Sunday, November 16, 2008
BREAKING NEWS: New Anglican Province to be formed December 3, 2008
UPDATE: WHEATON, IL, Nov. 14 -- Leaders of the Common Cause Partnership, a federation of more than 100,000 Anglican Christians in North America, will release to the public on the evening of Dec. 3 the draft constitution of an emerging Anglican C¬hurch in North America, formally subscribe to the Jerusalem Declaration of the Global Anglican Future Conference (GAFCON) and affirm the GAFCON Statement on the Global Anglican Future at an evening worship celebration in suburban Chicago.
This historic event comes in the wake of GAFCON held in Israel last June with leaders from more than one-half of the world’s 77 million Anglicans. At the close of that gathering, Anglican leaders released the Jerusalem Declaration and the GAFCON Statement on the Global Anglican Future, which outlined their Christian beliefs and goals to reform, heal and revitalize the Anglican Communion worldwide.
“One conclusion of the Global Anglican Future Conference held in Jerusalem last June was that the time for the recognition of a new Anglican body in North America had arrived,” observed Bishop Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh, moderator of Common Cause Partnership. “The public release of our draft constitution is an important concrete step toward the goal of a biblical, missionary and united Anglican Church in North America.”
Provinces, dioceses and parishes around the world have been making formal decisions to support the Jerusalem Declaration and the GAFCON Statement on the Global Anglican Future since its release this summer. Leading bishops and representatives of the North American Common Cause Partnership will officially subscribe to the Declaration and affirm the Statement at the public worship service at Wheaton Evangelical Free Church in Wheaton, IL at 7:30 p.m. CST on December 3. All Anglicans in attendance will also be given an opportunity to individually subscribe to the Declaration and affirm the Statement.
“We enthusiastically issue a public invitation to all fellow Christians in hopes that they will witness, participate in and celebrate our unity and common mission,” Bishop Duncan added.
Prior to the evening service, at 2 p.m. CST earlier on Dec. 3, a reception will be held at the Billy Graham Center in Wheaton to give thanks and learn about the mission of Christ Awakening. Rooted among Anglicans, Christ Awakenings are quickly spreading to the larger Christian community. The first Christ Awakening was held in September 2007 in Chicago. Since then, the grassroots movement of Christ Awakenings has held events in Vancouver, Ohio and New England to call Christians to work together, in unity, partnering for mission worldwide. After the reception, a media briefing with Common Cause leaders will follow at 5:30 p.m. CST, addressing the significance of the historic worship celebration that evening.
The Common Cause Partnership is a federation of Anglican Christians that links together eight Anglican jurisdictions and organizations in North America, including the American Anglican Council, the Anglican Coalition in Canada, the Anglican Communion Network, the Anglican Mission in the Americas, the Anglican Network in Canada, the Convocation of Anglicans in North America, Forward in Faith North America, the Reformed Episcopal Church, and the bishops and congregations linked with Kenya, Uganda, and South America’s Southern Cone. Together they represent more than 100,000 Anglican Christians worshiping each Sunday in the United States and Canada.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Saturday Night at the Cafe: What Bob Said ...
Great orthodox theology here - another original way to explain original sin. Once we come out of denial, that is. Everything is broken. Only, this one you can dance to. Somehow I can see St. Matthew over in the corner with his old tax collector buddies rockin' on this one. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt, discovered - what's the name of the album this song is from - Oh, mercy. Guess that's why we need a Savior after all.
Presiding Bishop releases "statement" on the overwhelming vote by the Episcopal Diocese of Ft. Worth to separate from The Episcopal Church
Office of Public AffairsNovember 15, 2008Statement from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori on the actions of the Diocese of Fort Worth
November 15, 2008
The Episcopal Church grieves the departures of a number of persons from the Diocese of Fort. Worth. We remind those former Episcopalians that the door is open if they wish to return. We will work with Episcopalians in the Diocese of Fort Worth to elect new leadership and continue the work of the gospel in that part of Texas. The gospel work to which Jesus calls us demands the best efforts of faithful people from many theological and social perspectives, and The Episcopal Church will continue to welcome that diversity.
The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop and Primate
BB NOTE: We're not even going to get into this "primate" business, or what Bishop Lee used to call "prelates." If that doesn't call the remaining Virginia Episcopalians on both sides of the aisle to shudder, I don't know what will.
Since this seems to have achieved a kind of Form Letter Status now, let us compare this "statement" with the one put out last week when the Episcopal Diocese of Quincy (when we learned from the TEC Presiding Bishop that anything south of Chicago is concerned southern - and we all know what that infers) as well as the "statement" put out following last month's departure of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.
