Simply amazing pictures–read it all.

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Seven months before the midterm elections, Americans seem disaffected about nearly everything political.

A majority disapprove of both political parties, their leaders and most members of Congress, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds.

Attitudes are reminiscent of those in 1994 and 2006, when control of Congress switched from one party to the other.

The favorable rating for the Democratic Party has fallen to its lowest level since Gallup began asking the question in 1992 ””its standing has dropped 14 percentage points since President Obama’s election ”” but the Republican Party fares no better. Three of four Americans say they are dissatisfied with the country’s direction.

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In reality, the scandal implicates left and right alike. The permissive sexual culture that prevailed everywhere, seminaries included, during the silly season of the ’70s deserves a share of the blame, as does that era’s overemphasis on therapy. (Again and again, bishops relied on psychiatrists rather than common sense in deciding how to handle abusive clerics.) But it was the church’s conservative instincts ”” the insistence on institutional loyalty, obedience and the absolute authority of clerics ”” that allowed the abuse to spread unpunished.

What’s more, it was a conservative hierarchy’s bunker mentality that prevented the Vatican from reckoning with the scandal. In a characteristic moment in 2002, a prominent cardinal told a Spanish audience that “I am personally convinced that the constant presence in the press of the sins of Catholic priests, especially in the United States, is a planned campaign … to discredit the church….”

the crisis of authority endures. There has been some accountability for the abusers, but not nearly enough for the bishops who enabled them. And now the shadow of past sins threatens to engulf this papacy.

Popes do not resign. But a pope can clean house. And a pope can show contrition, on his own behalf and on behalf of an entire generation of bishops, for what was done and left undone in one of Catholicism’s darkest eras.

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Google employees once known as “Googlers” should now be referred to as either “Topekers” or “Topekans,” depending on the result of a board meeting that’s ongoing at this hour. Whatever the outcome, the conclusion is clear: we aren’t in Google anymore.

ROFL–read it all.

Please, please do not link to this story or email it without sending Lydia Evans’ letter already posted earlier also.

originally was missing the word NOT between did and think. That is, in the originally published version Steve Wood was depicted as saying he DID think Mark Lawrence would pursue legal action, whereas Steve said in fact the OPPOSITE. It is because of errors of this magnitude, as well as the complete misprepresentation of the US Supreme Court situation, that I was unable to post this artiucle and the second smaller related article yesterday. It would simply have caused too much confusion. Please do not add to the confusion yourselves–KSH.

In South Carolina, the announcement fueled a debate that’s been growing for years, with advocates saying tapping the sea floor could help move the state into a new revenue stream, while opponents say the $18 billion tourism industry could be devastated if even a single environmental catastrophe occurs.

“Opening the South Atlantic Coast to oil and gas drilling will do nothing to address climate change, provide only about six months worth of oil, and put at risk multibillion dollar tourism and fisheries industries,” said Derb Carter, director of the Carolinas office of the Southern Environmental Law Center.

Off South Carolina, most experts say natural gas — not oil — would be the most likely harvest, though accounts differ on whether it would be financially viable. The closest any platforms would be to shore is around 60 miles, some projections indicate.

[State Senator Paul] Campbell said that based on today’s technology, the “likelihood of having an accident is almost zero.”

Read it all from the front page of the local paper.

Bishop Alphonza Gadsden was one of two Reformed Episcopal Church Bishops, and three Reformed Episcopal Church leaders, who attended and processed in the Eucharist at the recent diocese of South Carolina Convention.

This letter, from the letters section of today’s local paper here, is so important that it is reproduced below in full:

As a member of the standing committee conversant with the facts regarding recent events with the Diocese of South Carolina, I write to clarify several misleading statements contained in two March 30 articles.

First of all, the lead article misquoted the rector of St. Andrew’s Church in Mount Pleasant. Regarding future litigation, the Rev. Steve Wood had, in fact, stated his belief that the Bishop of South Carolina was not interested in pursuing legal action against the parish. The Rt. Rev. Mark J. Lawrence has exercised considerable forbearance in diocesan matters, consonant with his role as the ecclesiatical authority in the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina.

