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President Coolidge speaking on taxes and government expenses. This is believed to be the first film footage of an American President with sound.Annual food inflation could reach 7 per cent later this year, a leading City economist has warned. The jump, from 1.7 per cent in June, is likely if global food commodity prices continue to rise, said Simon Ward, chief economist at Henderson.Read the rest here.
Rising food costs could have the effect of pushing up the consumer prices index (CPI), the official measure of inflation, to 4 per cent – double the Bank of England's 2 per cent target, warned Mr Ward.
The impact on household budgets could even persuade the Coalition to cancel its planned rise in VAT, he added.
"Such an increase [in food prices] would hit consumer spending and recovery prospects and could destabilise inflationary expectations," said Mr Ward.
HONG KONG — For K. K. Lam, a 37-year-old accountant in Guangzhou, inflation means higher prices for pork and for vegetables like bok choy.Read the rest here.
For Allen Dong, the sales manager for a home appliance manufacturer 700 miles to the northeast in Ningbo, inflation means trying to persuade retailers to pay more for dehumidifiers so his company can cover rising costs for wages and raw materials.
From street markets to corporate offices, consumers and executives alike in China are trying to cope with rising prices. The National Bureau of Statistics announced on Saturday that consumer prices in China were 3.5 percent higher compared with a year earlier, the largest increase in nearly two years.
To make matters worse, inflation over the short term also seems to be accelerating. A seasonally adjusted comparison of August prices to July prices showed that inflation was running at an annualized pace closer to 4.8 percent.
KHANTY-MANSIISK DEPARTMENT OF LABOR DEVELOPS PLAN OF MEASURES FOR "COMBATING TOTALITARIAN SECTS"Source
Portal-credo.ru, 8 September 2010
On 18 August, the Department of Culture and Art of the city of Niagana, Khanti-Mansiisk autonomous region, sent a letter from the first deputy director of the Department of Labor and Social Security of the population of KhMAO, I. Uvarov, to directors of institutions that they were required to obey, the "SOVA" information and analysis center reports.
The letter says that on the territory of the Russian federation recently "destructive totalitarian sects and groups, whose activity causes irreparable harm to society and the individual," have become widespread. In connection with this, the Department of Labor and Social Security had prepared materials "for combating totalitarian sects when members of such sects attend social and cultural institutions."
In particular, it is proposed:
--to create checkpoints in municipal social and cultural institutions (for example, movie theatres and recreational centers);
--to create volunteer "law-enforcement" militia in educational institutions;
--to exercise control for refusal to provide facilities to representatives of "totalitarian sects" for conducting various events.
In addition, it is planned to conduct campaigns in news media and explanatory work in various institutions and to register in medical institutions cases of refusal of medical treatment "on the basis of sectarian motivation" and the like.
Two lists were attached to the letter: a list of organizations recognized as extremist in RF and a list "of the most well known destructive totalitarian sects and groups that have a substantial number of indicators of such, active in the Russian federation." The latter list contains 265 organizations, including #56 "Herbalife," #61.16 "Word of Life," #210 "Scepter," and #249 "Amway."
It should be noted that the "Word of Life" church was registered by the Ministry of Justice of RF and is regularly audited. (tr. by PDS, posted 9 September 2010)
Editor's note: The list of "destructive" sects may be accessed at the Prozrenie site: "Perechen' naibolee izvestnykh destruktivnykh totalitarnykh sekt i grupp"
The following is a selected list of religious organizations included: Seventh-day Adventists-Reformists; Great White Brotherhood; Orthodox Church of the "Sovereign" [derzhavnaia] Mother of God; Summit Lighthouse; Sects (neopentecostals), including members of the Russian Associated Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith (ROSKhVE) and the Russian Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith Pentecostals (RSKhVEP) and independent organizations; "Messianic Jews" and a number of groups of the "Jews for Jesus" movement; New Life; God's Embassy; Church of the Full Gospel; EXODUS center; Catacomb Church of True Orthodox Christians (old and new rites); International Society for Krishna Consciousness; Mormons; Scientology Church and other organizations of Hubbardists; Jehovah's Witnesses; Watchtower Society; Christian Science; Local Church of Witness Lee.
Moscow, September 10, Interfax - Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia at the meeting with President of Ireland Mary McAlleese discussed the question of changing status of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ireland and registering it as a Church, not a charitable organization.Source
"His Holiness the Patriarch talked to the President and raised the issue of giving the Russian Orthodox Church a registration in some respect similar to the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. It's a very important task," head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations communication service Fr. Georgy Zavershinsky told an Interfax-Religion correspondent commenting results of the meeting.
Fr. Georgy explained that parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church in many Western European countries are registered as charitable communities alongside with other religious or even sectarian communities. Today the Russian Church has such kind of registration in Ireland and in Great Britain.
The President offered to conduct bilateral consultations for discussing this topic at the level of ministries or if needed prime ministers.
"It is an important moment, as far as I know there are few such precedents in Western countries," Fr. Georgy stressed.
Today the Russian Orthodox Church has five parishes and about 1500 parishioners in Ireland.