Here is last week's statement by the Presiding Bishop on the Episcopal Diocese of Quincy:
Katharine Jefferts Schori on the Episcopal Diocese of Quincy
And then we had a little more verbose statement from Bishop Schori when the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh voted to separate last month:
Katharine Jefferts Schori on the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh
Here we go, creative writing-workshop-style, sentence by sentence:
Sentence #1:
Ft. Worth: The Episcopal Church grieves the departures of a number of persons from the Diocese of Fort. Worth.
Quincy: We lament the departure from The Episcopal Church of some individuals in southern Illinois.
Pittsburgh: I believe that the vast majority of Episcopalians and Anglicans will be intensely grieved by the actions of individuals who thought it necessary to remove them from The Episcopal Church.
Ft. Worth: We remind those former Episcopalians that the door is open if they wish to return.
Quincy: The Episcopal Diocese of Quincy remains, albeit with fewer members, and we are working to assist in the reorganization of diocesan affairs.
Pittsburgh: I have repeatedly reassured Episcopalians that there is abundant room for dissent within this Church, and that loyal opposition is a long and honored tradition within Anglicanism.
Ft. Worth: We will work with Episcopalians in the Diocese of Fort Worth to elect new leadership and continue the work of the gospel in that part of Texas.
Quincy: We assure all, both Episcopalians and former Episcopalians, and members of their surrounding communities, of our prayers for clarity and charity in their spiritual journeys.
Pittsburgh: Schism is not, having frequently been seen as a more egregious error than charges of heresy. (that was Bishop Lee's original quote at Diocesan council - quoting someone else - which is quite interesting, but seems to have been dropped from the later "statements" so we'll add "Sentence #5" to this section as well). There is room in this Church for all who desire to be members of it.
Ft. Worth: The gospel work to which Jesus calls us demands the best efforts of faithful people from many theological and social perspectives, and The Episcopal Church will continue to welcome that diversity.
Quincy: May all be reminded that the gospel work of healing this world will take the best efforts of every person of faith.
Pittsburgh: The actions of the former bishop of Pittsburgh, and some lay and clergy leaders, have removed themselves from this Church; the rest of the Church laments their departure (Pittsburgh got both "grieves" and "lament" which was split up between Quincy and Ft. Worth later, therefore, since this statement was more verbose, we'll add the final three sentences from the Pittsburgh statement here as well). We stand ready to welcome the return of any who wish to rejoin this part of the Body of Christ. We will work with remaining Episcopalians in Pittsburgh to provide support as they reorganize the Diocese and call a bishop to provide episcopal ministry.
Meanwhile the Diocese of Eu Claire may just dissolve entirely or merge with the Diocese of Fond du Lac. Hello? Hell0?
The Episcopal Diocese of Ft. Worth votes overwhelmingly to separate from The Episcopal Church
From here.Delegates to the annual convention in the Diocese of Fort Worth quickly and by decisive margins approved the second and final reading of a series of changes to its constitution and canons that rescinded its affiliation with The Episcopal Church and joined it on a temporary basis with the Anglican Church of the Southern Cone based in Argentina.
The vote by orders for realignment was 73-20 among clergy and 98-28 in the lay order. The convention also voted two-to-one for second and final approval of four constitutional amendments that rescinded accession to the Constitution and Canons of General Convention. Fifteen other canonical changes were approved by a voice vote.
In his address to convention, Bishop Jack Iker, Bishop of Fort Worth, urged delegates “as a matter of conscience and conviction” to revoke the 1982 convention vote seeking admittance into union with General Convention in order “to align ourselves instead with an orthodox province of the Anglican Communion.” In a statement after the vote, the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church, said she would work with the minority to reorganize an Episcopal presence in the area.
Friday, November 14, 2008
J.K. Rowling writes of her favorite scene in the final book of the Harry Potter series in honor of the Prince of Wales 60th birthday
BB NOTE: Author J.K. Rowling writes of her favorite scene in the final book of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, commenting that it could be her favorite scene in the entire series. We know from earlier comments made by Jo Rowling that she wept as she wrote this particular chapter, called The Forest Again. From here.I admit that, at first glance, the extract I've chosen for The Birthday Book might not seem particularly celebratory, given that it has for its subject my hero walking to what he believes will be certain death. But when Harry takes his last, long walk into the heart of the Dark Forest, he is choosing to accept a burden that fell on him when still a tiny child, in spite of the fact that he never sought the role for which he has been cast, never wanted the scar with which he has been marked. As his mentor, Albus Dumbledore, has tried to make clear to Harry, he could have refused to follow the path marked out for him. In spite of the weight of opinion and expectation that singles him out as the "Chosen One", it is Harry's own will that takes him into the Forest to meet Voldemort, prepared to suffer the fate that he escaped sixteen years before.
