In his online column June 8, 2007, National Catholic Reporter writer John Allen floats an idea that should be getting more attention and push-back than it has: “from the point of view of Catholic-Jewish relations, the best thing the Vatican could do right now would be to beatify and canonize Pope Pius XII immediately.”
Allen’s column is at http://ncrcafe.org/node/1162
Eugenio Pacelli was Pope Pius XII from 1939 to 1958, which of course included the Holocaust and other terrors of World War II, as well as challenges of the post-war period, such as the Cold War and establishing the state of Israel on land claimed by Palestinians. The greatest controversy about Pacelli is over the Holocaust: why did he express so little public opposition to fascism and its policies, and couldn’t he have done more to prevent the slaughter of six million Jews?
The occasion for Allen’s suggestion was a speech June 5th by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, widely regarded as the second most powerful official in the church. Bertone suggested that “Pope Pacelli” (as he frequently referred to him) had been the victim of a smear campaign that ignored many solid accomplishments, including behind-the-scenes activities to help the Jews, as well as doctrinal advances on scripture scholarship, evolution, liturgy, and the value of women.
In a few sentences toward the end of his speech, Bertone said the Vatican archives contained documents on “thousands of personal cases” (italics his) of Pacelli helping individuals, which have not been made public because they are in a disorganized state that would not allow coherent, comprehensive research.
Then, in a tantalizing aside, he added: “Maybe it would be possible, with the ad hoc help of some charitable foundation, to catalogue in a brief amount of time these papers which are stored in the Archives of the Holy See!”
Whether the Vatican really lacks the technical expertise or the financial resources to do its own cataloging could certainly be debated. However, use of an outside foundation might at least help the Vatican rebut one of the claims already made against the closed Vatican archives for the Pacelli period: that the Vatican may already have sanitized the records, by removing or destroying any that were not favorable to Pacelli. Unfortunately, the only way anyone can prove that it happened would be by contradictory documentary or oral evidence from outside the archives. Until such evidence is found, the fear has not been substantiated.
Although there has been pressure for decades for the Vatican to open the archives, so that critics of Pius XII would no longer be able to say that the archives hide documents unfavorable to him, Allen notes that 11 volumes of documents that Jesuit scholars have published from the archives have not changed the position of people on either side of this argument. He cites two reasons why he thinks that happened and why opening the rest of the archives still won’t resolve the controversy.
First, he says, the primary indictment against Pacelli is that he “failed to issue a straightforward public denunciation of National Socialism, or an unambiguous public appeal for Christians to rescue Jews.” Allen argues that since this criticism is based on what Pacelli did and did not do in public, the private archives will not sway the discussion.
Second, the other main indictment condemns actions Pacelli failed to try, e.g., publicly excommunicating Hitler, or meeting with Hitler, Mussolini, or both at once. Allen doubts that the archives can shed any light on how effective such alternatives might have been.
In light of the Holocaust and a perception that Pacelli favored Palestinian rights over establishment of the State of Israel, the Jewish critics of Pius XII are quite passionate. As Allen observes, it’s not as though the Vatican can wait a few more decades or centuries for their passion to subside.
It was just in April that Vatican Ambassador to the Holy Land created an ugly stir by threatening to boycott the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day state ceremony at the Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem, because of an exhibit caption about the Pius XII controversy. The ambassador later attended, but Yad Vashem’s position indicates that Jews’ deep misgivings about Pacelli are not going away.
Given this, what does the Vatican have to lose by opening the archives? If Pacelli’s proponents are right, the archives should provide additional positive facts. If the Jewish critics are right, are the archives likely to confirm anything worse than they already fear?
Allen may be right on both of his points. But no one will really know until independent researchers scour the archives in their entirety. It remains possible that documents and other assets still not researched can shed more light on the rationale and motivation for Pacelli’s public silence, perhaps providing more clues as to whether it was benign, malicious or negligent. It remains possible that the unresearched archives might also illuminate whether Pacelli considered some of the alternatives critics wish he had and, if so, whether specific factors influenced him not to pursue them.
Allen notes that Cardinal Bertone’s overture about letting a charitable foundation organize the documents he says prove Pacelli’s assistance to thousands of individuals got an enthusiastic response from Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League. Foxman told Allen that if lack of Vatican resources was an obstacle to opening those documents for research, “we should have an emergency meeting and figure out ways to make it happen.”
Rather than rushing Pius XII to sainthood, the Vatican could make a much more immediate positive contribution to Catholic-Jewish relations by actively pursuing Bertone’s idea.
Canonizing Pacelli would certainly announce to the Jewish people and to the world at large that the church has dug in its heels on his culpability for the Holocaust. But it would also only solidify the opposition in its conviction that Pacelli was wrong and the church since Pacelli has refused to admit it.
The result of opening the archives may be what Allen expects. But other outcomes remain possible. So long as that is the case, the only way to rule them out is to open the archives. Issues undoubtedly will remain afterwards. But at least the overarching issue—what secrets the archives may hold—will finally be laid to rest.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
QuikSCAT: Reprimand Bush, Not Hurricane Center Director
The acting director of NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) has reprimanded the director of the National Hurricane Center for telling the truth about the QuikSCAT satellite, which for years has provided the most reliable wind-speed measurements to predict where hurricanes will land: QuikSCAT has been on its last legs for months, it might fail at any moment, and NOAA has nothing in the works to replace it, this hurricane season or next.
In today’s print edition The Houston Chronicle notes that an administration that brought us FEMA’s disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina—and, I would add, broke every promise to New Orleans since—has no business letting another incompetent bureaucrat drive NOAA to less effective hurricane readiness.
If anyone needs reprimanding, it acting NOAA Director Mary Glacken—and the president who appointed her.
The editorial, which follows, is at http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/4903748.html
Straight shooter: Rather than reprimand outspoken Hurricane Center chief, superiors should heed his warnings.
Since assuming the highly visible directorship of the National Hurricane Center in Miami in January, Bill Proenza has been telling it like it is, much to the chagrin of his superiors at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Proenza, a four-decade weather service veteran, criticized NOAA for planning a multimillion-dollar public relations campaign and anniversary party while slashing $700,000 from the Hurricane Center's budget for improving storm forecasting technology. He questioned the decision to "rebrand" information coming out of the Hurricane Center as coming from NOAA, the parent agency.
Proenza has spoken out about the tenuous state of the aged QuikSCAT satellite that provides a data stream measuring wind speeds in developing cyclones. He also opposed plans to cut the flight time of hurricane hunter craft to 354 hours this year, less than half the time used during the record-setting 2005 Atlantic storm season.
For his efforts, acting NOAA Director Mary Glackin paid Proenza a visit last week and delivered a three-page letter of reprimand accusing him of issuing confusing statements that cast doubt about the agency's ability to accurately forecast storms. Unfazed, Proenza circulated the letter to his staff, telling reporters he would not be muzzled by agency bureaucrats.
Proenza says Glackin is not the first federal official to try to silence him. Earlier this spring another weather service staffer, Louis Uccellini, warned him that his statements about QuikSCAT were angering officials in the White House, the Commerce Department and NOAA. The director says he will not be silent on issues critical to saving lives and increasing the accuracy of his agency's forecasts.
Lawmakers in Florida on the county, state and federal level have rallied behind Proenza. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and several members of the state's congressional delegation warned against any attempt to replace the director. In a letter to Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, whose department oversees NOAA, Nelson stated, "Clearly there are parties within NOAA who don't appreciate having their shortcomings identified to the public and Congress. However, shooting the messenger is not an acceptable response."
Two years ago the nation saw a previously well-functioning Federal Emergency Management Agency fail to provide vital services during Hurricane Katrina because unqualified political cronies had been put in charge.
The National Hurricane Center has served the nation well, tracking and forecasting storms while minimizing loss of life. It would be a tragedy if Washington bureaucrats more interested in anniversary parties than in maintaining weather satellites usurped the center's independence.
In today’s print edition The Houston Chronicle notes that an administration that brought us FEMA’s disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina—and, I would add, broke every promise to New Orleans since—has no business letting another incompetent bureaucrat drive NOAA to less effective hurricane readiness.
If anyone needs reprimanding, it acting NOAA Director Mary Glacken—and the president who appointed her.
The editorial, which follows, is at http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/4903748.html
Straight shooter: Rather than reprimand outspoken Hurricane Center chief, superiors should heed his warnings.
Since assuming the highly visible directorship of the National Hurricane Center in Miami in January, Bill Proenza has been telling it like it is, much to the chagrin of his superiors at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Proenza, a four-decade weather service veteran, criticized NOAA for planning a multimillion-dollar public relations campaign and anniversary party while slashing $700,000 from the Hurricane Center's budget for improving storm forecasting technology. He questioned the decision to "rebrand" information coming out of the Hurricane Center as coming from NOAA, the parent agency.
Proenza has spoken out about the tenuous state of the aged QuikSCAT satellite that provides a data stream measuring wind speeds in developing cyclones. He also opposed plans to cut the flight time of hurricane hunter craft to 354 hours this year, less than half the time used during the record-setting 2005 Atlantic storm season.
For his efforts, acting NOAA Director Mary Glackin paid Proenza a visit last week and delivered a three-page letter of reprimand accusing him of issuing confusing statements that cast doubt about the agency's ability to accurately forecast storms. Unfazed, Proenza circulated the letter to his staff, telling reporters he would not be muzzled by agency bureaucrats.
Proenza says Glackin is not the first federal official to try to silence him. Earlier this spring another weather service staffer, Louis Uccellini, warned him that his statements about QuikSCAT were angering officials in the White House, the Commerce Department and NOAA. The director says he will not be silent on issues critical to saving lives and increasing the accuracy of his agency's forecasts.
Lawmakers in Florida on the county, state and federal level have rallied behind Proenza. U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson and several members of the state's congressional delegation warned against any attempt to replace the director. In a letter to Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, whose department oversees NOAA, Nelson stated, "Clearly there are parties within NOAA who don't appreciate having their shortcomings identified to the public and Congress. However, shooting the messenger is not an acceptable response."
Two years ago the nation saw a previously well-functioning Federal Emergency Management Agency fail to provide vital services during Hurricane Katrina because unqualified political cronies had been put in charge.
The National Hurricane Center has served the nation well, tracking and forecasting storms while minimizing loss of life. It would be a tragedy if Washington bureaucrats more interested in anniversary parties than in maintaining weather satellites usurped the center's independence.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Happy Juneteenth
Today’s celebration of Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery in the United States in 1865. It is also a reminder that what ended on paper has taken much longer to end in fact.
June 19, 1865, was the day toward the end of the Civil War when a Union general landed in Galveston and advised “the people of Texas” that “all slaves are free.” The general declared: “This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer."
