect for the usual courtesies online. However I do not necessarily endorse the commentary at that website.

Georgian Orthodox Church offers to permit some minor criminals serve part of their sentence in monasteries

Officials in the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia have announced a scheme to let prisoners shorten their jail terms by spending time in a monastery instead.

The scheme for petty criminals has been proposed by the country's Orthodox Church and government officials.

It comes as prisoner numbers in Georgia continue to rise and so too does the popularity of the Church.

Read the rest here.

Russian Church plans a church and cemetery for the site where the Royal Martyrs were first buried

MOSCOW — Visitors from around the world have turned an isolated ravine in central Russia into a pilgrimage site in recent years. They arrive to gaze at the unadorned earth where the Bolsheviks, in one final act to defile the dynasty that they toppled, are believed to have dumped the remains of Czar Nicholas II and his family in July 1918.

But now the site is being threatened by an unlikely opponent: the powerful Russian Orthodox Church, which to this day has not acknowledged that the bones retrieved there over the last two decades are those of the royals.

The church wants to build a large Russian Orthodox cemetery and cathedral at the site, effectively obliterating its historic and archaeological value, according to professionals who have worked at the site and experts on the royal family. The church hopes to begin construction in April, when its leader, Patriarch Kirill I, visits for a groundbreaking for the project, in Yekaterinburg, in the foothills of the Ural Mountains.

The project will not include memorials or other references to the remains because the church does not believe they are genuine, a position that flies in the face of an overwhelming scientific consensus based on extensive DNA testing by major laboratories in Russia, Europe and North America.

Read the rest here.

Well, somebody needed to say it.

FOX News is a disgrace and embarrassment to serious journalism. That said lets not ignore the offenses of the other networks most notably CBS during the Rather years, PBS and MSNBC. I will grant that FOX is far more glaring in its complete abandonment of even the veneer of journalistic integrity and neutrality. But the political left slanted the news for so long it seems a bit disingenuous to suddenly find one's voice and express indignation here.

But yea, the author is correct. FOX has sold its soul to the GOP and is little more than a propaganda machine for the far right and the neo-cons.

Turkish Authorities to Open Orthodox Seminary on Halki Island

File this under "we will see."

Moscow, March 12, Interfax - Turkish government plans to resume work of an Orthodox Theological seminary on the Island of Halki as it was closed several dozens years ago.

"Me personally and the government are determined to restart education in seminar," the Sedmitza.ru website has cited Turkish Vice Prime Minister Bülent Arınç I as saying.

As was reported in February, PACE deputies urged Turkish authorities to let Constantinople Patriarch reopen a theological school on Halki and register it as a branch of theological faculty of the Galatasaray University.

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia after his meeting with Turkey's head for Religious Affairs Ali Bardakoglu in Ankara in 2009 said that "to reopen the Halki theological school would be a right step to take."

Turkish government closed the Halki theological school in the 1970-s, then it was the only seminary of the Constantinople Orthodox Church. It has not opened ever since.

Source

Supreme Court to rule on anti-gay protests at military funerals

The Supreme Court will review whether anti-gay protests at funerals of American soldiers are protected by the First Amendment, taking up the appeal of a Maryland man who won and then had reversed a $10 million verdict against the small Kansas church that conducts the demonstrations.

The case will seek to balance a group's free speech rights with the rights of private individuals to be protected from unwanted demonstrations and defamatory remarks. A federal appeals court said the church's protests were "utterly distasteful" but protected because they were related to "matters of public concern."

The case was one of three the court announced it would be considering in its new term that begins in October. It will review restrictions on those who want to sue drugmakers with claims that their vaccines are faulty, and it will examine whether the questions that the federal government asks about potential employees violate their constitutional rights.

The funeral protest case is brought by a Maryland father whose son's 2006 funeral in Westminster was picketed by members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan. Westboro pastor Fred W. Phelps Sr. contends that the deaths of American soldiers are punishment for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality and has organized nearly 43,000 protests since 1991, according to the church's Web site.

Phelps and members of his church -- which consists primarily of him and members of his extended family -- say they were not targeting Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in action in Iraq. But they say they have learned that demonstrating at funerals gets the most public and media attention for their message that the nation's tolerance for gays has resulted in punishment, especially the deaths of American soldiers.

The signs they carried at Snyder's funeral at St. John's Catholic Church, made in the Kansas church's on-site sign shop, included, "God Hates the USA/Thank God for 9/11," "Semper Fi Fags," "Thank God for Dead Soldiers" and "Priests Rape Boys."

Read the rest here.

I am deeply conflicted on this one. The libertarian in me says that even deeply offensive speech must be protected. And let's be honest. These flakes masquerading as Christians are about as offensive as one can get. Which brings up the other side of the argument or rather two.

First is the libertarian principle that your rights end when they intrude on someone else's. Do you have a "right" do bury your son in peace and free from harassment? I don't think that would be a huge legal reach. If in fact you do have that right then the government is well within its rights to severely restrict this sort of activity.

The second is the age old and universally accepted exception to free speech known as "fighting words." The courts have long held that words or gestures which are calculated to, or almost certain to, incite violence are not protected speech.

Now I don't have a clue what these families have had to go through buring a loved one, usually way too young, killed in war. And I pray God I never get the chance to find out. However I can imagine that if I were in that position and someone showed up at my son's funeral waving signs of this nature, that it might provoke a response from me. As a Christian I would hope that I might limit that response to the "Bronx salute." But I also know that I am human and would likely be under extreme emotional strain at such a moment. In short, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that I might in the heat of the moment conclude that it was worth spending thirty days in the clink for the pleasure of busting one of these clowns in the chops.

Food for thought in case any Supreme Court Justices wander onto this page.

Democrats plan final (party line) votes on health care reform as soon as next week

Democratic leaders on Friday stoked expectations that the year-long debate in Congress over health care may be coming to an end, after President Obama delayed his upcoming trip to the South Pacific and House leaders indicated they could deliver a final bill for his signature by the end of next week.

The House is preparing to vote, perhaps Friday or next Saturday, on the legislation that passed the Senate on Christmas Eve, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she was "delighted that the president will be here for the passage of the bill. It's going to be historic."

Obama was scheduled to depart Washington on Thursday for Indonesia, Guam and Australia. Instead, he condensed the visit and will now leave March 21, planning to spend the extra days helping to lock down House votes for the bill, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said.

Read the rest here.

Texas (GOP) re-writes history and a few other things

AUSTIN, Tex. — After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.

The vote was 10 to 5 along party lines, with all the Republicans on the board voting for it.

The board, whose members are elected, has influence beyond Texas because the state is one of the largest buyers of textbooks. In the digital age, however, that influence has diminished as technological advances have made it possible for publishers to tailor books to individual states.

In recent years, board members have been locked in an ideological battle between a bloc of conservatives who question Darwin’s theory of evolution and believe the Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles, and a handful of Democrats and moderate Republicans who have fought to preserve the teaching of Darwinism and the separation of church and state.

Since January, Republicans on the board have passed more than 100 amendments to the 120-page curriculum standards affecting history, sociology and economics courses from elementary to high school. The standards were proposed by a panel of teachers.

Read the rest here.

