At age 30, Bryan Short has, by any standard, achieved professional success since graduating from Boston College and law school at the College of William and Mary. Yet despite his job as a Washington mergers-and-acquisitions lawyer, he’s nowhere near as financially secure as he expected to be by now.

He and his wife own one car and rent a 500-square-foot studio apartment. More than one-third of his take-home pay is gobbled up by repayment of college and law-school debt. Children are unaffordable right now. And retirement savings? They’ve barely begun.

“Despite being what most would consider clearly upper-middle class, highly educated and almost assuredly on no one’s pity party list, I can assure you we live an extremely modest life,” says Short, whose wife, Regina, is pursuing an MBA at Johns Hopkins University.

For years, experts have warned that too many of the USA’s 79 million baby boomers aren’t financially ready for their coming retirements. Yet, if the boomers have had it hard, it’s nothing compared with those next in line: Generation X ”” people such as the Shorts…

Read it all from USA Today.

US President George W. Bush intends to attack Iran in the upcoming months, before the end of his term, Army Radio quoted a senior official in Jerusalem as saying Tuesday.

The official claimed that a senior member of the president’s entourage, which concluded a trip to Israel last week, said during a closed meeting that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were of the opinion that military action was called for.

However, the official continued, “the hesitancy of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice” was preventing the administration from deciding to launch such an attack on the Islamic Republic, for the time being.

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A lovely piece–watch it all.

Jane Novak, a 46-year-old stay-at-home mother of two in New Jersey, has never been to Yemen. She speaks no Arabic, and freely admits that until a few years ago, she knew nothing about that strife-torn south Arabian country.

And yet Novak has become so well known in Yemen that newspaper editors say they sell more copies if her photograph — blond and smiling — is on the cover. Her blog, an outspoken news bulletin on Yemeni affairs, is banned there. The government’s allies routinely vilify her in print as an American agent, a Shiite monarchist, a member of Al Qaeda, or “the Zionist Novak.”

The worst of her many offenses is her dogged campaign on behalf of a Yemeni journalist, Abdul Karim al-Khaiwani, who incurred his government’s wrath by writing about a bloody rebellion in the far north of the country. He is on trial on sedition charges that could bring the death penalty, with a verdict expected Wednesday.

Novak, working from a laptop in her New Jersey living room “while the kids are at school,” has started an Internet petition to free Khaiwani. She has enlisted Yemeni politicians, journalists, human rights activists and others around the globe. Her blog goes well beyond the Khaiwani case and has become a crucial outlet for opposition journalists and political figures, who feed her tips on Yemeni political intrigue by e-mail or text message.

She says her campaign is a matter of basic principle. “This is a country that lets Al Qaeda people go free, and they’re putting a journalist on trial for doing his job?” she said. “It’s just completely crazy.”

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So many people have so many things they can no longer afford. This is an excellent time to be a repo man.

When a boater defaults on his loan, the bank hires Jeff Henderson to go seize, or repossess, its property. The former U.S. Army detective tracks the boat down in a backyard or a marina or a garage and hauls it back here, where he auctions it off. After nearly 20 years in the repossession business, Henderson has never been busier.

“I used to take the weak ones,” he said. “Now I’m taking the whole herd.”

Boating was traditionally the pastime of the well-off, but the long housing boom and its gusher of easy credit changed that. People refinanced their homes and used the cash for down payments on a cruiser, miniyacht or sailboat. Between 2000 and 2006, retail sales for the recreational boating industry rose by more than 40 percent, to $39.5 billion, while the average loan size more than tripled to $141,000.

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I tried hard to wrap my mind around that number of people without homes and failed.

David Field of Leicester University chimes in on this question on the BBC.

I found it very hard to watch–see what you think.

Pope Benedict is a rock star. Following Christian rock superstars and American idols, he arrived at the seminary and entered the field to swelling counterpoint of Bach and the screaming cheers of thousands after personally greeting disabled children in the seminary chapel. The crowd’s expectation was fulfilled, the pope was present; the field erupted and would not relinquish the pope for several minutes of intense cheering.