Abraham Lincoln actually issued his Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862. He said as Commander in Chief that slaves were free in any of the Confederate States of America which did not return to Union control by January 1, 1863.
It was probably no accident that the wording was quite calculated, and not without some loopholes. The two and a half years it took for emancipation to become effective in Texas are often seen as emblematic of the nation’s half-hearted commitment to ending slavery.
Indeed, in 1862 the Republican leader in the House of Representatives saw emancipation primarily as a wartime tactic to disable the South’s economy. As originally framed, it did not free any slaves in the border states or any Southern states already under Union control. So it could not become effective in any Confederate state until the presence of Union troops made it so.
By July of 1865 nearly all of the estimated four million slaves had been freed. Slavery was finally abolished as an institution by ratification of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution on December 18, 1865. But official oppression continued for another hundred years—through Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws and segregation—until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Houston Chronicle columnist Cragg Hines uses the occasion of Juneteenth to note that we still have work to do before we can be satisfied that the legacy of slavery has been overcome. He suggests that official apologies for slavery are a constructive way for the country to atone and perhaps begin a final chapter in the healing of our oldest national wound. He also notes some progress—in some surprising places.
Below is his column, originally available at
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/hines/4895211.html
Why it's important to get the debate on slavery right
The approach of Juneteenth brings us again to an annual reminder of the nation's indelible sin of slavery.
Remarking on the "peculiar institution" and the continuing lack of national atonement seems, judging by the vein-popping e-mails that pour in when I write about the issue, to discomfit a lot of people.
Good.
A number suggest, as did a particularly tone-deaf white Virginia legislator amid consideration of an Old Dominion apology measure this year, that blacks "should get over it."
Just so you get the full picture, let's note that Delegate Frank D. Hargrove Sr., a suburban Republican, went on to ask in a newspaper interview: "Are we going to force the Jews to apologize for killing Christ?"
Yes, this debate regularly — if unintentionally — reveals how far some people have not come. It is clearly not time to "get over it" but to continue to examine the history of slavery, the diabolical role it played in our nation and its continuing manifestations.
But even among the continued outcroppings of hatefulness, there have been some achievements over the last year.
The most stunning development, at least in symbolic terms, was a resolution adopted by the Alabama Legislature expressing "profound regret" for the state's role in slavery "and its aftereffects" on the nation.
An apology, the resolution said, "cannot erase the past, but confession of the wrongs can speed racial healing and reconciliation and help African-Americans and white citizens confront the ghosts of their collective pasts together."
In signing the resolution, Gov. Bob Riley, a Republican, said: "I want the world to understand that Alabama has changed for the better."
Alabama was not the first state to act, but given its record — do we need to say anything more than "Selma"? — the action in the capitol in Montgomery seems the most notable. Even now, eight Republican state senators took the trouble to vote against the apology measure, and some GOP members in the House, where there was a voice vote, tried to demand a roll-call so that they could officially record their opposition.
The Alabama resolution observed that "the vestiges of slavery are ever before African-American citizens, from the overt racism of hate groups to the subtle racism" found in commerce, health care, education and law enforcement.
The legislatures of three other states in which slaves were held at the time of the Civil War — Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina — have also moved this year to adopt apologies.
It's a step that any state with a slave past could take.
With the 50th anniversary of Little Rock's Central High School integration crisis coming up later this year, an apology for slavery would certainly be the correct move for Arkansas.
Recent attempts by Gov. Mike Beebe, a Democrat, to stymie an apology drive in Arkansas is virtually unfathomable.
Beebe is correct, as he told the Associated Press, that "race relations and the ability of people to get along is based upon deeds more than it is words," but that does not mean that the words should not be said.
The words should be said not only in slave states — including Texas — but nationally where chattel-like enslavement of men, women and children was commonplace for almost 150 years.
That history, as well as the rampant de jure segregation of "Jim Crow," is addressed in an apology resolution, H. Res. 194, that has been introduced by Rep. Stephen J. Cohen, D-Tenn.
The resolution speaks to the history of slavery and its lasting effects. It notes that while visiting the old slave-shipping port of Goree Island, Senegal, in 2003, President Bush correctly labeled the trade in humans as "one of the greatest crimes of history."
"A genuine apology," Cohen's resolution says, "is an important and necessary first step in the process of racial reconciliation."
When Bush visited the slave-shipping site off Dakar four years ago, he made an important point: "The spirit of Africans in America did not break. Yet the spirit of their captors was corrupted."
That corruption remains and can be heard loud and clear in the "get over it" sentiment that too many glibly express today.
June 19, 1865, was the day toward the end of the Civil War when a Union general landed in Galveston and advised “the people of Texas” that “all slaves are free.” The general declared: “This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer."
Abraham Lincoln actually issued his Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862. He said as Commander in Chief that slaves were free in any of the Confederate States of America which did not return to Union control by January 1, 1863.
It was probably no accident that the wording was quite calculated, and not without some loopholes. The two and a half years it took for emancipation to become effective in Texas are often seen as emblematic of the nation’s half-hearted commitment to ending slavery.
Indeed, in 1862 the Republican leader in the House of Representatives saw emancipation primarily as a wartime tactic to disable the South’s economy. As originally framed, it did not free any slaves in the border states or any Southern states already under Union control. So it could not become effective in any Confederate state until the presence of Union troops made it so.
By July of 1865 nearly all of the estimated four million slaves had been freed. Slavery was finally abolished as an institution by ratification of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution on December 18, 1865. But official oppression continued for another hundred years—through Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws and segregation—until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Houston Chronicle columnist Cragg Hines uses the occasion of Juneteenth to note that we still have work to do before we can be satisfied that the legacy of slavery has been overcome. He suggests that official apologies for slavery are a constructive way for the country to atone and perhaps begin a final chapter in the healing of our oldest national wound. He also notes some progress—in some surprising places.
Below is his column, originally available at
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/hines/4895211.html
Why it's important to get the debate on slavery right
The approach of Juneteenth brings us again to an annual reminder of the nation's indelible sin of slavery.
Remarking on the "peculiar institution" and the continuing lack of national atonement seems, judging by the vein-popping e-mails that pour in when I write about the issue, to discomfit a lot of people.
Good.
A number suggest, as did a particularly tone-deaf white Virginia legislator amid consideration of an Old Dominion apology measure this year, that blacks "should get over it."
Just so you get the full picture, let's note that Delegate Frank D. Hargrove Sr., a suburban Republican, went on to ask in a newspaper interview: "Are we going to force the Jews to apologize for killing Christ?"
Yes, this debate regularly — if unintentionally — reveals how far some people have not come. It is clearly not time to "get over it" but to continue to examine the history of slavery, the diabolical role it played in our nation and its continuing manifestations.
But even among the continued outcroppings of hatefulness, there have been some achievements over the last year.
The most stunning development, at least in symbolic terms, was a resolution adopted by the Alabama Legislature expressing "profound regret" for the state's role in slavery "and its aftereffects" on the nation.
An apology, the resolution said, "cannot erase the past, but confession of the wrongs can speed racial healing and reconciliation and help African-Americans and white citizens confront the ghosts of their collective pasts together."
In signing the resolution, Gov. Bob Riley, a Republican, said: "I want the world to understand that Alabama has changed for the better."
Alabama was not the first state to act, but given its record — do we need to say anything more than "Selma"? — the action in the capitol in Montgomery seems the most notable. Even now, eight Republican state senators took the trouble to vote against the apology measure, and some GOP members in the House, where there was a voice vote, tried to demand a roll-call so that they could officially record their opposition.
The Alabama resolution observed that "the vestiges of slavery are ever before African-American citizens, from the overt racism of hate groups to the subtle racism" found in commerce, health care, education and law enforcement.
The legislatures of three other states in which slaves were held at the time of the Civil War — Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina — have also moved this year to adopt apologies.
It's a step that any state with a slave past could take.
With the 50th anniversary of Little Rock's Central High School integration crisis coming up later this year, an apology for slavery would certainly be the correct move for Arkansas.
Recent attempts by Gov. Mike Beebe, a Democrat, to stymie an apology drive in Arkansas is virtually unfathomable.
Beebe is correct, as he told the Associated Press, that "race relations and the ability of people to get along is based upon deeds more than it is words," but that does not mean that the words should not be said.
The words should be said not only in slave states — including Texas — but nationally where chattel-like enslavement of men, women and children was commonplace for almost 150 years.
That history, as well as the rampant de jure segregation of "Jim Crow," is addressed in an apology resolution, H. Res. 194, that has been introduced by Rep. Stephen J. Cohen, D-Tenn.
The resolution speaks to the history of slavery and its lasting effects. It notes that while visiting the old slave-shipping port of Goree Island, Senegal, in 2003, President Bush correctly labeled the trade in humans as "one of the greatest crimes of history."
"A genuine apology," Cohen's resolution says, "is an important and necessary first step in the process of racial reconciliation."
When Bush visited the slave-shipping site off Dakar four years ago, he made an important point: "The spirit of Africans in America did not break. Yet the spirit of their captors was corrupted."
That corruption remains and can be heard loud and clear in the "get over it" sentiment that too many glibly express today.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Stem Cell Creativity: The Uncanny Whitehead Connection
There was a Whitehead connection in reports yesterday about the researchers who successfully reprogrammed mice skin cells to behave like embryonic stem cells. A source for many of the media accounts is at http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070604/full/447618a.html
The connection is the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at Cambridge, MA, affiliated with MIT. A Whitehead Institute group led by Richard Jaenisch was one of the three that accomplished the new technique. The other U.S. research was a collaborative effort between Konrad Hochedlinger of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Kathrin Plath of UCLA.
The Nature article says the approach was pioneered last year by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University. He transferred four specific proteins known as transcription factors into the skin cells using retroviruses, triggering other genes that allow the cells to become “induced pluripotent stem cells” (iPS). Yamanaka headed the third group which announced the results this week, replicating his findings and presenting a second generation of iPS cells.
Actually only a moment of creativity connects the name Whitehead with this research. The namesake of the institute is not Alfred North Whitehead, who taught at Harvard from 1924 through 1937, but Edwin C. “Jack” Whitehead, who made big bucks as a medical equipment innovator and became a philanthropist. In 1982, after ten years of interaction with MIT, he co-founded the institute with MIT Nobel laureate David Baltimore.
The institute’s webpage describes the creative decision that gave Jack Whitehead his name. See http://wi.mit.edu/index.html
Born Edwin C. Weiskopf in New York City in 1919, to Edwin C. and Bertha Weiskopf, he got the nickname Jack when a housekeeper took him out to a local park and her friends thought he looked like the child film star Jackie Coogan. So goes the family story, anyway, says his eldest son John Whitehead, who adds cheerfully that “the good looks failed with time.”
