Stones Cry Out

The violence has continued to increase, with no end in sight. 

An outburst of gunfire rattled the city during the weekend, with at least nine people killed in 36 separate acts of violence.

[…]

They included gang shootings, drive-by attacks, and even one case in which someone used an AK-47 to shoot up a plumbing supply store.

I think that if either Clinton or Obama are elected President, we need a timetable for our troops to pull out of Mosul Chicago.

[tags]Chicago,Hillary Clinton,Barack Obama,Iraq[/tags]

• Claude looks at Flew.
• Contra the politics of the freak show.
• Taking a bath.
• Un-necessary compartmentalization? See for example: this book
• A lesson from St. Isaac the Syrian.
• A view from Chernobyl.

Rebecca (blogging wonderfully here) and other Christian bloggers often cite their favorite hymns. This isn’t exactly “my favorite” but it was exemplary of the Bridegroom service tonight. Tonight’s service focused on the woman, a prostitute “a filthy woman” who poured expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet and then washed them clean with her hair and tears. Judas, planning his betrayal and who watched (and stole?) from the communal funds for Jesus and his followers, was mostly affected/mindful of the expense of the myrrh being poured out. This is then put into the context of our lives during the hymn. The prostitute herself is exalted in hymn and liturgy as “equal to the Myrrh bearing women” who first discover the empty tomb during the Paschal dawn.

Oddly enough tonight’s service is actually Wednesday morning’s Matin service. So the readings are “screwed up”, as it were. We read the Tuesday gospel, but the Wednesday morning matins (morning service) on Wednesday night. Apparently this was done to get the “meat” and the best of the Holy week services translated from the Monastic tradition into the lay busy schedule of work and life. Monks devote substantially more time to their services … these services are somewhat shortened … and the Matins services are read/chanted/sung in the slot normally assigned to Vespers (evening) services because they are better attended. The “Chant” in the below is done by readers (Cantors in the West) and is Psalm 150 just preceding this the chanters have read/sung 148 and 149. In the following the choir leads the people in singing the “sung” portion.

Chanted:

Praise God in His saints,
praise Him in the expanse of His power.

Praise Him for His mighty acts,
praise Him for His infinite greatness.

Sung (Actually a sort of melodic chant to one of 8 the “standard” melodies):

A harlot recognized you as God, O Son of the virgin.
With tears equal to her past deeds, she besought You weeping:
loose my debt as I have loosed my hair.
Love the woman who, though justly hated, loves You.
Then with the publicans will I proclaim You,
benefactor and Lover of mankind.

Chanted:

Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet,
praise Him with psaltery and harp.

Sung:

The harlot mingled precious myrrh with her tears.
She poured it on Your most pure feet and kissed them. At once You justified her.
You suffered for our sakes:
forgive us also, and save us.

Chanted:

Praise Him with drum and dancing,
praise Him with strings and bells.

Sung:

As the sinful woman was bringing her offering of myrrh,
the disciple was scheming with lawless men.
She rejoiced in pouring out her precious gift.
He hastened to sell the precious One.
She recognized the Master, but Judas parted from Him.
She was set free, but Judas was enslaved to the enemy.
How terrible is slothfulnessl
How great her repentance! O Savior,
You suffered for our sakes:
grant us also repentance, and save us.

Chanted:

Praise Him with well-tuned cymbals,
praise Him with cymbals of victory!
Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!

Sung:

O, the wretchedness of Judas!
He saw the harlot kiss the footsteps of Christ,
but deceitfully he contemplated the kiss of betrayal.
She loosed her hair while he bound himself with wrath.
He offered the stench of wickedness instead of myrrh,
for envy cannot distinguish value.
O, the wretchedness of Judas!
Deliver our souls from this, 0 God.

Chanted:

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,

Sung:

The sinful woman ran to buy the precious myrrh with which to anoint her Savior.
She cried to the merchant: Give me myrrh,
that I may anoint Him who has cleansed all my sins.
The woman who was engulfed in sin found in You a haven of salvation.
She poured out myrrh with her tears and cried to You:
Behold the One who brings repentance to sinners!
Rescue me from the tempest of sin,
O Master, through Your great mercy.