Moscow, September 10, Interfax - Participants of the Vozvrascheniye (Return) public movement turned to the Russian President with the request to take away a five-point star from the Kremlin Spasskaya Tower and to set up a double-headed eagle there.Source
"We're convinced that now after returning an icon of the Savior, it is necessary to erect a double-headed eagle - state emblem of new Russia - to the Spasskaya Tower," activists said in their address conveyed to Interfax-Religion on Friday.
They remind that on October 24 it will be exactly 75 years since the day when a double-headed eagle was thrown down from the Spasskaya Tower where it had been located from mid 17th century.
Recent opening of the icon over gates of the Spasskaya Tower that was covered with plaster for long decades gave a reason for such address.
Meanwhile, the museum community is skeptical about the idea to change stars for eagles on the Kremlin towers. "This theme appears sporadically. But will we return the lost Russia by setting up eagles to the towers? Moreover, they will be newly made," deputy general director of the Moscow Kremlin museums Andrey Batalov told Izvestia paper this August.
"I will express my private opinion: it will turn Red Square and the Kremlin into pseudo historic cacophony, where, on one side, we have concerts and motocycle races on the Vasilyevsky slope right in front of St. Basil's Cathedral of Russian stars and on the other side - Lenin's mausoleum, a man who destroyed the Russian Empire," Batalov said.
He stressed that "starts have also become historic - they symbolize the existing image of the Kremlin."
When President Obama nominated Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court in May, we and many others reported out that she’d likely have to recuse herself from a handful of cases for the upcoming term.Read the rest here.
The reason: she was the Solicitor General for the U.S. So she’d be conflicted on a number of cases, having already served as an advocate on many of them.
But we never dreamed that Kagan would recuse herself from half the cases for the upcoming term. But it seems that’s where we are, at least for now. Kagan this week, in the words of National Law Journal reporter Tony Mauro, “quietly” recused herself from 10 more cases to be argued in the upcoming term. That brings the number of cases from which she’s recused herself to 21. As Mauro points out, that’s more than half of the 40 cases the court has so far agreed to hear.
Image via the Young Fogey
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama will award the first Medal of Honor to go to a living service member who fought in the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan.Source
Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta served as a rifle team leader during combat operations in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley. The White House says Giunta went beyond the call of duty during an October 2007 attack when he exposed himself to enemy fire to pull a comrade back to cover. When he later noticed two insurgents carrying away another fellow solider, Giunta engaged the enemy, killing one and wounding the other before providing medical aid to the wounded U.S. soldier.
Obama spoke with Giunta Thursday to inform him he would receive the nation's highest military honor.
The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy toward gay members of the military is unconstitutional, a federal judge in California ruled Thursday.Read the rest here.
Judge Virginia A. Phillips of Federal District Court struck down the rule in an opinion issued late in the day. The policy was signed into law in 1993 as a compromise that would allow gay and lesbian soldiers to serve in the military.
The rule limits the military’s ability to ask about the sexual orientation of service members, and allows homosexuals to serve, as long as they do not disclose their orientation and do not engage in homosexual acts.
The plaintiffs challenged the law under the Fifth and First Amendments to the Constitution, and Judge Phillips agreed.
“The 'don’t ask, don’t tell' act infringes the fundamental rights of United States service members in many ways,” she wrote. “In order to justify the encroachment on these rights, defendants faced the burden at trial of showing the 'don’t ask, don’t tell' act was necessary to significantly further the government’s important interests in military readiness and unit cohesion. Defendants failed to meet that burden.”
The rule, she wrote in an 86-page opinion, has a “direct and deleterious effect” on the armed services.
For nearly every New Yorker who has received a summons in the city — caught at a checkpoint monitoring seat-belt use, or approached by a small army of police officers descending on illegally parked cars — quotas are a maddening fact of life.Read the rest here.
No matter how often the Police Department denies the existence of quotas, many New Yorkers will swear that officers are sometimes forced to write a certain number of tickets in a certain amount of time.
Now, in a secret recording made in a police station in Brooklyn, there is persuasive evidence of the existence of quotas.
The hourlong recording, which a lawyer provided this week to The New York Times, was made by a police supervisor during a meeting in April of supervisors from the 81st Precinct.
The recording makes clear that precinct leaders were focused on raising the number of summonses issued — even as the Police Department had already begun an inquiry into whether crime statistics in that precinct were being manipulated.
The Police Department’s chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, did not respond Thursday to three e-mails and three phone calls requesting comments on the tape. He was sent extensive excerpts from the recording.
On the tape, a police captain, Alex Perez, can be heard warning his top commanders that their officers must start writing more summonses or face consequences. Captain Perez offered a precise number and suggested a method. He said each officer on a day tour should write 20 summonses a week: five each for double-parking, parking at a bus stop, driving without a seat belt and driving while using a cellphone.
“You, as bosses, have to demand this and have to count it,” Captain Perez said, citing pressure from top police officials. At another point, Captain Perez emphasized his willingness to punish officers who do not meet the targets, saying, “I really don’t have a problem firing people.”