“My father's parents divorced when he was a preteen, and his mother went to work selling real estate in New York,” says John Whitehead. “She changed her name to Whitehead to avoid the anti-Semitism that might otherwise have affected her business, and that was how Jack Weiskopf became Jack Whitehead.”
The moment of creativity was Bertha Weiskopf's decision to translate her last name into English. So Jack Whitehead got his name before Alfred North Whitehead came to Cambridge, MA. And the Whitehead Institute of Cambridge has no direct connection with the philosopher of creativity who lectured and published in Cambridge for 13 years.
But isn’t the symmetry remarkably uncanny: an innovative entrepreneur named Whitehead founded a creative institute named Whitehead, in a place where an innovative philosopher named Whitehead lived and taught—and the institute participates creatively in what may be an historical turning point in stem cell research?
The connection is the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at Cambridge, MA, affiliated with MIT. A Whitehead Institute group led by Richard Jaenisch was one of the three that accomplished the new technique. The other U.S. research was a collaborative effort between Konrad Hochedlinger of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Kathrin Plath of UCLA.
The Nature article says the approach was pioneered last year by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University. He transferred four specific proteins known as transcription factors into the skin cells using retroviruses, triggering other genes that allow the cells to become “induced pluripotent stem cells” (iPS). Yamanaka headed the third group which announced the results this week, replicating his findings and presenting a second generation of iPS cells.
Actually only a moment of creativity connects the name Whitehead with this research. The namesake of the institute is not Alfred North Whitehead, who taught at Harvard from 1924 through 1937, but Edwin C. “Jack” Whitehead, who made big bucks as a medical equipment innovator and became a philanthropist. In 1982, after ten years of interaction with MIT, he co-founded the institute with MIT Nobel laureate David Baltimore.
The institute’s webpage describes the creative decision that gave Jack Whitehead his name. See http://wi.mit.edu/index.html
Born Edwin C. Weiskopf in New York City in 1919, to Edwin C. and Bertha Weiskopf, he got the nickname Jack when a housekeeper took him out to a local park and her friends thought he looked like the child film star Jackie Coogan. So goes the family story, anyway, says his eldest son John Whitehead, who adds cheerfully that “the good looks failed with time.”
“My father's parents divorced when he was a preteen, and his mother went to work selling real estate in New York,” says John Whitehead. “She changed her name to Whitehead to avoid the anti-Semitism that might otherwise have affected her business, and that was how Jack Weiskopf became Jack Whitehead.”
The moment of creativity was Bertha Weiskopf's decision to translate her last name into English. So Jack Whitehead got his name before Alfred North Whitehead came to Cambridge, MA. And the Whitehead Institute of Cambridge has no direct connection with the philosopher of creativity who lectured and published in Cambridge for 13 years.
But isn’t the symmetry remarkably uncanny: an innovative entrepreneur named Whitehead founded a creative institute named Whitehead, in a place where an innovative philosopher named Whitehead lived and taught—and the institute participates creatively in what may be an historical turning point in stem cell research?
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Akinola Threatens Boycott of Lambeth Conference
Nigerian Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola has again shown that his true intent is to transform the Anglican Communion into an orthodox church reflecting his own theology.
Thanks to Clerical Whispers for linking to my blog, and for the following posting May 29th at http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/search?q=Nigerian
A conservative Anglican prelate in Nigeria has warned that he might lead a boycott of the Lambeth Conference, the worldwide gathering of Anglican bishops, when it convenes at Canterbury in 2008.
Archbishop Peter Akinola, the Anglican primate of Nigeria, said that he was upset by the news that the Archbishop of Canterbury, had not issued an invitation to Bishop Martyn Minns.
Archbishop Akinola has been the prelate most outspoken in criticizing the acceptance of homosexuality by some leaders of the Anglican communion. He travelled to the United States to ordain Bishop Minns as a "missionary bishop" serving the spiritual needs of like-minded Anglicans in America.
Because Bishop Minns is affiliated with the Anglican Church of Nigeria, the failure to invite him to the Lambeth Conference is an affront to all the bishops in that country, Archbishop Akinola said; it could be "viewed as withholding invitation to the entire House of Bishops of the Church of Nigeria."
The African prelate warned that he might react by refusing to attend the Lambeth Conference, and encouraging all other Nigerian prelates to join him in boycotting the meetings.
Thanks to Clerical Whispers for linking to my blog, and for the following posting May 29th at http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/search?q=Nigerian
A conservative Anglican prelate in Nigeria has warned that he might lead a boycott of the Lambeth Conference, the worldwide gathering of Anglican bishops, when it convenes at Canterbury in 2008.
Archbishop Peter Akinola, the Anglican primate of Nigeria, said that he was upset by the news that the Archbishop of Canterbury, had not issued an invitation to Bishop Martyn Minns.
Archbishop Akinola has been the prelate most outspoken in criticizing the acceptance of homosexuality by some leaders of the Anglican communion. He travelled to the United States to ordain Bishop Minns as a "missionary bishop" serving the spiritual needs of like-minded Anglicans in America.
Because Bishop Minns is affiliated with the Anglican Church of Nigeria, the failure to invite him to the Lambeth Conference is an affront to all the bishops in that country, Archbishop Akinola said; it could be "viewed as withholding invitation to the entire House of Bishops of the Church of Nigeria."
The African prelate warned that he might react by refusing to attend the Lambeth Conference, and encouraging all other Nigerian prelates to join him in boycotting the meetings.
Monday, June 04, 2007
True Immigration Reform: No Xenophobia, and No Guest Workers
Columnist Julie Mason notes that, for the first time, George W. Bush has served notice on conservative opponents of immigration reform that “he’s going to call them out on their xenophobia if he needs to.” Her column is at http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/mason/4852625.html
Bush has talked before of his personal stake in addressing immigration issues, but never so directly to his political base—or what remains of it. In prior years he’s pushed immigration reform, but backed off in the face of conservative pressure. Whether he will sustain his enthusiasm this time remains to be seen.
For now, at least, he seems to appreciate that 12 million illegals did not end up in this country without lots of help from several administrations of both political parties. The illegals got that help because successive presidents and congresses—and those who elected them—said that the U.S. economy could not function unless some employers hired non-citizens, because there are some jobs that U.S. citizens won’t do.
Just ask the Texas farmers with several hundred thousand dollars worth of onions currently rotting in the ground. They say they’re in this pickle in 2007 because the government has done too well at blocking unauthorized Mexican workers at the border!
Having enjoyed the economic benefit of the 12 million that it allowed in—having sweetened the pot by issuing thousands of them Individual Tax Identification Numbers (ITINs) in lieu of SSNs, collecting income tax and self-employment tax on their 1040s, and in some cases subjecting their paychecks to backup withholding—the nation owes them more than forced deportation. As a matter of justice, the nation owes them a decriminalized status that leads, in a lawful and orderly way, to citizenship.
Several paragraphs from Ms. Mason’s column articulate why Bush believes xenophobia is not the answer:
“If you want to scare the American people, what you say is the bill’s an amnesty bill,” Bush said during a stop in Glynco, GA. “That’s empty political rhetoric, trying to frighten our citizens.”
It was his harshest public backhand yet to the conservative bloggers, politicians and CNN anchor Lou Dobbs, all gassing about how the bill amounts to amnesty.
“People shouldn’t fear our capacity to uphold our motto, E Pluribus Unum,” Bush told McClatchy Newspapers.
For Bush, the fight over immigration reform is a personal one — unlike Social Security or education reform, which were mostly political.
“I feel passionate about the issue. It’s something I have felt strongly about ever since I was the governor of Texas,” he said.
“Texas is a very diverse state. Houston is a very diverse city, and through that diversity, if you’re open-minded, you get a great sense of how it invigorates the society,” said Bush, a Houston resident in the 1960s and ‘70s.
Growing up in Texas, Bush said, “you recognize the decency and hard work and humanity of Hispanics. And the truth of the matter is a lot of this immigration debate is driven as a result of Latinos being in our country.
“A lot of us in Texas were very aware of the immigration issue way before the rest of the country,” Bush told McClatchy. Bush is working to keep the bill intact and moving forward.
His brother, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, joined former Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman in co-authoriing an op-ed in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal, calling on Republicans to support the bill.
If Bush appreciates that the xenophobia of the cultural conservatives is not the answer, he and the bill’s proponents seem not to grasp that the guest worker plan of the business conservatives is not an answer either. At best, it would help resolve the status of the current 12 million illegals, only to enable several million new non-citizens to re-create the problem down the road.
The fear that the proposed legislation will do just that is well reasoned and well justified. There can be no other outcome if we remain captive to the idea that we need a steady influx of non-citizens to do jobs that citizens won’t do.
If achieving citizenship means a farm worker won’t be a farm worker any more, where will the farm workers come from? Obviously, they must be non-citizens.
Yet one of the guiding principles of immigration reform is that it is not healthy for the country to have a permanent underclass of workers to do such jobs—workers with less than adequate health insurance and retirement benefits, less means to support themselves and raise their children, and less of a stake in our survival as a nation. If we truly want to avoid that outcome, no guest-worker program can be acceptable.
The logical alternative is to improve the wages and working conditions and benefits of back-breaking agricultural and sweatshop jobs to a level that U.S. citizens will do them. That has been the aim of the United Farm Workers Union in California for decades. Yes, it will cost more initially than a guest-worker program. But it has a livable future. A guest-worker program does not.
Until the politicians and the employers are sold on that idea—until they grasp that the long-term benefits will eventually outweigh the upfront costs—there will be no lasting immigration reform. We will simply replace one crowd of non-citizens with another, luring them with income we pretend is temporary, but knowing we will need them every year and we will conspire with them again to extend their stay.
Bush has talked before of his personal stake in addressing immigration issues, but never so directly to his political base—or what remains of it. In prior years he’s pushed immigration reform, but backed off in the face of conservative pressure. Whether he will sustain his enthusiasm this time remains to be seen.
For now, at least, he seems to appreciate that 12 million illegals did not end up in this country without lots of help from several administrations of both political parties. The illegals got that help because successive presidents and congresses—and those who elected them—said that the U.S. economy could not function unless some employers hired non-citizens, because there are some jobs that U.S. citizens won’t do.
Just ask the Texas farmers with several hundred thousand dollars worth of onions currently rotting in the ground. They say they’re in this pickle in 2007 because the government has done too well at blocking unauthorized Mexican workers at the border!
