Current Affairs: August 2005 Archives

It sounds like the warnings of ancient Semitic deity, but alas it is a government agency-the Weather Bureau.

NOAA says:

HURRICANE KATRINA
A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED
STRENGTH...RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969.

(click on images to enlarge)


MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS...
PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF
OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF
AND WALL  FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL...
LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY
DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS
WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL.
PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE
IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING
APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED.
CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE...
INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS
WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY...
A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE.
ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD...
AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH
AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES
AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY
VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED.
THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE
ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS
...PETS...AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE
WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS...
AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN
AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED.
WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING
INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES
WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY
THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING...
BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED.
FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN.
LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS
WILL BE
KILLED.

AN INLAND HURRICANE WIND WARNING IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WINDS NEAR
HURRICANE FORCE...OR FREQUENT GUSTS AT OR ABOVE HURRICANE FORCE...ARE
CERTAIN WITHIN THE NEXT 12 TO 24 HOURS. ONCE TROPICAL STORM AND HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ONSET...DO NOT VENTURE OUTSIDE!

Hurricane Katrina is bearing down on a region that has experienced years of environmental abuse.  The Gulf Coast evolved over millennia as the terrain and ecology that welcomed the renewal that came with the tropical storms, recovery was rapid, and drainage was natural.  For tens of thousands of years people lived in harmony with the cycles of nature, with the storms, with hot summers, and warm winters.  But the ecology has been violently impacted since the European conquest of the area.  The Europeans came to this place with a practice of systematic misuse of the land and waterways.  Cities are built where cities will be destroyed, and the land is so paved over it floods, destroying habit for plants and wildlife.  The destruction is not the result of human impact, it is the result of the impact of humans with a destructive worldview, people whose real religion involved manipulation and violence against "Mother Nature."

There is an awakening to what we have done, and more and more people seek a new relation with the earth.  Meanwhile, the Bush administration is working overtime to embarrass our people in the international arena.  The latest bit of stupidity involves an upcoming draft statement of principles to be agreed to by 175 heads of state and government attending a Sept. 12 United Nations summit, devoted to poverty and U.N. reorganization.  The draft contains a statement of "core values" which contains the following language "respect for human rights, freedom, equality, tolerance, multilateralism and respect for nature."  The United States wants the delete "nature" from the list of things to respect.

Ric Grenell of the U.S. mission to the United Nations said the phrase is "too broad a subject, and if we had to define the multiple ways the U.S. government respects nature, the document would be too long and way of its original intent."  Other delegates to the U.N. were puzzled by this explanation,  Yuri Fedotov, a Russian diplomat said "Nature is something which needs a lot of respect."  One would think that the Russian would not have to say that, but given the U.S. delegation he gets the prize for prophetic utterance.

Last night I was worried, and prayed for New Orleans and the North Central Gulf Coast.  Now I am scared.

New Orleans is six feet below sea level.  A direct hit will mean thirty feet of surge coming of the Gulf up the Mississippi, flooding the lakes.
Category Five winds are close to 200 mph.

I am hoping that this scare is a false alarm.  Last year in Florida the UU Trauma Team spoke of the post traumatic effects of false alarm scares, we went through a few false alarms, and two direct hits in Stuart.  I recovered quicker from the false alarms.

If this storm does not change course:

€¢ Lots of housing in the city will be lost.  Human life will be lost, evacuating a city that size is a logistic nightmare beyond imagining.  Rescue forces are already being set up.  Rescue teams are coming from all over the country so that they will be on site for the after shock.

€¢ One third of domestic production of gasoline will be unavailable next week.  The pump prices will go up.

As I write this Katrina is a Category 3 Hurricane churning away in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico about 250 miles from where I sit.  Hurricanes are generated by the warm ocean waters,  without them the sea life would die from overheated water.  Hurricanes cool the waters.  The sun warms the waters, and the sun and the waters create hot air which rises higher and higher.  Cold air meets the rising hot air, creating winds that form a cyclone around the hot air.  The cyclone performs convection cooling pulling more and more heat energy into the atmosphere and generating more and more whirling wind.  The heavy rains from a hurricane that comes ashore to flood rivers, soak mountains, and renew ecological systems.  It is wisdom that hurricanes are part of nature, necessary for the balance of sea life, and beneficial to the ecology of earth bound life systems.