Leader of a Serbian group in Kosovo has said that Kosovo Serbs will seek Russian citizenship if Serbia agrees to the EU brokered UN Resolution in which it will abdicate its sovereignty over Kosovo.Read the rest here.
“If that resolution gets accepted and Serbia’s President Tadic accepts it without the agreement from Russia, we will initiate a drive to have the Russian citizenship granted to Serbs in Kosovo because Russia knows how to shield its citizens no matter where they live,” said Milan Ivanovic, leader of the Serbian National Committee for the Northern Kosovo.
Father Arsenios at the Vatopaidi monastery, overlooking the Aegean Sea, in Mount Athos, Greece. He is considered by many to be Vatopaidi’s C.F.O., “the real brains of the operation.”As Wall Street hangs on the question “Will Greece default?,” the author heads for riot-stricken Athens, and for the mysterious Vatopaidi monastery, which brought down the last government, laying bare the country’s economic insanity. But beyond a $1.2 trillion debt (roughly a quarter-million dollars for each working adult), there is a more frightening deficit. After systematically looting their own treasury, in a breathtaking binge of tax evasion, bribery, and creative accounting spurred on by Goldman Sachs, Greeks are sure of one thing: they can’t trust their fellow Greeks.Read the rest here.
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After an hour on a plane, two in a taxi, three on a decrepit ferry, and then four more on buses driven madly along the tops of sheer cliffs by Greeks on cell phones, I rolled up to the front door of the vast and remote monastery. The spit of land poking into the Aegean Sea felt like the end of the earth, and just as silent. It was late afternoon, and the monks were either praying or napping, but one remained on duty at the guard booth, to greet visitors. He guided me along with seven Greek pilgrims to an ancient dormitory, beautifully restored, where two more solicitous monks offered ouzo, pastries, and keys to cells. I sensed something missing, and then realized: no one had asked for a credit card. The monastery was not merely efficient but free. One of the monks then said the next event would be the church service: Vespers. The next event, it will emerge, will almost always be a church service. There were 37 different chapels inside the monastery’s walls; finding the service is going to be like finding Waldo, I thought.
“Which church?” I asked the monk.
“Just follow the monks after they rise,” he said. Then he looked me up and down more closely. He wore an impossibly long and wild black beard, long black robes, a monk’s cap, and prayer beads. I wore white running shoes, light khakis, a mauve Brooks Brothers shirt, and carried a plastic laundry bag that said eagles palace hotel in giant letters on the side. “Why have you come?” he asked.
No single election contest this fall combines the buzz and history-making potential of California's Proposition 19, which would make the state the first to legalize recreational use of marijuana.Read the rest here.
It's the most eye-catching of roughly 150 ballot measures that voters in 35 states will be considering on Nov. 2 — encompassing such volatile topics as abortion, affirmative action, health care and liquor sales.
In the littlest state, with the longest formal name, voters will have a chance to shorten it to just Rhode Island instead of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Advocates of the change say the full name evokes images of slavery in a state where merchants once prospered from the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
In California, recent polls indicate voters are closely divided over Prop 19, which would allow adults 21 and older to possess up to an ounce of pot for personal use. Individuals could grow marijuana gardens of up to 25 square feet on private property; cities and counties would decide whether to allow sales and taxation of marijuana within their boundaries.
On both sides, passions are high.
HAVANA — Fidel Castro said Cuba's economic model no longer works, a U.S.-based journalist reported on Wednesday following interviews with the former president last week.Read he rest here.
Jeffrey Goldberg, a writer for the Atlantic Monthly magazine, wrote in a blog that he asked Castro, 84, if Cuba's model — Soviet-style communism — was still worth exporting to other countries and he replied, "The Cuban model doesn't even work for us anymore."
The comment appeared to reflect Castro's agreement, which he also expressed in a column for Cuban media in April, with his younger brother President Raul Castro, who has initiated modest reforms to stimulate Cuba's troubled economy.
Goldberg said Julia Sweig, a Cuba expert at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank in Washington who accompanied him to Havana, believed Castro's words reflected an acknowledgment that "the state has too big a role in the economic life of the country."
Children allegedly set alight a Trent Road church last week, just 30 metres from Port Augusta’s fire station.Source
Two 13-year-old girls were arrested at the scene, while two boys, aged 15 and 12, were later charged as well.
The four have been bailed to appear in court at a later date.
According to MFS senior fire fighter Gary Gliddon, the Greek Orthodox Church of St John was deliberately set on fire at about 9.30am on Friday, with fire crews quick on the scene and able to control the blaze within 15 minutes.
Mr Gliddon said when crews arrived and gained entry to the building, it was clear that the church had been trashed prior to the fire being started.
“Fire crews went in with breathing apparatus on and extinguished the flames, but they noticed some extensive damage inside due to vandalism, so obviously it’s been seen that someone had already entered the building,” he said.
Police reported later in the day there was extensive damage done to the inside of the church, where the blaze was lit, with the damage bill at about $75,000.