Having enjoyed the economic benefit of the 12 million that it allowed in—having sweetened the pot by issuing thousands of them Individual Tax Identification Numbers (ITINs) in lieu of SSNs, collecting income tax and self-employment tax on their 1040s, and in some cases subjecting their paychecks to backup withholding—the nation owes them more than forced deportation. As a matter of justice, the nation owes them a decriminalized status that leads, in a lawful and orderly way, to citizenship.
Several paragraphs from Ms. Mason’s column articulate why Bush believes xenophobia is not the answer:
“If you want to scare the American people, what you say is the bill’s an amnesty bill,” Bush said during a stop in Glynco, GA. “That’s empty political rhetoric, trying to frighten our citizens.”
It was his harshest public backhand yet to the conservative bloggers, politicians and CNN anchor Lou Dobbs, all gassing about how the bill amounts to amnesty.
“People shouldn’t fear our capacity to uphold our motto, E Pluribus Unum,” Bush told McClatchy Newspapers.
For Bush, the fight over immigration reform is a personal one — unlike Social Security or education reform, which were mostly political.
“I feel passionate about the issue. It’s something I have felt strongly about ever since I was the governor of Texas,” he said.
“Texas is a very diverse state. Houston is a very diverse city, and through that diversity, if you’re open-minded, you get a great sense of how it invigorates the society,” said Bush, a Houston resident in the 1960s and ‘70s.
Growing up in Texas, Bush said, “you recognize the decency and hard work and humanity of Hispanics. And the truth of the matter is a lot of this immigration debate is driven as a result of Latinos being in our country.
“A lot of us in Texas were very aware of the immigration issue way before the rest of the country,” Bush told McClatchy. Bush is working to keep the bill intact and moving forward.
His brother, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, joined former Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman in co-authoriing an op-ed in Thursday’s Wall Street Journal, calling on Republicans to support the bill.
If Bush appreciates that the xenophobia of the cultural conservatives is not the answer, he and the bill’s proponents seem not to grasp that the guest worker plan of the business conservatives is not an answer either. At best, it would help resolve the status of the current 12 million illegals, only to enable several million new non-citizens to re-create the problem down the road.
The fear that the proposed legislation will do just that is well reasoned and well justified. There can be no other outcome if we remain captive to the idea that we need a steady influx of non-citizens to do jobs that citizens won’t do.
If achieving citizenship means a farm worker won’t be a farm worker any more, where will the farm workers come from? Obviously, they must be non-citizens.
Yet one of the guiding principles of immigration reform is that it is not healthy for the country to have a permanent underclass of workers to do such jobs—workers with less than adequate health insurance and retirement benefits, less means to support themselves and raise their children, and less of a stake in our survival as a nation. If we truly want to avoid that outcome, no guest-worker program can be acceptable.
The logical alternative is to improve the wages and working conditions and benefits of back-breaking agricultural and sweatshop jobs to a level that U.S. citizens will do them. That has been the aim of the United Farm Workers Union in California for decades. Yes, it will cost more initially than a guest-worker program. But it has a livable future. A guest-worker program does not.
Until the politicians and the employers are sold on that idea—until they grasp that the long-term benefits will eventually outweigh the upfront costs—there will be no lasting immigration reform. We will simply replace one crowd of non-citizens with another, luring them with income we pretend is temporary, but knowing we will need them every year and we will conspire with them again to extend their stay.
Friday, June 01, 2007
On Filling a God-Sized Hole
Today's Houston Chronicle had a front-page article on the passing of Dr. John P. “Jack” McGovern (1921-2007), “a noted allergist, scholar and philanthropist who is considered one of the Texas Medical Center’s most important figures…” The article is at http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/4853130.html
As an indicator of his thoroughgoing philanthropy, the article lists numerous Houston venues that bear his name, also noting that he endowed scores of professorships, honorary degrees and awards at universities nationwide. His charitable foundation was valued at almost $200 million in 2005.
The paragraphs at the end of the article are inspirational:
McGovern said he learned about generosity from his grandmother. As a child, he saw her feed the hungry from her home in Washington, D.C., during the Depression.
“I learned from watching my grandmother that giving and receiving is the same thing,” he once said. “…I think everybody’s got an empty spot inside, and I call it the God-sized hole that we have to fill. And you can’t do that with Caesar’s world stuff—money, property, prestige. That doesn’t fill that hole. Love does… Love in the sense of deep caring.”
As an indicator of his thoroughgoing philanthropy, the article lists numerous Houston venues that bear his name, also noting that he endowed scores of professorships, honorary degrees and awards at universities nationwide. His charitable foundation was valued at almost $200 million in 2005.
The paragraphs at the end of the article are inspirational:
McGovern said he learned about generosity from his grandmother. As a child, he saw her feed the hungry from her home in Washington, D.C., during the Depression.
“I learned from watching my grandmother that giving and receiving is the same thing,” he once said. “…I think everybody’s got an empty spot inside, and I call it the God-sized hole that we have to fill. And you can’t do that with Caesar’s world stuff—money, property, prestige. That doesn’t fill that hole. Love does… Love in the sense of deep caring.”
Thursday, May 31, 2007
USDA’s Mad Cow Policy Threatens Independent Meatpackers
Just back from a pleasant Memorial Day weekend in Kansas, I noticed the Bush administration is appealing a federal judge’s ruling March 29th that it cannot keep a Kansas meatpacker from testing all its cows for mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE). The AP article is posted at http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/4846051.html
I spent time with friends in north-central Kansas towns near the Nebraska border (Concordia, Jamestown, Jewel) and briefly in Kansas City. The meatpacker is Creekstone Farms Premium Beef of Arkansas City, Kansas (on the southern border of the state, about 20 miles north of Ponca City, OK).
Turns out Creekstone has been fighting this battle since 2004. The company specialized in exporting beef abroad, to countries like Mexico, Russia and especially Japan. When the first case of mad cow disease was found in the U.S. on December 23, 2003, the exports cratered.
Creekstone figured $20 a head to test each cow was a worthwhile expenditure to restore confidence in its exports. The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times say it spent $500,000 to build the first mad cow testing lab in a U.S. slaughterhouse and hired chemists and biologists to staff it. But the USDA, which controls sale of the mad cow test kits, refused to sell Creekstone enough kits to test each cow.
Why would the USDA take such a position? USDA said that there was “no scientific justification” for testing steers as young as Creekstone sells and that certifying some beef for export as disease-free might make Americans fear the safety of untested beef.
Creekstone argued, however, that the USDA bowed to pressure from the big four meat companies that control 80% of the industry, which don’t want to face competitive pressure to test all their cows. Creekstone slaughters about 1,000 cattle a day. The four largest meatpackers slaughter about 400 per hour. Obviously 100% testing would cost them some. They could weather the worst of the mad cow crisis by shifting attention to pork, chicken and turkey production. And it suited their interests if smaller specialty meatpackers like Creekstone were bankrupted by inability to export beef and gobbled up by the big four.
Whether it is it really effective disease control to test all cows for mad cow can be debated. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, which represents 27,000 cattle ranchers, says testing young animals “is like testing kindergartners for Alzheimer’s.” The USDA says that cattle in the U.S. slaughtered for food are generally between 18 and 24 months old, which is long before the disease is detectable.
Whether or not that claim proves correct, the economic reality is that the smaller meatpackers cannot survive without extensive mad cow testing.
Last August, USA Today editorialized against the USDA position. In an analysis entitled “Mad cow watch goes blind,” it questioned the effectiveness of the USDA’s plan to test only 1% of the 100,000 cattle slaughtered daily in the U.S. It noted that 65 countries have full or partial restrictions on importing U.S. beef products, due to fears that the testing is not rigorous enough. As a result, U.S. beef exports dropped from $3.8 billion in 2003 to $1.4 billion in 2005.
In this light, USA Today questioned the wisdom of the USDA keeping Creekstone from getting the test kits by invoking an obscure 1913 law intended to keep con artists from peddling bogus hog cholera serum to pig farmers.
Creekstone’s strategy is also supported by the Missouri Farmers Union, the Missouri-based Gateway Beef Cooperative, and the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF USA), which says it has 18,000 members in 47 states. They agree USDA is favoring large meatpacking companies over independents—and if the USDA prevails, it will drive more independents to financial ruin.
This leaves the Bush administration in an interesting quandary. Normally a vocal champion of the free-market economy, it finds itself opposing small agricultural entrepreneurs’ innovative strategy for staying competitive. In the process, it ends up subsidizing agribusiness in its drive to eliminate smaller competitors. The kind of America we want to be is very much in the balance.
As USA Today editorialized, “…there’s little logic in stopping a company from exceeding regulations to meet the demands of its customers, or protecting its rivals from legitimate competition.” The federal judge ruled that the law as currently written does not give the USDA the authority to regulate mad cow tests or prevent meatpackers from testing. The Bush administration ought to follow the law.
I spent time with friends in north-central Kansas towns near the Nebraska border (Concordia, Jamestown, Jewel) and briefly in Kansas City. The meatpacker is Creekstone Farms Premium Beef of Arkansas City, Kansas (on the southern border of the state, about 20 miles north of Ponca City, OK).
Turns out Creekstone has been fighting this battle since 2004. The company specialized in exporting beef abroad, to countries like Mexico, Russia and especially Japan. When the first case of mad cow disease was found in the U.S. on December 23, 2003, the exports cratered.
Creekstone figured $20 a head to test each cow was a worthwhile expenditure to restore confidence in its exports. The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times say it spent $500,000 to build the first mad cow testing lab in a U.S. slaughterhouse and hired chemists and biologists to staff it. But the USDA, which controls sale of the mad cow test kits, refused to sell Creekstone enough kits to test each cow.
Why would the USDA take such a position? USDA said that there was “no scientific justification” for testing steers as young as Creekstone sells and that certifying some beef for export as disease-free might make Americans fear the safety of untested beef.
Creekstone argued, however, that the USDA bowed to pressure from the big four meat companies that control 80% of the industry, which don’t want to face competitive pressure to test all their cows. Creekstone slaughters about 1,000 cattle a day. The four largest meatpackers slaughter about 400 per hour. Obviously 100% testing would cost them some. They could weather the worst of the mad cow crisis by shifting attention to pork, chicken and turkey production. And it suited their interests if smaller specialty meatpackers like Creekstone were bankrupted by inability to export beef and gobbled up by the big four.
Whether it is it really effective disease control to test all cows for mad cow can be debated. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, which represents 27,000 cattle ranchers, says testing young animals “is like testing kindergartners for Alzheimer’s.” The USDA says that cattle in the U.S. slaughtered for food are generally between 18 and 24 months old, which is long before the disease is detectable.
Whether or not that claim proves correct, the economic reality is that the smaller meatpackers cannot survive without extensive mad cow testing.