The destinies of wizards and princes might seem more certain than those carved out for the rest of us, yet we all have to choose the manner in which we meet life: whether to live up (or down) to the expectations placed upon us; whether to act selfishly, or for the common good; whether to steer the course of our lives ourselves, or to allow ourselves to be buffeted around by chance and circumstance. Birthdays are often moments for reflection, moments when we pause, look around, and take stock of where we are; children gleefully contemplate how far they have come, whereas adults look forwards into the trees, wondering how much further they have to go. This extract from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is my favourite part of the seventh book; it might even be my favourite part of the entire series, and in it, Harry demonstrates his truly heroic nature, because he overcomes his own terror to protect the people he loves from death, and the whole of his society from tyranny.
Bob Dylan - Unintelligible?
un·in·tel·li·gi·ble [uhn-in-tel-i-juh-buh
l] adj. Being such that understanding or comprehension is difficult or impossible; incomprehensible.Looks like Bob Dylan is having some more fun these days in the teasing department. As many say and some passing through here at the Cafe on occasion have commented from time to time, "Bob Dylan may be one of the great American artists, fine, it's just too bad no one can understand him."
Tell the truth, now!
Apparently, there was a journalist (so he says, what would constitute a "journalist" anyway, we know how he dealt with them before) trolling back stage and made some comment (or so he says) about the fact that Dylan is unintelligible. Nope, he doesn't hide it, he doesn't go on a rant, doesn't throw furniture, he just repeats the word over and over, almost as though inspecting its cadence, it's truth.Well, old cyber friend RWB has the tape from last Tuesday's concert in London, Ontario and we can check it out ourselves. Roll the tape:
Here's what RWB has transcribed, in case Dylan is unintelligible:
Bob Dylan: If you haven’t noticed, there’s a journalist backstage, and he’s asking somebody, “Is he always so unintelligible?” Unintelligible. Does anybody out there think I’m unintelligible? [Pause, indistinct crowd reaction. Bob laughs.] Tell me the truth now!(By the way, here are some synonyms of the word unintelligible: impenetrable, inscrutable, unfathomable, ambiguous, incoherent, jumbled, puzzling, equivocal - sounds about right, actually.)
He's so darn funny. Of course he's unintelligible. I mean, isn't that the point, Mr. Dylan? If we all understand what you've said, sang, spoke, or did - what would be the point of all the books, all the courses, all the bootleg collections, all the studies and lectures and discussions and interviews and doctorates that have been poured over trying to understand you. Of course you're unintelligible!
When you want to be, that is.
New Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Film Trailer Released
Well, we've got yet another trailer for the next Harry Potter film - and yes, we have eight months to go until the film is released since WB decided to postpone the release (which originally was next week!) to July 2009 (isn't there something else going on in July 2009?). But it looks spectacular. The film, that is.
Hi-Res is here. You can read more HP series commentary at our sister blog, Shell Cottage.
Hi-Res is here. You can read more HP series commentary at our sister blog, Shell Cottage.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Thursday Night at the Cafe: Home
Hawai`i pono`iNana i kou mo`i
Ka lani ali`i,
Ke ali`i
Makua lani e, Kamehameha e, Na kaua e pale, Me ka ihe. Makua lani e, Kamehameha e, Na kaua e pale, Me ka ihe. RHS, Class of 1979.
Chris Sugden writes on the "Lambeth Network" and the impact of the 2008 Conference on the Anglican Communion
Here's an excerpt:What has or will be the impact of the Conference. It was the conference of what can best be described now as the Lambeth Network in the Communion. At the end, the press were told that the Secretary General of the ACC would be writing to all the absentee bishops to ask for their views on the matters under consideration. Over a month later the letters had not been sent out. But a Primates Meeting of the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans Network had already had time to make a response:
“We are grateful that there is an acknowledgement that Lambeth 1.10 of 1998 remains an authentic expression of the mind of the Communion. We also note the renewed call for moratoria on the consecration of bishops who are homosexually partnered and the blessing of same-sex unions as well so-called ‘border-crossing’. Likewise there is mention of the creation of a ‘Pastoral Forum’ to look after disaffected parishes or dioceses and continued work on an Anglican Covenant.