Israeli American relations are strained

WASHINGTON — In a tense, 43-minute phone call on Friday morning, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel’s plan for new housing units for Jews in East Jerusalem sent a “deeply negative signal” about Israeli-American relations, and not just because it spoiled a visit by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Mr. Biden, in Israel this week to declare American support for its security, had already condemned the move as undermining the peace process. But Mrs. Clinton went a good deal further in her conversation with Mr. Netanyahu, saying it had harmed “the bilateral relationship,” according to the State Department spokesman, Philip J. Crowley.

Such blunt language toward Israel is very rare from an American administration, and several officials said Mrs. Clinton was relaying the anger of President Obama at the announcement, which was made by Israel’s Interior Ministry and which Mr. Netanyahu said had caught him off guard.

Read the rest here.

Scandal in German Catholic Church is causing angst in Rome

BERLIN — A widening child sexual abuse inquiry in Europe has landed at the doorstep of Pope Benedict XVI, as a senior church official acknowledged Friday that a German archdiocese made “serious mistakes” in handling an abuse case while the pope served as its archbishop.

The archdiocese said that a priest accused of molesting boys was given therapy in 1980 and later allowed to resume pastoral duties, before committing further abuses and being prosecuted. Pope Benedict, who at the time headed the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, approved the priest’s transfer for therapy. A subordinate took full responsibility for allowing the priest to later resume pastoral work, the archdiocese said in a statement.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said he had no comment beyond the statement by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising, which he said showed the “nonresponsibility” of the pope in the matter.

Read the rest here.

Tea party shuns social conservative agenda for fiscal conservatism

For decades, faith and family have been at the center of the conservative movement. But as the Tea Party infuses conservatism with new energy, its leaders deliberately avoid discussion of issues like gay marriage or abortion.

God, life and family get little if any mention in statements or manifestos. The motto of the Tea Party Patriots, a large coalition of groups, is “fiscal responsibility, limited government, and free markets.” The Independence Caucus questionnaire, which many Tea Party groups use to evaluate candidates, poses 80 questions, most on the proper role of government, tax policy and the federal budgeting process, and virtually none on social issues.

The Contract From America, which is being created Wiki-style by Internet contributors as a manifesto of what “the people” want government to do, also mentions little in the way of social issues, beyond a declaration that parents should be given choice in how to educate their children. By contrast, the document it aims to improve upon — the Contract With America, which Republicans used to market their successful campaign to win a majority in Congress in 1994 — was prefaced with the promise that the party would lead a Congress that “respects the values and shares the faith of the American family.”

Tea Party leaders argue that the country can ill afford the discussion about social issues when it is passing on enormous debts to future generations. But the focus is also strategic: leaders think they can attract independent voters if they stay away from divisive issues.

“We should be creating the biggest tent possible around the economic conservative issue,” said Ryan Hecker, the organizer behind the Contract From America. “I think social issues may matter to particular individuals, but at the end of the day, the movement should be agnostic about it. This is a movement that rose largely because of the Republican Party failing to deliver on being representative of the economic conservative ideology. To include social issues would be beside the point.”

Read the rest here.

Meet the new candidate

Murray Hill might be the perfect candidate for this political moment: young, bold, media-savvy, a Washington outsider eager to reshape the way things are done in the nation's capital. And if these are cynical times, well, then, it's safe to say Murray Hill is by far the most cynical.

That's because this little upstart is, in fact, a start-up. Murray Hill is actually Murray Hill Inc., a small, five-year-old Silver Spring public relations company that is seeking office to prove a point (and perhaps get a little attention.)

After the Supreme Court declared that corporations have the same rights as individuals when it comes to funding political campaigns, the self-described progressive firm took what it considers the next logical step: declaring for office.

"Until now, corporate interests had to rely on campaign contributions and influence-peddling to achieve their goals in Washington," the candidate, who was unavailable for an interview, said in a statement. "But thanks to an enlightened Supreme Court, now we can eliminate the middle-man and run for office ourselves."

Read the rest here.

Posting a little early

I normally don't post on Friday's during Lent but tomorrow is gong to be kind of busy and I'm not sure how much time I will have to get online. There is quite a bit of stuff worthy of attention that has crossed my computer screen today.

I think Romania just made it onto my must visit list...

Romanian Orthodox Church in Sibiu, Romania
(click to see full size)

Image shamelessly stolen from here.

Rome: Clerical celibacy to remain normative and extended to the entire church including the East

From an interview with Father Laurent Touze (emphasis mine).

ZENIT: With this measure, do you think that one day, celibacy might become voluntary also for priests of the Latin rite?

Father Touze: No, because the Church is understanding more and more the relation between priesthood, episcopate and celibacy. It is something that could be likened to the revelation of a dogma, though it isn't so at this time; one tends increasingly to understand that a practice must be promoted among all priests and also among Eastern Catholic priests which is truly similar to the one lived in the first centuries.

Read the rest here.

The commies in our computers

Back in the 1950's we were warned about the Red infiltration. Now it appears that they don't even have to come here.

Urgent warnings have been circulated throughout Nato and the European Union for secret intelligence material to be protected from a recent surge in cyberwar attacks originating in China.

The attacks have also hit government and military institutions in the United States, where analysts said that the West had no effective response and that EU systems were especially vulnerable because most cyber security efforts were left to member states.

Nato diplomatic sources told The Times: “Everyone has been made aware that the Chinese have become very active with cyber-attacks and we’re now getting regular warnings from the office for internal security.” The sources said that the number of attacks had increased significantly over the past 12 months, with China among the most active players.

In the US, an official report released on Friday said the number of attacks on Congress and other government agencies had risen exponentially in the past year to an estimated 1.6 billion every month.

Read the rest here.

Hat tip to Bill (AKA the Godfather)

Muslims massacre hundreds of Christians in Nigeria

Machete wielding Muslims attacked several predominantly Christian villages in Nigeria on Sunday. Estimates of the number of victims vary with the more conservative figures being around 300 and some suggesting well over 500 dead. Large numbers of dead bodies including a disproportionate number of women and children have been reported in the affected area. Newborns and infants were among the confirmed martyrs. Eyewitness reports suggest that Christians were hunted down by mobs of armed Muslims and slaughtered wherever they were found. Some homes were set afire with the occupants burned alive.

Reports of the massacres are receiving an unusual degree of attention from the mainstream press and media which has typically downplayed or ignored similar anti-Christian pogroms in the past.

Breaking With Scientology

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Raised as Scientologists, Christie King Collbran and her husband, Chris, were recruited as teenagers to work for the elite corps of staff members who keep the Church of Scientology running, known as the Sea Organization, or Sea Org.

They signed a contract for a billion years — in keeping with the church’s belief that Scientologists are immortal. They worked seven days a week, often on little sleep, for sporadic paychecks of $50 a week, at most.

But after 13 years and growing disillusionment, the Collbrans decided to leave the Sea Org, setting off on a Kafkaesque journey that they said required them to sign false confessions about their personal lives and their work, pay the church thousands of dollars it said they owed for courses and counseling, and accept the consequences as their parents, siblings and friends who are church members cut off all communication with them.

“Why did we work so hard for this organization,” Ms. Collbran said, “and why did it feel so wrong in the end? We just didn’t understand.”