Last August, USA Today editorialized against the USDA position. In an analysis entitled “Mad cow watch goes blind,” it questioned the effectiveness of the USDA’s plan to test only 1% of the 100,000 cattle slaughtered daily in the U.S. It noted that 65 countries have full or partial restrictions on importing U.S. beef products, due to fears that the testing is not rigorous enough. As a result, U.S. beef exports dropped from $3.8 billion in 2003 to $1.4 billion in 2005.
In this light, USA Today questioned the wisdom of the USDA keeping Creekstone from getting the test kits by invoking an obscure 1913 law intended to keep con artists from peddling bogus hog cholera serum to pig farmers.
Creekstone’s strategy is also supported by the Missouri Farmers Union, the Missouri-based Gateway Beef Cooperative, and the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, United Stockgrowers of America (R-CALF USA), which says it has 18,000 members in 47 states. They agree USDA is favoring large meatpacking companies over independents—and if the USDA prevails, it will drive more independents to financial ruin.
This leaves the Bush administration in an interesting quandary. Normally a vocal champion of the free-market economy, it finds itself opposing small agricultural entrepreneurs’ innovative strategy for staying competitive. In the process, it ends up subsidizing agribusiness in its drive to eliminate smaller competitors. The kind of America we want to be is very much in the balance.
As USA Today editorialized, “…there’s little logic in stopping a company from exceeding regulations to meet the demands of its customers, or protecting its rivals from legitimate competition.” The federal judge ruled that the law as currently written does not give the USDA the authority to regulate mad cow tests or prevent meatpackers from testing. The Bush administration ought to follow the law.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Can the Pope Retract Vatican II’s Decree on Religious Freedom?
On May 13th, the last day of his trip to Brazil, Pope Benedict XVI ignited a new firestorm of controversy, by telling a meeting of Latin American bishops “The proclamation of Jesus and his Gospel did not at any point involve an alienation of the pre-Columbus cultures, nor was it the imposition of a foreign culture.”
Eleven days after the remarks, Google finds 15,700 references to “imposition of a foreign culture.” Growing at a rate of over 150 per hour, the comments are overwhelmingly negative.
They accuse the pope of failing to lament the history of enslavement, massacres and destruction that marked the indigenous Americans’ forced conversion to Roman Catholicism by Portuguese and Spanish invaders—a history, explicitly recognized by John Paul II during previous visits, in which 15th Century popes drew a line from North to South Pole, giving Spain sovereignty over all lands discovered to the west and Portugal over all to the east—and of turning a deaf ear to written requests by several Indian groups who sought his help in defending their lands and cultures.
Attempting to find some silver lining to this episode, National Catholic Reporter columnist John Allen suggested May 17th that the pope had again fallen victim to Prada-in-mouth disease—letting ill-considered language get in the way of a legitimate theological position. Allen wrote: “Because Christ came for all, Benedict reasoned, Christianity was not alien to pre-Columbian cultures; it was the fulfillment to which their religious experience pointed.”
But it needs to be asked if even the theological position is sound.
Alfred North Whitehead’s Theory of Limits provides an important tool for weighing the importance and accuracy of assertions. His oft repeated formula, “All things work between limits,” meant that the truth or falsehood of an assertion depends on its scope of useful application. In other words, a given assertion is true only within strict limits; if those limits are forgotten, the assertion begins to do the work of a falsehood.
Benedict forgot at least two important limits to his assertion that Jesus is the true fulfillment of indigenous cultures and religions.
The first is that Christians are by no means unanimous on what that concept means or how it should be unpacked. That Jesus is the fulfillment of non-Christian religions is an assertion that goes back to the earliest Fathers of the Christian church. But it may mean merely that those religions have teachings and practices which are compatible with teachings and practices of Jesus. It does not lead automatically to the belief that explicit conversion to Christianity is the only way indigenous peoples can be saved.
Catholics and others have sometimes asserted that there can be no salvation apart from belief in their specific version of Jesus. But Christians, and even Catholics, have never said this univocally or unequivocally. Catholics nuanced this view significantly in several documents at the Second Vatican Council, and it has been subject to ongoing debate in Christian theology schools for decades.
The second limitation on Benedict’s theology is that, with the Decree on Religious Freedom, approved overwhelmingly by the bishops at Vatican II after months of debate and proclaimed by the pope December 7, 1965, the Catholic Church explicitly and intentionally developed its teaching on evangelization—by characterizing violation of religious freedom as an unacceptable assault not only on the dignity of the human person but also on divine revelation itself.
The church’s position was unmistakable: “This Vatican Synod declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that in matters religious no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs.”
Vatican II spoke approvingly of Jesus’ commission to his followers, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations” (Mt. 28:19-20). But the church was careful to call even manipulative proselytizing an offense against human dignity: “…in spreading religious faith and in introducing religious practices, everyone ought at all times to refrain from any manner of action which might seem to carry a hint of coercion or of a kind of persuasion that would be dishonorable or unworthy, especially when dealing with poor or uneducated people. Such a manner of action would have to be considered an abuse of ones own right and a violation of the right of others.”
The Council also said that forced conversion contradicted the behavior and will of the persuasive God personified in Jesus: “This truth appears at its height in Christ Jesus… He is also meek and humble of heart. And in attracting and inviting His disciples He acted patiently… His intention was to rouse faith in His hearers and to confirm them in faith, not to exert coercion upon them… He refused to be a political Messiah, ruling by force… He refused to impose the truth by force on those who spoke against it.”
Tension remained in the Catholic position on evangelization even after Vatican II. The Council did not successfully flesh out how missionary activity could be justified and carried forward while still being respectful of other religions. But the Council clearly drew the line at forced conversion as a legitimate means of spreading the gospel.
The largest failing of Benedict’s Brazil pronouncement is that it crosses that line. Condoning the savagery against indigenous peoples orchestrated by the 15th Century popes is not acceptable. Nor is appearing to condone continuation of that savagery where it is still being perpetrated—whether by multinational corporations, reactionary governments, or religious fundamentalists. Nor is suggesting that Western European culture is the one by which all others must be measured—and the only one from which others can learn.
Benedict can take such positions only if he retracts the Declaration on Religious Freedom enacted by Vatican II and Pope Paul VI. For reasons Vatican II articulated all too well, he lacks the authority to do so. If he tries to, much of the church will ignore him. Some Catholics will part company with him. Google already tells us what most of the world thinks.
The closest Benedict got to a legitimate point was a statement that has barely been quoted at all: “Authentic cultures are not closed in upon themselves, nor are they set in stone at a particular point in history, but they are open, or better still, they are seeking an encounter with other cultures, hoping to reach universality through encounter and dialogue with other ways of life.”
Benedict’s mistake, however, was his failure to apply this first of all to Europe, historically or today. The indigenous cultures of America welcomed the 15th Century Europeans with encounter and dialogue. Their reward was to have an alien culture and religion imposed on them by force, by Europeans truly “closed in upon themselves.” The victims rightly call this genocide.
More than one commentator has noted the irony that George W. Bush, no favorite of the Europeans, has actually done a better job addressing this issue than Benedict XVI. On the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown settlement, Bush decried the negative effects that European colonization had on the Indian tribes of Virginia. Queen Elizabeth II also used the occasion to express sorrow for the British role in oppressing Native Americans and Africans.
The other Europeans—and the European pope—also need to repent of the destruction of other cultures and religions. And they need to make clear to the world that their deepest, most enduring commitment is never to repeat it again.
Eleven days after the remarks, Google finds 15,700 references to “imposition of a foreign culture.” Growing at a rate of over 150 per hour, the comments are overwhelmingly negative.
They accuse the pope of failing to lament the history of enslavement, massacres and destruction that marked the indigenous Americans’ forced conversion to Roman Catholicism by Portuguese and Spanish invaders—a history, explicitly recognized by John Paul II during previous visits, in which 15th Century popes drew a line from North to South Pole, giving Spain sovereignty over all lands discovered to the west and Portugal over all to the east—and of turning a deaf ear to written requests by several Indian groups who sought his help in defending their lands and cultures.
Attempting to find some silver lining to this episode, National Catholic Reporter columnist John Allen suggested May 17th that the pope had again fallen victim to Prada-in-mouth disease—letting ill-considered language get in the way of a legitimate theological position. Allen wrote: “Because Christ came for all, Benedict reasoned, Christianity was not alien to pre-Columbian cultures; it was the fulfillment to which their religious experience pointed.”
But it needs to be asked if even the theological position is sound.
Alfred North Whitehead’s Theory of Limits provides an important tool for weighing the importance and accuracy of assertions. His oft repeated formula, “All things work between limits,” meant that the truth or falsehood of an assertion depends on its scope of useful application. In other words, a given assertion is true only within strict limits; if those limits are forgotten, the assertion begins to do the work of a falsehood.
Benedict forgot at least two important limits to his assertion that Jesus is the true fulfillment of indigenous cultures and religions.
The first is that Christians are by no means unanimous on what that concept means or how it should be unpacked. That Jesus is the fulfillment of non-Christian religions is an assertion that goes back to the earliest Fathers of the Christian church. But it may mean merely that those religions have teachings and practices which are compatible with teachings and practices of Jesus. It does not lead automatically to the belief that explicit conversion to Christianity is the only way indigenous peoples can be saved.
Catholics and others have sometimes asserted that there can be no salvation apart from belief in their specific version of Jesus. But Christians, and even Catholics, have never said this univocally or unequivocally. Catholics nuanced this view significantly in several documents at the Second Vatican Council, and it has been subject to ongoing debate in Christian theology schools for decades.
The second limitation on Benedict’s theology is that, with the Decree on Religious Freedom, approved overwhelmingly by the bishops at Vatican II after months of debate and proclaimed by the pope December 7, 1965, the Catholic Church explicitly and intentionally developed its teaching on evangelization—by characterizing violation of religious freedom as an unacceptable assault not only on the dignity of the human person but also on divine revelation itself.
The church’s position was unmistakable: “This Vatican Synod declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that in matters religious no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs.”
Vatican II spoke approvingly of Jesus’ commission to his followers, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations” (Mt. 28:19-20). But the church was careful to call even manipulative proselytizing an offense against human dignity: “…in spreading religious faith and in introducing religious practices, everyone ought at all times to refrain from any manner of action which might seem to carry a hint of coercion or of a kind of persuasion that would be dishonorable or unworthy, especially when dealing with poor or uneducated people. Such a manner of action would have to be considered an abuse of ones own right and a violation of the right of others.”