They said their “immediate difficulty is that the voice of Lambeth 2008 is seriously weakened because it merely repeated what has been said by the Primates’ Meeting (in Gramado early 2003, Lambeth October 2003, Dromantine, February 2005 and Dar es Salaam, February 2007) and which has proved to change nothing. Indeed the Windsor Continuation Group itself made the same point, ‘The three moratoria have been requested several times: Windsor (2004); Dromantine (2005); Dar es Salaam (2007) and the requests have been less than wholeheartedly embraced on all sides… The failure to respond presents us with a situation where if the three moratoria are not observed the Communion is likely to fracture.’
“We are therefore continually offered the same strategies which mean further delay and unlikely results. Indeed, delay itself seems to be a strategy employed by some in order to resolve the issue through weariness. The Anglican Covenant will take a long time to be widely accepted and may have no particular force when it does. The idea of ‘moratoria’ has never dealt with the underlying problem as is shown by the equivalence of cross-border care and protection with the sexual sins which have caused the problems.
In any case, some North American Bishops appear to have indicated already that they will not keep to them. It appears that people living in a homosexual unions continue to be ordained in some dioceses in contravention to Lambeth 1.10. In principle, this is no different from consecrating a bishop who adopts the same pattern of life, or indeed, of blessing same-sex unions. The idea of the Pastoral Forum has only now emerged but has never been discussed with those actually affected by the innovations which have created the problems with which we are trying to deal. If the Panel of Reference did not work, it is unclear how the Pastoral Forum will succeed.”
There exists some considerable overlap between the two Networks. A number of those who were present at Jerusalem attended Lambeth , and many of those at Lambeth held orthodox convictions as expressed in the minority statements of CAPA, the Global South and the South Asian Bishops.
The FoCA primates were sensitive to this in noting that “Given that some esteemed colleagues from the Global South have strongly commended the Windsor Process to us, we are reluctant to say that it cannot work. But there is nothing new here such as to make us hesitate from the course we are taking, given the urgency of the situations with which we are dealing and the realities already on the ground. As they themselves remark, ‘the Anglican Communion as a communion of ordered churches is at the probable brink of collapse’. We warmly appreciate the good words which they have written about GAFCON and look forward to co-operation with them in the future as we ourselves try to avoid that collapse and renew the Communion.”
It is probable that Global South will work as a geographical network, including more liberal provinces such as Korea and Southern Africa, while the FoCA Anglicans will focus on Anglican identity through faith, as expressed in the Jerusalem Declaration, as a fellowship of orthodox Anglicans globally.
The Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans Primates were justified in their assessment of the weakness of the outcome of Lambeth when news broke that Jeffrey John was being considered for nomination to the see of Bangor in Wales in an election set for October 10. As one senior figure commented: Lambeth was only a time-out as in a football game.
All that said, the Conference had an unforgettable conclusion.. As the final service ended in Canterbury Cathedral, the names of nine members of an Anglican Mission Order in Melanesia martyred in 2003 were placed in the chapel of Martyrs of our Time. Their colleagues processed with their names, from the nave up the many steps to the quire screen, singing the most haunting refrain. They passed from sight through the quire screen. But they continued singing. The refrain echoed round the cathedral. It was as though we had seen the martyrs themselves pass into the nearer presence of God, yet their beautiful singing could still he heard. Strong men and women wept.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Camille Paglia on Obama, Ayers, Dohrn, and Palin
BB NOTE: Terrific article from Camille Paglia who - along with Christopher Hitchens - are our favorite "liberal" writers. They both write innovative and extremely well-written pieces that challenge complacency and group think laziness. And while I can froth and foam sometimes in the aftermath, I don't miss a column if I can help it! This one, by Paglia, is hit right out of the park.Here's an excerpt:
No one knows whether Obama will move to the center or veer hard left. Perhaps even he doesn't know. But I have great optimism about his political instincts and deftness. He wants to be president of all the people -- if that is possible in so divided a nation. His natural impulse seems to be toward reconciliation and concord. The big question will be how patient the Democratic left wing is in demanding drastic changes in social policy, particularly dicey with a teetering economy.As I've watched Obama gracefully step up to podiums or move through crowds, I've been reminded not of basketball, with its feints and pivots, but of surfing, that art form of his native Hawaii. A photograph of Obama body surfing on vacation was widely publicized in August. But I'm talking about big-time competitive surfing, as in this stunning video tribute to the death-defying Laird Hamilton (who, like Obama, was raised fatherless in Hawaii). Obama's ability to stay on his feet and outrun the most menacing waves that threaten to engulf him seems to embody the breezy, sunny spirit of the American surfer.