They soon discovered others who felt the same. Searching for Web sites about Scientology that are not sponsored by the church (an activity prohibited when they were in the Sea Org), they discovered that hundreds of other Scientologists were also defecting — including high-ranking executives who had served for decades.

Read the rest here.

I have just one question. Why are the leaders of this cult/scam not in jail?

A study on the etiquette of drowning

The Titanic in Southampton Harbor April 1912 (Click to view any photo full size)

The Titanic depicted on the night of 14-15 April 1912

A post card of the RMS Lusitania in happier days.

Murder on the high seas. The Lusitania sinks in less then 20 minutes after being torpedoed.

It's hard to remember your manners when you think you're about to die. The human species may have developed an elaborate social and behavioral code, but we drop it fast when we're scared enough — as any stampeding mob reveals.

That primal push-pull is at work during wars, natural disasters and any other time our hides are on the line. It was perhaps never more poignantly played out than during the two greatest maritime disasters in history: the sinking of the Titanic and the Lusitania. A team of behavioral economists from Switzerland and Australia have published a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) that takes an imaginative new look at who survived and who perished aboard the two ships, and what the demographics of death say about how well social norms hold up in a crisis.

The Lusitania and the Titanic are often thought of as sister vessels; they in fact belonged to two separate owners, but the error is understandable. Both ships were huge: the Titanic was carrying 2,207 passengers and crew on the night it went down; the Lusitania had 1,949. The mortality figures were even closer, with a 68.7% death rate aboard the Titanic and 67.3% for the Lusitania. What's more, the ships sank just three years apart — the Titanic was claimed by an iceberg on April 14, 1912, and the Lusitania by a German U-Boat on May 7, 1915. But on the decks and in the passageways and all the other places where people fought for their lives, the vessels' respective ends played out very differently.

Read the rest here.

I'm not sure a vast study was required of this. As a hobby I have had more than a passing interest in the history of the great ocean liners. And I am familiar with the tragic stories of both ships. One being the victim of a tragic accident compounded by hubris, and the other the victim of one of the more shocking war crimes in history. (Yes, I am well aware of allegations that the Lusitania was carrying war contraband. But even if true that does not justify sinking an unarmed ship known to be carrying thousands of passengers including women and children.)

The two ships were indeed remarkably similar in many respects including appearance. But really... was a detailed study required to tell them what they found? People in a traumatic emergency situation will panic and some will act badly. Others with time to think and collect themselves tend to behave better. Anyone with a modicum of common sense would know that. And anyone with a working knowledge of the demise of the two steamers could have told them that they went down under very different circumstances.

I guess I am just wondering at the big deal over something that I already knew when I was in High School. Still for those not familiar with basic psychology and or the history of these two tragic ships, the article makes for a good read.

The Rise and Fall of a Female Captain Bligh

Women are so common in the upper ranks of the U.S. military these days that it's no longer news when they break through another barrier. Unfortunately, the latest benchmark isn't one to brag about: being booted as captain of a billion-dollar warship for "cruelty and maltreatment" of her 400-member crew. According to the Navy inspector general's report that triggered her removal — and the accounts of officers who served with her — Captain Holly Graf was the closest thing the U.S. Navy had to a female Captain Bligh.

A Navy admiral stripped Graf of her command of the Japan-based guided missile cruiser U.S.S. Cowpens in January. The just-released IG report concludes that Graf "repeatedly verbally abused her crew and committed assault" and accuses her of using her position as commander of the Cowpens "for personal gain." But old Navy hands tell TIME that those charges, substantiated in the IG report, came about because of the poisonous atmosphere she created aboard her ship.

Read the rest here.

As a former sailor I am appalled that any officer could behave so unprofessionally and get promoted to her rank (the naval equal to a full bird colonel in the other branches). I was very fortunate in my time in the Navy. With one exception my assigned duty stations were generally well run with at least tolerably good morale. In a few cases moral was outstanding. Only on one ship did we have a petty tyrant for a skipper. Commander Oliver Hazzard Perry III (a direct descendant of the War of 1812 hero) was the CO of the USS Mahlon S Tisdale FFG 27. While not in the same league as Capt. Graf; he was highly abusive with a notoriously short fuse. It did not help that the ship was assigned to the Naval Reserve Fleet and was thus chronically undermanned. Life on that ship was highly unpleasant. I can not even imagine working for someone like Capt. Graf.

It would be interesting to see what the retention rate was on her ship, as also the records for how many of her crew took "weather leave." (A naval phrase for going over the hill or "I am leaving whether you like it or not.")

Clarity on Ecumenism

Those of my readers who are Orthodox have probably at times heard the usual line from many of our Roman Catholic interlocutors about how so many Orthodox tend to be rude or worse in their attitudes towards Rome. And in fairness I have run into some of that on our side of the fence (though certainly not routinely). I am not a fan of the kumbaya approach to ecumenism. But yes, I have at times been embarrassed by some of the more strident commentary one occasionally runs into. I guess my main complaint is that far too often Catholics act like we Orthodox have a monopoly on polemical commentary. That of course is nonsense.

But even in snarky commentary I often find redeeming elements. In the case below the redemption comes in the form of clarity. The tone is obviously polemical and intentionally insulting. But if you can move past that the message is important. However sneering the language, the points made are fundamentally an accurate reflection of Roman Catholicism's historic attitude towards us. And that is something we should never forget.

Rome is not interested in restoration of communion as equal parts of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Rome wants submission. To restore communion with Rome is to concede that Innocent III was within his rights to appoint the Patriarch of Constantinople. It is to concede each and every addition to the Deposit of the Faith by the Latin Church including those promulgated by Lyons, Florence, Trent and yes... Vatican I without reservation or equivocation. It is to concede that we are and have been for a thousand years, schismatics and yes, heretics.

Every Orthodox Christian should read this essay.

L’Osservatore Romano recently published Pope Benedict’s birthday greetings to the schismatic Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I. The successor of Peter prays in his letter that the Lord will sustain the Patriarch with his strength and grace as he carries out his exalted ministry of Pastor, Preacher of the Gospel and Teacher of spiritual life.
The Pope’s words presuppose that the sacrament of Order has perdured in Constantinople. Through his sacramental consecration as a bishop, Bartholomew has received the high priestly character whereby a bishop is rendered an apt subject to receive a canonical mission in teaching, ruling and sanctifying the Church. Not only that, the Pope also addresses him as Archbishop of Constantinople and Patriarch, just as Pope Eugene IV in the fifteenth century treated the holder of the See as Patriarch when he invited him and all the schismatic bishops to sit at the Council of Ferrara-Florence, where the Greeks would come to agreement with the Latins and co-define the Filioque and papal primacy. In other words, even though the de facto Greek Patriarchs of Constantinople since Cerularius’s schism have not been in communion with the successor of Peter, the successors of Peter have generally been willing to accept their elections, even as they hoped for their return to the unity of the Church. Thus the schismatic Patriarchs accepted to a certain extent by the Pope can be considered as having a “colored” but true title to the See of Constantinople.
However Leo XIII taught in the Encyclical Satis Cognitum, “[b]ishops are deprived of the right and power of ruling, if they deliberately secede from Peter and his successors; because, by this secession, they are separated from the foundation on which the whole edifice must rest. They are therefore outside the edifice itself; and for this very reason they are separated from the fold, whose leader is the Chief Pastor; they are exiled from the Kingdom, the keys of which were given by Christ to Peter alone.” Bartholomew is no different from his Greek predecessors since the Middle Ages in rejecting the authority of the successor of Peter over the whole Church. That is to say, he adheres to the schism of his predecessors and has been known over the years to come out with particularly strong statements of his positions against Catholic doctrine...