The Council also said that forced conversion contradicted the behavior and will of the persuasive God personified in Jesus: “This truth appears at its height in Christ Jesus… He is also meek and humble of heart. And in attracting and inviting His disciples He acted patiently… His intention was to rouse faith in His hearers and to confirm them in faith, not to exert coercion upon them… He refused to be a political Messiah, ruling by force… He refused to impose the truth by force on those who spoke against it.”
Tension remained in the Catholic position on evangelization even after Vatican II. The Council did not successfully flesh out how missionary activity could be justified and carried forward while still being respectful of other religions. But the Council clearly drew the line at forced conversion as a legitimate means of spreading the gospel.
The largest failing of Benedict’s Brazil pronouncement is that it crosses that line. Condoning the savagery against indigenous peoples orchestrated by the 15th Century popes is not acceptable. Nor is appearing to condone continuation of that savagery where it is still being perpetrated—whether by multinational corporations, reactionary governments, or religious fundamentalists. Nor is suggesting that Western European culture is the one by which all others must be measured—and the only one from which others can learn.
Benedict can take such positions only if he retracts the Declaration on Religious Freedom enacted by Vatican II and Pope Paul VI. For reasons Vatican II articulated all too well, he lacks the authority to do so. If he tries to, much of the church will ignore him. Some Catholics will part company with him. Google already tells us what most of the world thinks.
The closest Benedict got to a legitimate point was a statement that has barely been quoted at all: “Authentic cultures are not closed in upon themselves, nor are they set in stone at a particular point in history, but they are open, or better still, they are seeking an encounter with other cultures, hoping to reach universality through encounter and dialogue with other ways of life.”
Benedict’s mistake, however, was his failure to apply this first of all to Europe, historically or today. The indigenous cultures of America welcomed the 15th Century Europeans with encounter and dialogue. Their reward was to have an alien culture and religion imposed on them by force, by Europeans truly “closed in upon themselves.” The victims rightly call this genocide.
More than one commentator has noted the irony that George W. Bush, no favorite of the Europeans, has actually done a better job addressing this issue than Benedict XVI. On the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown settlement, Bush decried the negative effects that European colonization had on the Indian tribes of Virginia. Queen Elizabeth II also used the occasion to express sorrow for the British role in oppressing Native Americans and Africans.
The other Europeans—and the European pope—also need to repent of the destruction of other cultures and religions. And they need to make clear to the world that their deepest, most enduring commitment is never to repeat it again.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Will There Be Any, Up in Heaven?
Some very welcome humor about Peter Akinola's efforts to split the Anglican Communion was posted May 8th by MadPriest at http://revjph.blogspot.com
A Whole Load of Primates Go to Heaven
A plane full of archbishops crashes and they all go to heaven where God is waiting for them.
God says to Rowan. "Rowan, what do you believe?"
Rowan replied, "Well, I believe that my weakness brought the Anglican Church to the brink of destruction, but I truly did what I did to try and keep everyone together."
God thought for a second and said, "I admire your love for my Church. Come sit at my left."
God then addressed Katharine. "Katharine, what do you believe?"
Katharine replied, "I believe I should have been a lot more assertive in Dar Es Salaam. But I wanted the boys to accept me. I was being vain."
God thought for a second and said, "Because of your honesty, you are forgiven, my daughter. Come sit at my right."
God then called on Big Pete Akinola. "Your Holiness, what do you believe?"
Big Pete said, "I believe you're in MY chair!"
A Whole Load of Primates Go to Heaven
A plane full of archbishops crashes and they all go to heaven where God is waiting for them.
God says to Rowan. "Rowan, what do you believe?"
Rowan replied, "Well, I believe that my weakness brought the Anglican Church to the brink of destruction, but I truly did what I did to try and keep everyone together."
God thought for a second and said, "I admire your love for my Church. Come sit at my left."
God then addressed Katharine. "Katharine, what do you believe?"
Katharine replied, "I believe I should have been a lot more assertive in Dar Es Salaam. But I wanted the boys to accept me. I was being vain."
God thought for a second and said, "Because of your honesty, you are forgiven, my daughter. Come sit at my right."
God then called on Big Pete Akinola. "Your Holiness, what do you believe?"
Big Pete said, "I believe you're in MY chair!"
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Medieval Helpdesk
A really funny satire on adapting to new technology is making the rounds on YouTube and related blogs. Think WE have trouble with new hardware and software? Imagine, if you will, the skills needed to transtion from the medieval scroll to...THE BOOK!
http://www.youtube.com/?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ
Thanks to Jamey Boudreaux, Executive Director of the Louisiana Mississippi Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, for bringing this to my attention. He's at http://www.lmhpco.org/
http://www.youtube.com/?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ
Thanks to Jamey Boudreaux, Executive Director of the Louisiana Mississippi Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, for bringing this to my attention. He's at http://www.lmhpco.org/
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Anglican Communion: A Better Alternative from Africa
Thanks to "23 Acres of Black Dirt" (http://23acres.blogspot.com/) for calling attention to a remarkable analysis of the Anglican Communion by Njongonkulu Ndungane, Archbishop of Cape Town and Primate of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. In a speech in Cape Town, Ndungane offers a spirited defense of the "bonds of affection" that have held the Communion together through thick and thin--and shows just how much will be lost if Peter Akinola gets his way. The speech is published at
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/42/75/acns4284.cfm
http://www.anglicancommunion.org/acns/articles/42/75/acns4284.cfm
Monday, May 14, 2007
Akinola’s Latest Assault on the Anglican Communion
Peter Akinola, the Anglican Archbishop of Nigeria, has made another move in his relentless drive to transform the Anglican Communion into the Orthodox Church of the Global South—with himself in charge.
Thumbing his nose at personal written pleas from Episcopal Presiding Bishop Kathryn Jefferts Schori and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, Akinola has again insinuated himself into the internal affairs of the Episcopal Church (USA).
His Cinco de Mayo gift to the U.S. church was to appear in Woodbridge, VA (about 25 miles down I-95 from Washington, D.C.), and install a bishop to oversee 34 U.S. churches that have parted company with the Episcopal Church over the issues of blessing same-sex partners and consecrating bishops who have same-sex partners.
In a move that flies in the face of centuries of Anglican governance, the bishop of these U.S. congregations will report to the Anglican Church of Nigeria.
I have covered Akinola’s pernicious behavior in prior postings. That he lacks both the civil and the ecclesial authority to install a bishop over U.S. congregations seems not to trouble him or the 34 churches.
Several U.S. courts have ruled against the renegade congregations when they tried to confiscate the property of the Episcopal Church. The Archbishop of Canterbury asked Akinola not to take the action, because the Episcopal Church (USA) is still working on a September 30th deadline to respond to previous demands that Akinola instigated.
But Akinola is not one to let little niceties like law or due process or tradition stand in his way. He is determined that his bigotry against gay people—including gay Christians—will be the worldwide policy of the Anglican Communion, even though it flies in the face of decades of contemporary scripture scholarship and decades of discernment by Anglican congregations in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.
As I have noted before, historically the Anglican Communion has been distinguished by its ability to cherish a broad diversity of theological views in a single worldwide community. The diversity was maintained because the national churches within the Anglican Communion all agreed to respect one another’s distinct traditions and identity, including their internal positions on controverted issues.
By taking another action at odds with that history, Akinola again makes loud and clear what his true interest is. Clearly it is not salvaging the Anglican Communion.
Unless the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other Anglican primates tell Akinola that his actions are out of bounds, he will succeed in destroying the Communion. The replacement will be a church where he is the final arbiter of what is orthodox and who may belong.
Thumbing his nose at personal written pleas from Episcopal Presiding Bishop Kathryn Jefferts Schori and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, Akinola has again insinuated himself into the internal affairs of the Episcopal Church (USA).
His Cinco de Mayo gift to the U.S. church was to appear in Woodbridge, VA (about 25 miles down I-95 from Washington, D.C.), and install a bishop to oversee 34 U.S. churches that have parted company with the Episcopal Church over the issues of blessing same-sex partners and consecrating bishops who have same-sex partners.
In a move that flies in the face of centuries of Anglican governance, the bishop of these U.S. congregations will report to the Anglican Church of Nigeria.
I have covered Akinola’s pernicious behavior in prior postings. That he lacks both the civil and the ecclesial authority to install a bishop over U.S. congregations seems not to trouble him or the 34 churches.
Several U.S. courts have ruled against the renegade congregations when they tried to confiscate the property of the Episcopal Church. The Archbishop of Canterbury asked Akinola not to take the action, because the Episcopal Church (USA) is still working on a September 30th deadline to respond to previous demands that Akinola instigated.
But Akinola is not one to let little niceties like law or due process or tradition stand in his way. He is determined that his bigotry against gay people—including gay Christians—will be the worldwide policy of the Anglican Communion, even though it flies in the face of decades of contemporary scripture scholarship and decades of discernment by Anglican congregations in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.
As I have noted before, historically the Anglican Communion has been distinguished by its ability to cherish a broad diversity of theological views in a single worldwide community. The diversity was maintained because the national churches within the Anglican Communion all agreed to respect one another’s distinct traditions and identity, including their internal positions on controverted issues.
By taking another action at odds with that history, Akinola again makes loud and clear what his true interest is. Clearly it is not salvaging the Anglican Communion.
Unless the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other Anglican primates tell Akinola that his actions are out of bounds, he will succeed in destroying the Communion. The replacement will be a church where he is the final arbiter of what is orthodox and who may belong.
Friday, May 04, 2007
Latin Mass Redux? Not Exactly
The National Catholic Reporter’s John Allen titled his April 20th “All Things Catholic” online column, “Hold your breath for the next media frenzy: the Latin Mass document is coming.” The column is at http://ncrcafe.org/node/1041.
The column said a statement long-expected from the Vatican was imminent, expanding the times and places where priests can celebrate the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass. The Latin version was replaced in the mid-1960s by four “eucharistic prayers” in local languages. The new normative language reflected several decades of liturgical scholarship blessed by the majority of the bishops at the Second Vatican Council. Individual bishops and priests were still allowed to use the old Latin version, but only under very stringent conditions.
Although Allen felt a broader availability of the old Latin Mass would be seen as a victory by the most conservative Catholics—and be so reported by the media—he said the real-world impact of the new policy would be minimal. Pastors and liturgical experts estimated that no more than two percent of Catholics worldwide would attend the pre-Vatican II rite. Besides, the number of priests who know enough Latin to preside at the old Mass has dwindled.
He also noted that pre-Vatican II liturgical language sometimes reflects theology that was officially reversed at Vatican II, including statements about Jews that Rome has taken great pains to avoid and correct over the last 40 years. Apparently the Vatican has decided that those who prefer the old Latin Mass can hear such deficiencies without damage to the overall theology and policy of the church.