Chanted:

To You, 0 Lord our God, belongs glory, and to You we ascribe glory: to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Meryl Yourish lays it on the line.  Jimmy Carter and Hamas get together and talk about peace, but basically that’s it.  No actions, no changes, nothing. 

Here are the plain facts: Hamas offered nothing new. Hamas did not agree to recognize Israel in any way, shape or form. Hamas did not give any proof that Gilad Shalit is still alive. Hamas did not say they would agree to visitation for Shalit—which would be within keeping of international law, something that Carter never seems to notice—nor did Hamas make any concessions, changes, or teeny, tiny moves towards a middle ground with Israel. Hamas did not even bother to stop firing rockets while Carter was there, except during the time he was physically in Sderot. Doubtless they went by the schedule the Carter center reps sent ahead of time. Can’t be dropping rockets and having sniper fire hit the most visible tool Hamas has ever had the fortune to come across. And Hamas tried three times in the last week to invade Israel and murder and kidnap Israelis, the last time the day after Carter spoke with Hamas leaders.

Israel has forcibly removed its citizens from disputed regions and has never — never — targeted civilians.  So when sizing up the situation, Carter can, of course, come up with only one conclusion regarding who is at fault when it comes to keeping peace from breaking out in the Middle East.

Israel and the United States. And he says this even as Hamas launches more rockets, and threatens more attacks. Way to go, Jimmy. I think you need a new title. I think we’re going to call you America’s No. 1 Schmuck.

Hey, perhaps it’s Carter himself who is the biggest obstacle to peace.  If he would just take up residence in Sderot, imagine how much more peaceful it would be there.

• Flew and his journey to theism, in which he noted science led him to belief in God. Pinker goes the other way it seems. Ships in the night?
• Language and learning, in which seminary Greek is coined “not learning” a language.
• Property and the Jewish tradition.
• For earth day … a birthday remembered.
• I disagree. Art as commodity … the first and primary task of the artist is to create beauty.

• A rebuttal of the notion that the rising food prices are due to biofuel demand.
• It’s Holy week for us Orthodox. For Holy Monday, a few links … here and here plus a Palm Sunday link roundup.
• Theodicy and modernity.
• Surging back?
• Earth and oil.
• Cube.

The purpose of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has been eroded and molded to fit 21st century liberal sensibilities; that is to say, to take it as much out of the public square as possible.  When Thomas Jefferson responded to the Danbury Baptists, he was responding to a specific question — government interfering with or establishing a religion — and he gave a specific answer.

Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

Basically, the government will not try to take away man’s natural right of conscience.  It’s the coercion factor that was at issue.  An established religion would require allegiance to the state church for all public servants. 

But no matter how much you want to mangle this straightforward concept, did it really mean to abolish this?

East Brunswick High School football coach Marcus Borden, who said he is fighting for his peers nationwide, is expected to petition the U.S. Supreme Court for a review of Tuesday’s federal appeals court ruling that prohibits him from participating in team prayer.

The U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia unanimously reversed a July 2006 lower-court ruling that permitted Borden, through his lawsuit against the East Brunswick Board of Education, to silently bow his head or "take a knee" with players as a sign of secular respect for student-led team prayer.

The plaintiffs, represented by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, say respect is indeed the issue.

"The ruling underscores that school district employees, including football coaches, have to obey the establishment clause and have to respect the religious rights of students," said Richard B. Katskee, assistant legal director for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, which represented the school board in its appeal of U.S. District Judge Dennis Cavanaugh’s ruling.

Respecting the fact that they were praying, then, is somehow a disrespect of their religious rights?  And what of the rights of the coach?  Does he have to check them at the locker room door?  Note that we’re not talking about him bringing a Bible or leading the prayers; he’s just in the room when the students pray and takes the same position as they do. 

The judges opinions in this case are just as tortured as the logic used to misread the First Amendment. 

Read the rest of this entry

• A book (for kids) supporting an erroneous view on beauty.
• Those ignorant of history are doomed to … make really stupid signs.
• Logic and the Left on abortion … or not.
• Weird computer tricks.
• On polygamy in Texas … one question asked elsewhere would be how this would be treated (by the state and the press) if the polygamist sect was Muslim?

