Via Rod Dreher, excerpts from a Jonathan Haidt column itself summarizing a study attempting to explain the "microagression" culture on many college campuses. From Haidt:
I just read the most extraordinary paper by two sociologists — Bradley Campbell and Jason Manning — explaining why concerns about microaggressions have erupted on many American college campuses in just the past few years. In brief: We’re beginning a second transition of moral cultures. The first major transition happened in the 18th and 19th centuries when most Western societies moved away from cultures of honor (where people must earn honor and must therefore avenge insults on their own) to cultures of dignity in which people are assumed to have dignity and don’t need to earn it. They foreswear violence, turn to courts or administrative bodies to respond to major transgressions, and for minor transgressions they either ignore them or attempt to resolve them by social means. There’s no more dueling.
Campbell and Manning describe how this culture of dignity is now giving way to a new culture of victimhood in which people are encouraged to respond to even the slightest unintentional offense, as in an honor culture. But they must not obtain redress on their own; they must appeal for help to powerful others or administrative bodies, to whom they must make the case that they have been victimized. It is the very presence of such administrative bodies, within a culture that is highly egalitarian and diverse (i.e., many college campuses) that gives rise to intense efforts to identify oneself as a fragile and aggrieved victim. ....
From the study (as quoted by Haidt. I have removed references.):
This is the great tragedy: the culture of victimization rewards people for taking on a personal identity as one who is damaged, weak, and aggrieved. This is a recipe for failure — and constant litigation — after students graduate from college and attempt to enter the workforce. ....
The prevailing culture in the modern West is one whose moral code is nearly the exact opposite of that of an honor culture. Rather than honor, a status based primarily on public opinion, people are said to have dignity, a kind of inherent worth that cannot be alienated by others. Dignity exists independently of what others think, so a culture of dignity is one in which public reputation is less important. Insults might provoke offense, but they no longer have the same importance as a way of establishing or destroying a reputation for bravery. It is even commendable to have “thick skin” that allows one to shrug off slights and even serious insults, and in a dignity-based society parents might teach children some version of “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” – an idea that would be alien in a culture of honor. People are to avoid insulting others, too, whether intentionally or not, and in general an ethic of self-restraint prevails. ....
Microaggression complaints have characteristics that put them at odds with both honor and dignity cultures. Honorable people are sensitive to insult, and so they would understand that microaggressions, even if unintentional, are severe offenses that demand a serious response. But honor cultures value unilateral aggression and disparage appeals for help. Public complaints that advertise or even exaggerate one’s own victimization and need for sympathy would be anathema to a person of honor – tantamount to showing that one had no honor at all.
Members of a dignity culture, on the other hand, would see no shame in appealing to third parties, but they would not approve of such appeals for minor and merely verbal offenses. Instead they would likely counsel either confronting the offender directly to discuss the issue, or better yet, ignoring the remarks altogether.
A culture of victimhood is one characterized by concern with status and sensitivity to slight combined with a heavy reliance on third parties. People are intolerant of insults, even if unintentional, and react by bringing them to the attention of authorities or to the public at large. Domination is the main form of deviance, and victimization a way of attracting sympathy, so rather than emphasize either their strength or inner worth, the aggrieved emphasize their oppression and social marginalization. … Under such conditions complaint to third parties has supplanted both toleration and negotiation. People increasingly demand help from others, and advertise their oppression as evidence that they deserve respect and assistance. Thus we might call this moral culture a culture of victimhood because the moral status of the victim, at its nadir in honor cultures, has risen to new heights. .... [more]
Donald Trump, Social Justice Warrior?
Milton House
Arriving this morning in the mail: Milton (Images of America) by Doug Welch and the Milton Historical Society. I suspect anyone who has ever lived in Milton would enjoy it. I grew up there. The book begins with a brief history of the city and then there are five sections of captioned pictures: 1. Milton House, 2. Village of Milton, 3. Milton Junction, 4. Working Rails, and 5. Milton College.
So far I've only looked at the Milton House section. My parents took me to the pageant held when the museum first opened in 1955 and there are pictures of that pageant. In high school I volunteered Sundays as a guide in the museum and spent at least one summer, probably in 1962, as a paid guide (The wage was, I think, $1.25 an hour). On Sundays one guide didn't take a group through the entire tour - it was divided into sections with a different guide for each section. Prof "Si" Inglis always had the basement. The summer I worked there I recall going next door on hot days to Earl Young's Standard Station to buy pop out of the cooler in his front room. In my memory every day was hot that summer although cooler in the museum, especially in the basement and the tunnel. The regular staff at the museum included these folks. The caption is the one from the book.
During the early years of its operation, the Milton House was a seasonal museum offering tours from May through September each year. It was not until the completions of the 2006 expansion that the museum could be opened year round. Pictured here at the opening of the 1960 tour season are museum curators Rev John and Emily Randolph.
I believe "FitzRandolph" is correct, although "Fitz Randolph" may be right. (Note: I gather from a descendent that, for this generation, "Randolph" is correct, although both the previous and subsequent generations used "FitzRandolph.")
I anticipate enjoying the remaining sections of the book just as much as this one.
I believe the book can be purchased from the Milton Historical Society. An Amazon link for the book is here.
Labels: Books, SDB History
"On the third day he rose"
In "The Day of Jesus' Resurrection According to Matthew," Paul Manuel takes up the question of the chronology of Easter. His conclusions:
.... Buried on Friday, before the Sabbath had begun, when did Jesus rise from the dead? The most common belief is that he rose early Sunday morning, but that does not seem to agree with his prediction of spending "three days and three nights" (72 hours?) in the grave. An examination of the different statements about the time of the resurrection, though, reveals considerable variation, forcing the reader to view them either as a host of contradictions or as simple approximations referring to parts of a three-day period. ....
How are we to understand such disparate statements about the time of Jesus' resurrection? These are all approximate references and, therefore, not contradictory. Their purpose is to direct attention to the third day, which is when Jesus rose from the dead. If there is any uncertainty which day of the week that momentous event occurred, Luke resolves the matter, for he identifies "the third day" with "the first day of the week" (i.e., Sunday). ....
The chronological markers in the gospel accounts enable modern readers to establish the day of Jesus' crucifixion and the day of his resurrection. According to those markers, Jesus died on Friday, the preparation day for the weekly Sabbath, and he rose on the third day, which was Sunday, the first day of the week. [more]
The argument, with end notes, is here.
Reposted.
The sun that warms and lights us.
Alleluia! (Martin Luther, 1524)
A Holy Saturday kind of faith
From "Sitting, Waiting, and Hoping in the Tomb of Jesus: How the anguished uncertainty of Holy Saturday gives shape to our faith," by A.J. Swoboda:
.... Martin Luther said himself that Saturday was the day that God himself lay cold in the grave. Friday was death, Sunday was hope, but Saturday was that seemingly ignored middle day between them when God occupied a dirty grave in a little garden outside Jerusalem. Saturday is about waiting, about uncertainty, about not knowing what’ll happen. ....
So much of Christian faith is Saturday faith. ....
A medieval theologian, Anselm, once described the kind of faith that comes with Saturday—fides quaerens intellectum: “faith seeking understanding.” By that, he meant that faith isn’t something that arises after moments of understanding. Rather, faith is something that you cling to when understanding and reason lay dead. We don’t believe once we understand it—we believe in order to understand it. Saturday’s like that: offering a day of waiting, a day of ambiguity, a day when God is sovereign even if our ideas and theologies and expectations about him are not. It is the day that our ignorance is our witness and our proclamation. Truth is, our intellect will always be one step behind in our love of God. We don’t love God once we understand him; we love God in order to understand him. ....
At times, we are all like the two disciples on their way to Emmaus who were really close to Jesus but didn’t always know it. In Luke 24, two disciples walked away from Jerusalem, where they’d just seen their Lord and Master die on the cross. Leaving, dejected, upset, hopeless, and broken, to find the next stage in their lives and careers. Unbeknownst to them, Jesus had been resurrected and was actually walking alongside them on their way to Emmaus. The hope of Sunday hadn’t dawned on them yet. The Gospels tell us that, on their way to Emmaus, the disciples were “downcast.”
That experience is the kind of experience Saturday is all about. .... [more]
A. J. Swoboda is a pastor in Portland, Oregon. This is from his A Glorious Dark: Finding Hope in the Tension between Belief and Experience, excerpted in Christianity Today.
