This is hysterical!

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Eikenberry has a difficult role, trying to walk that fine line between military needs and an Afghan government widely seen as ineffective and corrupt. And in the middle of it all, he’s already been faced with a civilian casualty nightmare after U.S.. aircraft dropped as many as a dozen bombs, some weighing a ton, as they went after militants.

He visited the scene out in Farah Province with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and promised the U.S. would do more to avoid civilian casualties. But Eikenberry never got too specific — he talked about getting more intelligence to pinpoint exactly where the enemy is before dropping bombs, and making sure the Afghan forces are in the lead.

There is rising anger here about the civilian losses, from both the average Afghan citizen and senior Afghan officials, like Karzai. The Afghan leader wants an end to all bombing, and an end to night operations. American military officials say there are times when bombing might be necessary to protect U.S. and Afghan forces, and that the U.S. military “owns the night” having an edge with night vision goggles and other equipment that give them an edge over the Taliban. They say they will never end night ops.

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The conservative Colorado Springs pastor who broke away from the Episcopal Church to form a new Anglican congregation in May 2007 now is accused of stealing $291,000 from Grace Church and St. Stephen’s Parish.

The Rev. Don Armstrong was indicted on 20 counts of felony theft by an El Paso County grand jury Wednesday. He surrendered to authorities Thursday but was soon free on bond, according to the Colorado Springs Police Department.

Armstrong’s spokesman did not return calls Friday.

Police and a special prosecutor conducted a two-year investigation into allegations of Armstrong’s financial wrongdoings at the church.

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I will take comments on this submitted by email only to at KSHarmon[at]mindspring[dot]com.

The good news is that Congress has found it easy to form a coalition with what looks like a stable parliamentary majority. It will thus spare the country a repeat of the past five years, in which the party squandered its energies appeasing its allies in an unwieldy coalition. The election was also heartening because it revealed the limits of divisive politics. India’s second party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), remains rooted in the Hindutva (Hindu-ness) movement, which seems to believe that India’s 160m Muslims live there on sufferance. The BJP lost ground this time, showing yet again that Hindu nationalism is enough to underpin a party, but not a government.

Still, Congress must not now fall prey to complacency. The party is a big, shapeless tent, tethered to the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, which has provided three of the country’s prime ministers. The courtiers have now turned their attention to the next in line, Rahul Gandhi, the son of Sonia Gandhi, the party’s leader. But, following the example of his mother, he is in no hurry to become prime minister. That is commendable. Manmohan Singh, the Oxford-educated economist who has been prime minister since 2004, has business to finish.

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Instead of seeing older workers staying on the job longer as the economy has worsened, the Social Security system is reporting a major surge in early retirement claims that could have implications for the financial security of millions of baby boomers.

Since the current federal fiscal year began Oct. 1, claims have been running 25% ahead of last year, compared with the 15% increase that had been projected as the post-World War II generation reaches eligibility for early retirement, according to Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary for the Social Security Administration.

Many of the additional retirements are probably laid-off workers who are claiming Social Security early, despite reduced benefits, because they are under immediate financial pressure, Goss and other analysts believe.

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China has now proposed that the world move to a more symmetrical monetary system, in which nations peg their currencies to a representative basket of others rather than to the dollar alone. The “special drawing rights” of the International Monetary Fund is such a basket of four currencies (the dollar, pound, yen and euro), although the Chinese rightly suggest that it should be rebased to reflect a broader range of them, including China’s yuan. U.S. monetary policy would accordingly lose its excessive global influence over money supplies and credit conditions. On average, the dollar should depreciate against Asian currencies to encourage more U.S. net exports to Asia. The euro should probably strengthen against the dollar but weaken against Asian currencies.

The U.S. response to the Chinese proposal was revealing. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner initially described himself as open to exploring the idea; his candor quickly caused the dollar to weaken in value””which it needs to do for the good of the U.S. economy. That weakening, however, led Geithner to reverse himself within minutes by underscoring that the U.S. dollar would remain the world’s reserve currency for the foreseeable future.

Geithner’s first reaction was right. The Chinese proposal requires study but seems consistent with the long-term shift to a more balanced world economy in which the U.S. plays a monetary role more coequal with Europe and Asia. No change of global monetary system will happen abruptly, but the changes ahead are not under the sole control of the U.S. We will probably move over time to a world of greater monetary cooperation within Asia, a rising role for the Chinese yuan, and greater symmetry in overall world monetary and financial relations.

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Ms. Wilson is an editor of “Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2008) and one of a group of legal scholars urging states considering legalizing same-sex marriage to include “robust” protections for religious conscience.