Allen’s column produced a lively response on the NCR website. By NCR’s latest count, readers have added 90 comments—more than for any column since February, when he covered the significance for religious freedom of laws various countries have adopted criminalizing hate speech and discriminatory actions against gay people.
One thing Allen’s column and the comments make clear is that there has been a variety of normative liturgies in the history of Christianity and of the Roman Catholic Church. This context is important for understanding any liturgical change, including the pending broader availability of the pre-Vatican II liturgy.
For the most traditionalist Catholics, the old Latin Mass—developed over roughly a thousand years and adopted officially by the Council of Trent—was “THE Mass.” It was absolute and unsurpassable. They deny the authority of the world’s bishops at Second Vatican Council to replace it, and they resent the bishops for doing so. They will try to spin the Vatican statement as vindication of their long-suffering dissent.
But it will not be. Instead, by making the old Latin Mass more available as an alternative to the vernacular eucharistic prayers, the Vatican will reinforce the fact that the church has always had, and will always have, multiple normative liturgies—and that all of them are subject to being revised, supplemented or replaced as the Christian community discovers better ways of doing liturgy (e.g., ways that improve worshippers’ ability to love God and neighbor, and that better articulate and promote the best that theologians have achieved).
I made this point in a previous post July 17, 2006, “A Better Way to Change Catholic Liturgical Language.” At that time the issue was the U.S. bishops preparing to make some changes to the liturgical English that Catholics in the U.S. have recited for over three decades. Like the adherents of the old Latin Mass, some weekly church goers will not like the bishops’ changes.
Just as the church could have been less draconian about restricting the old Latin Mass, so too with the newer revisions, it could continue to make the 30-year old English version available as an alternative to those who prefer it. I also had two larger points in mind.
First, it is not essential to the identity and survival of the church that its liturgical practice be identical around the globe. It is important that there be normative language and that it be repeated more than any alternatives. But making versions of the liturgy available which used to be normative and since have been surpassed does not detract from the current normative liturgy. On the contrary, while upholding the normative liturgy as the one which the church currently prefers, it emphasizes that there can be many authentic ways of commemorating the works and life of the Risen Lord and his presence with us today—and that no one version of eucharistic celebration can ever be treated as final or absolute.
Second, because liturgy can always be improved, the church can and should allow times and places where those who want to propose new liturgical language and practice can try them with willing congregations, in the hope that such experiences will lead to better normative language and practice down the road.
This was allowed for a period of time after Vatican II, when liturgical experts published experimental eucharistic prayers that followed the structure of the approved ones but offered language and rituals that many small congregations found more beautiful and more inspirational than the official language.
Unfortunately, Rome pretty much suppressed such experimentation, and the more conservative church goers made sure that violators were reported to the hierarchy. As a result the church is left to rely largely on non-Catholic Christians to test the effectiveness of liturgical innovations and improvements.
So a greater availability of the Latin Mass cannot be used to absolutize it or any version of the eucharistic liturgy. But it can be the occasion to remember again that alternatives to the normative language can be a healthy expression of religious humility and devotion—and that the alternatives should include not only older liturgies that have been replaced but also authorized experiments that can lead eventually to surpassing the liturgies that are normative today.
The column said a statement long-expected from the Vatican was imminent, expanding the times and places where priests can celebrate the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass. The Latin version was replaced in the mid-1960s by four “eucharistic prayers” in local languages. The new normative language reflected several decades of liturgical scholarship blessed by the majority of the bishops at the Second Vatican Council. Individual bishops and priests were still allowed to use the old Latin version, but only under very stringent conditions.
Although Allen felt a broader availability of the old Latin Mass would be seen as a victory by the most conservative Catholics—and be so reported by the media—he said the real-world impact of the new policy would be minimal. Pastors and liturgical experts estimated that no more than two percent of Catholics worldwide would attend the pre-Vatican II rite. Besides, the number of priests who know enough Latin to preside at the old Mass has dwindled.
He also noted that pre-Vatican II liturgical language sometimes reflects theology that was officially reversed at Vatican II, including statements about Jews that Rome has taken great pains to avoid and correct over the last 40 years. Apparently the Vatican has decided that those who prefer the old Latin Mass can hear such deficiencies without damage to the overall theology and policy of the church.
Allen’s column produced a lively response on the NCR website. By NCR’s latest count, readers have added 90 comments—more than for any column since February, when he covered the significance for religious freedom of laws various countries have adopted criminalizing hate speech and discriminatory actions against gay people.
One thing Allen’s column and the comments make clear is that there has been a variety of normative liturgies in the history of Christianity and of the Roman Catholic Church. This context is important for understanding any liturgical change, including the pending broader availability of the pre-Vatican II liturgy.
For the most traditionalist Catholics, the old Latin Mass—developed over roughly a thousand years and adopted officially by the Council of Trent—was “THE Mass.” It was absolute and unsurpassable. They deny the authority of the world’s bishops at Second Vatican Council to replace it, and they resent the bishops for doing so. They will try to spin the Vatican statement as vindication of their long-suffering dissent.
But it will not be. Instead, by making the old Latin Mass more available as an alternative to the vernacular eucharistic prayers, the Vatican will reinforce the fact that the church has always had, and will always have, multiple normative liturgies—and that all of them are subject to being revised, supplemented or replaced as the Christian community discovers better ways of doing liturgy (e.g., ways that improve worshippers’ ability to love God and neighbor, and that better articulate and promote the best that theologians have achieved).
I made this point in a previous post July 17, 2006, “A Better Way to Change Catholic Liturgical Language.” At that time the issue was the U.S. bishops preparing to make some changes to the liturgical English that Catholics in the U.S. have recited for over three decades. Like the adherents of the old Latin Mass, some weekly church goers will not like the bishops’ changes.
Just as the church could have been less draconian about restricting the old Latin Mass, so too with the newer revisions, it could continue to make the 30-year old English version available as an alternative to those who prefer it. I also had two larger points in mind.
First, it is not essential to the identity and survival of the church that its liturgical practice be identical around the globe. It is important that there be normative language and that it be repeated more than any alternatives. But making versions of the liturgy available which used to be normative and since have been surpassed does not detract from the current normative liturgy. On the contrary, while upholding the normative liturgy as the one which the church currently prefers, it emphasizes that there can be many authentic ways of commemorating the works and life of the Risen Lord and his presence with us today—and that no one version of eucharistic celebration can ever be treated as final or absolute.
Second, because liturgy can always be improved, the church can and should allow times and places where those who want to propose new liturgical language and practice can try them with willing congregations, in the hope that such experiences will lead to better normative language and practice down the road.
This was allowed for a period of time after Vatican II, when liturgical experts published experimental eucharistic prayers that followed the structure of the approved ones but offered language and rituals that many small congregations found more beautiful and more inspirational than the official language.
Unfortunately, Rome pretty much suppressed such experimentation, and the more conservative church goers made sure that violators were reported to the hierarchy. As a result the church is left to rely largely on non-Catholic Christians to test the effectiveness of liturgical innovations and improvements.
So a greater availability of the Latin Mass cannot be used to absolutize it or any version of the eucharistic liturgy. But it can be the occasion to remember again that alternatives to the normative language can be a healthy expression of religious humility and devotion—and that the alternatives should include not only older liturgies that have been replaced but also authorized experiments that can lead eventually to surpassing the liturgies that are normative today.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Ready for a Diet of Bread and Water? More on Bee Disappearance
You know the disappearance of honeybees is serious when the usually “let’s not panic” U.S. Department of Agriculture voices alarm. In the article published today, the head of the USDA’s bee and pollination program calls Colony Collapse Disorder “the biggest general threat to our food supply.” The impacts are pretty scary:
Bees pollinate over 90 of the tastiest flowering crops the U.S. has.
About 1/3 of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants.
The honeybee contributes about 80% of that pollination.
Even cattle, which feed on alfalfa, depend on bees.
The upshot is that if the bee disappearance becomes unstoppable, the domestic diet could be reduced literally to grains and water.
Since no one knows the cause(s) of the disappearance, there is little specific anyone can do right now to stop contributing to it. The USDA does not mention the concern that cell phone signals might be contributing. The suspects the USDA is investigating, with help from experts from Brazil and Europe, include pesticide, parasites or disease.
The article mentions that the list of suspects exceeds the time, people and funds the USDA has. Lobbying the Bush administration to give the crisis much more urgent priority is one constructive thing concerned citizens can do. The article is at
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/05/03/honeybees.dying.ap/index.html
Bees pollinate over 90 of the tastiest flowering crops the U.S. has.
About 1/3 of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants.
The honeybee contributes about 80% of that pollination.
Even cattle, which feed on alfalfa, depend on bees.
The upshot is that if the bee disappearance becomes unstoppable, the domestic diet could be reduced literally to grains and water.
Since no one knows the cause(s) of the disappearance, there is little specific anyone can do right now to stop contributing to it. The USDA does not mention the concern that cell phone signals might be contributing. The suspects the USDA is investigating, with help from experts from Brazil and Europe, include pesticide, parasites or disease.
The article mentions that the list of suspects exceeds the time, people and funds the USDA has. Lobbying the Bush administration to give the crisis much more urgent priority is one constructive thing concerned citizens can do. The article is at
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/05/03/honeybees.dying.ap/index.html
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Saint John Paul II?
The April 27th print edition of the National Catholic Reporter had this insightful letter from Richard B. Emond, Stafford, VA:
"The push is on to canonize John Paul II. In the accelerated, abbreviated process, the church is about to determine whether it has the one miracle required for beatification. If approved, it will then need another miracle to advance to canonization. I submit that it already has it, as it was truly a miracle that the church survived John Paul II."
I agree with his assessment of John Paul II's time in office: he single-handedly undid many of the best accomplishments of the Second Vatican Council. Whether the Catholic church will indeed survive him remains to be seen. Benedict XVI seems bent on leading his faithful down many cul de sacs, with little if any forward movement. Jesus is said to have assured Peter that "the gates of hell" would not prevail against the church. Time will tell whether Jesus also ruled out the self-destruction of Roman Catholicism.
"The push is on to canonize John Paul II. In the accelerated, abbreviated process, the church is about to determine whether it has the one miracle required for beatification. If approved, it will then need another miracle to advance to canonization. I submit that it already has it, as it was truly a miracle that the church survived John Paul II."
I agree with his assessment of John Paul II's time in office: he single-handedly undid many of the best accomplishments of the Second Vatican Council. Whether the Catholic church will indeed survive him remains to be seen. Benedict XVI seems bent on leading his faithful down many cul de sacs, with little if any forward movement. Jesus is said to have assured Peter that "the gates of hell" would not prevail against the church. Time will tell whether Jesus also ruled out the self-destruction of Roman Catholicism.