Sitting, Waiting, and Hoping in the Tomb of Jesus | Christianity Today
"In Thee is all my trust"
Oh Lord in Thee is all my trust.
Give ear unto my woeful cries.
Refuse me not, that am unjust,
But bowing down Thy heav'nly eyes,
Behold how I do still lament
My sins wherein I do offend.
O Lord, for them shall I be shent,
Sith Thee to please I do intend? Haste Thee, O Lord, haste Thee, I say,
To pour on me Thy gifts of grace
That when this life must flit away
In Heav'n with Thee I may have place
Where Thou dost reign eternally
With God which once did down Thee send,
Where angels sing continually.
To Thee be praise, world without end.
No, no, not so! Thy will is bent
To deal with sinners in Thine ire:
But when in heart they shall repent
Thou grant'st with speed their just desire.
To Thee therefore still shall I cry,
To wash away my sinful crime.
Thy blood, O Lord, is not yet dry,
But that it may help me in time.
Thomas Tallis, "Oh Lord In Thee Is All My Trust," 1565
Tallis: Oh Lord In Thee Is All My Trust - YouTube
Labels: Grace and Salvation, Musical Performance
Here is an excerpt from that article, "On the Physical Death of Jesus Christ" by William D. Edwards, Wesley J. Gabel, and Floyd E. Hosmer. The original article is substantially longer and detailed, with diagrams and ample citation. Our Lord's manner of execution was like that suffered by a great many others in the Roman world:
…. It was customary for the condemned man to carry his own cross from the flogging post to the site of crucifixion outside the city walls. He was usually naked, unless this was prohibited by local customs. Since the weight of the entire cross was probably well over 300 lb (136 kg), only the crossbar was carried. The patibulum, weighing 75 to 125 lb. (34 to 57 kg), was placed across the nape of the victim’s neck and balanced along both shoulders. Usually, the outstretched arms then were tied to the crossbar. The processional to the site of crucifixion was led by a complete Roman military guard, headed by a centurion. One of the soldiers carried a sign (titulus) on which the condemned man’s name and crime were displayed. Later, the titulus would be attached to the top of the cross. The Roman guard would not leave the victim until they were sure of his death. Outside the city walls was permanently located the heavy upright wooden stipes, on which the patibulum would be secured. In the case of the Tau cross, this was accomplished by means of a mortise and tenon joint, with or without reinforcement by ropes. To prolong the crucifixion process, a horizontal wooden block or plank, serving as a crude seat (sedile or sedulum), often was attached midway down the stipes. Only very rarely, and probably later than the time of Christ, was an additional block (suppedaneum) employed for transfixion of the feet.
Next, the feet were fixed to the cross, either by nails or ropes. Ossuary findings and the Shroud of Turin suggest that nailing was the preferred Roman practice. Although the feet could be fixed to the sides of the stipes or to a wooden footrest (suppedaneum), they usually were nailed directly to the front of the stipes. To accomplish this, flexion of the knees may have been quite prominent, and the bent legs may have been rotated laterally.
When the nailing was completed, the titulus was attached to the cross, by nails or cords, just above the victim’s head. The soldiers and the civilian crowd often taunted and jeered the condemned man, and the soldiers customarily divided up his clothes among themselves. The length of survival generally ranged from three or four hours to three or four days and appears to have been inversely related to the severity of the scourging. However, even if the scourging had been relatively mild, the Roman soldiers could hasten death by breaking the legs below the knees (crurifragium or skelokopia). …. [the article pdf]
It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last. [Luke 23:44-46, ESV]
Dorothy L. Sayers on at least part of the meaning:
For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is — limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death — he had the honesty and courage to take his own medicine. Whatever game he is playing with his creation, he has kept his own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that he has not exacted from himself. He has himself gone through the whole human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. When he was a man, he played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile. (The Man Born to be King, Dorothy L. Sayers)
And suffered far, far, move than we do or ever will.
(I have posted this material previously on Good Fridays.)
The Inklings: Good Friday, Between Two Worlds: On the Physical Death of Jesus
Labels: Dorothy L. Sayers, Lent and Easter
"A new commandment I give to you..."
Various Christian denominations place greater or lesser emphasis on what is known as the Christian Year. I grew up in one that emphasized only Christmas and Easter, and observed Lent only because the local ministers' council cooperated in a Lenten series of services. Kevin DeYoung helpfully defines Maundy Thursday for people like me:
.... If you've never heard the term, it's not Monday-Thursday (which always confused me as a kid), but Maundy Thursday, as in Mandatum Thursday. Mandatum is the Latin word for "command" or "mandate", and the day is called Maundy Thursday because on the night before his death Jesus gave his disciples a new command. "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another" (John 13:34).
At first it seems strange that Christ would call this a new command. After all, the Old Testament instructed God's people to love their neighbors and Christ himself summarized the law as love for God and love for others. So what's new about love? What makes the command new is that because of Jesus' passion there is a new standard, a new examplar of love.
There was never any love like the dying love of Jesus. It is tender and sweet (John 13:33). It serves (John 13:2-17). It loves even unto death (John 13:1). Jesus had nothing to gain from us by loving us. There was nothing in us to draw us to him. But he loved us still, while we were yet sinners. .... [more]
DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed: Maundy Thursday
Labels: Christian Year, Kevin DeYoung, Lent and Easter
“Intransigent historical claims”
From "Easter is not a Question Mark" by George Weigel at First Things
.... The grittiness of Lent, and the “intransigent historical claims” without which Easter makes no sense at all, should remind us that Christianity does not rest on myths or “narratives,” but on radically changed human lives whose effect on their times are historical fact. Within two and a half centuries, what began as a ragtag gang of nobodies from the civilizational outback had so transformed the Mediterranean world that the most powerful man in that world, the Roman emperor Constantine, joined the winning side. How did that happen?
It didn’t happen because of better myth-making. It happened because those first Christians met a young rabbi who promised that, should they believe in him, each of them would become “ a spring of water welling up to eternal life” [John 4:14]. Then came what seemed complete catastrophe: his crucifixion. But they met that teacher again as the Risen Lord Jesus Christ, and were infused by his Spirit. And after that, they didn’t sit around in the “presence of the question mark; rather, they told the truth of what they had “seen and heard” [cf. 1 John 1:1].
And thereby changed the world.
More about those "intransigent historical claims": "Is There a Witness to the Resurrection? Yes!" by William Lane Craig and Sean McDowell.
If the bones of Jesus were found, then Christianity would be false. Paul said, “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.” (1 Corinthians 15:17, NASB) Some religions may make untestable claims about reality, but Christianity makes claims about real events in history that can be tested. Let’s put it to the test! .... [more]
Easter is not a Question Mark | George Weigel | First Things, "Is There a Witness to the Resurrection? Yes!"
"Almost everything of Lewis is edifying and a pleasure to read."
From an interview with George Marsden about his new book C.S. Lewis’s “Mere Christianity”: A Biography:
One of the most remarkable aspects of the life of this book is that, even though it was not originally designed to be a single book, it had maintained its vitality far better than most other books of its time. Remarkably, it has sold quite a bit better in the twenty-first century than it did in Lewis’s day, when it already sold well. It has sold over three and a half million copies in English alone. So one major question I try to answer in my book is: what accounts for its unusual lasting vitality? It helps that Lewis always looked for timeless truths, as the idea of “Mere Christianity” (or the beliefs that almost all Christians have shared through the ages) illustrates. So the book is less dated than most books. Also Lewis was a brilliant communicator. He listened to how ordinary people talked and then translated his views into language they could understand. And even though he uses lots of arguments he always puts these in imaginative contexts that make them come alive. So he uses many more vivid analogies and metaphors than do most non-fiction writers. And he acts as a friendly companion and guide on a journey that he himself has taken from unbelief to belief. At the same time he does not draw attention to himself but leads the reader to see the challenging beauty of the core Christian message. .... [more]
An Interview with George Marsden on His New Biography of C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity | TGC
Labels: Apologetics, Books, C.S. Lewis, Church History, Inklings
When I can read my title clear to mansions in the skies,
I bid farewell to every fear, and wipe my weeping eyes.
And wipe my weeping eyes, and wipe my weeping eyes
Should earth against my soul engage, and hellish darts be hurled,
Then I can smile at Satan’s rage, and face a frowning world.