These scholars have divided views on the wisdom of same-sex marriage itself. Ms. Wilson, for example, has taken no position on it, while Douglas Laycock, another editor of that volume and a foremost analyst of First Amendment religious liberty questions, strongly supports it. Mr. Laycock considers that support compatible with his advocacy of religious exemptions. They are “parallel protections,” he believes, “for quite similar claims to individual liberty in matters essential to personal identity.”

Writing to officials in New York, Mr. Laycock pointed out that it was not “in the interest of the gay and lesbian community to create religious martyrs when enforcing the right to same-sex marriage.”

“It is far better,” he wrote, “to respect the liberty of both sides and let same-sex marriage be implemented with a minimum of confrontation.”

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It seems that whenever a court ruling comes out in ECUSA’s favor, or that could put the orthodox into an unfavorable light, all of the Episcopal/Anglican blogs on the left have news about the ruling up on their sites within a day, if not within hours. Just as a little experiment, I have delayed putting up this post about a recent court ruling in the San Joaquin litigation that went mostly against ECUSA, Bishop Lamb, and the group he leads in order to see whether any of those same blogs would discuss it. Well, there has been not a word, even on the group’s official Website—and not even about the part of the ruling that was in their favor, either (see below for details: this blog may be ponderous to some, but we do cover both the favorable and the unfavorable).

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Voting has ended in what is being touted as the nation’s first all-digital election, and city officials say it has been a success.

Some 115,000 voters in Honolulu’s neighborhood council election were able to pick winners entirely online or via telephone. The voting, which started May 6, ended Friday.

City officials say the experiment appears to have generated few problems; it has even saved the financially strapped city around $100,000.

“It is kind of the wave of the future,” said Bryan Mick, a community relations specialist with the city Neighborhood Commission, “so we’re kind of glad in a way that we got to be the ones who initiated it.”

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(ACNS) The European Parliamentary and local elections on June 4th will take place at a time of extraordinary turbulence in our democratic system. It is a time for great vigilance over how to exercise our democratic right to vote.

“The temptation to stay away or register a protest vote in order to send a negative signal to the parties represented at Westminster will be strong. In our view, however, it would be tragic if the understandable sense of anger and disillusionment with some MPs over recent revelations led voters to shun the ballot box.

“Those whom we elect to local councils and the European Parliament will represent us and our collective interests for many years to come. It is crucial to elect those who wish to uphold the democratic values and who wish to work for the common good in a spirit of public service which urgently needs to be reaffirmed in these difficult days.
“There are those who would exploit the present situation to advance views that are the very opposite of the values of justice, compassion and human dignity are rooted in our Christian heritage.

“Christians have been deeply disturbed by the conscious adoption by the BNP of the language of our faith when the effect of those policies is not to promote those values but to foster fear and division within communities, especially between people of different faiths or racial background.

“This is not a moment for voting in favour of any political party whose core ideology is about sowing division in our communities and hostility on grounds of race, creed or colour; it is an opportunity for renewing the vision of a community united by mutual respect, high ethical standards and the pursuit of justice and peace.

“We hope that electors will use their vote on June 4th to renew the vision of a community united by the common good, public service and the pursuit of justice.”

The Pakistani army has retaken control of key parts of the contested Swat Valley in recent days, but the Taliban has kept its grip on some of the area’s largest towns nearly a month into a massive military offensive, army commanders said Friday during a visit near the front lines.

Speaking at a rudimentary base in the heart of this verdant valley, the commanders acknowledged that regaining full control of Swat will probably take months and involve intense combat with the well-trained, well-funded Taliban militia. Highlighting the difficulty, some extremists are simply melting back into the civilian population so they can fight another day, as they have during previous clashes over the past 18 months in Swat.

“You cannot distinguish between a Talib and a normal citizen,” said Maj. Gen. Sajjad Ali, who commands troops in the northern portion of Swat. “The area is densely populated, and it’s very easy for the terrorists to hide.”

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The Wolfram Alpha engine is set to be launched. Rather than a search engine, it is an ‘answer engine’ that interprets actual questions and answers them in accordance with their intended meaning…The Wolfram Alpha, at first, will seem rather underwhelming, and will merely enable high-school and college students (as well as bloggers) to conduct their research more easily. But as refinements accumulate and users go through their own learning curve, we could see a major transformation in Internet usage starting around 2012.

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Scientists are making the first attempts to understand spiritual experience ”” and what happens in the brains and bodies of people who believe they connect with the divine.