A spokesman for the Greek Orthodox South Australian Archdiocese said although the community used the church sparingly, it would be repaired.
“We are trying to get someone up there to have a look at the damage, but of course, we’ll rebuild it for sure,” he said.
WASHINGTON – A sharply divided federal appeals court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit involving the Central Intelligence Agency’s practice of seizing terrorism suspects and transferring them to other countries for imprisonment and interrogation. The ruling handed a major victory to the Obama administration in its effort to advance a sweeping view of executive secrecy power.Read the rest of this dreadful news here.
By a six-to-five vote, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, reversing an earlier decision, dismissed a lawsuit against Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., a Boeing subsidiary accused of arranging flights for the C.I.A.’s “extraordinary rendition” program, as it is known. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the case on behalf of five former prisoners who say they were tortured because of the program – and that Jeppesen was complicit in their treatment.
Judge Raymond C. Fisher described the case as presenting “a painful conflict between human rights and national security.” But, he said, the majority had “reluctantly” concluded that the lawsuit represented “a rare case” in which the government’s need to protect state secrets trumped the plaintiffs’ need to have any day in court.
The decision bolstered an array of ways in which the Obama administration has pressed forward with broad counter-terrorism policies after taking over from the Bush team, a degree of continuity that has departed from the expectations fostered by President Obama’s campaign rhetoric, which was often sharply critical of President Bush’s approach.
Among other policies, the Obama team has also placed a United States citizen on a targeted-killings list without a trial, blocked efforts by detainees in Afghanistan to bring habeas-corpus lawsuits challenging their indefinite imprisonment, and continued the C.I.A. rendition program – though the administration says it now takes greater safeguards to prevent detainees from being mistreated.
The American Civil Liberties Union swiftly said it would appeal the ruling in the Jeppesen Dataplan case to the Supreme Court, presenting the Roberts Court with a fresh opportunity to weigh in on a high-profile case testing the scope and limits of presidential power when it comes to countering terrorism.
Even supposedly smart analysts are missing the big picture. In housing, it is this: there are about 20 million unoccupied homes in America. Given average family size, that’s enough for 70 million people, and there aren’t anything like that many people living under bridges.-Bart Hall
If about a third of Americans rent (for assorted reasons) that leaves perhaps 200 to 210 million in the home ownership sector. Consequently we have a 35% over-capacity in houses, and for the next half-generation the demographics for house purchase will continue to worsen.
We are a long way from the bottom. After the last big real estate boom peaked in 1893, prices eventually bottomed in the 1930s and did not return to previous levels until 1982 (inflation-adjusted). The phenomenon was nearly identical, whether in the US, Norway, or other developed nations.
The economic, social and political implications of this one will absolutely sear the attitudes of at least the two rising generations.
The Scottish Episcopal Church has caused controversy by removing masculine references to God in a new order of service.Read the rest here.
The new form of worship, which removes words such as 'Lord, he, his, him' and 'mankind' from services, has been written by the church in an attempt to acknowledge that God is 'beyond human gender'.
Episcopalian bishops have approved the introduction of more 'inclusive' language, which deliberately removes references suggesting that God is of male gender
Traditionalists have criticised the changes on the grounds that they smack of political correctness and because they believe they are not consistent with the teachings of the Bible.
The alterations have been made to provide an alternative to the established 1982 Liturgy, which, like the Bible, refers to God as a man.
The new order of service, which can be used by priests if they have difficulties with a male God, has been produced by the church's Liturgy Committee in consultation with the Faith & Order Board of General Synod and the College of Bishops.
The controversial changes were discussed at the church's General Synod recently. The minutes of the synod reveal that female priests had asked why God was still referred to as a man.
Monsignor Guido Marini, Papal Master of Ceremonies, confirms in an interview with Scotland’s Herald newspaper today that during his visit to Britain Pope Benedict XVI will celebrate the Prefaces and Canons of all his Masses in Latin, “to emphasise the universality of the faith and the continuity of the Church”.Read the rest here.
The Canon (Eucharistic Prayer) is the heart of the Mass, during which the priest consecrates and elevates the Host. There can be little doubt that Marini has put his foot down. Having already stopped liturgical philistines from subjecting the Pope to various musical horrors, he is now sending a clear – and, one suspects, deeply unwelcome – message to English, Welsh and Scottish bishops who actively discourage the celebration of Mass in Latin.
There’s particular fury among the diehard modernisers of Scotland, I gather, who have waged a sneaky battle to banish traditional worship from the Bellahouston Mass. They are now reduced to quibbling about the number of candles on the Glasgow altar, protesting at the Pope’s wish for six or seven on the grounds that… actually, I don’t know. Too Popish, perhaps?
Go on. You know you want one.Media outlets not approved by the Russian Orthodox Church will not be allowed into its distribution system starting next September, the Moscow Patriarchate said Thursday.Source
Media interested in distribution via the church-owned newspaper stands should apply for authorization with the church’s Synodal information department, it said on its web site.
To be authorized, a media outlet must “not corrupt the Orthodox Christian creed, not contradict the church’s official stance, and provide no inaccurate and ethically unacceptable information,” the statement said.