And face a frowning world, and face a frowning world,
Labels: Hymns, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Worship
This day in 1751 was the birthday of James Madison (1751-1836), President, political philosopher, statesman, friend of liberty, "Father of the Constitution."
Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments, the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents. – Letter to Thomas Jefferson (1788)
We hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, “that Religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the Manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence.” The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable; because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds, cannot follow the dictates of other men: It is unalienable also; because what is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage, and such only, as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent both in order of time and degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society. Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe.... – Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785)
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. – Federalist Paper No. 51 (1788)
I live in a city named after Madison and, for twenty-two years, taught at James Madison Memorial High School.
Labels: Political Thought, Religion and Politics, Religious Liberty
Moral failure
Yesterday I was surprised to find the current Forbes magazine in my mailbox: the "30th Annual Almanac of Wealth." I have never subscribed to the magazine, am not wealthy, nor am I unusually interested in those who are, so its appearance was something of a mystery. Perhaps it was a premium unnoticed by me when I bought something online. Nevertheless I almost immediately found something interesting in a Steve Forbes column: a book review titled "Why They Stuck With Hitler." The book is The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939–-1945 . Forbes writes that the book "brilliantly and with impressive nuance and texture deals with the astounding questions of how the most educated and cultured nation on earth could unloose such a murderous, barbarous and genocidal war and why most Germans—Nazis and non-Nazis alike—closed ranks around Hitler, even when it became clear the war was going to end disastrously." And "This is an extremely interesting and disheartening tale of a civilized people's descent into barbarism." From the review, the German Church:
.... A prominent Protestant, Bishop Wurm of Wurttemberg, faintheartedly protested the Nazi regime's policy of murdering "deformed" infants and the mentally ill by administering poisonous drugs or starving them to death, while Catholic Bishop Galen of Münster initially courageously and publicly condemned the practice. The death toll from this alone was well over 200,000. Yet Galen vigorously supported the invasion of the "Jewish Bolshevik" Soviet Union and refused any aid to Jews, even to those who had years before converted to Christianity, while Wurm privately wrote letters to the Reich in support of those converts. As this book makes clear, both the Protestant and the Catholic churches were guilty of moral failure.
A number of German soldiers and officials were uneasy or outright horrified by what was happening, but most did nothing about it. ....
Most German civilians were aware of the mass killing of the Jews and other atrocities through letters and photos sent to them by husbands, sons, brothers and friends, and from conversations when these men came home on leave.
Goebbels was a master at making the home front complicit in what was happening, first by noting Hitler's January 1939 "prophecy" that if the Jews launched another European war they would perish, and then letting events speak for themselves—the deportation of German Jews and the auctioning off of their property, along with what people learned from news sent by their relatives fighting on the Eastern Front. ....
Labels: Books, Religion and Politics
"A tangible sense of dread"
Tonight at 7:00 (CDT) Lifetime will have a new BBC TV dramatization of Agatha Christie's most successful book — "the best selling crime novel of all time" — originally published here as Ten Little Indians (1939) and soon thereafter as And Then There Were None.
I have a DVD of a 1945 film version of the story that I enjoy but this one may be even better. Both Channel Guide's list of the cast (including Aidan Turner, Toby Stephens, Charles Dance, Sam Neill, and Miranda Richardson), and a review at The Weekly Standard, "Isle of Retribution," persuade me to watch. From the review:
.... With twists and turns and double bluffs, it's a completely engrossing mystery. Ten people are invited to a party on an island. Ferried across the storm-tossed waves, they climb one by one to the mansion on the hill, establishing character by brief snippets of conversation. The bluff general. The effete dandy. The religious spinster. Fast-forward to dinner, and it becomes apparent that no one knows their host personally. Odd. But no matter, at least the food's good.
When the first guest drops dead, there is a tendency to think they really should have seen this coming: After all, a tangible sense of dread permeates the island. The shadowed halls, the tempestuous sea and stormy sky, the ghosts of guilt haunting the victims—it all builds to a nerve-wracking, claustrophobic atmosphere. After the second death, the characters start to piece it together. ....
Agatha Christie has an unfair reputation as a cozy novelist. In fact, she was very realistic about human frailty. Her stories bring violence to the center of ordinary life and show even the most respectable of people committing unspeakable crimes. Many adaptations of And Then There Were None attempt to soften its essential tragedy, offering up a happy, crowd-pleasing ending. This one, by focusing on the cost of death, on the weight of taking human life, may be more true to Dame Agatha's spirit than any campy Miss Marple flick and yet more moral than the brutal pulp fiction served up daily on our screens.
Isle of Retribution | The Weekly Standard Isle of Retribution | The Weekly Standard
"The cloud clear'd away"
From a newly discovered letter from William Wilberforce to a 14 year old girl:
.... A Traveller on an open Common in such a Storm of Hail & Rain as we had this Morning would find his spirits cheered by seeing on the distant horizon, the Cloud clear'd away and the Sky looking sunny and cheerful. So you, I doubt not, can view the Sunshine gilding Your future prospect. And yours my dear Girl is a Sun which will never go down, but will get brighter & brighter with a Warmth & brilliance, of which now you can have no conception. I dare say you know & like Cowper. He, you know, speaks of "a Vault unsullied with a Cloud." Now therefore accustom yourself to think "the Scene around me is gloomy and darksome, but a friendly and, that a divine Hand of a kind and loving Saviour, is leading me on the Way He sees best for me, & in His own good time He will bring me into the Light.
As I know He is Truth itself, he cannot deceive me & He has promised to be a Shepherd full of kindness as well as Care to the Lambs of His flock. He would not let me suffer pain if He were not persuaded it would be for my benefit and I will therefore receive all and submit to it all He orders for me, as that which is sure to be more than made up to me. So that if more I have to bear now, the more I shall have to rejoice hereafter. ....
The post at Quaerentia explains how the letter was found and explains why Wilberforce would emphasize such matters when writing to a young girl.
Quaerentia :: A Sky Unsullied by Clouds: William Wilberforce gives hope to a 14 year old girl in pain
Labels: Health and Wealth, William Cowper
"The flattery of knaves"
Via Power Line, a very good — and always relevant — passage from Burke:
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites, — in proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity, — in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption, — in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters. (Edmund Burke, Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, May 1791)
And another quotation from the same source:
A word from Edmund Burke | Power Line, Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for...
Labels: Edmund Burke, Political Thought, Religion and Politics
Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4th, 1861:
.... In your hand, my fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect, and defend it… We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Labels: Lincoln
"Not things of the same kind"
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. John 1:1-3 “And [we believe] in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father….” Nicene Creed
ONE OF THE CREEDS says that Christ is the Son of God "begotten, not created"; and it adds "begotten by his Father before all worlds." Will you please get it quite clear that this has nothing to do with the fact that when Christ was born on earth as a man, that man was the son of a virgin? We are not now thinking about the Virgin Birth. We are thinking about something that happened before nature was created at all, before time began. "Before all worlds" Christ is begotten, not created. What does it mean?
We don't use the words begetting or begotten much in modern English, but everyone still knows what they mean. To beget is to become the father of: to create is to make. And the difference is this. When you beget, you beget something of the same kind as yourself. A man begets human babies, a beaver begets little beavers, and a bird begets eggs which turn into little birds. But when you make, you make something of a different kind from yourself. A bird makes a nest, a beaver builds a dam, a man makes a wireless set—or he may make something more like himself than a wireless set: say, a statue. If he is a clever enough carver, he may make a statue which is very like a man indeed. But, of course, it is not a real man; it only looks like one. It cannot breathe or think. It is not alive.
Now that is the first thing to get clear. What God begets is God; just as what man begets is man. What God creates is not God; just as what man makes is not man. That is why men are not Sons of God in the sense that Christ is... They may be like God in certain ways, but they are not things of the same kind. ....
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Labels: Belief, C.S. Lewis, Inklings, Theology
“Push back against the age as hard as it pushes against you. What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.”