Read he rest here.

How not to run a Parish Council meeting

It's Lent and I don't want to be talking about scandals. But sometimes things happen that need to be addressed in a timely manner. Such is the case with the recent Parish Council meeting at the much troubled St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church. I am not going to post the details of that shocking affair. Follow the link and you will get a detailed report from Owen the Ochlophobist.

I will instead confine myself to asking how anyone can in conscience serve on such a body? I am a member of my parish's PC and it is so beyond my ability to imagine something like that happening, that had such a report come from almost any other source I would be strongly disposed to question its veracity. The only thing I might ever consider donating to that parish is a copy of Roberts Rules of Order as I walked out the door.

Please leave comments at Owen's site.

ANAXIOS!

Why are some liberals backing the NRA on gun rights?

When the constitutional accountability Center launched in 2008, it looked like just another liberal legal-advocacy group, dedicated to "fulfilling the progressive promise of our Constitution's text and history." The causes it has backed run the standard liberal gamut: among other things, the group supports California's efforts to regulate carbon emissions and pushes for "robust due-process protections for immigrant criminal defendants." So if you were told that the CAC had filed an amicus brief in McDonald v. Chicago, a case about gun control to be argued before the Supreme Court this week, you might think it was siding with Chicago, whose restrictions on gun ownership are being challenged.

You would be wrong. For decades, liberals have opposed gun rights on the grounds that the Second Amendment is limited to the establishment of state militias. But some liberal dissenters from this view now say that is too narrow a reading of the Constitution. They contend that it fails to take into account the historical record and contradicts liberals' own reading of the Constitution's protection of individual rights.

The CAC has joined forces with staunch conservatives, including Steven G. Calabresi, cofounder of the Federalist Society, to support expanding individual rights, including gun rights, in the states—inviting the possibility that Chicago's virtual ban on handguns might be overturned. "There is a deeply progressive historical basis for some individual right to bear arms," says Douglas Kendall, the CAC's founder.

Read the rest here.

Follow up: There is more than slightly shocking op-ed piece in the NY Times which lends a lot of weight to the above article. When the Times is endorsing gun rights it makes me question if just maybe I could be wrong on this subject.

Catholic Charities in DC cuts benefits

Employees at Catholic Charities were told Monday that the social services organization is changing its health coverage to avoid offering benefits to same-sex partners of its employees -- the latest fallout from a bitter debate between District officials trying to legalize same-sex marriage and the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.

A letter describing the change in benefits was e-mailed to employees Monday, two days before same-sex marriage will become legal in the District. Starting Tuesday, Catholic Charities will not offer health benefits to spouses of new employees or to spouses of current employees who are not already enrolled in the plan.

"We looked at all the options and implications," said the charity's president, Edward J. Orzechowski. "This allows us to continue providing services, comply with the city's new requirements and remain faithful to the church's teaching."

Read the rest here.

Brief road trip

I will be out of town on Tuesday and most of Wednesday in order to take a civil service exam. While I will be gone, for a change I expect to still have access to the web since my new computer (YAY!) is portable.

And the Orchestra Played On

The other day, I found myself rummaging through a closet, searching for my old viola. This wasn’t how I’d planned to spend the afternoon. I hadn’t given a thought to the instrument in years. I barely remembered where it was, much less how to play it. But I had just gotten word that my childhood music teacher, Jerry Kupchynsky — “Mr. K.” to his students — had died.

In East Brunswick, N.J., where I grew up, nobody was feared more than Mr. K. He ran the town’s music department with a ferocity never before seen in our quiet corner of suburbia. In his impenetrably thick Ukrainian accent, he would berate us for being out of tune, our elbows in the wrong position, our counting out of sync.

“Cellos sound like hippopotamus rising from bottom of river,” he would yell during orchestra rehearsals. Wayward violinists played “like mahnyiak,” while hapless gum chewers “look like cow chewing cud.” He would rehearse us until our fingers were callused, then interrupt us with “Stop that cheekin plocking!”

Mr. K. pushed us harder than our parents, harder than our other teachers, and through sheer force of will made us better than we had any right to be. He scared the daylight out of us.

I doubt any of us realized how much we loved him for it.

Read the rest here.

"Armageddon was yesterday. Today we have a serious problem."

The gods must be crazy. How could tiny Greece, better known for turpentine wine and sheep cheese than for high finance, threaten the global banking system over the past two months?

And more importantly, what does the sudden blowup of debt worries on the southern tier of Europe mean for the United States, not long after we thought developed-world governments had successfully attacked this problem with the central-banking equivalent of carpet-bombing?

For answers to these questions, I turned to international-finance expert Satyajit Das, who has been our Homer over the past few years (and I don't mean Simpson) -- a guide to the epic myths told by bankers to politicians that prosperity was achievable by distilling money from math.

Das, who is based in Australia, observes first that the entire world has indulged in an economic experiment over the past decade, in which rising levels of debt have been used to promote high growth. The policy, a change from the old-fashioned capitalist virtue of earning the money used to expand, had the unintended consequence of vastly increasing risk in ways that were not fully understood by bankers, companies or regulators until it was too late.

Europe's Sovereign Debt Threat

We are now witnessing this experiment come to an end, Das says, slowly, erratically and painfully -- in Greece now and in many other countries, among them Portugal, Japan and the United States, later.

Read the rest here.

Disaster in Chile

The news is just coming over the wire that there has been a massive earthquake in Chile. Early reports put the quake at just under 9 magnitude. That is enough to bring down buildings that are built to rigorous earthquake codes. An urgent Tsunami warning has also been issued. It is far too early for any reliable damage and casualty estimates. However it is bound to be terrible.

Please pray for the people of Chile.

British education bill to require Catholic schools provide information on accessing contraception and abortion services

Via Damian Thompson:

Catholic schools were the subject of an astonishingly ignorant and sneering exchange between Ed Balls and John Humphrys on the Today programme this morning, which you can listen to here. In it, Balls confirmed that the sex education Bill – to be debated in Parliament today – will require Catholic schools to provide information on how to “access” contraception and abortion.

Read the rest here.

Walter Russell Mead on the Episcopal Church

Via Alice Linsley over at Ethics Forum

There’s nothing like Lent for reflecting on the sins of other people; I thought I’d start at the top — with the bishops of my own church. As the Episcopal church along with the other mainline Protestant denominations diminishes, we don’t have to look far to see bishops and leaders who are largely failing in their core assignments: to tend to the health and promote the growth of the congregations in their area. Yet even as we have fewer and fewer effective and successful leaders, we have no shortage of political, ‘prophetic’ bishops. When they can, they meet with world leaders and jet off to exotic locales to bring peace and fight for justice. When they can’t do that, they sign statements of concern, issue reports and otherwise tug on the skirts of an indifferent public seeking attention for their political views.