The field is called “neurotheology,” and although it is new, it’s drawing prominent researchers in the U.S. and Canada. Scientists have found that the brains of people who spend untold hours in prayer and meditation are different.

I met Scott McDermott five years ago, while covering a Pentecostal revival meeting in Toronto. It was pandemonium. People were speaking in tongues and barking like dogs. I thought, “What is a United Methodist minister, with a Ph.D. in New Testament theology, doing here?”

Then McDermott told me about a vision he had had years earlier.

Read or listen to it all from NPR.

In the days when clergymen were treated not merely with deference but often reverence, the sight of the Rev William Shergold in motorcycle leathers mixing with rockers and fellow bikers in a greasy spoon on the North Circular before “doing a ton” around London’s desolate orbital road was distinctly incongruous.

This was the late Fifties and early Sixties when what was perceived as teenage rebellion was a novelty regarded by the older generation with alarm and confusion. So the news that a man of the cloth should wish to mix with doubtful types in winkle-pickers and zip-up leathers, who wore their hair in threatening quiffs and hung about aimlessly in seedy caffs listening to impenetrable beat music was startling.

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What a fantastic shot!

Charleston, South Carolina–This city survived the first Reconstruction era, but just barely. It will be interesting to see how it handles the second one.

Around every corner, hammers are banging and dust is flying, as stately old homes are freshened up for sale to Yankee carpetbaggers. With approximately one horse-drawn, tourist-laden carriage for every bona fide resident, the city has reduced traffic accidents to almost zero by making it impossible for any car to reach a speed of more than 8 miles per hour. For New Yorkers, Charleston presents a familiar, even consoling sight: a pendulous land mass, overlooking a harbor, with a battery at one end and solid traffic for most of its length. It almost feels like home.

The tourist rush that has transformed Charleston in the last 10 years has brought an unanticipated benefit: good restaurants. A decade ago, fine dining took place in people’s homes. Restaurants worthy of the name could be counted on the fingers of one hand, with several fingers to spare. Now, it takes both hands, and some toes as well. In fact, it would be hard to think of another American city of the same size — Charleston has a population of less than 100,000 — with a more dynamic, promising restaurant scene….

High Cotton, one of Charleston’s newest restaurants, struck me as a shining example of the new culinary wave.

Read it all. Guess where the family took Nathaniel and his girlfriend out to eat after graduation? You guessed it– High Cotton. If you are ever coming to Charleston, you must put it on the list–KSH.

Very moving–watch it all.

A simple cross, blackened by an arsonists flames, has a new home atop a new church.Almost three years to the date after a zealot set fire to Christ Episcopal Church, Bishop William Howard Love, the leader of the Albany Episcopal Diocese, will consecrate the new church Saturday.

It is nothing less than remarkable that the small, elderly congregation persevered to see their church rebuilt, said Richie Henzler, a musician who plays the recorder at services. The dozen or so active members of the congregation never doubted it would happen, he said, even though at a time when new Episcopal churches are rarely built, there was no full-time priest to advocate for them because pastors rotate among the small North Country churches.

We couldn’t leave in ashes something burned in hate, Henzler said.

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Similarly, researchers at the University of British Columbia studied people who had undergone genetic testing to determine their risk for developing the neurodegenerative disorder known as Huntington’s disease. Those who learned that they had a very high likelihood of developing the condition were happier a year after testing than those who did not learn what their risk was.

Why would we prefer to know the worst than to suspect it? Because when we get bad news we weep for a while, and then get busy making the best of it. We change our behavior, we change our attitudes. We raise our consciousness and lower our standards. We find our bootstraps and tug. But we can’t come to terms with circumstances whose terms we don’t yet know. An uncertain future leaves us stranded in an unhappy present with nothing to do but wait.

Our national gloom is real enough, but it isn’t a matter of insufficient funds. It’s a matter of insufficient certainty. Americans have been perfectly happy with far less wealth than most of us have now, and we could quickly become those Americans again ”” if only we knew we had to.

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What was going on? The church is an institution. Institutions are determined by power. Power was often exercised arbitrarily in the debates and decisions in Jamaica. The debates on the covenant were confusing and breached many rules of normal procedure. The press were told that a great deal of weight falls on the chairman to direct the meeting.

On the central issue the chair ruled the motion to delay the covenant out of order because it was bringing back a previously defeated motion. But Archbishop Williams trumped him and interpreted the mind of the meeting as having rejected the first motion because they wanted it again in another form. The Archbishop later suggested that, in future, procedures be outlined at the beginning of the meeting.