Katrina crashed through Southern Florida Thursday night, causing damage and loss of life to the metropolis that stretches from Miami to Palm Beach.  She then crossed the everglades and exited Florida into Gulf.  She is now taking aim at New Orleans.

There are six hurricane vulnerable metropolitan areas in the United States, cities where a direct hit could cause catastrophic loss of life.  Galveston, Tampa, Miami, Charleston, Long Island's south east coast, and New Orleans.  Katrina was blowing at 85 mph when she blew through Fort Lauderdale, Florida two days ago.  It looks like she will be blowing at 140 mph when she comes a shore again.

They are evacuating southern Mississippi and Louisiana as I write.  Last year we were in the midst of evacuation of Tampa and St. Petersburg.  I pray that that map is off, way off.

Have you wondered why all the dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church followed the same policy relative to sexual abusive clergy or why the Vatican is now seeking diplomatic immunity to shield the current pontiff from prosecution?

All the Cardinals that voted for this man knew that he was the author of a policy that continued the abuse of lay Catholics, that defied the laws of the all the states in which the church is incorporated, and resulted in the mass alienation of tens of millions of Catholic faithful, yet they elevated him to the papacy.  Complicity in violence and abuse is no accident, no mistake in judgement made by honest clerics attempting to cover up a little mischief.  These people are part of the domination system, and the logic of their decisions is consistent with their defense of institutional power and a social order that regards people as objects, and truth as what ever they say it is.

For years the tobacco companies took the position that there was no evidence that smoking "caused" lung cancer.  The petrochemical industry and the Bush administration are taking a similar tact.  They claim that there is no global warming, and then they dispute the charge that the burning of fossil fuels contributes to the buildup of carbon deposits in the atmosphere.  But some appears that the evidence from the ground is becoming to obvious to deny.  Expect global warming to be the subject for debate in upcoming elections.

click on image to enlarge

What is happening in the ecology and economies of the North is becoming to apparent to ignore.  Dan Lashof, a scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, a respected Washington-based group, told The Independent: "People in Alaska are starting to freak out. The retreat of the sea ice allows the oceans to pound the coast more, and villages there are suffering from the effects of that erosion. There is permafrost melting, roads are buckling, there are forests that have been infested with beetles because of a rise in temperatures. I think residents there feel it's visible more and more, more than any other place in the country."

Unitarian Universalists have been part of the conservation movement for generations, for a long time we thought "being green" was about saving wilderness.  But now we coming to understand, "being green" is about saving our planet from our own system of power and privilege that has made consumers of us all.

If you can't travel to Crawford, you can still stand with the Gold Star Families For Peace by sending a single rose for $3. Roses will be placed on the crosses erected at Camp Casey in remembrance of our fallen service men and women.  This is a Code Pink initiative.

Vigil in support of Gold Star Families.

Despite the assumption of many bloggers, the problem with Pat Robertson is not old age.  I have close relations with well over a hundred Unitarian Universalists who are older than he is, and none of them talk about murder, make wild accusations about imagined foes, or claim to be misunderstood in the face of videotaped evidence.  Pat Robertson has contempt for other human beings, and has no notion that something called reality is judging his words and his deeds.  He has been practicing triumphalism for a long time. 

Good people who age to not become Pat Robertsons.

There has been a lot of talk about how Moslem's must hold their themselves accountable for Islamic extremism, and must condemn the terrorists misuse of Islamic teachings.  How are Christians responding to Pat Robertson's call to assassinate Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected president of Venezuela? Does Robertson speak for Christianity?  Chuck Currie, a United Church of Christ seminarian gives a good summary of the responses and non-responses so far. 

This is a teaching moment, we should not let it slip away.

I am struck by the resurgence in the peace movement  in the last few weeks and its implications for Unitarian Universalism.  We have lived with a contradiction in our principles and purposes for nearly thirty years, and we should at least acknowledge it, learn what it has to teach us.

