Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Obama In 1998: "I Actually Believe In Redistribution"



Published on Sep 18, 2012 by nick cruz

At an October 19, 1998 conference at Loyola University, Barack Obama spoke against "propaganda" that said government doesn't work and the need to "pool resources and hence facilitate some redistribution because I actually believe in redistribution."

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God, Man & Jerry Brown’s Ignatian Indifference

(Feb 16, 2010)

Our friend Dan Balz did a nice job after he scored a sit-down interview with Jerry Brown, in advance of Crusty’s formal annunciation that he’s running for governor. We were especially intrigued when we read this:

If she wins the GOP nomination, Whitman will have a sizable financial advantage over Brown. She has already put $39 million of her money into the race and could spend $150 million or more by the election in November. Brown can’t compete with that kind of money, but he said of Whitman, “Her money is not kryptonite.”

Asked how he will prepare for that, he offered a lesson from St. Ignatius. He would summon all the “Ignatian indifference” that he could. That is, he added, the idea of eschewing attachments to wealth or glory and preparing “to do the will of God, however it manifests.”

“Here we have the will of the people,” Brown said, “and how it turns out will be fine for me.”

Huh? Wussup with that ?

Was Jerry really saying he’s preparing “to do the will of God?” And if so, how come Balz didn’t make that the lede of his piece? Because if that’s what Jerry is saying – that he is bracing for Meg’s onslaught by preparing “to do the will of God” — then by golly, he’s right in there with Pat Robertson and Rick Warren, isn’t he?

So we called Jerry’s office for some clarification. Brown wouldn’t come to the phone for a quick theological discussion, but spokesman, Sterling Clifford (who sat in on the Balz interview but who was raised Mormon, not Catholic and certainly not Jesuit) said Jerry was trying to explain “Ignatian indifference” as an acceptance of God’s will, which he distinguished from the election, which is a matter of the peoples’ will.

We weren’t convinced.

Wasn’t Jerry saying that in preparing to accept eMeg’s multi-million-dollar attacks, he would be doing God’s will? “Jerry was not saying that,” Clifford said. “He was saying he’s making an effort not to take the personal attacks too seriously.”

When we checked with Balz, he agreed that Brown wasn’t saying he’s preparing to do the will of God but, “That the will of the people is in this case like the will of God — that is, whatever the voters decide he will accept.”

OK, but flashback to 1998. We were there when former Attorney General Dan Lungren got in some trouble talking about the role of God in public life as he launched his campaign for governor.

Is Brown on the verge of doing the same thing? It’s a fair question because Brown’s theology is deeply embedded. He took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience at the Sacred Heart Novitiate in Los Gatos in 1958 where, according to biographer Roger Rapoport, “It seemed to Jerry there was no limit to what you might accomplish if you let go of your personal ambitions and committed your life to the greater glory of God, as his instrument.”

Of course, Brown was released from those vows two years later, when he left the seminary. By then, however, he was ingrained with the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, which were designed by the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) to help “conquer oneself and regulate one’s life and avoid coming to a determination through any inordinate affection.”

Though not a Jesuit priest, as he might have become, Brown has never cast off the doctrine of contemplatio ad amorem – with its belief that the spirit of God can be found everywhere – in chaos and order, intelligence and ignorance, fame and obscurity — and that contemplation and action go hand in hand because being is active.

The same clash of concepts, unity of opposites, battling dualities (think: against Prop 13 and for it, for example) has been a hallmark of Brown’s theology, ontology – not to mention politics — throughout his life, as suggested in his comment to Balz that he would do the will of God and the will of the people at the same time.

It was no accident that the young Jerry was fascinated by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a French Jesuit paleontologist and phenomenologist. About the time Brown was in the seminary, Teilhard was silenced by the Jesuit hierarchy for his attempts to synthesize theology and evolutionary biology. As Brown biographer Richard Rappoport described Teilhard’s theories, he sought “to reconcile humanism and grace, nature and the Cross, prudence and heroism, freedom and obedience.”

It’s not hard to understand why Brown would – then and now — be attracted to a priest who wrote: “Our duty, as men and women, is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation.”

In Jerry time, it was a mere nanosecond from the study of Teilhard to the Tassajara Hot Springs, the Carmel Valley Zen retreat that Brown and his one-time aide de camp Jacques Barzaghi used to visit; to E.F. Schumacher’s “Small is Beautiful” and onward to C.K. Chesterton, who was labeled “The Apostle of Common Sense,” in a book by Dale Ahlquist, published by (drum roll here) Ignatius Press.