• In praise of the country priest.
• On gossip and communion.
• Always resist “religion is a private matter” — an injunction.
• A good book noted. Praised? Recommended? All of the above?
• Some quotes on being Christian.
• And a meme on beauty.

Should a painter be allowed to decide what he or she paints?  Should a musician be allowed to decide what music to play or write?  Should a photographer be allowed to decide what pictures to take? 

In New Mexico, the answer to that last question is a resounding, "No."

The New Mexico Human Rights Commission ruled on Wednesday that an evangelical Christian photographer discriminated against a lesbian couple by refusing a job to photograph the couple’s same-sex commitment ceremony. Religious rights attorneys plan to appeal.

The commission ordered Elaine and Jon Huenins, owners of Elane Photography in Albuquerque, N.M., to pay the lesbian couple $6,600 in attorney fees.

"It is just a stunning disregard for the First Amendment," said Jordan Lorence, a senior legal counsel for the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing the photographer couple in court.

Canada’s Human Right Commission has been, at the same time, busy accusing Ezra Levant, Mark Steyn and others of thought crimes (covered by the Shire Network News podcast here and here with many more details at FreeMarkSteyn.com), with the idea of "free speech" being considered foreign.

In fact, for an organization that is supposed to promote "human rights," the HRC’s agents seem curiously oblivious to basic aspects of constitutional law. In one famous exchange during the [Marc] Lemire case, [Dean] Steacy [HRC investigator] was asked "What value do you give freedom of speech when you investigate?" — to which he replied "Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value." (I guess Section 2 has been excised from his copy of the Canadian Charter of Rights.)

If a photographer doesn’t want to take pictures at a same-sex commitment ceremony, but will get fined if she doesn’t, how soon before the First Amendment become a value-less concept within our own borders?

And this is not just a general free speech issue.  From the original article:

"[Vanessa] (Willock) had requested via e-mail for Elane Photography to conduct photography for her commitment ceremony, and the owner of Elane Photography responded that she would not perform that photography session because it was a same-sex commitment ceremony," [Carrie] Moritomo [public information officer for the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions] told Cybercast News Service .

No punitive monetary damages were awarded because Willock did not seek damages, Moritomo added.

Lorence said the Huenins, who are fervent evangelicals, politely declined the request because they did not want to use their art to disparage traditional heterosexual marriage. That should have been the end of the matter, he said.

"The Constitution prohibits the state from forcing unwilling people to promote a message they disagree with and thereby violate their conscience," Lorence said. "Christians should not be penalized for abiding by their beliefs.""

Eugene Volokh, UCLA Law School professor, constitutional scholar and contributor to the Volokh Conspiracy blog (where he’s blogged about this issue separately from the new story) is quoted, noting parallels to hypothetically requiring a freelance writer being forced to write for a pro-Scientology web site words that he does not believe in.  He also points out a bit of inconsistency.

"The law says that only when there is a ‘compelling government interest’ and applying the law is essential, only then can the government compel someone to violate their religious beliefs," Volokh said.

The fact that New Mexico does not recognize same-sex marriage makes it hard to argue that government has a compelling interest in protecting same-sex commitment, he added.

Human Rights Commissions are becoming less and less aptly named, and are instead becoming mere tools in the hands of liberal interest groups to silence dissent.  Where the legislative avenue doesn’t work, these commissions and activist judges are the Left’s next front to get their way in social law when the people are clearly against them.

[tags]New Mexico Human Rights Commission,free speech,Christianity,religion,homosexuality,same-sex marriage,Elaine Huenins,Jon Huenins,"Vanessa Willock,Alliance Defense Fund,Ezra Levant,Mark Steyn,Eugene Volokh[/tags]

• On the reading of Scripture.
• A suggested Olympic logo.
• Rights and obligations … I’d have to agree that rights are a construction and obligations are the more fundamental thing .. in part because I think notions of rights are incoherent and mostly useless.
• On Icons.
• An attempt at making Quantum mechanics accessible.

