It is a story told in many versions, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says near the beginning of the new PBS series “The Jewish Americans,” “but mine is: What is the difference between a bookkeeper in New York’s garment district and a U.S. Supreme Court justice? One generation.”

Ginsburg, 74, repeated the story last week at the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Washington for an audience that watched clips of the series and then listened to Ginsburg speak of her heritage with filmmaker David Grubin.

“I am the beneficiary of being a Jewish American,” she told Grubin, the child of a father who immigrated at age 13 and a mother “conceived in the Old World and born in the New World.”

Ginsburg, who was raised in Brooklyn, said her first glimpse of anti-Semitism came during a drive with her parents down a country road, where she saw an “unsettling” sign outside an inn that instructed, “No dogs or Jews allowed.”

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Bishop Jack Leo Iker of Fort Worth informed The Living Church on Jan. 15 that he has received a second letter from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori threatening him with new disciplinary action.

“Unlike her November letter, it did not imply a charge of ”˜abandonment of the communion of this church’, but it said that I would be liable for charges of violation of my ordination vows if I continue ”˜any encouragement of such a belief’ (i.e. that parishes and dioceses can leave The Episcopal Church),” Bishop Iker said.

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Good morning all.
Because we were offline most of yesterday from mid-morning onwards, when we logged in this morning, we had quite a full inbox and many of those queries concerned Anglican Mainstream and the problematic link Kendall posted yesterday to “CoE, Who’s In, Who’s Out?”

It is our understanding that Anglican Mainstream is in the middle of a site transfer, so the website access problems you are having are not due to hacking.
We’ll keep you posted as to when they are back online and any new bookmarks that might be needed.

In the meantime, via Google’s Cache, we were able to pull up the article Kendall had posted that was no longer available via the link he included. You can find it in the comments below: [url=http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/9193/#171042]http://http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/9193/#171042[/url]

–elfgirl

At Vixxen Hair Salon, the main topic of conversation has always been money. But since last August, Anjanette Booker, the owner, has noticed a new focus. “Now it’s money and foreclosures,” Miss Booker said.

The Vixxen salon, along with the nearby salon Hair Vysions, is one of the informal social centers for the Belair-Edison neighborhood, a community of brick row houses that have in recent years been bought largely by single black women with children.

For each of the last four years, more than half of the foreclosures in this neighborhood have been homes owned primarily by women, according to an analysis of public records by the Reinvestment Fund, a nonprofit community development organization.

The foreclosures threaten the neighborhood’s fragile stability. And they highlight a broader dimension of the housing meltdown: subprime mortgages, which are driving the foreclosure rate, have gone disproportionately to women.

Single women have been among the fastest-growing groups of homeowners in recent years, and in Baltimore they accounted for 40 percent of home sales in 2006, twice the national average, according to the National Association of Realtors. Nearly half of these mortgages were subprime, National Community Reinvestment Coalition found.

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All Saints Anglican Church in Irondequoit has another chance to argue that it should keep what it believes is its property.

New York state’s highest appellate court, the Court of Appeals, agreed Tuesday to hear the case between the congregation and the Episcopal Diocese of Rochester following the church’s request to appeal earlier decisions issued at the state Supreme Court and Appellate Division levels.

The Court of Appeals is expected to hear the case sometime this year.

The church, formerly known as All Saints Protestant Episcopal Church, has been fighting to hold on to property at 759 Winona Blvd. since the diocese ousted the church more than two years ago. The congregation disagreed with the diocese over the larger body’s support of the ordination of a gay bishop in New Hampshire in 2003.

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Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has scheduled a press conference Jan. 21 to announce the official launch of this summer’s Lambeth Conference. He will be joined by the Most Rev. Gerald (Ian) Ernest, Archbishop of the Indian Ocean, and the Most Rev. Ellison Pogo, Archbishop of Melanesia. Archbishops Ernest and Pogo are members of the Lambeth Design Team that has been planning the program.