Flannery O’Connor, The Habit of Being: The Letters of Flannery O’Connor
Quotes by Flannery O’Connor | Quotes
E.C. Bentley
Once upon a time I collected early editions of detective novels that historians of the genre considered important. I bought E.C. Bentley's Trent's Last Case (1913) from a British bookseller sometime in the '70s. Bentley was perhaps G.K. Chesterton's closest friend and succeeded GKC as President of the Detection Club even though this was the only detective novel he had written. Bentley later wrote a prequel and a number of short stories featuring Trent. Today the Facebook G.K. Chesterton site linked to "Trent’s Last Case by E. C. Bentley: First Among Mysteries?" from which:
My copy
.... But that one mystery, that single contribution to the genre of detective fiction, was hailed by Chesterton, Christie, and Sayers as, perhaps, the single best mystery story ever written. High praise indeed. Though Bentley’s first mystery, it featured the last mystery of his detective. And though President Bentley swore that he would defend the principle of detectives detecting crimes using the wits bestowed upon them by their creators, his own Trent’s Last Case could be seen as breaking that rule. For throughout the twists and turns of its scintillating plot, the impotence, instead of the omnipotence, of human reason is revealed. ....
Trent’s Last Case is not a mystery story that exposes the mystery maker as much as it exposes the mystery story itself. The book is a romping and riveting and rhetorical parody leading to the Golden Age of detective literature. Trent is not the keen amateur who sidesteps and blindsides the dunderheaded professionals. He pursues criminals not out of a brooding sense of justice, but because he finds it an engaging lark. Trent is a man that has a brain in his head, but he also has a heart as big as his head. By turning the world of detective fiction upside down with Trent’s Last Case, E.C. Bentley was one of the first mystery authors to place an innovative importance on duping readers through a series of false conclusions and multiple solutions, rather than bedazzling them with gymnastics of reason that hit the truth with unerring precision. [more]
Bentley may have been been just as well known for the Clerihew:
A clerihew is a whimsical, four-line biographical poem invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley. The first line is the name of the poem's subject, usually a famous person put in an absurd light.
The art of Biography
Is different from Geography.
Geography is about maps,
But Biography is about chaps.
Sir Humphrey Davy
Abominated gravy.
He lived in the odium
Of having discovered sodium. more
Trent’s Last Case by E. C. Bentley: First Among Mysteries? - Crisis Magazine, Edmund Clerihew Bentley Poems - Famous poet at allpoetry
Labels: Books, Dorothy L. Sayers, Fiction, G.K. Chesterton, Mysteries and Thrillers
Stepping through a door
From First Things: "When Toward Evening, Light...." by Gary Whitby:
What is death but stepping through a door,
then onto summer lawns, with fathers waiting
or mothers chiding, “Why were you so late?”
—the clouds around their feet a billowed flooring
of golden cumulus reflecting more
of them than moon could manage, fallen sensate
into star-thronged eyes by a garden gate
when they were young.
And now that greeny roar
is gone. Now this: the tree, the swing, your dad
full-bellied still, your mother’s soaring smile
a wing; your brother racing from the house
and shouting “It’s my turn,” no longer sad
about his death.
And for a little while,
or ever, love is all that time allows.
Perhaps, ...or something better.
When Toward Evening, Light.... by Gary Whitby | Articles | First Things
On St. David's Day
Every American knows that St Patrick's Day comes in March. Far fewer are aware of St David's Day (March 1), the national day of Wales. Both my father and mother had ancestors who were Welsh and — although I've only been to Wales twice — that ancestry has provided me with a certain unearned pride that grows the more I learn about the land. Today, on his blog, Sean Curnyn posts about the new release of a 1957 recording "Music from the Welsh Mines" by the Rhos Male Voice Choir. That site has links to various places where the music can be purchased. I've just ordered a copy but, since it will come from the UK, I won't have it by this weekend. Part of Curnyn's persuasive description:
.... Below is embedded a YouTube clip that has some samples from the old recording, but its availability should not deter anyone from buying the new release which is substantially cleaned-up and enhanced in terms of sound quality. ....
The clip...below features this Rhos Male Voice Choir singing the very poignant Welsh national anthem, “Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau” (“Land of my Fathers”) followed by two liturgical hymns, “Ave Verum” and “Laudamus.” The fourth and final tune in the clip is “Myfanwy,” an old Welsh ballad of lost love, which, whenever I hear a fine rendition—as this one most certainly is—I am quite willing to declare is simply the most devastating song ever composed, in any language, by any human, anywhere. ....
Every track on the album is astounding in its way, including another Welsh love lament titled “Ar Doriad Dydd” (“On the break of day”), the exceedingly haunting rendition of the Welsh hymn “Tydi a Roddaist” (“O Lord, who gave the dawn its glow”), and about as affecting a musical performance of the 23rd Psalm (in English) as one need ever hear during one’s life on this old earth. ....
I will fly the Red Dragon on March 1st and I will probably watch A Run for Your Money (1949) , one of my favorite movies involving the Welsh: a comedy, with Welsh singing and harp playing, and a very young Alec Guiness. Part of Wikipedia's plot summary:
Two Welsh coal miners from Hafoduwchbenceubwllymarchogcoch, David 'Dai Number 9' Jones (Donald Houston) and Thomas 'Twm' Jones (Meredith Edwards), win a contest run by the Echo newspaper.... The prize is 100 pounds each, plus the best seats for an important rugby union match between Wales and England at Twickenham. For the naive Welshmen, this is their first trip to England.
They are supposed to be met at Paddington station by Whimple (Alec Guinness), a gardening columnist on the paper, but they miss each other. ....
And I may watch Zulu , too, if only to hear them sing "Men of Harlech."
Royal Regiment of Wales' Band singing "Men of Harlech"
Music from the Welsh Mines – Rhos Male Voice Choir | The Cinch Review
"Almost everything of Lewis is edifying and a plea...


Vision of Ave Maria University Endures the Recession
Posted on May 7, 2009 September 16, 2020 by Marton Varo
Marton Varo chips away at a bas relief sculpture of The Annunciation at the Ave Maria University campus.
By MITCH STACY The Associated Press
IMMOKALEE – Near the magnificent new church on the Ave Maria University campus, sculptor Marton Varo chips away at 80 tons of the best white marble money can buy, direct from the same Italian quarry where Michelangelo used to get his.
The $3 million, 35-foot-tall bas-relief sculpture depicts The Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel tells the Virgin Mary she will bear the son of God. The work will someday adorn the facade of the 10-story Ave Maria Oratory, around which a modern campus and college town have materialized in quick time on the edge of the Florida Everglades.
The recession has a stranglehold on much of southwest Florida, but billionaire Thomas Monaghan’s vision for the 1,100-seat church and the Roman Catholic school he created continues to take shape, even if construction is not progressing as quickly as he had hoped.
The 72-year-old founder of the Domino’s Pizza chain had hoped to have a gym built for the basketball team by now. He and the town’s developer also expected to see more than the 300 or so houses and condos that have gone up, and more restaurants and stores open in the town center surrounding the towering church.
And plans to erect one of the largest freestanding crucifixes in the world — 65 feet tall, with a 40-foot body of Christ — on the church grounds had to be put on hold.
“Our timing has been terrible,” Monaghan said during an interview in his office in the university library, a copper-roofed structure in the classic Frank Lloyd Wright style he favors. “But we’re pretty well-heeled, so we’re able to absorb it, and we just cut back.”
Considering these were far-flung fields of tomatoes and sod just three years ago, there has been great progress. Monaghan, who holds the title of university chancellor, figures he has put more than $400 million of his pizza fortune into developing what he likes to call a “spiritual military academy” amid a new town steeped in conservative Catholic teaching and symbolism.
Monaghan made headlines before the first shovel of dirt was turned, saying that stores in Ave Maria would be prohibited from selling contraceptives and pornography, and the cable TV system would not carry adult movies. He backed off after civil rights advocates raised a stink, but says he hopes those things will remain unavailable here.
A large classroom building, library, three residence halls and student union with dining hall accommodate 697 students this year, up from 367 when the doors opened in fall 2007. School officials say enrollment could top 900 this fall.
Another large dorm is under construction on the 11/2-square-mile campus, and in the next few years the gym and another student union/classroom building will go up. An arts center, administration building and auditorium are all on the drawing board. An affiliated law school scheduled to open in Naples this fall eventually will relocate to the campus.
The effects of the sagging economy are evident, though, in the vacant lots and unfinished streets around the campus, where about 1,000 residents have moved into houses whose starting prices have dipped to the low $100,000s. And plenty of storefronts are empty in the quiet, Italian-inspired town center.
But a trendy coffee house called The Bean is open. So is a smoothie bar, jewelry store, bike shop, florist, medical clinic and dentist’s office.
And a sure sign of civilization in Florida — a Publix grocery store — is under construction a block away on Pope John Paul II Boulevard.