In the mainline churches, which is what I know best, the political views leaders express are generally those of what could be called the ‘foundation left’ — emotionally grounded in concern for the poor and development, historically linked to the ‘new left’ mix of economic and social concerns as developed in the 1960’s, shaped by an atmosphere of privilege and entitlement that reflects the upper middle class background of the educated professionals who run these institutions. The social sins they deplore are those of the right: excessive focus on capitalism, too robust and unheeding a promotion of the American national and security interest abroad, insufficient care for the environment, failure to help the poor through government welfare programs, failure to support affirmative action, failure to celebrate and protect the unrestricted right of women to abort. I am of course speaking very generally here and there are lots of individual exceptions, but many of these folks are generally tolerant of theological differences and rigidly intolerant when it comes to political differences: they care nothing at all about doctrines like predestination but get very angry with people who disagree with them about issues like global warming or immigration reform. Theological heresy is a matter for courtesy and silence, but political heretics fill them with bile.

Read the rest here. (This guy is not pulling any punches.)

WOW! USA Beats Canada at Hockey

A game to remember. GO USA!!!

CPAC Presidential Straw Pole: And the winner is...

RON PAUL(!?)

Calling this a surprising development would be putting it mildly. The annual convention of the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) held its straw pole for presidential candidates today. In a major upset the decisive winner was libertarian leaning congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) who has occasionally infuriated social conservatives and neo-cons with his unsparing criticism of George Bush's colonial adventurism in Iraq and the appalling lack of fiscal responsibility during his presidency.

Rep. Paul is an advocate of among other things...

• A mind our own business foreign policy (translation: he is an old fashioned isolationist).
• Sound money (ending the fiat paper currency and returning to the gold standard).
• Balanced budgets. Yea they all say that. But unlike most Washington pols; he really means it.
• A policy of governmental neutrality when it comes to the culture wars. He believes that it's not the government's job to legislate religious or moral beliefs.

I have no idea if this is a fluke or not. But I find it rather encouraging. For the record I think Ron Paul is a man who desperately wants to turn the clock back to the 18th century. And no, I am not really comfortable with everything he advocates for. But I do respect him greatly. He is (for a politician) relatively honest and you always know where he stands.

Read the story here.

Update: More encouraging signs... the ultra rightwing birther- militia- secessionist- the Bible is the US Constitution crowd over at Free Republic are having a collective stroke over this.

The Patriarchal Encyclical On the Sunday of Orthodoxy defends ecumenism

Patriarchal and Synodal Encyclical

On the Sunday of Orthodoxy

(February 21, 2010)

+ BARTHOLOMEW

By God’s Grace

Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome

and Ecumenical Patriarch

To the Fullness of the Church, Grace and Peace

From our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

Our most holy Orthodox Church today commemorates its own feast day, and – from this historical and martyric See of the Ecumenical Patriarchate – the Mother Church of Constantinople directs its blessing, love and concern to all of its faithful and dedicated spiritual children throughout the world, inviting them to concelebrate in prayer.

Blessed be the name of the Lord! Those who endeavored over the ages to suppress the Church through various visible and invisible persecutions; those who sought to falsify the Church with their heretical teachings; those who wanted to silence the Church, depriving it of its voice and witness; they all proved unsuccessful. The clouds of Martyrs, the tears of the Ascetics, and the prayers of the Saints protect the Church spiritually, while the Comforter and Spirit of Truth leads it to the fullness of truth.

With a sense of duty and responsibility, despite its hurdles and problems, as the First-Throne Church of Orthodoxy, the Ecumenical Patriarchate cares about protecting and establishing the unity of the Orthodox Church, in order that with one voice and in one heart we may confess the Orthodox faith of our Fathers in every age and even in our times. For, Orthodoxy is not a museum treasure that must be preserved; it is a breath of life that must be transmitted and invigorate all people. Orthodoxy is always contemporary, so long as we promote it with humility and interpret it in light of the existential quests and needs of humanity in each historical period and cultural circumstance.

To this purpose, Orthodoxy must be in constant dialogue with the world. The Orthodox Church does not fear dialogue because truth is not afraid of dialogue. On the contrary, if Orthodoxy is enclosed within itself and not in dialogue with those outside, it will both fail in its mission and no longer be the “catholic” and “ecumenical” Church. Instead, it will become an introverted and self-contained group, a “ghetto” on the margins of history. This is why the great Fathers of the Church never feared dialogue with the spiritual culture of their age – indeed even with the pagan idolaters and philosophers of their world – thereby influencing and transforming the civilization of their time and offering us a truly ecumenical Church.

Today, Orthodoxy is called to continue this dialogue with the outside world in order to provide a witness and the life-giving breath of its faith. However, this dialogue cannot reach the outside world unless it first passes through all those that bear the Christian name. Thus, we must first converse as Christians among ourselves in order to resolve our differences, in order that our witness to the outside world may be credible. Our endeavors for the union of all Christians is the will and command of our Lord, who before His Passion prayed to His Father “that all [namely, His disciples] may be one, so that the world may believe that You sent me.” (John 17.21) It is not possible for the Lord to agonize over the unity of His disciples and for us to remain indifferent about the unity of all Christians. This would constitute criminal betrayal and transgression of His divine commandment.

It is precisely for these reasons that, with the mutual agreement and participation of all local Orthodox Churches, the Ecumenical Patriarchate has for many decades conducted official Panorthodox theological dialogues with the larger Christian Churches and Confessions. The aim of these dialogues is, in a spirit of love, to discuss whatever divides Christians both in terms of faith as well as in terms of the organization and life of the Church.

These dialogues, together with every effort for peaceful and fraternal relations of the Orthodox Church with other Christians, are unfortunately challenged today in an unacceptably fanatical way – at least by the standards of a genuinely Orthodox ethos – by certain circles that exclusively claim for themselves the title of zealot and defender of Orthodoxy. As if all the Patriarchs and Sacred Synods of the Orthodox Churches throughout the world, who unanimously decided on and continue to support these dialogues, were not Orthodox. Yet, these opponents of every effort for the restoration of unity among Christians raise themselves above Episcopal Synods of the Church to the dangerous point of creating schisms within the Church.

In their polemical argumentation, these critics of the restoration of unity among Christians do not even hesitate to distort reality in order to deceive and arouse the faithful. Thus, they are silent about the fact that theological dialogues are conducted by unanimous decision of all Orthodox Churches, instead attacking the Ecumenical Patriarchate alone. They disseminate false rumors that union between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches is imminent, while they know well that the differences discussed in these theological dialogues remain numerous and require lengthy debate; moreover, union is not decided by theological commissions but by Church Synods. They assert that the Pope will supposedly subjugate the Orthodox, because they latter submit to dialogue with the Roman Catholics! They condemn those who conduct these dialogues as allegedly “heretics” and “traitors” of Orthodoxy, purely and simply because they converse with non-Orthodox, with whom they share the treasure and truth of our Orthodox faith. They speak condescendingly of every effort for reconciliation among divided Christians and restoration of their unity as purportedly being “the pan-heresy of ecumenism” without providing the slightest evidence that, in its contacts with non-Orthodox, the Orthodox Church has abandoned or denied the doctrines of the Ecumenical Councils and of the Church Fathers.