It wasn’t coincidence that in his first interview heading toward this election – with Calbuzz back in April of last year — Brown said he is planning to be an “apostle of common sense.” We saw then, an echo of his 1992 Winter Soldier presidential campaign in which he autographed copies of Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense.”

But the phrase – actually the title of Ahlquist’s 2003 book — pays homage to Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), the 300-pound, cigar-smoking English writer, journalist and Catholic convert who labeled common sense “that extinct branch of psychology” and who wrote: “The Bible tells us to love our neighbors and also to love our enemies, probably because they are generally the same people.”

Chesterton, who attacked both socialism and capitalism, who defended the Catholic faith and the common man is just another in the line of thinkers whose ideas seem woven into Brown’s rhetoric.

His thinking seems little changed from the window into his psyche he offered in the 1975 commencement at the University of Santa Clara – the Jesuit school he had attended for a year before joining the seminary. In part of that speech, Brown reached back to the Father Teilhard de Chardin who, he said:

“…saw that there was an evolution of the mind as well as the body. The evolution of the spirit was bringing the divergence of this planet together, not only the nuclear problems, the problem of learning to live with people who are very different, the problem of one generation accepting the different lifestyle, of accepting one another. I think we can very well think of the philosophy that all diversity is being converged toward a greater unit. That’s the way I see things and it won’t be done unless each one of us can do this for ourselves so that together we can do what none of us can do separately.”

His spokespeople can deny it, but Jerry Brown has always seemed to see himself as an instrument of God’s will and an instrument of the people’s will, simultaneously. He has never had any interest in imposing his religious beliefs on others but to assert that he is not shaped and driven by his Jesuitical ontology is to deny the obvious.

Brown’s first guru was not Baba Ram Dass, who published “Be Here Now” in 1971, but his forerunner — Ignatius — who told Jerry and all the other would-be keepers of the flame and sword from the 16th Century onward: “Age quod agis” – “Do what you are doing.”


Source

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In U.S., workplace religious freedom legislation finds traction at local level

Sep. 13, 2012 Silver Spring, Maryland, United States

Elizabeth Lechleitner/ANN

Seventh-day Adventist religious liberty advocates say a new bill banning workplace religious discrimination in the U.S. state of California offers more protection for church members whose jobs are jeopardized by Sabbath observance.

The bill, signed into law last week by California Governor Jerry Brown, clarifies an employer’s responsibility to accommodate the religious beliefs and practices of employees under the state’s Fair Employment and Housing Act. Religious dress and grooming – such as turbans, hijabs and beards – now fall under protections granted by the legislation.

The bill, called AB 1964, also prevents employers from keeping visibly religious employees in back offices or basements.

“No longer will it be legal to segregate a worker from public view because their appearance did not fit a corporate image,” California Assemblywoman Mariko Yamada (D-Davis) said in a press release from the 8th District she represents.

Yamada said her bill responds to changing demographics in California. Growing Sikh and Muslim communities in the state and nationwide have contributed to a recent uptick in workplace discrimination cases, the press release said. Last year alone, California employers faced more than 500 such cases.

For Adventist supporters, the bill also extends rights to employees whose religious expression, while perhaps less tangible, is no less intrinsic.

The bill sends a “clear signal” to companies regarding their obligations to religious employees, said Alan J. Reinach, director of the Church State Council, a religious liberty ministry of the Adventist Church’s Pacific Union Conference, based in Westlake Village, California.

“Hopefully, fewer Californians will lose their jobs, and Seventh-day Adventists will be more secure in their right to keep holy the Sabbath day,” Reinach said.

Passage of AB 1964, an homage to the federal Civil Rights Act, makes California the third state in the union to legislate so-called workplace religious freedom. Previously, New York and Oregon passed laws granting similar provisions.

Adventist religious liberty advocates have worked for years with an interfaith coalition to secure a workplace religious freedom act at the national level, but waning Congressional interest and disagreement over the scope of such legislation has tempered enthusiasm.

Dwayne Leslie, director of Legislative Affairs for the Seventh-day Adventist world church, says the California bill signals a grassroots approach to finding traction for workplace religious liberty protections.

“This is a big step forward for all people of faith,” Leslie said.

“I commend them for pushing for this to get it done in California, and I’m hopeful that this will happen in other states,” he added.

AB 1964 goes into effect on January 1, 2013.