In his address, the theological reflection was deep and expansive. The ultimate truth is found in the ultimate being, he said, exciting every fiber of St. Thomas Aquinas’ philosophy among the seminarians ”“ and all the people again broke out into shouts of joy.

At the far-flung missions in the Diocese of Salt Lake City, where the celebration of the Mass can be a monthly luxury, the spiritual support of the Christian faithful, though strong, is minimal. The Body of Christ is integral always and everywhere, though the reinforcement of joining people en masse is a uniquely moving moment without which the experience of faith loses a critical taste of universality.

The pope’s message has practical appeal to everyone. As Catholics, he said, we must foster our personal relationship with Christ, as well as be faithful to our liturgical prayer, work actively for charity, and be attentive to God’s call for each person: one’s vocation.

The excitement that filled the day at its beginning became the vehicle for the pope’s words into the lives of everyone who listened to it. For seminarians, it was a first exposure as men in priestly formation to the fullness of the priesthood through the presence of the curia. From the desert of the Boneville Salt Flats to the center of every great city, this was a moment no one who experienced it will ever let go.

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While visiting the Diocese of El Salvador, I learned of yesterday’s ruling by the California Supreme Court that it is unconstitutional to deny same-sex couples the right to receive a California marriage license. With efforts already underway to place a constitutional amendment on November’s ballot banning such marriages, it is clear that this issue will continue to permeate our political life.

I support the Supreme Court’s decision and oppose the likely effort to amend the constitution. At a federal level, the constitution has only been successfully amended to expand rights, not remove them, and it follows that California would maintain a similar posture.

While supporting the rights of gays and lesbians, I am mindful that our church has not yet made the decision to bless same-sex unions. We are in the midst of a challenging but vital conversation about holy relationships in this diocese and indeed across the communion. I ask all people of the diocese to hold the court’s decision gently. Prayerfully remember that God has placed his children, who share different perspectives on same-sex relationships, next to each other in church every Sunday.

As Archbishop Rowan Williams said, “our baptism puts us in solidarities not of our own choosing.” Let us be good stewards of these solidarities and teach each other, and the wider community, how to listen and learn from each other as we accept the Court’s decision to allow equal access to the institution of marriage.

–(The Rt. Rev.) James R. Mathes is Bishop of San Diego

The Prime Minister, whose son Fraser suffers from cystic fibrosis, a condition that could benefit from the research, attacked critics of the Bill. “I have deep respect for those who do not agree with some of the provisions in the Bill because of religious conviction,” he wrote in a national newspaper . “But I believe that we owe it to ourselves and future generations to introduce these measures, and in particular, to give our unequivocal backing within the right framework of rules and standards, to stem cell research.”

Cardinal O’Brien, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor and Cardinal Sean Brady questioned the Government’s decision to push through legislation ahead of alternative scientific methods. In a joint statement today they said: “Not nearly enough time has been given to discussing these issues and these questions require answers before and not after legislation.

“We support scientific research that seeks to cure disease and suffering,” they continued. “The HFE Bill has focused on embryonic stem cell research. In fact, much greater progress has already been made towards clinical therapies using adult stem cells. Other emerging techniques hold potential for good, without creating and destroying human embryos.”

Dr Tom Wright, the Bishop of Durham, said opposition to the bill was not confined to Catholic consciences. A letter signed by bishops, clergy and the heads of national Christian organisations said: “We would like to make it plain that as people from other Christian traditions we are completely opposed to the creation of animal-human hybrids, saviour siblings and the removal of the obligation on IVF clinics to consider the child’s need for a father. This is not a narrowly Roman Catholic issue, nor is it a narrowly Christian issue nor indeed is it a narrowly religious issue. It is a human issue. We need to fight to uphold and protect our humanity.”

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British scientists will be allowed to research devastating diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s using human-animal embryos, after the House of Commons rejected a ban yesterday.

An amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill that would have outlawed the creation of “human admixed embryos” for medical research was defeated in a free vote by a majority of 160, preserving what Gordon Brown regarded as a central element of the legislation.

The Government is braced for defeat today, however, on a separate clause that would scrap the requirement that fertility clinics consider a child’s need for a father before treating patients. MPs will also consider amendments tonight that would cut the legal limit for abortion from 24 weeks to 22 or 20 weeks.

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(ACNS)

The Third Anglican ”“ Lutheran International Commission (ALIC) held its second meeting at White Point, Nova Scotia, Canada between 14 and 20 May, 2007, under the chairmanship of the Rt Revd Fred Hiltz, Anglican Bishop of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, and the Revd Dr Thomas Nyiwé, President of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Cameroon.

The Commission has been established by the Anglican Consultative Council and the Lutheran World Federation to continue the dialogue between Anglicans and Lutherans on the worldwide level which has been in progress since 1970. ALIC intends to build upon the work reflected in The Niagara Report (1987), focusing on the mission of the church and the role of the ordained ministry, The Diaconate as an Ecumenical Opportunity (1995), and most recently Growth in Communion (2002), the report of the Anglican ”“ Lutheran International Working Group (ALIWG), which reviewed the extensive regional agreements which have established close relations between Anglican and Lutheran churches in several parts of the world.

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I wrote you in November that a “season of separations” had come upon us. And I have tried to keep you apprized of the way events have unfolded since then.

Today I write you with the greatest thanksgiving. This terrible time of separations is coming to an end. Two weeks ago all of the parties concerned agreed to a Mediation Settlement at Trinity, Vero Beach, which was the last of the nine congregations involved.

To recap, very quickly: the two tiny church “plants” (neither of which had yet become an organized mission) have left The Episcopal Church. One Rector changed his mind, entirely, and he and his congregation remain very much part of the Diocese. One parish has become an independent community church, and they are renting the facilities from the Diocese. And the other five congregations have seen their clergy, and a portion of their membership leave, but there remains a continuing congregation in each of those five places.

By the grace of God we have been able to navigate these very troubled waters in a way that is different from what has happened anywhere else in this country. We have had NO litigation, there has been NO inhibition or deposition of clergy, and there has been NO transfer of real estate.

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The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a 2003 federal law aimed at child pornography, concluding in a 7-to-2 opinion that a federal appeals court was wrong to find the law unconstitutionally vague.

The law in question arose from a sensible, constitutionally acceptable approach by Congress to correct faults that the high court found in an earlier child-pornography law, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the court.

“Child pornography harms and debases the most defenseless of our citizens,” Justice Scalia wrote. “Both the state and federal governments have sought to suppress it for many years, only to find it proliferating through the new medium of the Internet.”

The ruling scathingly rejected contentions that the 2003 legislation was so broadly written that it could make it a crime to share or even describe depictions of children in explicit sexual situations, even if the depictions are inaccurate, the children do not really exist and the intention is innocent.

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Some of the problems for mainline invisibility might be self-inflicted. “They best stop complaining and take another look at their methods of communicating and organizing,” says the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy, head of the Interfaith Alliance, a religious liberty organization dedicated to protecting faith and freedom.

“Mainline congregations do not tend to translate their moral convictions into effective political organization and influential social action with the adeptness and passion that characterize evangelicals moving in lockstep with one another,” says Gaddy, who also hosts a show on the liberal Air America radio network. Leaders and activists of mainline denominations might be heeding Gaddy’s advice. Some are raising their profile by reaching out to find common cause with emerging, moderate evangelical churches on issues such as climate change, genocide in Sudan, human trafficking and HIV/AIDS.

Now there is also hope that with the two leading Democratic presidential candidates from their ranks ”” Hillary Clinton, a United Methodist, and Barack Obama, who despite the controversial minister, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, is affiliated with the more moderate United Church of Christ ”” mainliners could have one of their own standard-bearers in the seat of secular power.