The church, which grew out of a design Monaghan sketched out on a restaurant tablecloth during dinner with friends, has become a minor tourist attraction, competing with the glitzy Seminole Indian casino 15 minutes away in Immokalee.
Monaghan and developer Barron Collier Cos., which donated the land for the campus to persuade him to build here, still believe Ave Maria will grow in the next two decades to fulfill initial expectations: 5,500 students living in a bustling town of 25,000 residents.
“I don’t have any concerns at all about where we are,” says Blake Gable, the project manager for Barron Collier. “Everything that we did here was taking a look at this community where it sits 50 years from now, not today.”
After Monaghan made his fortune as a pioneer in the pizza delivery business, he shed Domino’s to dedicate his life to Catholic philanthropy. In 1998, he founded tiny Ave Maria College in Ypsilanti, Mich. When local planners rejected his proposal for a campus on his Domino’s Farms property in Ann Arbor, he looked to Florida.
He zeroed in on the Naples area because it was, before the economy collapsed, the fastest-growing region and Florida was one of the fastest-growing states in the South, where there were few existing Catholic colleges.
“I thought it would be the easiest place in the country to attract students from all over the country,” says Monaghan, who lives part time in a campus dorm. “And that seems to have worked out. We started out last year with students from all 50 states, as small as we were.”
Monaghan proudly notes that a dozen men from last year’s group moved on to study at seminaries.
Students talk up the fairly easy access to the Naples and Fort Myers metro areas, and extracurricular offerings from rugby clubs to outreach in the migrant worker community of Immokalee. One campus group organizes sidewalk demonstrations at an abortion clinic.
Ave Maria Foundation for the Arts Announced
Sculpture to Adorn University


Feeling unwelcome, Amazon ditches plans for New York hub
Amazon.com Inc abruptly scrapped plans to build a major outpost in New York that could have created 25,000 jobs, blaming opposition from local leaders upset by the nearly $3 billion in incentives promised by state and city politicians.
Amazon said it would not conduct a new headquarters search and would focus on growing at other existing and planned offices - Reuters
The company said on Thursday it did not see consistently “positive, collaborative” relationships with state and local officials. Opponents of the project feared congestion and higher rents in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens, and objected to handing billions in incentives to a company run by Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man.
State Senator Michael Gianaris, who represents Queens and was a vocal critic of the deal, told a news conference on Thursday that the Amazon subsidies were unnecessary.
“This was a shakedown, pure and simple,” he said.
Amazon’s sudden pullout from New York City prompted finger pointing by Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York state Governor Andrew Cuomo, the politicians who crafted the deal. Cuomo angrily blamed the loss on local politicians while de Blasio blamed Amazon.
Cuomo said in a statement that a small group of politicians had “put their own narrow political interests” above those of New Yorkers.
The year-long search for its so-called HQ2 culminated in Amazon picking Northern Virginia and New York after hundreds of municipalities, from Newark, N.J. to Indianapolis competed for the coveted tax-dollars and high-wage jobs the project promised.
Amazon said it would not conduct a new headquarters search and would focus on growing at other existing and planned offices. The company already has more than 5,000 employees in New York City and plans to continue to hire there, Amazon said on Thursday.
A Siena College Poll conducted earlier this month found 56 percent of registered voters in New York supported the Amazon deal, while 36 percent opposed it.
CITY SHAKEDOWN?
Some New Yorkers mounted protests after the deal was announced, angered by the $2.8 billion in incentives promised to Amazon and fearing further gentrification in a neighborhood once favored by artists looking for cheap studio space.
U.S. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a critic of the project and a self-described democratic socialist whose district spans parts of Queens and the Bronx, cheered the reversal by the world’s third most valuable public company.
“Anything is possible: today was the day a group of dedicated, everyday New Yorkers & their neighbors defeated Amazon’s corporate greed, its worker exploitation, and the power of the richest man in the world,” she wrote on Twitter.
People briefed on the decision said Amazon had made the decision early on Thursday amid rising concerns about the small vocal minority. The people said Amazon will not shift any of the planned jobs to Tennessee where an operations hub is planned or Virginia, but plans to grow its existing network of locations.
Amazon had not acquired land for the project, making it easy to scrap its plans, a person briefed on the matter told Reuters on Friday.
LOST OPPORTUNITY?
In a statement, de Blasio blamed Amazon for failing to address local criticism.
“We gave Amazon the opportunity to be a good neighbor and do business in the greatest city in the world,” he said. “Instead of working with the community, Amazon threw away that opportunity.”
Some long-time residents in Long Island City, which sits across the East River from midtown Manhattan’s skyscrapers, feared being forced out by rising rents and untenable pressure on already overburdened subway and sewage systems. High-rise towers have sprouted across the neighborhood in recent years.
“This is a stunning development, with Amazon essentially giving in to vocal critics,” said Mark Hamrick, a senior economic analyst at Bankrate.com. The about-turn could spook other companies thinking about expanding in New York, he added.
Alphabet Inc’s Google has avoided competitions between cities for offices, and its growing presence in lower Manhattan has met with little serious blowback.
Google said in December it plans to invest more than $1 billion on a new campus in New York to double its current headcount of more than 7,000 people.
“I think the (Amazon) PR event turned out to be a mistake,” said Jason Benowitz, senior portfolio manager at the Roosevelt Investment Group, who owns Amazon shares.
Shares of Amazon fell 1 percent.
‘REALLY GOOD POKER PLAYERS’
Hours before the announcement, Amazon officials in New York betrayed no knowledge of the deal’s cancellation when they met with local community members on Thursday morning, said Kenny Greenberg, a neon artist and member of Long Island City’s community board.
“Either they are really good poker players or they were not aware,” Greenberg said of the Amazon representatives. “There was no hint of this at all.”
The meeting with Amazon officials had been held to answer concerns from the community about labor conditions for Amazon’s warehouse and delivery workers and the company’s opposition to labor unions.
U.S. Representative Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat whose district includes the proposed site, lamented the loss of jobs and new revenues.
“This is not the Valentine that NY needed,” she wrote, adding that she had been ready to push for changes to the deal to address local concerns.


Comments (36 comments)
National graduation rates released
by John Martin, CNN
(CNN) - The U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) released a report of state high school graduation rates, which for the first time includes apples-to-apples comparisons among most states. Each state used to determine its own graduation rate; now states are moving toward a common method of measurement.
As Schools of Thought reported earlier, graduation rates for some states have dropped not because students are failing more often, but because the math has changed. The USDOE points this out in a press release on its website: "While 26 states reported lower graduation rates and 24 states reported unchanged or increased rates under the new metric, these changes should not be viewed as measures of progress but rather as a more accurate snapshot." The new data is based on a "four year cohort graduation rate," which also accounts for students who drop out or do not earn a regular high school diploma.
Read "The new graduation rates" for an explanation of these metrics.
In the video, Brooke Baldwin examines the states with the highest and lowest gradation rates. Across the United States, the range of state graduation rates is between Nevada's 62% and Iowa's 88%. The District of Columbia's rate is lower than that of any state, at 59%. Some states, including Kentucky and Idaho, are not using the new method and were not included in the data released by USDOE.
Looking at the data itself another picture emerges – a gap between whites and blacks still exists, but an even wider gap persists between general graduation rates and the graduation rates of children with disabilities and limited English proficiency students. For these subgroups, graduation rates in many states are below 50%, and sometimes even below 30%.
Posted by John Martin - CNN
Filed under: Graduation • High school • Policy • video
My View: The lesson in Newark
by Sydney Morris and Evan Stone, Special to CNN
Sydney Morris
Editor’s note: Sydney Morris and Evan Stone are co-founders and co-CEOs of Educators 4 Excellence (E4E), a teacher-led organization that seeks to ensure that teachers’ voices are meaningfully included in the policy decisions that affect their classrooms and careers.
School and union leaders in the nation’s largest school districts who are waging epic battles over teacher evaluation, compensation and the future of the teaching profession could learn a lesson from their colleagues in Newark, New Jersey. That’s where the city’s 3,300 teachers recently ratified a groundbreaking new contract that provides them unprecedented support and compensation.
The issues on the table in this negotiation were similar to those being debated in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and elsewhere: How should teachers be evaluated? Who should evaluate them? How should the district use the evaluations to hire and promote educators and dismiss those who underperform? How should teachers be paid and how much?