...The scourge of racism bubbles under the show's pleasant surface. And the period's sexism may make moderns wince. But this is a show for grown-ups fascinated by a mannerly America not yet turned to chaos by the social upheavals to come.Read the rest here.
Children in "Mad Men" are neatly dressed and taught etiquette. Girls don't wear nail polish, bare their navels or display cleavage in high school. The division between child and adult is still a valued concept. Eighth-graders don't have sex lives, and parents think that being mature is a good thing. The family dinner hour survives even marital breakup.
The series shows older people as complex individuals with interesting lives. This was a joy of watching "The Sopranos" — a very different scene to be sure, but one in which we are made to care about characters who are elderly and not gorgeous. Compare this to today's juvenile TV fare where older people, if they appear at all, come off as comic curmudgeons or shrill mothers-in-law.
In "Mad Men," suited gentlemen and ladies in cocktail dresses add an air of festivity to the formal dining establishments in which they enjoy a decidedly adult evening. Grown-ups don't arrive in overalls, even expensive ones. There are no strollers.
This sense of occasion has almost vanished in today's culture. Lost is a notion of difference between country and city, night and day, workweek and weekend.
Some younger viewers may scoff at the suits, ties and polished shoes required of the male go-getters. But these ambitious workers of the '60s generally left their offices after eight hours and didn't work at all on weekends. So which is the liberated generation?
200 new Orthodox churches will be built in Moscow in the next 30 years, says a project considered by Moscow's Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill.Source
They discussed changes in Moscow's architecture which also includes building new churches.
According to Kirill, 90 percent of Muscovites are Orthodox and altogether they need some 590 new churches.
...By far the most dramatic was the declaration that China did not plan to buy any more US treasury securities or bonds. The person who made the statement does not make that decision, but he is closely connected to the China hierarchy. He explained that the $US2.5 trillion of China’s foreign reserves held in US dollars was burdensome because it limited the flexibility of monetary policy and any appreciation of the Chinese currency would cause loss. China would therefore not be a buyer of US dollars but would not sell. China would look to diversify its holdings and was a buyer of European and Japanese government bonds as well as other currencies.Read the rest here.
A statement along those lines in more normal times would have seen the Hayman phones running hot to sell US dollars.
But at the moment the US dollar, as the world currency, is gaining considerable support from the Middle East and other areas. In addition China is looking to increase imports and to reduce its surpluses. But longer-term when the main supporter of a particular asset says that they will withdraw their continued support, the value of the asset will fall. If China follows through on the Hayman declaration it is not good long-term news for the US currency...
Fr. Gabriel Bunge (OSB), a renowned monastic and master of Patristics, was received into the Orthodox Church by Patriarch Kyril of Moscow and all Russia and Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk on the eve of the Dormition (Old Calendar). Fr. Gabriel has been living the life of a hermit in Switzerland for several decades and is the author of a number of books.30 August 2010.
Metropoltian Kallistos of Dioclea and Hieromonk Gabriel (Bunge) Concelebrate All-night Vigil with Metrpolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk in the Church of the Icon "Joy of All that Sorrow" on Bolshoy Ordinka Street.
On 27 August 2010, on the eve of the Feast of the Dormition of the most holy Theotokos, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk celebrated the all-night vigil in the church of the Icon, "Joy of All that Sorrow" on Bolshoy Ordinka Street.
Vladyka Hilarion concelebrated with Metropolitan Kallistos of Dioclea, vicar of the Archbishop of Thyateira and Great Britain of the Constantinople Patriarchate, chairman of the British benevolent society "Friends of Mount Athos"; the clergy of the church, and also the well known Swiss theologian and Hieromonk Gabriel (Bunge), who was received into holy Orthodoxy before the all-night vigil.
In the church were praying numerous parishioners, and also pilgrims from Great Britain, the USA, Greece, and other countries - members of the delegation of the benevolent society "Friends of Mount Athos". The aim of society is to disseminate knowledge of the Holy Mountain and the monastic tradition, helping to restore the monasteries of Mount Athos, and attracting pilgrims to Mount Athos. The delegation of the society is visiting Russia with the blessing of His Holiness Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. During the journey, the pilgrims visited Uglich, Kostroma, Yaroslavl, Rostov, Nizhny Novgorod, Gorodets, Kalyazin, and theTrinity-Sergius Lavra and venerated the holy places of the Russian Orthodox Church.
After the service, Metropolitan Hilarion delivered this with arch-pastoral homily:
"Your Eminence, Venerable Father, dear brothers and sisters!
I heartily congratulate you on the occasion of the Dormition of the most holy Theotokos. On this day, before the grave of our moust holy Lady and Ever-Virgin Mary, we celebrate her Dormition and at the same time think about our own life and death. Man is called to live on this earth a full life, a life that is spiritual and divine. The end of such a life should not be a tragic event, but a natural transition to eternal life - not death but falling asleep (dormition).
The most holy Theotokos, by her grave, which exudes grace, peace, and love, bears witness that it is possible for the dead to pass from death to life, from sin - to grace, from human life - to life divine.