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
America's 500th Birthday
Today is America’s 500th birthday—by one calculus, at least. We learn this from Bradley S. Klapper of the Associated Press, in an article at
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/4745831.html
An obscure cartographer, Martin Waldseemueller, is credited with publishing on April 25, 1507, in St. Die, France (described as a “backwater French court”), the first map of the world naming the Western Hemisphere “America.” The map is regarded as the first “to depict a separate Western Hemisphere and a separate Pacific Ocean.”
The map named the hemisphere in honor of Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian who “discovered” the new world shortly after Columbus. Although Columbus got to the new world first, he set out thinking it was Asia he would find. When he died in 1506, he still believed that all four of his voyages had been to Asia.
Unlike Columbus, Vespucci sailed along the north and east coasts of South America and correctly identified the new world as a previously unknown land mass. Waldseemueller argued that Amerigo should be honored as the first to grasp the significance of their discovery.
As a student of Alfred North Whitehead, I was primed to pay special attention to this article. Whitehead was fond of citing Columbus as an example of the unexpected tricks and turns creativity can take. While teaching at Harvard in 1933, Whitehead found it fascinating that Columbus had started out searching for one continent, but then found another he’d never imagined.
In Adventures of Ideas Whitehead said: “Before Columbus set sail for America, he had dreamt of the far East, and of the round world, and of the trackless ocean. Adventure rarely reaches its predetermined end. Columbus never reached China. But he discovered America.”
Well, not exactly. Today’s information puts Columbus’ discovery in a much different light.
Yes, he risked his life in the conviction that the earth is a globe and if you sailed it west from Europe, you’d one day reach another continent. And he should be celebrated for being right.
Yet in the giddiness of actually finding the new land mass, Columbus was so much a prisoner of his own thought processes that he could not imagine a continent other than Asia. It took Vespucci, possibly with more information and certainly with a more accurate imagination, to truly discover “America.”
The lesson is endlessly instructive. We need to keep discovering. We need to set out courageously to seek what we hope to find. And when we say eureka, we have found it, we may be right. But it may turn out that we have not found “it” at all. And in rare and hugely important occasions, we may learn that we have been blessed to discover “infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.” (Ephesians 3:20-21).
Happy 500th birthday, America!
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/4745831.html
An obscure cartographer, Martin Waldseemueller, is credited with publishing on April 25, 1507, in St. Die, France (described as a “backwater French court”), the first map of the world naming the Western Hemisphere “America.” The map is regarded as the first “to depict a separate Western Hemisphere and a separate Pacific Ocean.”
The map named the hemisphere in honor of Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian who “discovered” the new world shortly after Columbus. Although Columbus got to the new world first, he set out thinking it was Asia he would find. When he died in 1506, he still believed that all four of his voyages had been to Asia.
Unlike Columbus, Vespucci sailed along the north and east coasts of South America and correctly identified the new world as a previously unknown land mass. Waldseemueller argued that Amerigo should be honored as the first to grasp the significance of their discovery.
As a student of Alfred North Whitehead, I was primed to pay special attention to this article. Whitehead was fond of citing Columbus as an example of the unexpected tricks and turns creativity can take. While teaching at Harvard in 1933, Whitehead found it fascinating that Columbus had started out searching for one continent, but then found another he’d never imagined.
In Adventures of Ideas Whitehead said: “Before Columbus set sail for America, he had dreamt of the far East, and of the round world, and of the trackless ocean. Adventure rarely reaches its predetermined end. Columbus never reached China. But he discovered America.”
Well, not exactly. Today’s information puts Columbus’ discovery in a much different light.
Yes, he risked his life in the conviction that the earth is a globe and if you sailed it west from Europe, you’d one day reach another continent. And he should be celebrated for being right.
Yet in the giddiness of actually finding the new land mass, Columbus was so much a prisoner of his own thought processes that he could not imagine a continent other than Asia. It took Vespucci, possibly with more information and certainly with a more accurate imagination, to truly discover “America.”
The lesson is endlessly instructive. We need to keep discovering. We need to set out courageously to seek what we hope to find. And when we say eureka, we have found it, we may be right. But it may turn out that we have not found “it” at all. And in rare and hugely important occasions, we may learn that we have been blessed to discover “infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.” (Ephesians 3:20-21).
Happy 500th birthday, America!
Monday, April 23, 2007
The Buzz and the Bees
Let's hope they're wrong. If not, this could pose a considerable quandry for several million cell phone users. This is from http://www.earthweek.com/online/ew070420/ew070420f.html
Cell Phone Signals May Cause Bee Disappearance
Studies conducted by German researchers indicate that the growing use of cell phones could in some way be responsible for the sudden disappearance of bees seen across America and parts of Europe since last fall.
A limited study conducted at Germany’s Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby.
Lead researcher Dr. Jochen Kuhn said this could provide a “hint” to a possible cause of what has been termed Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).
The phenomenon has seen entire bee colonies disappear from their hives, leaving only the queen, eggs and a few immature workers.
Kuhn cautioned that his research was on how cell phone signals might affect learning, and not on CCD.
Dr. George Carlo, who headed an extensive study by the U.S. government and mobile phone industry on the hazards of mobile phone use during the 1990s, told Britain’s Independent newspaper the “possibility is real” that the use of cell phones could be contributing to CCD.
The Independent's article, actually more alarmist in tone than the one at earthweek.com, is at http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2449968.ece
Bill Maher had a sarcastic yet sobering Earth Day take on this. A You Tube version is posted at http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2007/04/bill_maher_on_earth_day.php
Cell Phone Signals May Cause Bee Disappearance
Studies conducted by German researchers indicate that the growing use of cell phones could in some way be responsible for the sudden disappearance of bees seen across America and parts of Europe since last fall.
A limited study conducted at Germany’s Landau University has found that bees refuse to return to their hives when mobile phones are placed nearby.
Lead researcher Dr. Jochen Kuhn said this could provide a “hint” to a possible cause of what has been termed Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).
The phenomenon has seen entire bee colonies disappear from their hives, leaving only the queen, eggs and a few immature workers.
Kuhn cautioned that his research was on how cell phone signals might affect learning, and not on CCD.
Dr. George Carlo, who headed an extensive study by the U.S. government and mobile phone industry on the hazards of mobile phone use during the 1990s, told Britain’s Independent newspaper the “possibility is real” that the use of cell phones could be contributing to CCD.
The Independent's article, actually more alarmist in tone than the one at earthweek.com, is at http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2449968.ece
Bill Maher had a sarcastic yet sobering Earth Day take on this. A You Tube version is posted at http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2007/04/bill_maher_on_earth_day.php
Friday, April 20, 2007
The Insanity of Arming Everyone
For a very helpful take on the insanity of arming everyone, please see today's column by Mark Morford of the San Francisco Chronicle at
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/04/20/notes042007.DTL&feed=rss.mmorford
Thanks to Amy for her post publicizing the column at
http://blog.myspace.com/acoyle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/04/20/notes042007.DTL&feed=rss.mmorford
Thanks to Amy for her post publicizing the column at
http://blog.myspace.com/acoyle
Obama's Small Step toward Better Gun Control
This is starting to be noticed in blogs, but it merits a lot more media attention than it’s gotten so far. Barack Obama says the circumstances of the Virginia Tech massacre warrant some common sense changes in gun laws. So far that makes him the only presidential candidate courageous enough to challenge the NRA’s lock on the national political process. It’s a small challenge, but braver than any other candidate has ventured. And the NRA has ended other political careers over less.
This AP article is posted at http://www.click2houston.com/politics/12535089/detail.html.
Obama: Gun Law Changes Needed For Mentally Ill
POSTED: 5:08 pm CDT April 19, 2007
UPDATED: 5:22 pm CDT April 19, 2007
Illinois Democrat and presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama wants stronger laws to prevent the mentally ill from buying guns.
The student who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech, Cho Seung-Hui, had a history of mental health problems but still was able to buy the two guns used in the rampage.
In an interview with the syndicated radio program "The Steve Harvey Morning Show," Obama said gun laws have to change to prevent the type of killings seen this week at Virginia Tech and on a daily basis in urban areas. The senator said "some common-sense" changes are needed.
Obama also said he wants mental health services improved to identify people with serious problems who aren't getting treatment.
Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
By the way, I agree with Charles Krauthammer’s observation today that it was tasteless and not very helpful for Obama, in an earlier impromptu speech just hours after the massacre, to remark that Cho’s violence took place in the context of other kinds of “violence” our society allows, including the “violence” of Don Imus toward the Rutger’s women’s basketball team, the “violence” of outsourcing American jobs to other countries, and the “violence” that an ineffective American foreign policy has allowed to continue against the children of Darfur. Rhetoric about these topics is appropriate for the political campaign, but connecting them with the gun violence at Virginia Tech will take a very long national discussion, and this is not the time to begin it.
However, the circumstances of the Virginia Tech shootings cry out for more effective gun controls. Obama is right to say so and to challenge those who are in denial about that--especially those who think that the solution to too many guns is many more guns.
Krauthammer is at http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/4732334.html.
This AP article is posted at http://www.click2houston.com/politics/12535089/detail.html.
Obama: Gun Law Changes Needed For Mentally Ill
POSTED: 5:08 pm CDT April 19, 2007
UPDATED: 5:22 pm CDT April 19, 2007
Illinois Democrat and presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama wants stronger laws to prevent the mentally ill from buying guns.
The student who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech, Cho Seung-Hui, had a history of mental health problems but still was able to buy the two guns used in the rampage.
In an interview with the syndicated radio program "The Steve Harvey Morning Show," Obama said gun laws have to change to prevent the type of killings seen this week at Virginia Tech and on a daily basis in urban areas. The senator said "some common-sense" changes are needed.
Obama also said he wants mental health services improved to identify people with serious problems who aren't getting treatment.
Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
By the way, I agree with Charles Krauthammer’s observation today that it was tasteless and not very helpful for Obama, in an earlier impromptu speech just hours after the massacre, to remark that Cho’s violence took place in the context of other kinds of “violence” our society allows, including the “violence” of Don Imus toward the Rutger’s women’s basketball team, the “violence” of outsourcing American jobs to other countries, and the “violence” that an ineffective American foreign policy has allowed to continue against the children of Darfur. Rhetoric about these topics is appropriate for the political campaign, but connecting them with the gun violence at Virginia Tech will take a very long national discussion, and this is not the time to begin it.
However, the circumstances of the Virginia Tech shootings cry out for more effective gun controls. Obama is right to say so and to challenge those who are in denial about that--especially those who think that the solution to too many guns is many more guns.
Krauthammer is at http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/4732334.html.
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