But instead of the paralysis that has marked those other negotiations, Newark leaders were able to rationally discuss these points without the bluster and polarization we’ve seen elsewhere. They found a way to blend their demands in a way that will truly elevate the teaching profession. The two sides agreed to:
• A comprehensive evaluation system based on multiple measures including student growth, observations and peer reviews. Teachers will receive one of four rankings from highly effective to ineffective. Superintendent Cami Anderson was vocal about the need for more effective evaluation, while NTU President Joe Del Grosso won peer reviews as a way to give the voices of teachers more weight in their colleagues’ ratings.
Filed under: Issues • Teachers • Voices


I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’…“And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’” Matthew 25:36, 40
The United States has the largest prison population in the world and also the highest incarceration rate. The American criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people across the federal, state and local levels. Over 540,000 of these prisoners have not yet been convicted or sentenced. While the United States accounts for about 4 percent of the world’s population, it has more than a third of the estimated number of people serving life sentences.
Many of the CityServe HUBs have strategic partnerships with national recognized prison ministries and chaplain training programs. Churches are also engaging families who have an incarcerated loved one. Contact your HUB to discover how you and your congregation can minister to the prisons near you.


North Korea fires presumed short-range missiles into the sea
Publish- March 02, 2020, 03:31 PM
AP/UNB - AP/UNB
Update- March 02, 2020, 03:35 PM
In this file photo provided on Feb. 29, 2020 by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, center, inspects the military drill of units of the Korean People's Army, with soldiers shown wearing face masks.Photo:Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP
North Korea fired two presumed short-range ballistic missiles into its eastern sea on Monday, South Korean officials said, resuming weapons demonstrations after a months-long hiatus that may have been forced by the coronavirus crisis in Asia.
The launches came two days after North Korea's state media said leader Kim Jong Un supervised an artillery drill aimed at testing the combat readiness of units in front-line and eastern areas.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the projectiles were fired from an area near the coastal town of Wonsan and flew about 240 kilometers (149 miles) northeast on an apogee of about 35 kilometers (22 miles). It said the South Korean and U.S. militaries were jointly analyzing the launches. JCS officials later told reporters that the weapons were presumed to be short-range ballistic missiles.
North Korea likely tested one of its new road-mobile, solid-fuel missile systems or a developmental "super large" multiple rocket launcher it repeatedly demonstrated last year, said Kim Dong-yub, an analyst from Seoul's Institute for Far Eastern Studies. Experts say such weapons can potentially overwhelm missile defense systems and expand the North's ability to strike targets in South Korea and Japan, including U.S. bases there.
Kim Jong Un had entered the new year vowing to bolster his nuclear deterrent in the face of "gangster-like" U.S. sanctions and pressure, using a key ruling party meeting in late December to warn of "shocking" action over stalled nuclear negotiations with the Trump administration.
He also said North Korea would soon reveal a new "strategic weapon" and insisted the country was no longer "unilaterally bound" to a self-imposed suspension on the testing of nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missiles. But Kim did not explicitly lift the moratorium or give any clear indication that such tests were impending and seemed to leave the door open for eventual negotiations.
South Korea's presidential office said National Security Director Chung Eui-yong discussed the launches with the South's defense minister and spy chief, and that the officials expressed "strong concern" over the North's resumption of testing activity, which could raise military tensions.
Japan said that it had not detected any projectile landing in its territory or its exclusive economic zone, and that no sea vessels or aircraft had been damaged.
"The repeated firings of ballistic missiles by North Korea is a serious problem for the international community including Japan, and the government will continue to gather and analyze information, and monitor the situation to protect the lives and property of the people," the Defense Ministry's statement said.
The recent lull in North Korea's launches had experts wondering whether the North was holding back its weapons displays while it was fighting the coronavirus, which state media has described as a matter of "national existence." Some analysts speculated that the North cut back training and other activities involving large gatherings of soldiers to reduce the possibility of the virus spreading within its military.
Kim's latest show of force is apparently aimed at boosting military morale, strengthening internal unity and showing that his country is doing fine despite outside worries of how the North would contend with an outbreak.
North Korea in previous years has intensified testing activity in response to springtime military exercises between South Korea and the United States that it has described as invasion rehearsals. But the allies announced last week that they were postponing their annual drills due to concern about the coronavirus outbreak in South Korea, with soldiers from both countries being infected.
The launches were the latest setback for dovish South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who despite the North's indifference has repeatedly pleaded for reviving inter-Korean engagement. In a speech on Sunday marking the 101st anniversary of a major uprising against Japanese colonial rule, Moon called for cooperation between the two Koreas to fight infectious diseases amid the COVID-19 outbreak in Asia.
Amid the deadlock in larger nuclear negotiations with the Trump administration, Kim has suspended virtually all cooperation with South Korea in the past months while demanding that Seoul defy U.S.-led international sanctions and restart inter-Korean economic projects that would jolt the North's broken economy.
North Korea has yet to confirm any COVID-19 cases, although state media have hinted that an uncertain number of people have been quarantined after exhibiting symptoms. North Korea has shut down nearly all cross-border traffic, banned tourists, intensified screening at entry points and mobilized tens of thousands of health workers to monitor residents and isolate those with symptoms. South Korea last month withdrew dozens of officials from an inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong after North Korea insisted on closing it until the epidemic is controlled.
Kim and President Donald Trump have met three times since embarking on their high-stakes nuclear diplomacy in 2018, but negotiations have faltered since their second summit in February last year in Vietnam, where the Americans rejected North Korean demands for major sanctions relief in exchange for a partial surrender of its nuclear capability.
Following the collapse in Hanoi, the North ended a 17-month pause in ballistic activity and conducted at least 13 rounds of weapons launches last year, using the standstill in talks to expand its military capabilities.
Those weapons included road-mobile, solid-fuel missiles designed to beat missile defense systems and a developmental midrange missile that could eventually be launched from submarines, potentially strengthening the North's ability to strike targets in South Korea and Japan, including U.S. bases there.
In December, the North said it conducted two "crucial" tests at a long-range rocket facility that would strengthen its nuclear deterrent, prompting speculation that it's developing a new ICBM or preparing a satellite launch that would further advanced its long-range missile technology.
short-range missile
South Korea's presidential office
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un
South Korea trashes concerns over Kim Jong Un's health
State media: Kim has plans to stabilize N. Korean economy
South Korea: Kim did not have surgery amid lingering rumors
Kim Jong Un appears in public amid health rumors
North Korea fires missiles into sea, criticized by South
N Korea says Trump's letter offers anti-virus cooperation


Leeds Bradford Airport director Hallwood quits
One of the top bosses at Leeds Bradford Airport has unexpectedly quit after nine years in charge.
Updated Wednesday, 21st June 2017, 3:19 pm
Tony Hallwood
Tony Hallwood confirmed this afternoon that he will be stepping down from his role as Aviation Development Director at the end of the month.
He said: “I will be moving back to my family in Manchester and I am looking forward to taking an active role in my wife’s growing business – Marketing Profile
“I am immensely proud of my achievements at LBA in driving record passenger growth from 2.6 to 3.6m and delivering a string of major route development successes for the Leeds City Region and Yorkshire.
“Securing new based capacity from Ryanair and Monarch, the reintroduction of BA and Aer Lingus alongside Jet2.com’s and Flybe’s growth has helped ensure the continued success of LBA.
“During my time at the airport I have also enjoyed developing and strengthening relationships through my PR role across the media and regional stakeholders.
“I would like to thank you personally for your support during my time at LBA and I look forward to keeping in touch with you. My personal contact details are given below.
“In the meantime, I look forward to seeing the ongoing success of LBA under David Laws’ leadership and I wish the airport team ‘all the best’ for the future.”


Teenagers invited to design tomorrow's airliners
School pupils are being urged to use their creativity to design innovative and environmentally-friendly passenger aircraft for the year 2050.
The School of Engineering Sciences at the University of Southampton is joining forces with major aviation companies and organizations to stage a web-based competition this spring with prizes for the best designs. It is called Future Flight - Greener by Design.
The contest will be launched on Friday 8 April at Fly! The London Air Show where visitors will be able to pilot futuristic airliners for themselves on a flight simulator at the Horizon Simulation stand (Hanger 28A). Finalists will be invited to a 'fly-off' to decide the winners after the closing date of 30 June. They will present their designs to aviation experts and fly them in the new flight simulator at the INTECH Science Centre near Winchester.