In the closing weeks of the election, however, I became increasingly disturbed by the mainstream media's avoidance of forthright dealing with several controversies that had been dogging Obama -- even as every flimsy rumor about Sarah Palin was being trumpeted as if it were engraved in stone on Mount Sinai. For example, I had thought for many months that the flap over Obama's birth certificate was a tempest in a teapot. But simple questions about the certificate were never resolved to my satisfaction. Thanks to their own blathering, fanatical overkill, of course, the right-wing challenges to the birth certificate never gained traction.
But Obama could have ended the entire matter months ago by publicly requesting Hawaii to issue a fresh, long-form, stamped certificate and inviting a few high-profile reporters in to examine the document and photograph it. (The campaign did make the "short-form" certificate available to Factcheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.) And why has Obama not made his university records or thesis work widely available? The passivity of the press toward Bush administration propaganda about weapons of mass destruction led the nation into the costly blunder of the Iraq war. We don't need another presidency that finds it all too easy to rely on evasion or stonewalling. I deeply admire Obama, but as a voter I don't like feeling gamed or played.
Another issue that I initially dismissed was the flap over William Ayers, the Chicago-based former member of the violent Weather Underground. Conservative radio host Sean Hannity began the drumbeat about Ayers' association with Obama a year ago -- a theme that most of the mainstream media refused to investigate or even report until this summer. I had never heard of Ayers and couldn't have cared less. I was irritated by Hillary Clinton's aggressive flagging of Ayers in a debate, and I accepted Obama's curt dismissal of the issue.Hence my concern about Ayers has been very slow in developing. The mainstream media should have fully explored the subject early this year and not allowed it to simmer and boil until it flared up ferociously in the last month of the campaign. Obama may not in recent years have been "pallin' around" with Ayers, in Sarah Palin's memorable line, but his past connections with Ayers do seem to have been more frequent and substantive than he has claimed. Blame for the failure of this issue to take hold must also accrue to the conservative talk shows, which use the scare term "radical" with simplistic sensationalism, blanketing everyone under the sun from scraggly ex-hippies to lipstick-chic Nancy Pelosi.
Pursuing the truth about Ayers, I recently rented the 2002 documentary "The Weather Underground," from Netflix. It was riveting. Although the film seems to waver between ominous exposé and blatant whitewash, the full extent of the group's bombing campaign is dramatically demonstrated. It's not for everyone: The film uses gratuitous cutaways of horrifying carnage, from the Vietnam War to the Manson murders (such as Sharon Tate's smiling corpse, bathed in blood). But the news footage of the Greenwich Village townhouse destroyed in 1970 by bomb-making gone wrong in the basement still has enormous impact. Standing in the chaotic street, actor Dustin Hoffman, who lived next door, seems like Everyman at the apocalypse.
Ayers comes off in the film as a vapid, slightly dopey, chronic juvenile with stunted powers of ethical reasoning. The real revelation is his wife, Bernardine Dohrn (who evidently worked at the same large Chicago law firm as Michelle Obama in the mid-1990s). Of course I had heard of Dohrn -- hers was one of the most notorious names of our baby-boom generation -- and I knew her black-and-white police mug shot. But I had never seen footage of her speaking or interacting with others. Well, it's pretty obvious who wears the pants in that family!
The mystery of Bernardine Dohrn: How could such a personable, attractive, well-educated young woman end up saying such things at a 1969 political rally as this (omitted in the film) about the Manson murders: "Dig it. First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them. They even shoved a fork into a victim's stomach. Wild!" And how could Dohrn have so ruthlessly pursued a decade-long crusade of hatred and terrorism against innocent American citizens and both private and public property?
"The Weather Underground" never searches for answers, but it does show Dohrn, then and now, as a poised, articulate woman of extremely high intelligence and surprising inwardness. The audio extra of her reading the collective's first public communiqué ("Revolutionary violence is the only way") is chilling. But the tumultuous footage of her 1980 surrender to federal authorities is a knockout. Mesmerized, I ran the clip six or seven times of her seated at a lawyer's table while reading her still defiant statement. The sober scene -- with Dohrn hyper-alert in a handsome turtleneck and tweedy jacket -- was tailor-made for Jane Fonda in her "Klute" period, androgynous shag. Only illegalities by federal investigators prevented Dohrn from being put away on ice for a long, long time.