Beloved children in the Lord, Orthodoxy has no need of either fanaticism or bigotry to protect itself. Whoever believes that Orthodoxy has the truth does not fear dialogue, because truth has never been endangered by dialogue. By contrast, when in our day all people strive to resolve their differences through dialogue, Orthodoxy cannot proceed with intolerance and extremism. You should have utmost confidence in your Mother Church. For the Mother Church has over the ages preserved and transmitted Orthodoxy even to other nations. And today, the Mother Church is struggling amid difficult circumstances to maintain Orthodoxy vibrant and venerable throughout the world.

From the Ecumenical Patriarchate, this sacred Center of Orthodoxy, we embrace all of you lovingly and bless you paternally, praying that you may journey in health through the holy period of contrition and asceticism known as Holy and Great Lent in order that you may become worthy of celebrating the pure Passion and glorious Resurrection of our Savior Lord with all faithful Orthodox Christians throughout the world.

Sunday of Orthodoxy 2010

+ Bartholomew of Constantinople

Fervent supplicant to God for all



+ Constantine of Derkon

+Evangelos of Perge

+ Kallinikos of Lystra

+ Michael of Austria

+ Alexios of Atlanta

+ Joseph of Proikonnisos

+ Demetrios of Sevasteia

+ Irenaios of Myriophyton and Peristasis

+ Chrysostom of Myra

+ Emmanuel of France

+ Makarios of Gortyna and Arkadia

+ Amphilochios of New Zealand

source

From the you can't make this up file

Agents and officers of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security reported that 289 of their handguns, shotguns or automatic rifles had been lost or stolen between 2005 and 2008, with weapons left in places ranging from fast-food restaurant restrooms to bowling alleys to clothing stores, the agency's inspector general said in a report released Thursday.

Most of the losses could have been prevented, DHS Inspector General Richard L. Skinner reported. In one case, his office stated, a border officer left a weapon in his idling vehicle at a convenience store. Both the weapon and the vehicle were stolen. In another case, a shotgun and semiautomatic rifle were stolen from an officer's closet at home. Other agents left firearms in truck beds or on vehicle bumpers, where weapons fell off as they drove away.

Read the rest here.

In the good old days in Japan, a samurai who lost his sword was expected to commit ritual suicide. Not suggesting anything here... but yea.

Dad Pleads Not Guilty on Violating Court Order For Taking Daughter to Church

A Chicago man who defied a court order and took his toddler to a Catholic Church service was arraigned today on a charge of indirect criminal contempt in a custody battle that is threatening to put him in jail and draw new boundaries in divorce cases.

Joseph Reyes pleaded not guilty for allegedly violating a court order issued by Chicago family law Judge Edward R. Jordan who had barred Reyes from taking his 3-year-old daughter to church following a dispute over religion with his estranged wife. Reyes' wife, Rebecca Reyes, is Jewish.

Reyes, a veteran of the Afghan war, made a motion to have his contempt charges heard by a different judge, a motion that was granted. He was arraigned before Judge Elizabeth Loredo-Rivera.

If found guilty of indirect criminal contempt, Reyes could be sentenced to up to six months in jail.

The next court date is on March 3, when Reyes is expected to file a motion to dismiss all charges against him.

In a statement issued after the hearing, Reyes said, "There's a strong possibility I could end up in jail. It's really sad it's come to this."

Reyes and his wife are in abitter divorce battle, and the question of what faith their child should be raised in is pushing the boundaries of child custody arrangements.

Reyes' decision to baptize his daughter without his wife's permission resulted in what some are calling an extraordinary court order: Jordan in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Ill., imposed a 30-day restraining order forbidding Joseph Reyes from, according to the document, "exposing his daughter to any other religion than the Jewish religion. &"

The couple married in 2004. Joseph Reyes was Catholic, but he converted to Judaism to please his in-laws. He has said the decision wasn't "voluntary."

Despite his conversion, Reyes, 35, said he never stopped practicing Catholicism.

Read the rest here.

She has legal custody of the child. That's all that needed to be said. How can you baptize a child you do not have custody of? On a side note this is an excellent case for why people should avoid religiously mixed marriages.

Party Gridlock in Washington Feeds New Fear of a Debt Crisis

WASHINGTON — Senator Evan Bayh’s comments this week about a dysfunctional Congress reflected a complaint being directed at Washington with increasing frequency, and there is broad agreement among critics about Exhibit A: The unwillingness of the two parties to compromise to control a national debt that is rising to dangerous heights.

After decades of warnings that budgetary profligacy, escalating health care costs and an aging population would lead to a day of fiscal reckoning, economists and the nation’s foreign creditors say that moment is approaching faster than expected, hastened by a deep recession that cost trillions of dollars in lost tax revenues and higher spending for safety-net programs.

Yet rarely has the political system seemed more polarized and less able to solve big problems that involve trust, tough choices and little short-term gain. The main urgency for both parties seems to be about pinning blame on the other, before November’s elections, for deficits now averaging $1 trillion a year, the largest since World War II relative to the size of the economy.

Mr. Bayh, the centrist Democrat from Indiana, lodged his complaint about excessive partisanship and Congressional gridlock on Monday by way of explaining his decision not to seek re-election. But he is hardly alone in sounding an alarm about the long-term budgetary outlook, which has Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security costs growing at unsustainable rates and an inefficient tax system that cannot keep up.

“I used to think it would take a global financial crisis to get both parties to the table, but we just had one,” said G. William Hoagland, who was a fiscal policy adviser to Senate Republican leaders and a witness to past bipartisan budget summits. “These days I wonder if this country is even governable.”

Read the rest here.

Georgia Seeks Return of Luger's Body

TBILISI, Georgia–Georgian officials said Monday they were working to return the body of luger Nodar Kumaritashvili to his mountain hometown for burial in a cemetery beside its small Georgian Orthodox church.

Mr. Kumaritashvili died in a training accident hours before the opening of the Winter Olympics on Friday when he lost control of his luge on the final turn of the track at the Whistler Sliding Centre and hit a steel support at 90 miles per hour.

"The funeral could be in two or three days but nothing is clear yet," said David Kumaritashvili, the luger's father.

The athlete will be buried in Bakuriani, the quiet ski resort where he lived all of his 21 years and became a local hero. The town of about 3,000 inhabitants, set high in the Caucasus Mountains about 110 miles kilometers west of Tbilisi and surrounded by fir-covered peaks, is a close-knit community and expects a deluge of mourners.

Read the rest here.

Rod Dreher on the Great Pew Controversy

...Yesterday I mentioned to Julie that I didn't like pews, because they made me feel as if I were part of an audience watching a performance on the altar. Without pews, I felt more like someone gathered around a bonfire. The author of this essay puts it more harshly than I would, but the insight is essentially the same. You wouldn't have convinced me several years ago when I first walked into an Orthodox church that the experience of worshiping without pews would make me feel more integrated into the liturgy (as opposed to merely tired from standing), but having worshiped this way for almost four years, I've experienced the difference, and love it! It makes one feel personally more integrated into the liturgy, I find.