We assert in the Principles and Purposes that among the sources of our living tradition we count the "[w]ords and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love."  For the many, many Unitarian Universalists who have traveled to Crawford, Texas, attended vigils, wrote letters to the editor, lit candles in church, and said a prayer of gratitude, Cindy Sheehan and the other Gold Star Parents against the war are prophets. The Southern Christian Leadership Council who knows courageous witness when they see it has been mobilizing support and sending delegations to Texas.

Yet, in our Principles and Purposes we also asset that we cherish the use of the democratic process, and we might be tempted to extend that principle to selecting prophets.  But if that is the case, who choose Cindy Sheehan?  She is certainly an embarrassment to the political class. Those among us who see the contest between Democrats and Republicans as crucial will argue that she is not a good spokesperson for "our side."  We should look to more responsible members of the opposition party, such as Hilary Clinton.

I invite you to consider a Unitarian Universalist congregation, what if they decided to call a prophet?  They would take a survey, they would elect a search committee, they would look at a number of available candidates.  We can be sure that they would not want someone who would cause internal dissension.  She would never swear, make divisive statements about foreign policy, and her program for action would be realistic.  A prophet with naïve ideas about immediate disengagement from evil, impeachment of the king, and other such pronouncements wouldn't make the cut.  If we choose a prophet by the democratic process she would look a lot like a member of our Unitarian Universalist clergy - a facilitator of process, teacher of wisdom, professional institution builder, but not a prophet. (I protest that some of us retire, and become prophets, and some of us do become community ministers, but then I confess that most of us are caretakers of the unity of our congregations, a role in contradiction with pronouncing justice.)

Thanks to James Luther Adams we believe in the prophethood of all believers, and it is among the unchosen laity that we witness prophecy in our midst.  In my experience as an institutional manager, when prophets arise within the congregation, they are uncommonly disruptive, they raise challenging questions, and they have a lousy sense of timing.  I love my prophets, but at a distance.

So, it is good that we do not choose our prophets by any democratic process. The ancient tradition gave us the story that prophets are called by God.  That explanation does have possibilities for progressives. Liberation theologians argue that God prefers the poor and powerless against the rich and the powerful.  Judgement for the liberation theologian would look a lot like popular revolt.

For those of us with a more incarnate, embodied divinity, prophets arise when human beings seek to be in right relationship with each other, and find the social and political arrangements of their time to be corrupt, violent, and dehumanizing.  The prophetic woman or man being an embodied person will experience these dysfunctions as immoral, as violations of their deepest values, and respond with anger.  Being human they will respond emotionally, and convey that raw, irrational emotion to all who behold their witness.  Rage not rational calculation is the mark of the prophet.  And because of that emotional response, she will tap into the anger that lies in the hearts of many of her contemporaries who will experience the prophet speaking for their deepest values, their ultimate concerns.  They will experience her as embodying their own anger and hatred for wrong doing, corruption, and misuse of power.  And she will call forth many others to prophecy.

It is all so messy and so unpredictable.  No well managed search committee would choose such a person.  And the King will be embarrassed, and the rivals of the King will annoyed, but the spirit "bloweth where it listeth...and maketh all things new."

Image from Salt Lake 08-22-04

A very intelligent designer of moleskine notebooks has decided to use the controversial notion to draw attention to his products.

Supporters of the war in Iraq are rallying around a new tactic - Pink baiting! 

The game plan works like this:

1. Attempt to discredit the person of Cindy Sheehan.  The warriors assume that our country lives in the trivial world of celebrities and packaged news, and so they are betting that personal popularity is what has drawn people's attention to Crawford, Texas.  In response, news has been manufactured; she thinks U.S. policy is too pro-Israeli, she has uttered a vulgarity, she and her husband are estranged.  Religious liberals may feel drawn to debate these banalities,  but they are intentional distractions.  Camp Casey is a rallying point for a renewed debate on the Iraq war and the whole destructive foreign policy of both the Republicans and the Democrats.  As part of the game plan, Cindy Sheehan has been called crazy, a liar, and a political opportunist.  The people who have rallied at Camp Casey must be discredited as well, their motives and personal hygiene is questioned, but what really motivates the attacks is the dozens of large vigils that took place around the country this week in solidarity with those who went to Crawford.