Those disadvantaged when all power is in the hands of the chair and the president are the ordinary members of the Council. Many said they were confused. A Ugandan member spoke of a spirit of confusion.

Secondly, the real issue was the property of the North American Churches. Had the motion on moratorium passed, TEC would have been in breach of the will of the Communion in pursueing faithful Anglicans through the courts. Had the motion on the covenant passed, orthodox churches would have the high moral ground in property matters in claiming their status as Anglicans faithful to a covenant to which TEC would not agree.

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It will come as a surprise to some that in 1990, a British academic theologian named Rowan Williams, now the Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote comprehensively on the “Trinity and Pluralism” in a 1990 volume called “Christian Uniqueness Reconsidered,” edited by Gavin D’Costa, a Roman Catholic theologian of world religions.

The Williams article was in part a book review of Raimon Panikkar’s “The Trinity and the Religious Experience of Man.” Panikkar, who spent many years in India as a Roman Catholic priest, is best known for his observation on his faith journey: “I ”˜left’ as a Christian, ”˜found’ myself a Hindu and ”˜return’ a Buddhist, without having ceased to be a Christian.”

A lively, expansive, intellectually inviting quality pervades the Williams essay, characteristic of his writings before he was elevated to his present post. His trinitarian vision is not frozen in time, but represents a steady unfolding of the fullness of Christ, always being discovered, and not locked into any conceptual pattern that reduces the full worth of other religions.

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Important images on this oh so important weekend throughout the country–watch it all.

The issues raised by the huge controversy over MPs’ expenses are as grave as could be for our parliamentary democracy, and urgent action is needed to restore trust. It is good that all parties are recognising this. But many will now be wondering whether the point has not been adequately made; the continuing systematic humiliation of politicians itself threatens to carry a heavy price in terms of our ability to salvage some confidence in our democracy.

It is important to connect some of the underlying attitudes with a wider problem. In recent months, we’ve had a number of examples (bankers’ pensions, the suspension of two peers from the Lords) of people saying when challenged that “no rules were broken”. Some of the initial responses to public anger about MPs’ expenses have amounted to much the same thing. And this suggests a basic problem in our moral thinking.

The question “What can I get away with without technically breaching the regulations?” is not a good basis for any professional behaviour that has real integrity.

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Thursday night, a committee in the House of Representatives passed an ambitious climate bill ”” a big step toward having a law that controls greenhouse gases. At the heart of the bill is a mechanism called cap-and-trade. It’s a careful mix of government mandate and free-market economy. How successful it will be is a matter of some debate.

Cap-and-trade is one of those wonky terms that have permeated the world of Washington, D.C. Part of its mystique is that a lot of people don’t know what it really means.

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Nathaniel graduates from the Pinewood School today; he plans to attend Boston University in the fall. His sister Selimah flew home from the Millbrook School in southern New York state to be with us, and Abigail drove up from the College of Charleston. Elizabeth and I, well, we just work here as many of you know. It is great to have all the brood under one roof–KSH.

General Motors is preparing to file for bankruptcy protection as early as May 31, but a speedy restructuring of the carmaker faces headwinds from an increasingly sceptical US Congress.

Under the current plan, the US government would cancel most or all of its existing debt in the company and invest in a “new” GM that could emerge from bankruptcy in the autumn, said a person close to the matter.

GM would receive tens of billions of dollars in new government money, probably in stages, to prop up its business at a time when car sales are threatening to be lower than the 10m annual rate at which GM says it can break even.

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Please give us your opinion, as a parishioner in the Diocese of Upper South Carolina, on the following statements. For each item, indicate whether you strongly agree, somewhat agree, have no opinion, somewhat disagree, or strongly disagree….

13. The diocese would benefit from having a bishop who has an understanding of the cultural dynamics of South Carolina.
14. It is important for the Episcopal Church to remain in the Anglican Communion.
15. Our current Bishop and the diocese, in convention, have affirmed that we are a Windsor Diocese. In that light, I believe our next bishop should be supportive of the Windsor Report and the ongoing Windsor process.
16. I support the blessing of civil unions (as opposed to marriage) between gay and lesbian persons in the Episcopal Church.
17. I support the ordination of partnered gay and lesbian persons in the Episcopal Church.
18. I believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God, and to contain all things necessary for salvation.
19. Divisiveness in the wider Church is beginning to cause problems in our diocese.
20. I believe the current problems within our denomination should be resolved by reasonable negotiation between and among the various constituencies.
21. I support the marriage of gay and lesbian persons in the Episcopal Church.

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