Parents and teachers are invited to take part alongside the 11-16 year olds and compete for prizes too.
Dr Kenji Takeda from the University of Southampton commented: "The future of 21st century air travel lies in airliners that are clean, quiet and efficient. Our aim is to inspire youngsters, engaging them in the exciting science, engineering and technology that is helping to build a sustainable future for us all."
Lord Sainsbury, Science and Innovation Minister added: "Future Flight - Greener by Design is an exciting opportunity for today's young people, the future leaders of science, to let their imaginations and creative flair flow in a hands-on and interactive way.
"By actively encouraging young people to explore emerging technologies like e-science and web technology, the Government is committed to developing the next generation of science leaders and ensuring the UK remains at the forefront of science and technology in the future. I am looking forward to seeing the results of this year's competition."
Future Flight - Greener by Design is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and organized by the University of Southampton's School of Engineering Sciences.
More information about the contest, including current and future air transport and the environmental issues, careers advice and free posters, and wallpapers to download is available on www.futureflight.org The web portal is built using next-generation web technology being developed at the University of Southampton under the DTI e-Science programme.
Supporting organizations include: Airbus, BAE SYSTEMS, INTECH, Microsoft, AMD, BAA, the Engineering and Technology Board, the Greener by Design Consortium, the Royal Aeronautical Society, Society of British Aerospace Companies, Horizon Simulation and AVSIM.COM.
Future Flight - Greener by Design will also be present at the Royal Aeronautical Society's Aerospace 2005 industry conference on 12th -14th April.


Chris Hemsworth Expertly Trolls Brother Liam In Hilarious Instagram Post News
Terrorism charge, Detroit area schools closed News
Cops Seek New Attempted Murder Charges Against Chad And Lori Vallow Daybell News
Sen. Tom Cotton: Biden is in denial about what his policies have done to America News
Global Rivalries Are Miring the Clean Energy Revolution News
Manslaughter trial of L.A. County sheriff’s deputy in jurors’ hands News
Man arrested after chase on I-5 ends in Lakewood standoff News
Thanksgiving holiday travel weather forecast is improving News
Carrie Meek, pioneering Black former congresswoman, has died : NPR
Posted on November 29, 2021 By Edgar Hyek No Comments on Carrie Meek, pioneering Black former congresswoman, has died : NPR
Information about Carrie Meek, pioneering Black former congresswoman, has died : NPR
Breaking Story – Carrie Meek, pioneering Black former congresswoman, has died : NPR
Rep. Carrie Meek, D-Fla., pictured here speaking during services at Mt. Tabor Missionary Baptist Church in Miami, in 2002.
Wilfredo Lee/AP
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Carrie Meek, the grandchild of a slave and a sharecropper’s daughter who became one of the first Black Floridians elected to Congress since Reconstruction, died Sunday. She was 95.
Meek died at her home in Miami after a long illness, family spokesperson Adam Sharon said in a statement. The family did not specify a cause of death.
Meek started her congressional career at an age when many people begin retirement. She was 66 when she easily won the 1992 Democratic congressional primary in her Miami-Dade County district. No Republican opposed her in the general election.
Alcee Hastings and Corrine Brown joined Meek in January 1993 as the first Black Floridians to serve in Congress since 1876 as the state’s districts had been redrawn by the federal courts in accordance with the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
On her first day in Congress, Meek reflected that while her grandmother, a slave on a Georgia farm, could never have dreamed of such an accomplishment, her parents told her that anything was possible.
“They always said the day would come when we would be recognized for our character,” she told The Associated Press in an interview that day.
In Congress, Meek championed affirmative action, economic opportunities for the poor and efforts to bolster democracy in and ease immigration restrictions on Haiti, the birthplace of many of her constituents.
She also was known for her liberal opinions, folksy yet powerful oratory and colorful Republican bashing.
“The last Republican that did something for me was Abraham Lincoln,” she told the state delegation to the 1996 Democratic Convention in Chicago.
Meek joined her son Kendrick, a former state trooper and state senator, in a 2000 sit-in at then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s office to protest an end to affirmative action policies. She had long argued in favor of such policies, since earning her master’s degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in 1948. At the time, Blacks were not admitted to graduate schools in Florida.
Meek decided not to seek a sixth term in 2002. Her son Kendrick succeeded in winning her heavily Democratic district, a seat he held for four terms before an unsuccessful bid for the U.S. Senate in 2010.
After leaving Congress, Carrie Meek returned to Miami and created a foundation to work on education and housing issues. She was also criticized for some of her business dealings.
She lobbied for a biotech park that was planned for Miami’s impoverished Liberty City neighborhood but never materialized. County authorities eventually started a criminal investigation, and the park’s developer was arrested in October 2009 on charges that he stole nearly $1 million from the project.
Congressional records showed that Meek was paid while her son sought millions of federal dollars for the project. Meek said she was paid as a consultant, and both mother and son denied their efforts were linked.
Before entering politics, Meek worked as a teacher and administrator at Miami-Dade College.
She was elected to the Florida House in 1978, succeeding pioneer Black legislator Gwen Cherry, who had been killed in an auto accident. She became one of the first African Americans and the first Black woman to serve in the Florida Senate since the 1800s.
Carrie Pittman was born to Willie and Carrie Pittman in Tallahassee on April 29, 1926, and was the youngest of 12 children. Her father worked in nearby fields as a sharecropper and her mother took in laundry from white families.
She graduated from Florida A&M University in 1946 with a degree in biology and physical education. The university named its building for Black history archives in her honor in 2007. She was a member of Delta Sigma Theta sorority.
She accepted a position at Bethune Cookman College as an instructor and became the institution’s first female basketball coach. In 1958, she returned to Florida A&M as an instructor in health and physical education. She held that position until 1961.
Meek continued her teaching career at Miami Dade Community College as the first Black professor, associate dean, and assistant to the Vice President from 1961 to 1979.
Then, she began her trailblazing political career, representing Florida’s 17th Congressional District as a Democratic Florida State House Representative.
In Congress, Meek was a member of the powerful Appropriations Committee and worked to secure $100 million in aid to rebuild Dade County as the area recovered from Hurricane Andrew.
She retired in 2002 and shifted her focus to the Carrie Meek Foundation, which she founded in November 2001, to provide the Miami-Dade community with much-needed resources, opportunities, and jobs. Meek spearheaded the Foundation’s daily operations until 2015 when she stepped down due to declining health.
Meek is survived by her children Lucia Davis-Raiford, Sheila Davis Kinui and Kendrick B. Meek, seven grandchildren, five great-grandchildren and multiple nieces and nephews.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
The Latest News on Carrie Meek, pioneering Black former congresswoman, has died : NPR
Previous Post: Redshirt freshman quarterback Jack Miller announces transfer from Ohio State football
Next Post: Beverly Hills police investigate antisemitic fliers at homes
Opinion | Democrats Don’t Understand Asian American Voters News
Gunfire at Atlanta Airport Was ‘Accidental Discharge,’ Officials Say News
What Did the US-China Summit Achieve? News
Biden is the ‘common denominator’ in mounting crises: Rep. Biggs News
Jussie Smollett gets testy under cross-examination about messages with alleged attacker News
Macao detains Suncity boss after over illegal gambling News
CNN Fires Chris Cuomo Over Role in Andrew Cuomo’s Scandal News
Grab your camera and help science! King tides are crashing onto California beaches : NPR News
Lee Elder, Who Broke a Golf Color Barrier, Dies at 87 News
Jussie Smollett trial: Key moments since he reported Chicago attack News
The Human Cost Of Being Denied An Abortion News
Queen Elizabeth only picks up the phone for these two people, royal expert says News
LeBron James posts cryptic tweet while sidelined due to league’s COVID protocols News


Using Today's Technology to Secure a Campus
Director of Safety and Security, Wylie ISD
Former Commander Over Homeland Security, Crime Prevention and Training, Southern Methodist University
Brian Kelly has taken command of security at Wylie ISD, but also has wide ranging experiences while serving at SMU. He will address issues at the K-12 level, and how he solved numerous scenarios while at the university level, including preparing Ford Stadium for security, and how to protect crowds whether it be at a graduation ceremony, or a basketball game. You will learn from his experiences what will work, and how best to implement security and safety on your campus.