Source: © Adventist News Network

Source

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Monday, September 17, 2012

FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE

BY HENDRIK HERTZBERG
SEPTEMBER 24, 2012


If you happen to be a Republican campaign operative and/or a Fox News Channel chat host, that unexpectedly joyful Convention in Charlotte the other week made for glum viewing. One of the few points of light on the right was the discovery, just as the festivities were getting under way, that the Democrats had drafted a platform that—like George Washington’s farewell address, Abraham Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech, and the Constitution of the United States—does not mention God by name. Hallelujah!

According to Media Matters, Fox News managed to alert its viewers to this deplorable development twenty-two times within the first sixteen hours after the Convention’s opening session. Fox’s Bret Baier seized on a statement issued by David Silverman, the president of an organization called American Atheists, splashing it across the screen in big bold caps:


WE ARE OBVIOUSLY HAPPY THAT THE DEMOCRATS ARE TAKING THESE POSITIVE STEPS. WE ARE LOOKING FOR THE INCLUSION OF EVERYONE AND WE ARE HOPEFUL THAT THAT INCLUSION WILL CONTINUE TO THE POINT THAT WE CAN DEPEND ON MR. OBAMA TO REPEAL THE FAITH BASED INITIATIVES AND REINFORCE THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE.

For different reasons, both Mr. Silverman and Fox News were hopeful that they could “depend on Mr. Obama.” But Mr. Obama declined to coöperate. Soon, the word came down from the White House, one “God” was pencilled in, and the delegates saw that it was good. (The Democratic Party now officially regards “potential” as “God-given.”) Anyway, on closer inspection, the platform turned out to be anything but a paean to irreligion. Indeed, you didn’t have to be a follower of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens to find the plank entitled “Faith” a little cloying:


Faith has always been a central part of the American story, and it has been a driving force of progress and justice throughout our history. We know that our nation, our communities, and our lives are made vastly stronger and richer by faith and the countless acts of justice and mercy it inspires. Faith-based organizations will always be critical allies in meeting the challenges that face our nation and our world—from domestic and global poverty to climate change and human trafficking. People of faith and religious organizations do amazing work . . .

And so on.

Nevertheless, by the time the Democrats were streaming out of Charlotte the Fox folks had mentioned the aforementioned non-mention eighty-four times. “I think it’s rather peculiar,” Paul Ryan, the Vice-Presidential nominee, said in one segment. “There sure is a lot of mention of government, and so I guess I would just put the onus of the burden on them to answer why they did all of these purges of God.” Ryan’s running mate, for his part, had previously judged it unwise to cast aspersions on other people’s religious beliefs. A few days later, though, having experienced a post-Conventions dip in the polls, Mitt Romney decided what the hell.

Taking a page from the playbook of George H. W. Bush (who, nice guy and relative moderate though he was, based the non-Willie Horton half of his successful 1988 campaign on the fantasy that his opponent despised the flag and the Pledge of Allegiance to it), Romney led a Virginia crowd in reciting the Pledge. “That pledge says ‘under God,’ ” the Republican standard-bearer thundered, as Pat Robertson, the Christianist broadcaster and onetime (also 1988) Presidential candidate, stood behind him, clapping. “I will not take God out of the name of our platform,” Romney went on, a bit clumsily. “I will not take God off our coins. And I will not take God out of my heart!”

As campaign promises go, these should be easy to keep. First, given that President Obama had just put God’s name into his platform, Governor Romney would be foolish to take it out of his. Second, the “In God We Trust” motto has been on coins ever since 1864, when James Pollock, an old boarding-house chum of President Lincoln’s, whom Lincoln had installed as director of the Mint, put it there. Although Lincoln was what many in the 2012 G.O.P. would deride as a RINO (he was for expanding voter eligibility, not suppressing it, and he was a big spender on infrastructure projects, especially high-speed rail), he retains some residual respect in the party he founded. Third, the heart. With politicians, that’s a gimme.

God had been all over the place in Tampa, where Romney’s introducer, Senator Marco Rubio, declared that “faith in our Creator is the most important American value of them all.” (America’s founders weren’t so sure. As they put it, “No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”) The deity was not entirely absent in Charlotte, though. One of His deputies there was Sister Simone Campbell, the leader of the recent Nuns on the Bus tour, which highlighted the gap between the Romney-endorsed Paul Ryan budget and Roman Catholic social teaching; her speech praised the Affordable Care Act. Another was New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who had capped his anti-Obamacare politicking by maneuvering himself into delivering the closing benediction at the Republican Convention. Having him do the same for the Democrats was good strategy for prelate and Party alike, turning down the heat on both.