Given that Obama had served on a Chicago board with Ayers and approved funding of a leftist educational project sponsored by Ayers, one might think that the unrepentant Ayers-Dohrn couple might be of some interest to the national media. But no, reporters have been too busy playing mini-badminton with every random spitball about Sarah Palin, who has been subjected to an atrocious and at times delusional level of defamation merely because she has the temerity to hold pro-life views.
How dare Palin not embrace abortion as the ultimate civilized ideal of modern culture? How tacky that she speaks in a vivacious regional accent indistinguishable from that of Western Canada! How risible that she graduated from the University of Idaho and not one of those plush, pampered commodes of received opinion whose graduates, in their rush to believe the worst about her, have demonstrated that, when it comes to sifting evidence, they don't know their asses from their elbows.
Liberal Democrats are going to wake up from their sadomasochistic, anti-Palin orgy with a very big hangover. The evil genie released during this sorry episode will not so easily go back into its bottle. A shocking level of irrational emotionalism and at times infantile rage was exposed at the heart of current Democratic ideology -- contradicting Democratic core principles of compassion, tolerance and independent thought. One would have to look back to the Eisenhower 1950s for parallels to this grotesque lock-step parade of bourgeois provincialism, shallow groupthink and blind prejudice.
I like Sarah Palin, and I've heartily enjoyed her arrival on the national stage. As a career classroom teacher, I can see how smart she is -- and quite frankly, I think the people who don't see it are the stupid ones, wrapped in the fuzzy mummy-gauze of their own worn-out partisan dogma. So she doesn't speak the King's English -- big whoop! There is a powerful clarity of consciousness in her eyes. She uses language with the jumps, breaks and rippling momentum of a be-bop saxophonist. I stand on what I said (as a staunch pro-choice advocate) in my last two columns -- that Palin as a pro-life wife, mother and ambitious professional represents the next big shift in feminism. Pro-life women will save feminism by expanding it, particularly into the more traditional Third World.
As for the Democrats who sneered and howled that Palin was unprepared to be a vice-presidential nominee -- what navel-gazing hypocrisy! What protests were raised in the party or mainstream media when John Edwards, with vastly less political experience than Palin, got John Kerry's nod for veep four years ago? And Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, for whom I lobbied to be Obama's pick and who was on everyone's short list for months, has a record indistinguishable from Palin's. Whatever knowledge deficit Palin has about the federal bureaucracy or international affairs (outside the normal purview of governors) will hopefully be remedied during the next eight years of the Obama presidencies.
The U.S. Senate as a career option? What a claustrophobic, nitpicking comedown for an energetic Alaskan -- nothing but droning committees and incestuous back-scratching. No, Sarah Palin should stick to her governorship and just hit the rubber-chicken circuit, as Richard Nixon did in his long haul back from political limbo following his California gubernatorial defeat in 1962. Step by step, the mainstream media will come around, wipe its own mud out of its eyes, and see Palin for the populist phenomenon that she is.
Read the whole thing here. Tip of the Tinfoil to BJ in Vero Beach.
What if The Matrix ran on Windows XP?
Pardon our geek moment. We XP by day, and Mac by night. Frankly, for all of us here at our Cafe table tonight, the best line is the last line. Heh. Thanks for not getting the Xerox job, Steve. Bill, call your office. Please.
Tip of the Tinfoil to Cafe Regular Kevin.
A conversation with the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Ft. Worth
Greg Griffith's conversation with the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Ft. Worth is now online.Again, one of the many miracles in the midst of the Episcopal Church crisis has been the remarkable forging of deep friendships between Anglo Catholics and Evangelicals. While differences exist, the ability to practice "indaba" as Rowan Williams hoped for at Lambeth 2008 is truly and authentically exercised, as we saw at GAFCON in Jerusalem this summer, between these different biblical traditions within the Anglican Communion and grace continues to be found in these most-crucial days, because on the great essentials there is not only agreement but celebration. Grace also continues to fill the spaces where there is disagreement - and there is disagreement as there are in any healthy family - and the door remains open to seek the mind and heart of Christ, where ever He may lead. Thanks be to God.
Whatever happens - we are a far, far cry from this type of hostile action authorized by The Episcopal Church that led to the breakdown of any chance of trust or understanding in The Episcopal Church between the progressive activists and the Anglo Catholic traditionalists (which, of course, was the intention - dragging even Bishop Lee into it, as we sadly recall). We're not going back there, but it's probably wise never to forget lest we are tempted to romanticize the past. We've come this far by faith.