Henry Neufeld, at the Participatory Bible Blog,

I want to briefly point to something that we often miss in Bible study and theology in the western church–corporate identity. We are very individualistic, and that makes it hard to see when some form of corporate identity is in play.

This turns up in certain views of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Many view the baptism as a single event for the church on Pentecost, into which the individual believer is incorporated when he or she becomes a part of God’s people, normally through baptism. The separate baptism is a more individual idea. (I think there can be some accommodation between these views; I simply want to point out the corporate identity inherent in at least one of them.)

Paul says in Romans 6:3-4:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. (NRSV, cf. 2 Corinthians 4:10-12)

Again, our baptism incorporates us into God’s people, and by this means we have a part in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Individualization of faith and church, as exemplified in the above or the notion of cafeteria Christianity is not a stranger to the American faith experience. I’d like to follow this notion of corporate connectedness and some consequences … below the fold. Read the rest of this entry

Uh oh, don’t these Democrats realize that you simply can’t talk about this sort of thing in polite company?

Wading back into the Democratic presidential race, billionaire businessman Bob Johnson said Monday that Sen. Barack Obama would not be his party’s leading candidate if he were white.

Yes, apparently Mr. Johnson does recall Geraldine Ferraro’s remarks, and in fact agrees with them.

Johnson’s comments to the Observer echoed those of former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro. She stepped down as an adviser to Sen. Hillary Clinton last month after saying Obama wouldn’t be where he is if he were white.

"What I believe Geraldine Ferraro meant is that if you take a freshman senator from Illinois called `Jerry Smith’ and he says I’m going to run for president, would he start off with 90 percent of the black vote?" Johnson said. "And the answer is, probably not… ."

"Geraldine Ferraro said it right. The problem is, Geraldine Ferraro is white. This campaign has such a hair-trigger on anything racial … it is almost impossible for anybody to say anything."

Well, I wouldn’t say Ferraro’s skin color was a "problem" in the general sense, because that shouldn’t have mattered.  Equally, Bob Johnson’s skin color shouldn’t matter either, but if you click here and pull up the web page for the article, you’ll notice that he is black.  Not only can he say that Obama’s color is a factor in his popularity, he can also say that it was a "problem" for Ferraro to say this because of her color.

Whether or not you agree with Johnson’s assessments, I highly doubt he’s going to come under fire nearly as much as Ferraro for what amounts to a restating and expanding of her comments.  Obama himself may take a shot back, but the uproar, or lack thereof, over this will be telling.

And again I have to come back to the question; who it is that really has a problem with this?  It’s Democrats, the ones who insist they have more common cause with Dr. King.  It’s not just that talking about racial issues (which they, like Obama, insist they want to have a conversation on) can be taboo, but it’s a different sized taboo (or none at all) depending on the race of the speaker.  Your opinion is simply not tolerated unless you are of a particular race. 

Isn’t that, y’know, the very definition of racism?  Isn’t this allegedly what political correctness — AKA liberal sensitivity — was supposed to remove?  And yet liberals find themselves yet again in a bed, nay coffin of their own making.  Identity politics is ripping the party apart, and now oversensitivity to racial issues is continuing the breakdown. 

The facade that is the Democratic party has some gaping fissures. 

• For the 15th of the Fourth month.
• Two questions on science and religion.
• Via Obsidian Wings, a left leaning blog of some repute, this quote caught my eye, “For instance, if evangelical Christians stop hating liberals, then it’s less likely that their cultural resentments will bleed over into economic issues.” … Uhm … do you or anyone you know in the evangelical community “hate liberals”? I don’t. I don’t know anyone who does. What is he talking about?
• Life imitates fiction, in this case De Niro in Taxi Driver? Are you lookin’ at me?
• Tolkein on race.

But is the Left noticing?  While I was gone on Spring Break, a number of news stories came through showing both Hugo Chavez’s desperation for power and popularity in Venezuela, while the standard of living is predictably spiraling downward.

First, in response to a housing shortage, he declared that he’d nationalize the cement industry.  The first thing that happened as a result was that Cemex, the largest domestic supplier of cement in Venezuela, dropped almost 4% in Mexico’s stock market.  Apparently investors know a losing proposition when they see it.