It must be said, however, that Dolan’s prayers were a trifle tougher on the Dems than on the Reps when it came to his (if not His) big priorities, abortion and gay marriage. Regarding the former, in Tampa Dolan merely called upon God to confer blessings on “those yet to be born and on those who are about to see you at the end of this life” and referred in passing to “the sacred and inalienable gift of life.” In Charlotte, he was more pointed:


Thus do we praise you for the gift of life. Grant us the courage to defend it, life, without which no other rights are secure. We ask your benediction on those waiting to be born, that they may be welcomed and protected.

He gave marriage equality a miss in Tampa. In Charlotte, though:


Show us anew that happiness is found only in respecting the laws of nature and of nature’s God. Empower us with your grace so that we might resist the temptation to replace the moral law with idols of our own making, or to remake those institutions you have given us for the nurturing of life and community.

It was not hard to guess what idol, and what institution, the Cardinal had in mind. On the other hand, his reference to “nature and nature’s God” was not so clear. The phrase was there to echo the Declaration of Independence. But Dolan must know that it is pure Deism—Jeffersonian code words for a non-supernatural God, a God who creates the universe and its laws and leaves the rest up to us. Could it be that we were witnessing an unheard-of political phenomenon, a dog whistle to voters who, whether or not they believe in a rights-endowing Creator, have their doubts about the sort of deity who begets sons, writes books, performs miracles, and determines the outcome of football games? Probably not. That God won’t hunt.

ILLUSTRATION: TOM BACHTELL


Source: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2012/09/24/120924taco_talk_hertzberg#ixzz26nLjJmPT


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Can Truth and Diplomacy Be Reconciled?

July 13, 2012
The latest Courtyard of the Gentiles gathering sought a balance between the two concepts in an increasingly relativistic culture.

Rome—The “Courtyard of the Gentiles” is an initiative of the Pontifical Council for Culture to promote dialogue between believers and non-believers, the result of a suggestion that Benedict XVI offered to the Roman Curia on the occasion of his Christmas greetings in 2009.

The most recent of these gatherings was held on June 26, at the Italian Embassy to the Holy See, housed at Palazzo Borromeo, a stately and historic mansion originally owned by the noble household of the Borromeos, among whose members there is a famous saint, San Carlo Borromeo (1538-1584). He was a leading figure during the Counter-Reformation and was responsible for significant reforms in the Catholic Church, following the Council of Trent and the implementation of its decrees.

As one can already and easily guess from the meeting’s title, “Diplomacy and Truth,” the event saw not only the participation of several cardinals and churchmen, but also, for the first time at a Courtyard of the Gentiles gathering, senior representatives of the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See and the Italian Republic. The possibility of reconciling diplomacy and truth, which are generally thought to be poles apart, was under the spotlight.

Among the keynote speakers were Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue; the US ambassador to the Holy See, Miguel Humberto Diaz; the ambassador of Morocco to Italy, Hassan Abouyoub; Stefano Folli, editorialist for the Italian business daily Il Sole 24 Ore; and Hon. Gianni De Michelis, president of Ipalmo, an institute dedicated to improving Italy’s relations with Africa, Latin America, and the Middle and Far East.

“I believe that the Courtyard of the Gentiles is the most appropriate forum to discuss truth and diplomacy, precisely because it is a natural environment for dialogue,” said the Italian Ambassador to the Holy See, Francesco Maria Greco, introducing the proceedings over which he presided with the president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi. “And because diplomacy is no longer the art of reporting, but much more directly the art of tackling cultural, ideological, geopolitical, and geoeconomic diversity, I believe that in a forum such as the Courtyard of the Gentiles, we can address this dialogue, in the literal sense of a word that breaks through the moat of the lack of communication.”

Then the floor was taken by Cardinal Ravasi. “We have to say that truth is one of the major categories of human communication at all levels,” said the cardinal. “It’s true that diplomacy, many times, resorts to alternative routes, but we must also recognize [that diplomacy needs] a virtue that is essential also in communication: prudence, discretion, undertone. Here, in light of this we can also recognize that those two words, diplomacy and truth, are not so antithetical to each other after all.”