Read the entire interview here. The Episcopal Diocese of Ft. Worth meets in convention starting this Friday. The convention will vote on a resolution to also separate from The Episcopal Church.
Photo by StandFirm.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
“Oh, oh, Neil Young fan alert ..." Bob Dylan reportedly makes a surprise visit in Canada
Very interesting story popped up about a visit to Neil Young's chilhood home today. Take it away Winnipeg Free Press:Two Sundays ago, the day of Dylan’s MTS Centre concert, Kiernan and Regan arrived home between 4 and 4:30 p.m. to see two scruffy men who had arrived by taxi standing on the sidewalk outside their house.
“Oh, oh, Neil Young fan alert,” said Regan, who has become accustomed to such incidents in the six years they’ve lived in the amalgamated duplex at 1123 Grosvenor.
She went to talk to them while Kiernan lugged in the groceries. After he was finished, he walked out to chat, too.
“They were older than your typical Young fans,” Kiernan recalls thinking.
Nothing clicked until he noticed that one of the men had his black leather pants tucked into expensive-looking cowboy boots. He glanced up and studied the lined, unshaven face topped by a grey tuque and realized he was looking at Bob Dylan.
Kiernan kept his cool, while Regan, a project manager in the city’s permits department, remained oblivious. Dylan, 67, was curious about the house and neighbourhood as they related to Young.
He also made small talk about the weather. Kiernan replied that it was unseasonably mild.
“You’re from Minnesota, so you know what’s usually like,” Kiernan said. “Subtract 10 degrees.”
Dylan laughed.
Kiernan asked if they wanted to see inside the house, and Dylan was eager.
“How long do you have for the tour?” Kiernan asked, meaning the tour of the house.
Dylan replied: “We’re touring for another two weeks.”
They showed him Young’s old bedroom, now painted bright pink and occupied by Kiernan’s 16-year-old daughter.
“So this is where Neil would have listened to his music,” Dylan mused. They took him into the old second-floor kitchen, now a laundry room. “I remember thinking I should have done the laundry before I went out,” Kiernan says.
Kiernan explained the whereabouts of the Earl Grey and Crescentwood community centres, where a teenaged Young and bandmates played their first concerts.
“He was introspective and thoughtful,” Kiernan said. “He had an interest in music beyond himself.”
The connection - sometimes kindred, sometimes perhaps competitive (at least in the minds of some fans), sometimes who-knows-what? - between Bob Dylan and Neil Young goes way, way, back. Stories go around that one time Neil Young was playing loud on the radio and Dylan yelled from another room to turn it down. But when it came time to pen Highlands, he told the story a bit differently:I'm listening to Neil Young, I gotta turn up the sound
Someone's always yelling turn it down
Someone's always yelling turn it down
A snippet of Dylan's whimsically sardonic humor - masking his identity once again, Mr. Masked and Anonymous.
It has gone on for decades, there's no question about that - whatever it is, the comparison between the two is hard to ignore - though we certainly have our preferences around the Cafe. In fact, we remember this more than humorous recent "encounter" between Dylan and Young - or at least Dylan's encounter with Young's recent album, Let's Impeach the President. From USA Today:
Dylan aims to tell a truthful story and nourish it on stage. Keeping it real doesn’t mean copping ideas from CNN or responding to the conflict du jour, which is why you won’t find an updated Masters of War on Modern Times.Entire websites have been created that link the two great musicians, contrasting and comparing their music and careers. From Knappster:
“Didn’t Neil Young do that?” he jokes, referring to the rocker’s recent anti-war disc. “What more is there to say? What’s funny about the Neil record, when I heard 'Let’s Impeach the President,' I thought it was something old that had been lying around. I said, ‘That’s crazy, he’s doing a song about Clinton?’”
"Bob and Neil have a history of friendly competition. They have, on occasion, shared a stage. Neil has covered Bob. Bob has covered Neil. Neil has name-checked Bob. Bob has name-checked Neil. Neil admires Bob. Bob visited Neil's childhood home."The CBC News also has the story:
“OK, so this was his view, and this was where he listened to his music. It suddenly dawned on me, when you're looking at Bob Dylan standing in a hallway, that he had a very parallel experience 200 miles to the south, sitting in his room, listening to his music, looking out his window.”
Dylan grew up in Hibbing, Minn., about 500 km southeast of Winnipeg, while Neil Young spent his formative high school years playing in Winnipeg rock band The Squires.