Megachurches? Collaboration with evangelicals? One of their own in the White House? Despite low fertility rates and other demographic challenges, mainline Protestantism isn’t fading from the national landscape just yet. In fact, if the budding megachurches are any indication, mainline believers might be hitting their stride, and finding their voice, just in the nick of time.

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The Province of the Southern Cone has begun work to amend its Constitution and Canons to permit parishes and dioceses outside of South America to affiliate with the church.

In an address to the Diocese of Fort Worth on May 3, Presiding Bishop Gregory Venables of Argentina said his province had agreed to accept the diocese of San Joaquin into the South American church as a “pastoral” and interim response to the divisions within the US Episcopal Church. Work was now underway to alter the church’s constitution, removing language that limited membership to dioceses located in South America.

The “Anglican Communion in the United States has been hijacked,” Bishop Venables said, by a liberal clique that is less concerned with theological integrity than with power. They do not “mind what happens as long as they control it,” he said according to a report prepared by the diocese’s communications officer. Bishop Venables told Fort Worth that the question before them was “whether or not you can stand with a group of people who have denied that Jesus is the Son of God and that the Bible is the Word of God.”

He conceded that the invitation to the Diocese of San Joaquin made following its December decision to quit the Church and affiliate with the Southern Cone was irregular. However, “if we don’t do something,” he said, we would be “complicit” in their oppression.

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Representatives from the seven dioceses of New Zealand offered a cross section of views on the issues of human sexuality, which an official report described as having “varied considerably in their commitment to the Lambeth resolution on sexuality and the proposed covenant.”

However, there was consensus among the New Zealand dioceses that it should remain united in structure while divided over doctrine and discipline. Archbishop [Paul] Reeves noted the debates, which at times elicited strong language, were a symbol of the church’s health. A “sign of our bond of affection is the confidence to argue with each other,” he concluded.

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Last year the Church of the Resurrection in suburban West Chicago closed its doors and put its building up for sale. The Episcopal congregation had suffered membership losses 14 years earlier when some conservative members left to start their own church, also called the Church of the Resurrection, in nearby Glen Ellyn. The new congregation later aligned itself with the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMIA), which is connected to the Anglican Church in Rwanda.

The new Church of the Resurrection later experienced its own split, with some members leaving to launch the Church of the Great Shepherd””also affiliated with AMIA””in Wheaton. The Church of the Great Shepherd eventually closed its doors, but not before a 2004 split led to the formation of the Church of the Savior back in West Chicago. During this time the ranks of St. Mark’s, an Episcopal congregation in Glen Ellyn, had been swelling””until the Episcopal Church consecrated an openly gay bishop in 2003, whereupon many St. Mark’s members left to form All Souls, still another AMIA church, in Wheaton. Meanwhile, another split at the original Church of the Resurrection in West Chicago, which had experienced renewed growth, led to the creation of the Church of the Resurrection Anglican, a church which is overseen by the archbishop of Uganda. So now there are two Resurrection churches in the area, both formed in exodus from the original””now defunct””Church of the Resurrection, and both affiliated with African Anglican bodies, not with the Episcopal Church in the United States, sometimes abbreviated as TEC.

Got all that?

Even for Anglicans in the vicinity it takes a long memory or a flow chart to keep straight all the Episcopal-Anglican divisions and acronyms that have developed in the well-heeled suburbs of DuPage County, just west of Chicago.

Read the whole article.

After raging floodwaters slammed into downtown Johnstown on May 31, 1889, a heavy bell was all that remained of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church.

On Thursday, with a boost from a crane extending 100 feet skyward, that bell was returned to its rightful place.

The delicate installation of a shiny new belfry marked the culmination of years of fundraising, expert planning and careful craftsmanship.

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Philomena Gist understands why it hurts so much to be on food stamps. After all, she’s got a master’s degree in psychology.

“There’s pride in being able to take care of yourself,” says the Columbus, Ohio, resident, laid off last year from a mortgage company and living on workers’ compensation benefits while recovering from surgery. “I’m not supposed to be in this condition.”