This, then, is the central question of the Courtyard of the Gentiles gathering: is it possible to reconcile truth and diplomacy? The answer is yes, if diplomats identify human nature and natural law as the foundation of a common truth, recovering a classical conception of truth that opposes the current subjectivism.

And, according to Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the Vatican’s former secretary for Relations with States, it is precisely because of this objective, not subjective, conception that “an ambassador who tells lies, rarely does he reach his/her goal.” Much less so today, since in an increasingly globalized world information is by now relayed in real time, with diplomacy and transparency increasingly forced to go hand-in-hand.

This phenomenon has accelerated with the end of World War II, when “the leaders of nations got convinced of the need for diplomacy to be put at the service of a truth that would become the yardstick of the particular national truths.” On the other hand, Cardinal Tauran noted, for a diplomat to best fulfill his mandate, won’t he have to win the confidence of his counterparts? “And it’s right here that truth comes into the picture,” the cardinal said. Ultimately “who is the good diplomat? It’s the one who can remain silent in several languages.” Unsurprisingly, he then wound up his speech by quoting the diplomat par excellence, the Prince de Talleyrand, who used to say: “There is something more terrible than slander—truth.”

US Ambassador Diaz, almost as an unwitting representative of the “secular” front at the debate, took up the argument of natural law as the common ground between diplomacy and truth.

When, “for example, Secretary of State Clinton says that we Americans strongly support democracy,” it is not because “we want the other countries to be like us, but because we want all peoples to enjoy the constant protection of their natural rights, to which they are entitled regardless of whether they were born in Tallahassee or Tehran,” Diaz said. What is needed, he went on, is the building of bridges between truth and diplomacy, in order to deepen the bond of interdependence and friendship among peoples and nations of the world.

“What Pope Benedict XVI proclaims in his encyclical Caritas in Veritate about the light of reason and the role of reason in the proper exercise of love can be applied mutatis mutandis to the relationship between truth and diplomacy,” he said. “Diplomacy needs truth and the hand of reason not to lapse into mere self-centered human instrumentality. Diplomacy needs truth to foster transparent debates and authentic processes of community building.”

Ambassador Diaz again quoted the Holy Father’s encyclical, “Truth, in fact, is logos which creates dia-logos and hence communication and communion.” For without truth, the Pope contends, “charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love.”

As the meeting concluded, Cardinal Ravasi extended an invitation to the next session of the Courtyard of the Gentiles, to be held in Stockholm September 13-14 in conjunction with the Swedish Embassy to the Holy See and focusing on the topic of faith-science interaction.

Source
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Young Illegal Immigrants May Get Driver's Licenses

By GOSIA WOZNIACKA Associated Press
FRESNO, Calif. September 15, 2012 (AP)

When 17-year-old Alondra Esquivel needs to get from her rural central California home to classes at Fresno State University 20 miles away, she must rely on rides from her relatives or her boyfriend.

Most Californians her age can drive. But Esquivel, a college freshman, was brought illegally to the United States from Mexico when she was 7. And California has denied driving privileges to immigrants lacking legal status since 1993.

"Without a license ... I have to depend on others to do the basic things," said Esquivel, who lives in rural Parlier, Calif., has classes at the college four times a week in Fresno. "It's a big inconvenience."

But Esquivel soon could get driving privileges: She is one of an estimated million eligible for a new federal program that temporarily defers deportation and grants work permits to people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children. California has the largest number of potential applicants.

The new immigration policy has brought to the forefront the long-running and bitter debate over whether illegal immigrants should have access to driver's licenses. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said that each state could determine whether to issue licenses or extend other benefits to young immigrants who qualify for the deferred status.




INN - La Jornada



Published on Aug 13, 2012 by IgnatianNewsNetwork

La Jornada, or the Journey, was a 5-week long excursion through the Migration Corridor, led by a group of 7 Jesuits. The intent of the program was to better understand, but not replace, the authentic experiences of migrant workers. INN met up with the group on their last day of the journey, in Nogales, Sonora, México.
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Sunday, September 16, 2012

A Comedian and a Cardinal Open Up on Spirituality


By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

The comedian Stephen Colbert and Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York bantered onstage Friday night before 3,000 cheering, stomping, chanting students at Fordham University, in what might have been the most successful Roman Catholic youth evangelization event since Pope John Paul II last appeared at World Youth Day.

The evening was billed as an opportunity to hear two Catholic celebrities discuss how joy and humor infuse their spiritual lives. They both delivered, with surprises and zingers that began the moment the two walked onstage. Mr. Colbert went to shake Cardinal Dolan’s hand, but the cardinal took Mr. Colbert’s hand and kissed it — a disarming role reversal for a big prelate with a big job and a big ring.