Then, he renationalized the largest steelmaker in the country.  Their stock dropped 9% in New York.

And during all of this, the people are suffering.

Grimacing from contractions, expectant mother Castuca Marino had more on her mind than birth pangs. She was nervous about whether she and her newborn child would make it out of the hospital alive.

Interviewed as she stood in the emergency room of Concepcion Palacios Maternity Hospital here last week, Marino had heard news reports of six infant deaths there over a 24-hour period late last month. She knew that since the beginning of February, six mothers had died in the hospital during or after childbirth.

"What are poor people going to do?" said Marino, 20, as she was being admitted to this sprawling complex where, on average, 60 babies are born a day. "I’m just hoping that there are no complications and that everything goes well."
Palacios, Venezuela’s largest public maternity hospital and once the nation’s beacon of neonatal care, has fallen on hard times. Half of the anesthesiologists and pediatricians on staff two years ago have quit. Basic equipment such as respirators, ultrasound monitors and incubators are either broken or scarce. Six of 12 birth rooms have been shut.

On one day last month, five newborns were crowded into one incubator, said Dr. Jesus Mendez Quijada, a psychiatrist and Palacios staff member who is a past president of the Venezuelan Medical Federation.

The deaths of the six infants "were not a case of bad luck, but the consequence of an accumulation of circumstances that have created this alarming situation," Mendez said.

He and others say the problems at Concepcion Palacios are symptoms of a variety of ills that have beset the public healthcare system under leftist firebrand President Hugo Chavez. Cases of malaria nearly doubled between 1998, the year before Chavez took office, and 2007. Incidents of dengue fever more than doubled over the same period.

Chavez is trying to counter this with his own, parallel, socialized medicine program, but he’s keeping prying eyes away from the innards.  "Please ignore the man behind the curtain."

Inaugurated nationwide in 2003, Barrio Adentro initially was so popular with the poor that it helped Chavez win a crucial 2004 referendum and hold on to power. It has brought basic healthcare to the barrios, providing free exams and medicine as well as eye operations that have saved the sight of thousands.

But the system siphons resources and equipment away from the public hospitals, which have four-fifths of the nation’s 45,000 hospital beds and where the public still goes for emergency and maternity care, as well as for most major and elective surgeries.

The finances and organization of Barrio Adentro are "a black box and not transparent, so it’s impossible to analyze it for efficiency," said Dr. Marino Gonzalez, professor of public policy at Simon Bolivar University in Caracas, the capital.
A lack of openness has affected other facets of public health too. After the medical establishment blamed him for an outbreak of dengue fever last summer, Chavez halted weekly publication of an epidemiology report that for 50 years had tallied occurrences of infectious diseases nationwide.

Former Health Minister Rafael Orihuela says the loss of the weekly report has deprived the government of information needed for a quick response to outbreaks of disease.
"I am not talking about a failure of the government to adopt innovations in healthcare," said Orihuela, a Chavez critic. "I am talking about a failure to maintain basic healthcare standards."

And in the meantime, Chavez’s poll numbers are approaching George W. Bush lows…

Public support for President Hugo Chavez’s government has significantly declined, according to two polls published on Tuesday.

Some 34% of Venezuelans surveyed said they support Chavez’s government, down from a high of 67% in early 2005, to the lowest level in five years, a quarterly survey of 2,000 Venezuelans by Caracas pollster Datos found.

…and the economy is tanking.

Polls have consistently shown that rampant crime is a major concern to Venezuelans. Double-digit inflation has also accelerated, and sporadic shortages of milk and other food products persist.

While these polls are not as open as those in the US, they do show a general malaise among Venezuelans.  Bruce McQuain at Q&O believes that the power grabs are specifically because of the poll numbers.  Whether or not that’s true, the narrative of The Socialist Utopia(tm) and the bill of goods it sells continues on course, to the detriment of the Venezuelan people, and to the ignorance of Chavez’s buddies in the US.

[tags]Hugo Chavez,Venezuela,Cemex,socialism,socialized medicine[/tags]