Mechanistic Toxicology
The editors and readers of the journal Molecular Carcinogenesis could argue that the shift to mechanistic toxicology proposed in Marcia Clemmitt's recent article in The Scientist (Feb. 17, 1992, page 1) has already occurred. For the past five years, Molecular Carcinogenesis has been reporting the growth of, and changes in, all fields of carcinogenesis, including toxicology. The need for a journal that emphasized the causative mechanisms of cancer at the molecular level became apparent in 1987
Thomas Slaga
The editors and readers of the journal Molecular Carcinogenesis could argue that the shift to mechanistic toxicology proposed in Marcia Clemmitt's recent article in The Scientist (Feb. 17, 1992, page 1) has already occurred. For the past five years, Molecular Carcinogenesis has been reporting the growth of, and changes in, all fields of carcinogenesis, including toxicology.
The need for a journal that emphasized the causative mechanisms of cancer at the molecular level became apparent in 1987, when the burgeoning field of molecular biology made it possible to examine carcinogenesis at a more intimate level. In conjunction with the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Wiley-Liss Inc. of New York, we started Molecular Carcinogenesis as a peer-reviewed forum for work on the molecular mechanisms of carcinogenesis.
Advances in molecular biology have enabled us to move from what University of Maryland pathology professor Ellen Silbergeld referred to in the article...


Tag: half-staff
Republicans in Wisconsin and Missouri disrespect the American flag
On June 14, 1777, exactly two years to the day of the founding of what is now known as U.S. Army, the Second Continental Congress officially adopted the first version of the national flag of the United States of America. In 1916, then-President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation declaring June 14 to be Flag Day.
Sadly, some politicians have used Flag Day to disgrace the American flag.
First off, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, a Republican, sent out a Flag Day tweet featuring a 48-star flag, which hasn’t been in official use since July 3, 1959:
.@ScottWalker deletes image of 48-star flag shortly after he tweets it to celebrate Flag Day pic.twitter.com/0fxhyARgCC
— Scott Bauer (@sbauerAP) June 14, 2016
The U.S. flag has officially featured 50 stars since July 4, 1960, the first Independence Day since Hawaii became the most recent state to join the Union.
Even more disgraceful, in my opinion, was a decision by two of the three members of the Republican-controlled Cole County, Missouri commission to not lower the U.S. flag on county grounds to half-mast, as ordered by the president to commemorate the terrorist attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Cole County, Missouri includes Jefferson City, which is Missouri’s state capital:
Following this weekend’s shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, President Obama ordered that, “as a mark of respect for the victims,” the United States flag be flown at half-staff “upon all public buildings and grounds” through the end of the day Thursday. Officials in Cole County, Missouri decided this didn’t apply to them.
The three-member commission that governs the county voted 2-1 against lowering the flag. “We (the commission) still have control over how the flags are displayed,” Commissioner Jeff Hoelscher (R) told the Jefferson City News Tribune. “Lowering it too much takes away from the honor. I feel for these victims and for their families, but I don’t feel this was a time for the flag to be lowered.”
Commissioner Kris Scheperle (R) similarly suggested that the Orlando shooting just doesn’t rise to the occasion. “I want to honor those who have served our country,” he said, “but we can’t lower it for every event like this that occurs. I do feel for those who were gunned down, but I don’t think it warrants lowering the flag.”
After public outcry, the Cole County commissioners decided to reverse their original decision and obey the president’s orders to lower the U.S. flag to half-staff after all.
While America celebrates our national flag, Republicans are busy disgracing our flag.
Tuesday, June 14, 2016 Tuesday, June 14, 2016
48-star flag
county commission
incorrect flag
Jeff Hoelscher
Jefferson County MO
Jefferson County MO Commission
Kris Scherpele
lowering the flag
MO-Local
Orlando attack
Orlando shooting
presidential order
Pulse Orlando
Pulse shooting
terrorist attack
WI-Gov
Wisconsin Governor
wrong flag


Intellectual Property Issues in Citizen Science
Written by Teresa Scassa
I am just back from the inaugural conference of the newly formed Citizen Science Association. If there were any doubt about the explosion of interest in citizen science, this conference, with its packed agenda and 600 registered attendees would lay it to rest.
Citizen science is a term whose definitional boundaries are constantly being expanded. It is sometimes also called public participatory scientific research, and broadly interpreted it could reach so far as to include open innovation. Like many other forms of collaborative and co-creative engagement, citizen science involves harnessing the labour or ingenuity of the crowd with a view to advancing scientific knowledge. Iconic citizen science projects range from eBird (involving the public in reporting and recording bird sightings), GalaxyZoo (engaging the public in classifying distant galaxies) and Nature’s Notebook (which asks the public to help track seasonal changes). Citizen science projects also stray into the biomedical realm and can cross commercial/non-commercial lines. PatientsLikeMe offers a forum for individuals to share information about their illnesses or medical conditions with researchers and with others with the same affliction. 23andMe provides individuals with information about their DNA (which participants contribute), and SNPedia provides individuals with resources to help them in interpreting their own DNA. But in addition to these more well-known projects, are thousands of others, on large and small scales across a range of scientific fields, and engaging different sectors of the public in a very broad range of activities and for a similarly broad spectrum of objectives.
My own interest in citizen science relates to the legal and ethical issues it raises. Not surprisingly, there are significant privacy issues that may be raised by various citizen science projects – and not just those in the biomedical sphere. There may also be interesting liability issues – what responsibility is engaged by researchers who invite volunteers to hike treacherous mountain trails to find and record data about elusive plant or animal species? Currently, my work is on intellectual property issues. Timed to coincide with the inaugural CitSci 2015 conference was the release of a paper I co-authored with Haewon Chung on intellectual property issues as between researchers and participants in citizen science. This paper was commissioned by the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars Commons Lab, and we are continuing to expand our work in this area with the support of the Wilson Center.
Our paper invites participants and researchers to think about intellectual property in the context of citizen science, in large part because IP issues are so fundamental to the ability of researchers, participants, and downstream users to ultimately access, use and/or disseminate research results. Relationships between researchers and participants are not the only ones of importance in citizen science – we will expand beyond these in our future work. But these relationships are nonetheless fundamentally important in citizen science. To the extent that intellectual property law is about both the relationship of authors to their works and about the relationship of authors and others in relation to those works, these issues should be part of the design of citizen science projects.
Our paper, which is meant primarily for an audience of citizen science participants and researchers, develops a typology of citizen science projects from an IP point of view. We group citizen science projects into 4 broad categories defined by the type of contribution expected of participants. In some cases the nature and degree of participation makes it unlikely that participants will have any IP claims in their contributions to the project; in other cases, participants are regularly invited to contribute materials in which they may hold rights. We suggest that researchers think about these issues before launching their project with a view to avoiding complications later on, when they try to publish their research, decide to make their data fully open online, or make other dissemination plans. In some cases, the level of involvement of participants in problem-solving or data manipulation may also raise issues about their contribution to an invention that the researchers eventually seek to patent.
Identifying the IP issues is a first step – addressing them is also important. There are many different ways (from assignment of right to licensing) in which the IP rights of contributors can be addressed. Some solutions may be more appropriate than others, depending upon the ultimate goals of the project. In choosing a solution, researchers and project designers should think of the big picture: what do they need to do with their research output? Are there ethical obligations to open citizen science data, or to share back with the participant community? Do they have particular commitments to funders or to their institutions? Even if research data is made open, are there reasons to place restrictions on how the data is used by downstream users? These are important issues which have both a legal and an ethical dimension. They are part of our ongoing work in this area.
Published in Copyright Law
Teresa Scassa
Latest from Teresa Scassa
Ontario publishes Beta princiles for the ethical use of AI in the public sector
Provinces Issue Orders Requiring Clearview AI to Comply with Data Protection Laws - But Then What?
AI in Canadian Healthcare - Bias and Discrimination (New Paper)
A First Step Along the Path to a Right to Be Forgotten in Canada?
Ontario White Paper Seeks Input on a Private Sector Data Protection Law
Related items (by tag)
Bill C-86 proposes positive changes for Official Marks regime: Comments to the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce,
Artist sued in Canada for copyright infringement for AI-related art project
Controlling Data: Competition, Privacy and Copyright Issues Raised by Real Estate Data
Crown copyright alive and well in new decision from the Ontario Court of Appeal
Data collection and free speech - an important issue for a data-driven society