The Church believes that the Mother of God never sinned, not only in deed, but even in thought. We with you are shown to be sinful people, but for us the way to the Kingdom of Heaven is not closed. This path leads through death, which may be a falling asleep, if our life is accordant with the commandments of God, and if we pray to the Lord and His Most Pure Mother that we be granted a blameless and peaceful end, which will be for us a transition into life eternal. "
Metropoltian Hilarion of Volokolamsk , chairman of the Department of External Church Relations (of the Moscow Patriarchate, the OVTsS or DECR), addressed Metropolitan Kallistos of Dioclea in particular:
"I offer a hearty welcome the Vladyka Kallistos, who is a hierarch of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and for more than 40 years has been teaching at Oxford University in Britain. 15 years ago I had the good fortune to learn from him: Vladyka was supervisor for my work on a dissertation about Saint Symeon the New Theologian. Today, Metropolitan Kallistos is one of the most famous theologians of Ecumenical Patriarchate. In Moscow, he arrived at the head of the pilgrimage group, which includes clergy, professors, and ordinary laymen. For ten days this group has been traveling through the cities of Russia, venerating the holy places of our land, becoming acquainted with our spiritual culture. On the day of the feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos, Bishop Kallistos will concelebrate with His Holiness Patriarch Kyrill in the Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin.
I welcome you not only as a hierarch and an outstanding theologian, but as my teacher and friend. It is my desire that your time in the Russian land was a blessing, and that the Lord will help you in both pastoral ministry and academic writing, and that He will preserve for many blessed years. "
In memory of the con-celebration, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk presented to Vladyka Kallistos the gift of a miter, made in the workshops of the Moscow Patriarchate.
Vladyka Hilarion also heartily welcomed hieromonk Gabriel (Bunge), who, for more than 30 years has lived a hermetical life in the mountains of Switzerland. "You were a Catholic, but in soul you were Orthodox" - Metropolitan Hilarion said to him - "Today, before the all-night vigil, you converted to Orthodoxy, which was a natural conclusion of a long spiritual journey. "
Metropolitan Hilarion warmly congratulated Father Gabriel on his reception into holy Orthodoxy, and gave him an icon of the Heavenly Queen, "Joy of All Who Sorrow" in memory of the fact that he was united to the Orthodox Church in this church, consecrated in honor of this icon.
In his response, referring to the chairman of the DECR, Metropolitan Kallistos of Dioclea said:
"Concelebrating with you on the eve of the feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos is, for me, a great joy and honor. For many years, I have kept fond memories of your stay in Oxford. It is particularly gratifying that over the ensuing years, we are in constant contact, and often encounter one another ... I believe that thanks to the protection of the Most Holy Theotokos, the very significant ministry that you carry in this church, and in your labors for Universal Orthodoxy, will be aided by grace from the Lord.
I am also pleased to learn that today Father Gabriel is united to Orthodoxy in this church. We highly esteem his theological works, and I hope that the cross of the Orthodox Christian, which he has taken upon himself, will not be too heavy for him. I pray that the Most Holy Theotokos will fill your hearts with joy and consolation".
...His son, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, later focused his father’s theological ideas around a single commandment: to settle all the land promised to the ancient Hebrews in the Bible. His disciples, energized by a burning messianic fervor, took Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War of 1967 as confirmation of this theology and set out to fulfill its commandment. Religious enthusiasm made the movement subversive in a deep sense — adherents believed they had a divine obligation to build settlements and considered the authority of Israel’s democratic government conditional on its acceptance of what they declared to be God’s politics.Read the rest here.
Although religious settlers often describe themselves as heirs of the early Zionist pioneers, they are anything but. Herzl’s vision was about liberating people, while theirs is about achieving a mystical reunion between the people of Israel and the land of Israel. Herzl’s view stemmed from the ideals of the Enlightenment and the tradition of democratic national liberation movements, dating back to the American and French Revolutions; religious settlers are steeped in blood-and-soil nationalism. Herzl never doubted that Israeli Arabs should have full and equal rights. For religious settlers, Arabs are an alien element in the organic unity of Jews and their land.
The consequences of these differences are huge. If the settlers achieve their manifest goal — making Israel’s hold on the territories permanent — it will mean the de facto annexation of a huge Arab population and will force a decision about their status. In Israel proper, the Arab minority represents about a fifth of its 7.2 million citizens, and they have full legal equality. But between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, there are roughly equal numbers of Arabs and Jews today.
Even if Israel annexed only the West Bank, it would more than double its Arab population. With birthrates in the territories far exceeding those of Arabs and Jews within Israel, Jews would soon enough be a minority. This would void the very idea of a Jewish democratic state...
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — If building an Islamic center near ground zero amounts to the epitome of Muslim insensitivity, as critics of the project have claimed, what should the world make of Terry Jones, the evangelical pastor here who plans to memorialize the Sept. 11 attacks with a bonfire of Korans?Read the rest here.