Cardinal Dolan was introduced as a man who might one day be elected pope, to which he said, “If I am elected pope, which is probably the greatest gag all evening, I’ll be Stephen III.”

The event would not have happened without its moderator, the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest and prolific author who has made it his mission to remind Catholics that there is no contradiction between faithful and funny. His latest book is “Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life.”

Father Martin said in an interview earlier this week that the idea came from two young theology professors at Fordham. The university’s president, the Rev. Joseph M. McShane, invited Cardinal Dolan to participate, and he readily accepted. Father Martin, who has made enough appearances on “The Colbert Report” on Comedy Central to earn the title “official chaplain,” invited Mr. Colbert.

The event was announced with much fanfare by Fordham, and CNN was considering broadcasting it, Father Martin said. But then the university announced that it was closed to the media, without any explanation. Three thousand students and faculty members filled the Rose Hill Gymnasium, stomping on the bleachers, doing the wave and chanting “Ste-PHEN” like the revved-up audiences for Mr. Colbert’s studio show.

Some journalists were admitted as guests, and the cone of silence was shattered when many students and an editor from the Catholic magazine Commonweal sent out live posts on Twitter narrating the most memorable one-liners.

Mr. Colbert shed his character for the evening and offered several sincere insights into how he manages to remain a faithful Catholic while making fun of his own religion and most others.

“Are there flaws in the church?” Mr. Colbert said, “Absolutely. But is there great beauty in the church? Absolutely.”

He said he did not make jokes about the sacraments, or put a picture of the crucifixion on screen. But he said he liked to poke fun at the use and misuse of religion, especially in politics. “Then I’m not talking about Christ,” he said, “I’m talking about Christ as cudgel.”

Mr. Colbert is the youngest of 11 children, raised by Catholic parents who both attended Catholic colleges. His father and two of his brothers died in a plane crash when Mr. Colbert was 10. He said that after the funeral, in the limousine on the way home, one of his sisters made another sister laugh so hard that she fell on the floor. At that moment, Mr. Colbert said he resolved that he wanted to be able to make someone laugh that hard.

He is raising his children as Catholics, and he teaches Sunday school at his parish in New Jersey. “The real reason I remain a Catholic is what the church gives me, which is love,” he said.

Cardinal Dolan introduced Mr. Colbert’s wife, Evelyn, who was sitting in the audience, and brought her up to the stage. The cardinal put his arm around her and gave her a kiss on the cheek, and when Mr. Colbert feigned offense, the cardinal said, in a remark that brought down the house, “I can kiss your wife. You can’t kiss mine.”

Mr. Colbert used his time onstage with the cardinal to air his complaints about the new English translation of the Mass, which was just introduced in American parishes this year.

“Consubstantial!” Mr. Colbert exclaimed, using a particularly cumbersome word that is now recited in the Nicene Creed. “It’s the creed! It’s not the SAT prep.”

The audience sent in questions by Twitter and e-mail, which Father Martin pitched to the two men. Among them: “I am considering the priesthood. Would it be prudent to avoid dating?”

Cardinal Dolan responded that, on the contrary, “it’s good” to date, partly to discern whether the celibate life of a priest is what you want. Then he added, “By the way, let me give you the phone numbers of my nieces.”

Mr. Colbert said, “It’s actually a great pickup line: I’m seriously considering the priesthood. You can change my mind.”

Another question was even more pointed: “So many Christian leaders spread hatred, especially of homosexuals. How can you maintain your joy?”

Cardinal Dolan responded with two meandering anecdotes — one about having met this week with Muslim leaders, and another about encountering demonstrators outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

But Mr. Colbert’s response was quick and unequivocal. “If someone spreads hate,” he said, “then they’re not your religious leader.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: September 15, 2012

An earlier version of this article misidentified the magazine whose editor sent out live Twitter posts from the event. It is Commonweal, not the Jesuit weekly America.


Source

Interpreting Media NLP



Uploaded by tritestatic on Nov 6, 2009
Originally created and posted by Jonathan (adampants2007 and adampants2008 on youtube). Jonathan shares his lessons from the creative spirit, and very clearly explains much about our reality, and how it works. Through the love of creative spirit,we will be reconnected to ourselves as life, even through all this manipulation.