Roman Catholics used to go to mass like this too, but it appears that the Reformation also brought pews into Catholic churches as well (Byzantine Rite Catholics generally still observe the older tradition of standing during mass, though I've attended two Byzantine Rite churches in the US that have pews). It surely must strike most American Christians as interesting, at the very least, to think that pews in Christian churches are a relatively recent innovation in the history of Christianity. For three-quarters of our history, most Christians stood at corporate worship.

Let me ask my Orthodox readers for their thoughts on having pews inside our churches. I'd also like to hear from Catholic and other non-orthodox readers on the topic.

Read the rest (and the comments) here.

For the record I agree with Rod. Pews are OK but given a choice I prefer the more traditional practice.

The Fast Begins

I sometimes get questions from inquirers and others who are not Orthodox asking what our fasting rules entail. Here in brief are the rules for the Lenten Fast.

Starting on the first day of Lent (we begin on Monday not Ash Wednesday) Orthodox Christians are to abstain from all meat, fish, wine, oil and dairy/animal products during weekdays. Also normally only one meal is taken each day. On weekends this is relaxed somewhat with two meals permitted and wine and oil are allowed. The first week of the Fast (called Clean Week) as also Holy Week are observed very strictly. Those able to do so keep a strict fast on Clean Monday (no food) and eat as little as possible thereafter until the weekend. The monastic discipline (which is the standard towards which we should strive) calls for only two meals between Monday and Friday. Holy Week also gets rough starting on Great and Holy Wednesday until the Fast is broken by taking Communion on Pascha (Easter). Great and Holy Friday is a strict fast day (no food) and Holy Saturday is very nearly a strict fast with only a little fruit and nuts normally allowed.

Now that I have probably frightened off any inquirers let me throw out some mitigating words. First the Church calendar contains a number of days during lent where wine and oil are permitted. Also there are two days (the Feast of the Annunciation and Palm Sunday) where fish wine and oil are allowed. Secondly (and very importantly) we are not insane and we do understand human limits. In practical terms and for obvious reasons few laymen can keep the fast this strictly. But for everyone the Fast during Clean Week should be kept as strictly as individual circumstances permit as also the last several days of Holy Week.

Food and drink taken for reasons of health are always permitted. Most priests routinely relax some aspects of the fast for their spiritual children especially for reasons of age or health. The rules outlined above were written in a day and age when people generally ate much less and had far more limited diets all year. Also the influence of diet on health was not understood as it is today.

The object in the fast is not to satisfy some legalistic requirements dating to late antiquity or to see who can inflict the most damage on their health. Rather it is to stretch ourselves spiritually by denying the flesh one of its favorite comforts. The Fast is first and foremost a form of spiritual medicine intended to help with the process of decluttering our lives for the 40+ days of Lent and get us refocused on God.

Now a few closing thoughts on fasting. The above rules are the guidelines in the book. The real rules are the ones your spiritual father/confessor prescribes for you. One of the most frequent mistakes committed by those new to the Faith is to dive into the Fast and try to do it all the first time around. That is in almost every case a recipe for failure and frustration. I have been Orthodox for four years now. I have yet to keep Lent strictly and probably never will for various reasons. Few people outside of monasteries do. But we need to try as best we can. If you fall down (we all do) then pick yourself up and try again.

Finally, avoid discussing the fast with others. Your fast is your business. The only one you should be talking with about it in detail is your spiritual father. Remember you may be keeping a stricter fast than others and discussing it could cause them to feel bad or make them attempt something they are not ready for. Or you may be doing less than someone and that too can cause issues. The Fast should be kept discretely. Efforts should be made to avoid those circumstances where you may be tempted to break the fast or show off to others who are not fasting. This last part is quite challenging in our culturally Western country in which fasting as a religious discipline has been more or less abandoned. My own spiritual father has gone so far as to say that it is better to break the fast than cause scandal or show off. If you are a guest and someone puts food in front of you, you eat it. With that view in mind keep your social engagements to a minimum.

A Deep Bow

On this the eve of the Great Fast and bowing low, I wish to ask forgiveness from anyone who I may have injured through any word, action or negligence, and most especially by anything which I may have written or allowed to be posted on this blog. Please forgive me.

During Lent

In keeping with my custom of some years, there will generally be no posting on Wednesdays and Fridays during Great Lent. Additionally there will be very little posting during "Clean Week" and none after Great and Holy Tuesday until at least Bright Monday. (I do plan to post sometime this week on my experiences serving as a juror in a First Degree Murder trial.) I wish each and everyone a blessed fast.

A Modest Proposal

Via the Midwest Conservative Journal...

A guest editorial by Katharine Jefferts Schori

First of all, I would like to thank Christopher Johnson for giving me the opportunity to communicate with you in this space. It is encouraging to know that every now and then, we can overcome our differences, as vast as those differences all too often are.

The humorous cartoon posted below was actually quite funny. Nobody likes a good joke more than I do. Actually, I’ve been told that just about everyone likes a good joke more than I do but that’s beside the point.

What, you may ask, is the point? The point is that Mr. Johnson’s cartoon gets at something we must not ignore and cannot allow ourselves to evade any longer.

The Episcopal Church is in a serious financial crisis, the most serious in its history.

Why? One could point to a variety of reasons. The bad economy. The fact that consecrating an openly-gay bishop didn’t turn to be as monetarily-profitable a move of the spirit as we were led to believe that it would be. The fact that too many of you are stupid, reactionary, hypocritical, homophobic bigots. One could go on and on.

But the point is not to assess blame but to find solutions. And a solution has recently been suggested that seems to show a way forward that will not only lift the Episcopal Church out of its financial valley of the shadow of death but lead it into a future where we can finally begin to realize God’s dream of shalom.

Selling indulgences.

Read the rest here.
Hat tip to Bill (aka The Godfather)

Vatican to hold Days of Russian Spiritual Culture

Via Interfax:

“Today the Moscow Patriarchate and the Roman Catholic Church prepare a number of joint projects in the field of culture as, for example, the Days of Russian Spiritual Culture in Vatican in spring 2010,” Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia writes in his article published in the Expert magazine.

According to the Russian Church Primate, Christians need to find “new language and new creative ways to preach Christian values in modern-day conditions of the constantly changing world so that this sermon can be heard and properly taken,” the article further reads.

The Patriarch noted that first of all, he meant cooperation between the Roman-Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church “as they have shared views on actual problems of social and economic ethics, bioethics, family, personal morality and others.”

“As we understand that Europe is facing serious challenge of losing its personal civilizational and cultural identity, it becomes very important to mutually search for new opportunities to make Christian values attractive for a modern-day European,” Patriarch Kirill stresses.

Source

Peter Schiff on why the jobs bill won't work

How Christian Were the Founders?

LAST MONTH, A WEEK before the Senate seat of the liberal icon Edward M. Kennedy fell into Republican hands, his legacy suffered another blow that was perhaps just as damaging, if less noticed. It happened during what has become an annual spectacle in the culture wars.