Also on Tuesday, in a separate article regarding the resolution of the All Saints-Pawleys Island litigation, Adam Parker suggested that last week’s settlement with the AMIA congregation was predicated on a recent action by the Supreme Court of the United States. Clearly, the author failed to account for the protracted nature of the SCOTUS appeals process, as the petition for writ of certoriari had been filed less than six weeks earlier.

In point of fact, last week’s settlement originated with the vestry’s decision to withdraw the petition. I view the conciliatory agreement between parties as a reflection of St. Paul’s counsel that the church in Corinth ought to seek reconciliation rather than litigation.

Finally, an earlier article in The Post and Courier (March 27) included comments which I believe misrepresented the tenor of the 219th Diocesan Convention.

I take issue specifically with Barbara Mann’s characterization of the convention as ‘antagonistic’ and ‘angry.’ Perhaps her misconstrual is due to the fact that she was not actually present on the floor of the convention.

Likewise, Grace Church parishioner Steve Skardon was quoted as suggesting the situation is merely a ‘shadowbox war.’

While Skardon is quick to offer his opinion in print, he chose not to bring his concerns to the floor of Friday’s convention.

As a lay leader, elected by the diocese and present at Friday’s gathering, I can witness to the spirit of concord and conciliation evident in our desire to stand together under the authority of God and in solidarity with our bishop.

For a number of years, some members of the Episcopal forum have adopted a posture of confrontation and discord.

During this Holy Week, I invite them to take a second look at their brothers and sisters in Christ ”” the Episcopal Church in South Carolina welcomes you.

Lydia Evans

California, New York and other states are showing many of the same signs of debt overload that recently took Greece to the brink ”” budgets that will not balance, accounting that masks debt, the use of derivatives to plug holes, and armies of retired public workers who are counting on benefits that are proving harder and harder to pay.

And states are responding in sometimes desperate ways, raising concerns that they, too, could face a debt crisis.

New Hampshire was recently ordered by its State Supreme Court to put back $110 million that it took from a medical malpractice insurance pool to balance its budget. Colorado tried, so far unsuccessfully, to grab a $500 million surplus from Pinnacol Assurance, a state workers’ compensation insurer that was privatized in 2002. It wanted the money for its university system and seems likely to get a lesser amount, perhaps $200 million.

Connecticut has tried to issue its own accounting rules. Hawaii has inaugurated a four-day school week. California accelerated its corporate income tax this year, making companies pay 70 percent of their 2010 taxes by June 15. And many states have balanced their budgets with federal health care dollars that Congress has not yet appropriated.

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This is just wonderful–watch it all.

On the big screen of the movies, God has been played by everyone from George Burns (“Oh, God!”) to Alanis Morissette (“Dogma”) to Morgan Freeman (“Bruce Almighty”).

On the small screen of people’s imaginations, God frequently looks like an old man in the clouds, like something out of “The Simpsons.” Or Kenny Rogers. Or more ambiguous terms like creator, energy, love or nature.

That’s how some Americans described their image of God in a small independent documentary titled “God in the Box.”

“I really wanted to be able to look behind people’s eyes and see what God looks like to them and what God means to them,” said filmmaker Nathan Lang. “They’re not leaving novels about their feelings, they’re leaving just snapshots.”

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As he describes the Church’s belief that the family unit endures eternally, Lyle [Shamo] begins to weep with emotion. He and his wife already have eight children and sixteen grandchildren but are now responsible for all the young missionaries in their area. “I’m the mom,” Tracy says proudly. They hadthe missionaries shovelling snow-filled driveways last week. “We don’t want them to become Bible bashers or stand in people’s way in the street,” Lyle says. “We tell them to always be respectful.”

Mormonism places Jesus Christ in the centre of its beliefs. But the Church’s independent brand of Christianity is not always recognisable to other denominations. “For a Christian, the gospels stand and Jesus is the final and ultimate revelation. We don’t add other books as they have,” says the Rev John Goddard, Bishop of Burnley, “But I would want to emphasise the quality of some of their people.”

Steven Hughes, the interfaith development officer for Churches Together in Lancashire, says that Mormons “are the one group who rarely cross my radar”. He lives just eight miles from the Temple Complex, but rarely sees the missionaries out and about.