Neither are many of the 27.5 million Americans relying on government aid to keep food on their tables amid unemployment and rising prices. Average enrollment in the food stamps program has surpassed the record set in 1994, though the percentage of Americans on food stamps is still lower than records set in 1993-95. The numbers continue to climb.

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That was why she had come to New York last week. She was among 35 young adult volunteers from faith-based groups around the country selected by the Fund for Theological Education to spend a week meeting clergy in several urban ministries. The fund’s officials hoped that they might be inspired to pursue a similar calling, or at least bring a greater grounding in a higher purpose to their secular careers.

This is not necessarily an easy goal for young adults just out of college, since many of their friends are off making money, while they’re living in small groups working in soup kitchens and homeless shelters.

“Their families cannot understand why they’re doing this, because they should be getting a real job or need to pay their student loans,” said James Ellison, who coordinated the program for the fund, an ecumenical organization that seeks to increase the number of Christian scholars and pastors nationwide. “Their friends may admire they’re working with the poor, but they can’t understand this. Coming here, they see it’s not just a few crazy Presbyterians doing this. It gives them a sense that maybe this is not so crazy after all.”

A clear, sobering light filled the dark-wood sanctuary of Trinity Lutheran Church on West 100th Street. The stained glass windows had been put in storage, replaced by plain glass, which revealed the steel skeleton of a new building rising next door. The windows had been removed to avoid damage from the construction. The Rev. Heidi Neumark, Trinity’s pastor, said the church could not afford to put them back when construction ended.

She sat before the visitors, recounting her decision to be ordained. It was a roundabout process, considering that she was not especially drawn to organized religion. She had worked with the poor in her 20s. She had entered the seminary, thanks to a scholarship from the fund that paid for a year of seminary, no strings attached, for young people considering ordination.

“The church needs to be in those places where people feel outside the church,” she said. “For many of you, the important question is, how dissatisfied are you with the church? The church needs people like you.”

Read it all and make sure to enjoy the picture of Father Earl Kooperkamp .

Mr Emanuel proposes a universal healthcare voucher, entitling every citizen to privately-provided insurance, with standard benefits equal to those enjoyed by members of Congress. Insurers would be forbidden to deny coverage to any citizen, regardless of pre-existing conditions. They would be reimbursed by the government with a risk-adjusted premium for every enrolee ”“ taking account of age, sex, pre-existing conditions and other factors using a formula to be determined by a new National Health Board. The system would start by covering the uninsured and those covered by their employers; in due course it would absorb Medicaid and Medicare.

This is not a single-payer plan: competition among insurers and health plans would be crucial to its success. But competition would revolve not around denying coverage by excluding bad risks, but around providing good results. To that end, companies would have to report detailed information on their performance and quality of service.

This is not a new idea. France’s mostly excellent system has similarities. But the presentation of the case has never been so concise or clear. Why then will it get nowhere? Because Mr Emanuel wants his scheme to be financed through a value added tax of 10 per cent, dedicated exclusively to the purpose. This instantly consigns the idea to the realm of the politically impossible ”“ but bear with me a moment longer.

At least consider that Mr Emanuel might again be right. Total spending on health would come down under his proposal….

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Eight is an auspicious number in Chinese tradition, and 2008 was supposed to be a joyful year, a time for celebrating at the Beijing Olympics and basking in international recognition of the country’s tremendous progress under the careful leadership of the Communist Party.

It has not turned out that way.

An uprising in Tibet on March 14 focused the world’s attention on the long-festering issue of China’s abuse of human rights. The worldwide Olympic torch relay, conceived as a “journey of harmony,” turned into a magnet for protest, embarrassing Olympic organizers, angering nationalistic Chinese and souring the mood for the Beijing Games.

And now a violent earthquake has devastated a broad patch of central China, particularly here in mountainous Sichuan province, killing up to 50,000 people. The scale of destruction is so vast — and the horizon for a return to normalcy so distant — that it is difficult to imagine a carefree crowd in Beijing when the Games open Aug. 8.