Over two days, more than a hundred people — Christians, Jews, housewives, naval officers, professors; people outfitted in everything from business suits to military fatigues to turbans to baseball caps — streamed through the halls of the William B. Travis Building in Austin, Tex., waiting for a chance to stand before the semicircle of 15 high-backed chairs whose occupants made up the Texas State Board of Education. Each petitioner had three minutes to say his or her piece.

“Please keep César Chávez” was the message of an elderly Hispanic man with a floppy gray mustache.

“Sikhism is the fifth-largest religion in the world and should be included in the curriculum,” a woman declared.

Following the appeals from the public, the members of what is the most influential state board of education in the country, and one of the most politically conservative, submitted their own proposed changes to the new social-studies curriculum guidelines, whose adoption was the subject of all the attention — guidelines that will affect students around the country, from kindergarten to 12th grade, for the next 10 years. Gail Lowe — who publishes a twice-a-week newspaper when she is not grappling with divisive education issues — is the official chairwoman, but the meeting was dominated by another member. Don McLeroy, a small, vigorous man with a shiny pate and bristling mustache, proposed amendment after amendment on social issues to the document that teams of professional educators had drawn up over 12 months, in what would have to be described as a single-handed display of archconservative political strong-arming.

McLeroy moved that Margaret Sanger, the birth-control pioneer, be included because she “and her followers promoted eugenics,” that language be inserted about Ronald Reagan’s “leadership in restoring national confidence” following Jimmy Carter’s presidency and that students be instructed to “describe the causes and key organizations and individuals of the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.” The injection of partisan politics into education went so far that at one point another Republican board member burst out in seemingly embarrassed exasperation, “Guys, you’re rewriting history now!” Nevertheless, most of McLeroy’s proposed amendments passed by a show of hands.

Finally, the board considered an amendment to require students to evaluate the contributions of significant Americans. The names proposed included Thurgood Marshall, Billy Graham, Newt Gingrich, William F. Buckley Jr., Hillary Rodham Clinton and Edward Kennedy. All passed muster except Kennedy, who was voted down.

This is how history is made — or rather, how the hue and cry of the present and near past gets lodged into the long-term cultural memory or else is allowed to quietly fade into an inaudible whisper. Public education has always been a battleground between cultural forces; one reason that Texas’ school-board members find themselves at the very center of the battlefield is, not surprisingly, money. The state’s $22 billion education fund is among the largest educational endowments in the country. Texas uses some of that money to buy or distribute a staggering 48 million textbooks annually — which rather strongly inclines educational publishers to tailor their products to fit the standards dictated by the Lone Star State. California is the largest textbook market, but besides being bankrupt, it tends to be so specific about what kinds of information its students should learn that few other states follow its lead. Texas, on the other hand, was one of the first states to adopt statewide curriculum guidelines, back in 1998, and the guidelines it came up with (which are referred to as TEKS — pronounced “teaks” — for Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) were clear, broad and inclusive enough that many other states used them as a model in devising their own. And while technology is changing things, textbooks — printed or online —are still the backbone of education.

Read the rest of this rather long but interesting article here.

The Church of England will ordain women bishops. Get over it – or leave

From Damian Thompson...

I don’t belong to a Church which makes decisions about something as fundamental as the ordination of women priests by voting in a quasi-parliamentary General Synod. But, if I did, and if that Church then prepared to take the logical step of ordaining women bishops, I’d ask myself a simple question. Will these ordinations be valid? Then I stay. Invalid? Then I go.

Read the rest here.

I'm Back

I am back online and expect to be posting again shortly. Also I am happy to report that the trial I was a juror on has now ended. It has been a remarkable and frankly challenging experience. Sometime in the next few days I will likely be posting on my experiences as a juror in The People vs Jose Zavala.

More articles on the case can be found here, here and here.

Positive signs

The trial on which I am a juror has progressed much faster than anticipated. Originally scheduled to run through Feb 19; we now expect to hear closing arguments tomorrow. I ask for your prayers as the matter I and my eleven co-jurors are sitting in judgment on is quite serious.

More good news... after a lot of delays I am hopeful that my computer problems will be resolved by the end of the week.

Extremely thin posting ahead

OK. It's official. California is nuts. They put me on jury duty. The judge asked that we (jurors) refrain from blogging and similar online discussion activities for the duration of the trial. With some luck this will be over by late February. On a side note I have placed comments on moderation due to some issues with SPAM and the fact that I was already having trouble keeping a close watch on the comboxes. I apologize for the inconvenience.

The Supreme Court says corporations and unions may contribute to political campaigns

This is simply the latest chapter of bad jurisprudence resulting from the absurd ruling in Santa Clara County v Southern Pacific Railroad (1886) that said corporations were people under the 14th amendment. My position is very simple. No person or entity that is not eligible for the franchise should be allowed to spend a dime on political campaigns or propaganda.

Speaking of rain...

It's pretty damp here on the left coast (5th day of rain). I have completed my move and am reporting back on Monday to find out if I am needed for jury duty. I failed to get out of it but still think the odds of my actually landing on the jury for what I have been told is a major criminal trial are slim. I am slowly working on the computer problem. Being limited to the library is, to put it politely, a pain in the...

Sadly posting will remain thin for a little while longer.

It never rains...

It pours. Moving week + jury duty= no posting likely this week.

Memory Eternal

Fellow Orthodox blogger the RightWingProf (Clay Bond) reposed in the Lord early this morning after a battle with lung cancer. His often pointed commentary will be greatly missed. Please keep him and his family in your prayers.

May his memory be eternal.

Christ is born!

Merry Christmas and many happy wishes to those celebrating the Feast of the Nativity on the traditional calendar!

Turkey hints at calling for repatriation of the relics of St. Nicholas

The Turkish Minister of Culture has strong suggested he will call for the "return" of the relics of St. Nicholas to Myra (modern day Demre) in Turkey. The relics are currently kept in Bari (Italy) where they have been since the 11th century AD. The minister suggested the body of "Father Christmas" should be displayed in a Turkish museum that is being proposed for construction.

As I noted in a comment at Rorate Caeli; there is no national government in existence which has any legal or moral claim to the relics of St. Nicholas. Once the Emperor reclaims his throne in Constantinople and the cross is again raised over Hagia Sophia this topic can be revisited. Given the precarious position of the Ecumenical Patriarch in a country with a well established track record of persecuting religious minorities (especially the Greek Orthodox Church) I believe it better that the relics remain where they are as long as they are accessible to all for veneration.

Hat tip to Carlos Antonio Palad of Rorate Caeli.

Prayers for an Orthodox blogger

I have mentioned before Orthodox blogger RightWingProf who is battling advanced lung cancer. He has not posted since the day after the Feast of the Nativity. Recent comments on that post report that he is extremely weak and has not been eating much. The Prof has essentially been in hospice care for a while now. With the caveat that I am not familiar with his immediate condition, comments posted on his blog by friends seem to suggest that his condition is deteriorating.

Please lift him (and those who love him) in your prayers as he prepares to enter the next room and stand before the judgment seat.

A quick update

There is a lot gong on in my life right now. I am preparing for a move and am still dealing with computer issues. The employment situation remains grim although I have some hopes for a state job south of where I am, but the paperwork for that is moving at a snail's pace. Posting is likely to remain a bit thin for a while.

May the new year be better than the last.

In ICXC
John