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The US looks poised to lose its mantle as the world’s dominant financial market because of a rapid rise in the depth and maturity of markets in Europe, a study suggests.

The change may have occurred already, not least because US markets are beset by credit woes, according to research by McKinsey Global Institute, a think-tank affiliated to the consultancy.

“We think the differential growth rates are so significant that it is quite likely Europe has overtaken the US,” said Diana Farrell, author of the report.

“They are now neck and neck, which means exchange rates are very important. It is a real change.”

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Here is one letter:

October 23, 2007

Dear Dr. Keenan,

Thank you for your letter, and the concerns you raise. Let me recommend that, as a veterinarian, you might wish to begin with Bruce Bagemihl’s exhaustive study Biological Exuberance. I cannot respond in detail to studies which are not cited.

Science is not the only basis by which many people in this church are coming to the conclusion that homosexual orientation is a given (a matter of creation) and that it may be possible to bless it as a reflection of God’s image in creation. Many, many faithful people (of both homosexual and heterosexual orientation) have the direct experience of seeing the fruits of the faithful, committed, monogamous, life-long and life-giving relationships of persons of the same sex. That mode is in fact the way in which many if not most Christians experience the reality of God at work in their lives – they see Christ-like lives in those around them.

You claim that those who come to such conclusions are taking an unbiblical stance. Many said the same of those who advocated for a more generous pastoral response to those whose marriages had ended in divorce. Even though Jesus had very direct words on the subject, the church as a whole changed its teaching and pastoral practice in regard to remarriage following divorce. The change had more to do with personal experience, and a broader understanding of the whole of the biblical tradition, than it did with one or two verses of the Bible. When we have, within the tradition, clear summaries of the teaching of that tradition as “love God and love your neighbor as yourself,” many would find it possible to take a broader reading than what appears to be the plain sense of one or two verses.

May your ministry be a blessing. I remain

Your servant in Christ,

Katharine Jefferts Schori

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Microsoft is developing Big Brother-style software capable of remotely monitoring a worker’s productivity, physical wellbeing and competence.

The Times has seen a patent application filed by the company for a computer system that links workers to their computers via wireless sensors that measure their metabolism. The system would allow managers to monitor employees’ performance by measuring their heart rate, body temperature, movement, facial expression and blood pressure. Unions said they fear that employees could be dismissed on the basis of a computer’s assessment of their physiological state.

Technology allowing constant monitoring of workers was previously limited to pilots, firefighters and Nasa astronauts. This is believed to be the first time a company has proposed developing such software for mainstream workplaces.

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An effort to inhibit the Rt. Rev. Robert Duncan, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, has not been supported by The Episcopal Church’s senior bishops.

The news, along with a copy of the allegations made by the chancellor to the Presiding Bishop against Bishop Duncan and the Title IV Review Committee’s decision to certify that, in their opinion, Bishop Duncan “had abandoned the communion of this church,” came in a letter from The Episcopal Church’s Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori late in the day on January 15.

Bishop Duncan offered a brief response to the news, saying, “Few bishops have been more loyal to the doctrine, discipline and worship of The Episcopal Church. I have not abandoned the Communion of this Church. I will continue to serve and minister as the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.”

Please go here for further linked documents related to this announcement.

Toronto’s Church of the Holy Trinity has presented a direct challenge to the leaders of the Anglican Church of Canada by voting to hold weddings for same sex couples.

Their statement says, “Holy Trinity will continue to exercise its conscience and bless same-sex unions and marry same-sex couples.”

While Holy Trinity has been conducting blessing ceremonies for some time, Rev. Jim Ferry, a preist at Holy Trinity clarified, “We also intend, when the opportunity arises, to take the next step, which is a (same-sex) marriage ceremony.”

Ferry also claimed that numerous other parishes across Canada are “quietly” conducting same-sex blessings. “We’re not the only ones,” he said yesterday, according to the Ottawa Citizen. “There are other parishes across the country who have been quietly going ahead and doing same-sex blessings. They’re in the major urban centres, wherever there’s a significant population of gay and lesbian people.”