The clouds over 2008 have not only darkened prospects for a celebratory Olympics. They have compromised what was shaping up as a golden opportunity for President Hu Jintao and other leaders to rally support among China’s 1.3 billion people for continuing the party’s monopoly on power indefinitely.

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After Marisha Pessl finished her first novel, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, she got to work on a side project: Calamityphysics.com. The Web site is a companion piece to the book, designed as a window into the life ”” and dorm room ”” of the young protagonist, Blue van Meer.

Visitors can pick up objects, zoom in on pictures and newspaper clippings, visit Blue’s MySpace page or unfold a map of the Great Smoky Mountains, where the story takes place. A distracting June bug buzzes around a bright blue desk lamp.

“What we really try and do is ”¦ deliver the unexpected right up front, to just capture the immediate reaction of an audience and hopefully engage them enough that they’re curious to continue poking further,” says Mark Ferdman, the creative director of Freedom Interactive Design, the company that built the site.

Read or listen to it all.

Best-selling novelist Ron Hansen stood in the nave of St. Vincent de Paul Church on a recent afternoon under the towering stained-glass windows. Illuminated by the high sun in the western sky, the brightly colored glass told story after story””about Jesus Christ, about prophets and saints, about miracles and revelations.

The Catholic faith is a story-telling religion, the writer said a short time later. “The mass itself is a kind of theater, dramatizing the life of Christ,” he said.

The Bible stories Hansen heard in church as a young Catholic boy were central to his decision to follow the vocation of writer, he said. Now 60, the author is widely respected for his fiction and essays despite going against the grain in the literary world by being upfront about his faith.

Hansen was at St. Vincent de Paul to do a reading from his newly published novel “Exiles,” which tells the intertwining stories of 19th Century Jesuit priest-poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, five nuns who died in the 1875 wreck of the steamship Deutschland and the poem Hopkins wrote about them.

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Pitching his message to Oregon’s environmentally-conscious voters, Obama called on the United States to “lead by example” on global warming, and develop new technologies at home which could be exported to developing countries.

“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK,” Obama said.

“That’s not leadership. That’s not going to happen,” he added.

The Illinois senator also argued that the differences between his healthcare plan and that of Clinton “pale in comparison to the differences we have with John McCain,” whose proposals would only work “if you’re healthy and wealthy.”

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In the waning minutes of his only TV debate with Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter in 1980, Ronald Reagan looked straight into the camera and asked, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”

It was a defining question of the campaign ”” and of late 20th century American politics. It was also pretty easy to answer. The “misery index,” a then popular measure that added the unemployment rate to the inflation rate, had skyrocketed during Carter’s tenure. Taxes had risen sharply. There were other issues on voters’ minds, like the Iranian hostage crisis and those dang cardigans Carter used to wear. But the economy was crucial to Reagan’s victory. After taking office, he responded by ushering in a new era in economic policy ”” cutting tax rates, slashing regulation and tirelessly preaching the gospel that individual Americans were better suited to make economic decisions than bureaucrats in Washington were.

This election year, the economy is again at the forefront of voters’ minds. The misery index is no longer the problem; at 9% and change, it’s miles below the 20% of late 1980. But Americans have a new menu of economic woes ”” among them a real estate crash, a credit crisis, a broken health-care system and nagging job insecurity. Poll after poll shows a vast majority convinced that the economy and the country are headed in the wrong direction.

The first and most obvious thing to be said is that this represents a big stumbling block for Republican John McCain. He’s not the incumbent, so the “four years ago” line doesn’t apply directly to him. But history shows that slow economic growth is among the best predictors of a change in party control of the White House ”” and right now the economy is barely growing at all.

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While our friends from India traveled around California on business, they left their 11 year-old daughter with us. Curious about my going to church one Sunday morning, she decided to come along. When we returned home, my husband asked her what she thought of the service.

“I don’t understand why the West Coast isn’t included too,” she replied. When we inquired what she meant, she added, “You know, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the whole East Coast.”

–Ann Spivack in Reader’s Digest