Mr. Jones, 58, a former hotel manager with a red face and a white handlebar mustache, argues that as an American Christian he has a right to burn Islam’s sacred book because “it’s full of lies.” And in another era, he might have been easily ignored, as he was last year when he posted a sign at his church declaring “Islam is of the devil.”
But now the global spotlight has shifted. With the debate in New York putting religious tensions front and center, Mr. Jones has suddenly attracted thousands of fans and critics on Facebook, while around the world he is being presented as a symbol of American anti-Islamic sentiment.
Muslim leaders in several countries, including Egypt and Indonesia, have formally condemned him and his church, the Dove World Outreach Center.
Wishing the joy of the Feast to all our brothers and sisters on the Traditional Calendar.
SYOSSET, NY (OCA) - On Thursday and Friday, August 26-27, 2010, His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah, several members of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America, and advisers met at the Chancery here to begin a series of broader discussions and reflections within the Orthodox Church in America regarding our participation in the Episcopal Assembly process.Read he rest here.
Today is the feast of St. Monica and the name day of my paternal grandmother (1906-1992) whom I miss greatly. May her memory be eternal!
Having shed much of his dignity, core convictions and reputation for straight talk, Senator John McCain won his primary on Tuesday against the flat-earth wing of his party. Now McCain can go search for his lost character, which was last on display late in his 2008 campaign for president.Read the rest here.
Remember the moment: a woman with matted hair and a shaky voice rose to express her doubts about Barack Obama. “I have read about him,” she said, “and he’s not — he’s an Arab.”
McCain was quick to knock down the lie. “No, ma’am,” he said, “he’s a decent family man, a citizen.”
That ill-informed woman — her head stuffed with fabrications that could be disproved by a pre-schooler — now makes up a representative third or more of the Republican party. It’s not just that 46 percent of Republicans believe the lie that Obama is a Muslim, or that 27 percent in the party doubt that the president of the United States is a citizen. But fully half of them believe falsely that the big bailout of banks and insurance companies under TARP was enacted by Obama, and not by President Bush.
Take a look at Tuesday night’s box score in the baseball game between New York and Toronto. The Yankees won, 11-5. Now look at the weather summary, showing a high of 71 for New York. The score and temperature are not subject to debate.
Yet a president’s birthday or whether he was even in the White House on the day TARP was passed are apparently open questions. A growing segment of the party poised to take control of Congress has bought into denial of the basic truths of Barack Obama’s life. What’s more, this astonishing level of willful ignorance has come about largely by design, and has been aided by a press afraid to call out the primary architects of the lies.
Russian Nuns of the Great Schema. I have seen few photos of Schema Nuns and have no recollection of seeing this many in one picture. (Click on the pic for full size.)So the "summer of recovery" swelters on, with Democrats sun-blistered, pestered by bottle flies, sand in their swimsuits, water in their ears. Jobless claims increase, Republicans lead the generic congressional ballot, and George W. Bush is six points more popular than President Obama in "front-line" Democratic districts that are most vulnerable to a Republican takeover. Still, Democrats hug the hope that Obama is really the liberal Ronald Reagan -- but without wit, humor, an explainable ideology or an effective economic plan. Other than that, the resemblance is uncanny.Source
Yet the Republican Party suffers its own difficulty -- an untested ideology at the core of its appeal.
In the normal course of events, political movements begin as intellectual arguments, often conducted for years in serious books and journals. To study the Tea Party movement, future scholars will sift through the collected tweets of Sarah Palin. Without a history of clarifying, refining debates, Republicans need to ask three questions of candidates rising on the Tea Party wave:
First, do you believe that Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional? This seems to be the unguarded view of Colorado Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ken Buck and other Tea Party advocates of "constitutionalism." It reflects a conviction that the federal government has only those powers specifically enumerated in the Constitution -- which doesn't mention retirement insurance or health care.
This view is logically consistent -- as well as historically uninformed, morally irresponsible and politically disastrous. The Constitution, in contrast to the Articles of Confederation, granted broad power to the federal government to impose taxes and spend funds to "provide for . . . the general welfare" -- at least if Alexander Hamilton and a number of Supreme Court rulings are to be believed. In practice, Social Security abolition would push perhaps 13 million elderly Americans into destitution, blurring the line between conservative idealism and Social Darwinism.
This approach undermines a large conservative achievement. Despite early misgivings about Social Security and the Civil Rights Act, Ronald Reagan moved Republicans past Alf Landon's resistance to the New Deal and Barry Goldwater's opposition to federal civil rights law, focusing instead on economic growth and national strength. A consistent "constitutionalism" would entangle Republicans in an endless, unfolding political gaffe -- opposing, in moments of candor, unemployment insurance, the minimum wage, the federal highway system and the desegregation of lunch counters.
A second question of Tea Party candidates: Do you believe that American identity is undermined by immigration? An internal debate has broken out on this issue among Tea Party favorites. Tom Tancredo, running for Colorado governor, raises the prospect of bombing Mecca, urges the president to return to his Kenyan "homeland" and calls Miami a "Third World country" -- managing to offend people on four continents. Dick Armey of FreedomWorks appropriately criticizes Tancredo's "harsh and uncharitable and mean-spirited attitude on the immigration issue." But the extremes of the movement, during recent debates on birthright citizenship and the Manhattan mosque, seem intent on depicting Hispanics and Muslims as a fifth column.