2. Attempt to link Sheehan with what will be called "the far left, or unpatriotic elements."  The parents, teachers, social workers, small business people, artists, working people, youth, young adults, old people, not so old people, clergy, secularists, and others that are beginning to  question the ongoing violence in their name must be libeled and trivialized.  So, the warriors send out their talking points, and the main stream media and those that still find that media creditable follow obediently.


Will it work?  I am eternally optimistic, it must be that Unitarian Universalist naïve, but I have seen turning points in popular sentiment  before, and given the failure of the warriors play book in the past, we may be witnessing something deeper and more enduring than how "likable" Cindy Sheehan is or is not.

It is hot in Crawford, Texas but below is just some of the many Americans who have joined Cindy Sheehan in witness.  Peace activists have organized to provide rides from the Austin, Texas airport for those who want to join this pilgrimage.

The PBS program "Religion and Ethics" is now available as for download. 


This is great for me, this program isn't available on my local PBS stations.  But I also like the convenience of podcasting, I can listen to the program at my convenience. I play the programs on my long drives across Florida.  The most convenient way to access the program is Apple's ITunes Music Store (available for both Macs and PCs.)  Download ITunes and then go to the podcast list and subscribe to Religion and Ethics.  The music store has a number of good public affairs programs, science programs, as well as religion programs, they all download automatically when I open ITunes.  Unitarian Universalist congregations are beginning to use this service to distribute MP3 files of their worship services, I have a good collection of sermons from Randy Becker who has been podcasting for over a year now.


The initial program of Religion and Ethics has a good discussion on the evolution debate, including some probing around "intelligent design." 

Much of the news we get here in Florida is packaged to give a distorted view on reality, to accept and be shaped by such information is to be come subjected to the prevailing religion which worships power, privilege and violence.  Reconstructing reality is a spiritual necessity, indeed it is a theological task.  It is a necessary prerequisite to a free and responsible search for truth and meaning,

It is good to know that some of the people of Crawford, Texas understand hospitality.  They tell me Texas is in the Bible belt, and the Bible is strong on hospitality.  The injunction "You were strangers in a strange land, take care of the strangers in your midst" is repeated over in the Hebrew Bible in various forms.  Here is a story of one resident of Crawford who is living that ethic.  It is good to have stories of human beings involved in the struggle to witness a new vision of what our country may be.  That isn't "too political," rather it is witnessing  our Unitarian Universalist values.

Sometimes it is good to get an alternative news commentary that is aggressive and to the point.  Listen this blogcast of Rachel Maddow show. She talks about many things in the news, she goes into the right-wing talking points that seek to smear Cindy Sheehan as a "fake." Rush Limbaugh even seems to be suggesting that Sheehan's son did not die in Iraq!

Religious liberals value decision making that is ethically informed and based on reason and experience.  Is buying an automobile religious?
E-magazine reports on the strange logic of the car manufacturers, and looks at the government as an enabler of this dysfunctional behavior.

The atomic bomb named "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima by the Enola Gay, a Boeing B-29 bomber, at 8:15 in the morning of August 6, 1945.  This watch was on the person of one of the victims. 

Christians speak of the crucifixion of the rabbi Jesus as a turning point in history.  I am more of an Easter man myself, but I agree.  Something old ended, something new came into being.

I would only add, history has a way of turning, making radical turns.  Once it was possible to speak of democracy versus totalitarianism, and science versus superstition.  After Hiroshima, such ideas no longer had the clarity and power that they once held.

۬

In Monday's issue of the New York Times Tom Standage opines in "Bad to the Last Drop" that bottle water doesn't taste better than tap water, and probably is less healthy, and then there are all those plastic bottles that will end up in the land fills, and asks why do we continue to consume the stuff.  It costs more than gasoline was what got me. 

I can see it now, The Unitarian Universalists for Tap Water will be speaking in a church near you.  Matter of fact, I am looking for some good summer programming.  Call me in April.    And thanks to Baptized Pagan for alerting me to this startling news.

This art by Loren Williams is from the back cover of the latest issue of Skeptical Inquirer magazine. Loren Williams is a professor of biology and chemistry at Georgia Tech, and has published a prior version of the table on the re Discovery Institute's website. I found it on the blogsite I am a Christian Too!