Holy Trinity parish, in downtown Toronto, is notorious for its heedless disregard for fundamental Anglican precepts, and is known for its pro-homosexual and anti-Catholic activism. During Toronto World Youth Day in 2002, Holy Trinity hosted an anti-Catholic event that included a speaker who advocated violent protest against churches.

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Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori testified by way of a televised deposition that lasted some 54 minutes. She was courteous yet clear in her conviction that CANA congregations had no right to leave the Church and take the property. When pressed to offer some negotiated settlement on property she was clear that The Episcopal Church would not negotiate with a church from another country coming into a diocese and competing with that established diocese. Asked to explain, she stated this violated current and ancient practice. Polity in all parts of the Anglican world has been for a bishop in one area to get permission from the bishop in another before going there to perform any type of ministerial function. She saw the establishment of parallel parishes and their vocal criticism of The Episcopal Church as confusing to the public and harmful to the church.

Presiding Bishop Katharine was reminded that she had signed the statement of the Primates at the Dar es Salaam meeting. It required The Episcopal Church to repent and pledge to renounce the practice of consecrating homosexual bishops and blessing same-gender “unions” or marriages. She responded that she signed to indicate that the statement represented what transpired. She indicated that she had no authority to bind the bishops or The Episcopal Church to such a statement.

Finally, when asked how she could support legal action against CANA churches when the Primates and the Archbishop of Canterbury had urged the church to settle disputes over church property within the church rather than through the courts, she responded, “I have a duty to protect the assets and the integrity of The Episcopal Church.”

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Finally, a post-debate poll is out in South Carolina, and it shows Fred Thompson surging into a virtual tie for second place with Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. According to Rasmussen, John McCain leads with 28%, followed by Huck (19%), Mitt (17%) and Fred (16%).

The previous Rasmussen poll, four days ago, had McCain at 27%, Huck at 24%, Mitt at 16% and Fred at 12%. So it looks like Thompson’s frontal assault on Huckabee’s conservative credentials is working: Huck’s down 5 points and Fred’s up 4. Fred-mentum!

Says Fred File: “We are not surprised. South Carolinians know a consistent conservative when they see one. … Fred has the conservative message Republicans crave; he has the ideas to keep America secure and strong; and he has the leadership ability to keep the Reagan coalition together.”

Now Thompson needs McCain to bury Romney tonight in Michigan, thus hopefully turning the Palmetto State into, effectively, a three-man race. You’d have to think a lot of Romney’s support among National Review-ish conservatives would go to Thompson if the king of silver medals drops out (or, more likely, stays in the race but looks like a lost cause). The question then becomes whether a strong second-place finish in South Carolina (behind McCain, well ahead of Huck) would be enough to keep Fred’s campaign going, or whether he needs to go on the attack against McCain, in a “win at all costs” gambit.

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Few things are more frightening than knowing you live too far away from the nearest doctor. Yet in many rural or poor urban areas there are far too few doctors to serve the community, and the problem is getting worse.

Because the federal government has done too little in recent years to encourage doctors to take these less-glamorous posts, New York and other states are looking for ways to fill the gaps in medical care. Unlike some areas, New York is not lacking in medical school graduates; there are new interns out there in droves. The problem is that after they graduate, not enough of them decide to venture into the cold north upstate or the poorest urban neighborhoods.

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Two of the Anglican Communion’s pivotal leaders have expressed their outrage and concern following reports that church services in Harare, Zimbabwe have been disrupted by state officials.

A January 14 statement from Lambeth Palace said that Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams “condemns unequivocally the use of state machinery to intimidate opponents of the deposed bishop of Harare, Nolbert Kunonga.”

Williams is appalled by the recent reports of Zimbabwean police “forcibly stopping Sunday services in several churches in Harare where clergy have publicly and bravely refused to acknowledge Kunonga’s Episcopal authority.”

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