This video demonstrates the neuro lingusitic pogramming utilized by Fox News anchor Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes during an interview with Kevin Barrett.




Official: No Marines in Libya at time of Benghazi attack

Photo by: Ibrahim Alaguri

Libyans gather at the gutted U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, after an attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Ibrahim Alaguri)


U.S. ambassador and three others killed by militants









By Kristina Wong

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The Washington Times



Saturday, September 15, 2012








No U.S. Marines were in Libya when protesters stormed a diplomatic mission in the eastern city of Benghazi and killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans late Tuesday, a senior Obama administration official said Saturday.


The official’s comments were intended to correct previous statements by administration officials who said a small contingent of Marines was stationed at State Department facilities in the North African nation.

The U.S. diplomatic compound breached Tuesday by Libyan protesters in Benghazi had a relatively light security posture compared to diplomatic facilities in other conflict zones.

Marines are guarding diplomatic facilities in Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen, Defense Press Secretary George Little told reporters Thursday.

“The State Department has the lead for embassy security around the world. Naturally, if they ask for our advice in given situations, we’ll offer it up, no question about it,” Mr. Little said in response to a question about who plans security at embassies and diplomatic facilities.

Part of the reason Marines were not stationed at the Benghazi compound is that it is not an embassy or consulate, but a “diplomatic mission,” officials said.

In some conflict zones, State Department officials work in buildings other than embassies or consulates in order to conduct “expeditionary diplomacy” — establishing an initial presence and building a relationship with locals, as in post-revolution Libya, officials said.

Senior administration officials described the facility in Benghazi as an “interim” one that the State Department had acquired before the fall of dictator Moammar Gadhafi, consisting of a main building and several ancillary buildings, as well as an annex farther away.

The Pentagon has deployed a 50-man Marine platoon to the Libyan capital of Tripoli to protect U.S. citizens and the embassy.

“If called upon, we would obviously provide support to our State Department colleagues to provide additional security at embassies,” Mr. Little said.



Source: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/sep/15/official-no-marines-libya-time-benghazi-attack/#ixzz26fIwsumI

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On the Brink of War: Armada of U.S. and British Naval Power is Missing in the Gulf

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2012


Sean Rayment is reporting for the UK's Telegraph:

Battleships, aircraft carriers, minesweepers and submarines from 25 nations are converging on the strategically important Strait of Hormuz in an unprecedented show of force as Israel and Iran move towards the brink of war.

Western leaders are convinced that Iran will retaliate to any attack by attempting to mine or blockade the shipping lane through which passes around 18 million barrels of oil every day, approximately 35 per cent of the world’s petroleum traded by sea.

A blockade would have a catastrophic effect on the fragile economies of Britain, Europe the United States and Japan, all of which rely heavily on oil and gas supplies from the Gulf.
The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most congested international waterways. It is only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point and is bordered by the Iranian coast to the north and the United Arab Emirates to the south.

Can Iran close the Strait of Hormuz?

This is what I reported in the EPJ Daily Alert in November 2010:
This afternoon I attended a meeting where the speaker was Capitan Jeffrey Kline. Kline is the Program Director, Maritime Defense and Security Research Programs, Naval Postgraduate School. He is an Adjunct Professor at the Naval War College where he teaches, "Joint Analysis for the Warfare Commander".

While his speech was about piracy on the high seas, I took the opportunity after his speech to ask him about the Strait of Hormuz. The strait is a very strategically important waterway between the Gulf of Oman in the southeast and the Persian Gulf. A lot of oil passes through the straight, 20% of all world oil trade. You can't spend more than 5 minutes with an oil trader after bringing up the possibility of war with Iran before talk turns to the closure of the Strait.

There are many, many opinions as to the whether the strait can be closed. I even heard Boone Pickens (Who knows more about oil than any other man I have met) say at a Michael Milken Conference that he couldn't imagine that the strait could be closed, given that at its narrowest point, the traffic lanes are 6 miles wide.

I thought I would ask Kline, who might have a pretty damn good idea if the Straight could be closed by Iran. His answer was it could. When I asked him how long it would take, he said 3 or 4 days for Iran to position ships and lay mines. He did say that the blockade could eventually be broken, but it would depend upon international co-operation and that it would take "some time". He said that Iran has missiles onshore aimed at the strait that would have to be taken out, and that Iran had other sophisticated equipment in the area including drones that could listen in on ship communications. He said ship mine sweeping can also get "very tricky".