Kiernan said Dylan and his manager visited for a while before heading off to tour other areas of the city.
Dylan then played a concert at Winnipeg's MTS Centre later that night, Nov. 2.
Here's what Bob Dylan told Rolling Stone magazine about Neil Young:"Neil is very sincere, if nothing else. He's sincere, and he's got a God-given talent, with that voice of his, and the melodic strain that runs through absolutely everything he does. He could be at his most thrashy, but it's still going to be elevated by some melody. Neil's the only one who does that. There's nobody in his category."And here's Neil Young on Bob Dylan:
"Bob Dylan, I'll never be Bob Dylan. He's the master. If I'd like to be anyone, it's him. And he's a great writer, true to his music and done what he feels is the right thing to do for years and years and years. He's great. He's the one I look to. I'm always interested in what he's doing now, or did last, or did a long time ago that I didn't find out about. The guy has written some of the greatest poetry and put it to music in a way that it touched me, and other people have done that, but not so consistently or as intensely. Like me, he waits around and keeps going, and he knows that he doesn't have the muse all the time, but he knows that it'll come back and it'll visit him and he'll have his moment."
And so the story is Bob Dylan pops by the boyhood home of Neil Young. There are many who do the same thing and make the pilgrimage to visit Dylan's childhood home in Hibbing, MN. Not sure if Neil Young has been one of them, though.On that note, we bring back for an encore one of the great live performances that included - among many - Bob Dylan and Neil Young together on stage.
A self-ordained professor's tongue
Too serious to fool
Spouted out that liberty
Is just equality in school
"Equality," I spoke the word
As if a wedding vow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.
In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.
From My Back Pages, by B. Dylan
WEDNESDAY PM: Okay, here's you go, Neil Young with the Boss on the signature song:
NOTE: Thanks for the Cafe link, RWB!
Today is Veteran's Day
Remembering our Veterans on this day. There are simply no words that can adequately express the gratitude we share for the sacrifices made by the men and women of the United States Armed Forces. Today I especially remember and give thanks for both of my grandfathers, my father, my uncle, my brothers, my cousins - all who gave and give so much for their country, so much for me.
And we remember all those who continue to serve, home and most especially abroad, for the cause of freedom and to keep our liberty secure.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Monday Afternoon at the Cafe: Nobody cares if you upset a droid ...
Here's an innovative tribute to film composer John Williams, with a special emphasis on the story of Star Wars. But it doesn't end there.
Tip of the Tinfoil to BL.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Autumn at Home
Came home this afternoon to amazing color right where I live. It's been quite a week, but there is something just so extraordinary about the autumn leaves, it just doesn't get old, year after year. This particular autumn in Virginia - especially here in Northern Virginia - has been spectacular. Just had to share it with all of you!
Africa's Anglican Provinces unite in recognizing Bishop Bob Duncan as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of PIttsburgh
The Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa (CAPA) declares that the actions taken by current Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and a minority of the Episcopal House of Bishops to depose Bishop Bob Duncan is a "totalitarian abuse of power" and will not be recognized by the Anglican provinces of Africa.At a special session of the US House of Bishops on Sept 18 called to discuss the Lambeth Conference, the American bishops voted 87 to 35, with four abstentions to defrock Bishop Duncan, removing him from the ordained ministry for propounding the view that a diocese may withdraw from the Episcopal Church.
The bishops had worked “carefully and prayerfully” and their “conversation was holy” US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said. However, Bishop Duncan’s “actions over recent months and years constitute ‘abandonment of ‘the communion of this church” and that he should be deposed,” she said.
The American action was a source of “deep regret and profound sadness” Archbishop Ernest said, and was seen in Africa as being politically motivated. “We are sad because you are obviously viewed as a threat to the survival of a dominant order, and the actions are more appropriate to totalitarian governments than to an Episcopal leadership professing our Lord Jesus Christ,” he said.
The African church had been “hopeful that after Lambeth, [the Episcopal Church] would at least exercise legal restraint and also sensitivity to the indignation expressed by the rest of the communion at their continued resistance to pursue an agenda which are not conformed to the biblical teachings we all vowed to uphold,” Archbishop Ernest said.
He commended Bishop Duncan for his forbearance, likening it to martyrdom. Citing Justin Martyr, Archbishop Ernest observed that “strangely the power of the gospel is even more evident when persecution arises” for when “numbers of persecuted Christians held fast their confession, the more others in larger numbers become believers.”
Read it all here.
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