There is no method more likely to create ethnic resentment and separatism than unfair suspicion. The nativist impulse is the enemy of assimilation. In a nation where minorities now comprise two-fifths of children under 18, Republicans should also understand that tolerating nativism would bring slow political asphyxiation.
Question three: Do you believe that gun rights are relevant to the health-care debate? Nevada Republican U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle raised this issue by asserting that, "If this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies." Far from reflecting the spirit of the Founders (who knew how to deal with the Whiskey Rebellion), the implied resort to political violence is an affectation -- more foolish than frightening. But it is toxic for the GOP to be associated with the armed and juvenile.
Most Americans who identify with the Tea Party movement are understandably concerned about the size and reach of government. Their enthusiasm is a clear Republican advantage. But Tea Party populism is just as clearly incompatible with some conservative and Republican beliefs. It is at odds with Abraham Lincoln's inclusive tone and his conviction that government policies could empower individuals. It is inconsistent with religious teaching on government's responsibility to seek the common good and to care for the weak. It does not reflect a Burkean suspicion of radical social change.
The Democratic political nightmare is now obvious and overwhelming. The Republican challenge is different: building a majority on an unstable, slightly cracked foundation.
A small gathering of 50 or 60 people; roughly 95 percent white, 90 percent male, a few blond-haired kids, average age 45, all nodding in assent as a series of speakers explains that our government is conspiring against us and fabricating massive lies in order to hide its own crimes and frighten us into giving up our constitutional rights and liberties.Read the rest here.
The Tea Party? Minutemen? Birthers? No, “Truthers,” left-wing conspiracy theorists who believe (among other things) that 9/11 was an inside job, that no plane hit the Pentagon, that Ted Olson did not receive a call from his wife, Barbara, shortly before she perished in the crash of Flight 77, that the anthrax scare was also a government hoax (although the anthrax was real and deadly), and that hurricane Katrina was the result of weather manipulation by racists or profiteers or both.
Like many others, I was aware of these theories and aware too that a significant percentage of Americans (about the same percentage that believes President Obama is a Muslim who was born in Kenya) was at least partly persuaded by them. But on Aug. 15 I got an up-close look at the phenomenon when I attended a meeting of Truthers that just happened to be held in Livingston Manor, a small Catskill town about 20 miles from my house.
Social Security just celebrated its 75th birthday. Love it or hate it, it has done its job and should retire. We need a new system, the Personal Security System, which retains Social Security’s best features, scraps the rest, and covers its costs.Read the rest here.
Social Security’s objective -- forcing people to save for retirement -- is legit. Otherwise millions of us would seek handouts in our old age.
But Social Security has also played a central role in the massive, six-decade Ponzi scheme known as U.S. fiscal policy, which transfers ever-larger sums from the young to the old.
In so doing, Uncle Sam has assured successive young contributors that they would have their turn, in retirement, to get back much more than they put in. But all chain letters end, and the U.S.’s is now collapsing.
The letter’s last purchasers -- today’s and tomorrow’s youngsters -- face enormous increases in taxes and cuts in benefits. This fiscal child abuse, which will turn the American dream into a nightmare, is best summarized by the $202 trillion fiscal gap discussed in my last column.
The gap is the present value difference between future federal spending and revenue. Closing this gap via taxes requires doubling every tax we pay, starting now. Such a policy would hurt younger people much more than older ones because wages constitute most of the tax base.
What about cutting defense instead? Sadly, there’s no room there. The defense budget’s 5 percent share of gross domestic product is historically low and is projected to decline to 3 percent by 2020. And the $202 trillion figure already incorporates this huge defense cut.
The 3-Year-Old Vote
Reducing current benefits, most of which go to the elderly, is another option. But such a policy is highly unlikely. The elderly vote and are well-organized, whereas 3-year-olds can neither vote, nor buy Congressmen.
In contrast, cutting future benefits is politically feasible because it hits the young. And that’s where Congress is heading, starting with Social Security. The president’s fiscal commission will probably recommend raising Social Security’s full retirement age to 70 from 67, for those who are now younger than 45. This won’t change the ages at which future retirees can start collecting benefits. It will simply cut by one-fifth what they get.
Fed up with the two main political parties? I am. One party seems to be hell bent on driving off the leftward end of the political spectrum and bankrupting the country with insane programs that can not be afforded whilst telling everyone how to live their lives. The other seems to have fallen under the control of a cabal of neo-con Protestant Evangelical theocrats, and tin foil hat conspiracy kranks. Oh, and it seems they are just as determined to drive the country into bankruptcy in pursuit of their own agenda (endless tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% and empire building in places we have no business being). Both parties have no compunction about trampling constitutional liberties and doing whatever it takes to stay in power. And both have sold their souls to the various special interest lobbies.