I am not sure how much of Kline's analysis holds up if there is already a major joint U.S.-U.K. presence in the area. My guess this would make the operation more difficult, but notice Kline did mention that Iran has drones that can listen to ship communications. Thus, if Iran is capable of knowing where U.S. and U.K. ships are presumably they will have limited ability to place some mines.


Source

Peru university ordered to change name


Posted: August 19, 2012 at 4:49 a.m.

Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani of Peru, shown in 1997, is a member of Opus Dei, an ultraconservative church order, who liberal Catholics at Pontifical Catholic University in Lima say wants to quash the school’s teachings.


To its critics in the church, the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru is not deserving of its name. It has spurned the pontiff, they say. It is far from Roman Catholic orthodoxy, they argue. In their minds, the school ought to be called something else entirely.



Source


Related:


Catholic Church and University in Peru Fight Over Name

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/world/americas/catholic-church-and-university-in-peru-fight-over-name.html?pagewanted=all



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Hilde Lee: The scoop on cornflakes

About last week’s column, I already have been asked: Didn’t I leave something out? What about corn flakes?

No, I didn’t leave out corn flakes in my review of corn uses, as I considered its story worthy of its own column. It is a tribute to American ingenuity and invention.

The story starts about brooms. At one time, household brooms were manufactured from the “broomcorn.” These brooms were strong, but very flexible — perfect for sweeping floors.

In the mid-1800s, Will Kellogg, a young teenager living in Connecticut, sold these brooms after school. His family had become members of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, after the death of their young daughter as a result of medical incompetence.

Upon hearing about the medical theories of two Adventist leaders, Elder White and Sister Ellen White, in Battle Creek, Mich., the Kelloggs sold their broomcorn farm in Connecticut and moved to Battle Creek. They were very interested in the healing practices of the Adventists. To provide a living for themselves and their two boys, the Kelloggs reopened their broom factory.

One of the members of the Adventist group, Ellen White, adopted the pure-food ideas of Sylvester Graham of Massachusetts, inventor of the Graham cracker. During the holiday season in 1865, she became convinced that the Adventists, who frequently were troubled with dyspepsia, should be treated in a sanitarium of their own. She helped establish a health facility in Battle Creek. The Seventh-Day Adventists named John Harvey Kellogg as director of the facility, but first sent him to New York to receive medical training.

While studying medicine in New York, Kellogg breakfasted daily on seven graham crackers and an apple. Once a week, he added coconut to this diet and occasionally also potatoes and oatmeal. He became interested in developing healthy diets for the patients he eventually was to treat on his return to Battle Creek. While in New York, he put together a workable formula for a ready-to-eat cereal and prepared his first health food, which he called Granola.

In 1876, Dr. Kellogg, having returned to the Battle Creek Health Sanitarium, introduced the idea of cold cereals for breakfast.

John Harvey Kellogg claimed that the idea of flaking wheat by compressing it came to him in a dream. The rollers already in use for making Granola were set to work to experiment with boiled wheat. One evening, the wheat was left too long after boiling, but the brothers rolled it anyway. They found that each wheat berry turned into an elongated thin flake.

The two brothers baked the flakes, which turned crisp. Will Kellogg argued that the flakes, which looked rather odd, should not be ground into Granola, but left whole.

Wheat flakes began to be marketed to the public and were advertised as a breakfast health food. Three years after discovering the flaking technique, Will Kellogg began to experiment with corn instead of wheat. The first corn flakes were thick, flavorless and unpopular. It became known as “horse food.” However, gradually the process was improved until thin, crisp cornflakes were the result. The Kellogg “grain-tempering” process was patented in 1894.

John Kellogg’s theories of medical practice were ahead of his time. He conceived of many of our modern ideas about nutrition, physiology and fresh air. Under John Kellogg, the Battle Creek Sanitarium became one of the largest, richest and most well-respected hospitals in the United States. John Kellogg wrote extensively about his philosophy about food and exercise in the curing of disease.

Thirty years after Dr. Kellogg started marketing cornflakes, his brother, Will —W.K. Kellogg — founded the Kellogg Company. He had become frustrated with patent infringements of his brother’s cereals and the commercial success of rival health food producers. He formed the Kellogg Company to mass-produce and expand the market for his brother’s cereals. Today, Kellogg is a giant food company producing all types of ready-to-eat cereals and is still heavily promoting the original cornflakes.

As the late Paul Harvey would have said, “And, that’s the rest of the corn story.”

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