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Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet unborn may praise the LORD: that he looked down from his holy height, from heaven the LORD looked at the earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners, to set free those who were doomed to die…

–Psalm 102:18-20

O Lord Christ, who in the days of thy flesh didst hallow bread and wine to be a perpetual memorial of thy passion, and a never-failing means of fellowship with thee: Make us so to thirst after thy righteousness that through these holy mysteries we may be filled with all the fullness of thy divine life, and be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure; for thy glory’s sake.

As the number of death sentences declined nationwide in 2009, death verdicts in California rose to their highest total in nearly a decade, the American Civil Liberties Union said Tuesday.

All but five of the 29 California death sentences last year were handed down in Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties, the ACLU said.

Only two of the death sentences came from Bay Area courts, both in Contra Costa County. Darryl Kemp was sentenced in June for a 1978 rape and murder in Lafayette, a case in which he was identified through DNA evidence in 2000; and Edward Wycoff was condemned in December for murdering his sister and her husband in the couple’s El Cerrito home in 2006.

Nationally, death sentences fell to 106 in 2009, their seventh straight year of decline and the lowest total since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, according to an earlier report from the Death Penalty Information Center, a separate organization.

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[The New York Times]… carried a very troubling article on the front page on Monday. It detailed how President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan had invited Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to Kabul ”” in order to stick a thumb in the eye of the Obama administration ”” after the White House had rescinded an invitation to Mr. Karzai to come to Washington because the Afghan president had gutted an independent panel that had discovered widespread fraud in his re-election last year.

The article, written by two of our best reporters, Dexter Filkins and Mark Landler, noted that “according to Afghan associates, Mr. Karzai recently told lunch guests at the presidential palace that he believes the Americans are in Afghanistan because they want to dominate his country and the region, and that they pose an obstacle to striking a peace deal with the Taliban.”

The article added about Karzai: “ ”˜He has developed a complete theory of American power,’ said an Afghan who attended the lunch and who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. ”˜He believes that America is trying to dominate the region, and that he is the only one who can stand up to them.’ ”

That is what we’re getting for risking thousands of U.S. soldiers and having spent $200 billion already. This news is a flashing red light, warning that the Obama team is violating at least three cardinal rules of Middle East diplomacy.

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Leaders of the Evangelical Laodicean Church in North America last week announced the publication of a new hymnal. “This is truly a hymnal for the new century,” said Presiding Bishop Luke W. Arm. “This collection of hymns really captures the essence of our tradition,” Bishop Arm explained. “At the core of our belief is the motto, ‘Moderation in all things,’ and that applies to our faith life as well. We just don’t like to get carried away.”

When asked if the new hymnal will help the Laodicean Church attract new members, Bishop Arm replied, “People in today’s society get kind of uncomfortable with too much talk about things like commitment and dedication. They’d much rather have a religion that they can turn on or off at will. Our church seeks to meet that need. This hymnal will help with that, I think.”
Editor in chief of the new hymnal, Priscilla (“Presh”) S. Moment, explained some of the difficulty the committee had in choosing hymns. “Many of the old favourites just won’t cut it among Laodiceans,” said Moment. “We had to change a lot of the wording to make them fit with our style. We tried to incorporate some new songs into the book, but we had trouble finding Laodiceans interested in writing new music.”

The title of the new hymnal, Church Songs, was chosen very carefully, explained Moment. “We didn’t want to turn anybody off with threatening words that no one understands any more like ‘Worship’ or ‘Hymn.'”

Here is a partial list of titles included in the new Laodicean hymnal:

A Comfortable Mattress Is Our God
Above Average Is Thy Faithfulness
All Hail the Influence of Jesus’ Name!
Amazing Grace, How Interesting the Sound
Be Thou My Hobby
Blest Be the Tie That Doesn’t Cramp My Style
Go Tell it on the Speed Bump
He’s Quite a Bit to Me
I Lay My Inappropriate Behaviours on Jesus
I Love to Talk about Telling the Story
I Surrender Some
I’m Fairly Certain That My Redeemer Lives
It Is My Secret What God Can Do
Joyful, Joyful, We Kinda Like Thee
Just as I Pretend to Be
Just as I Am, with Lots of Excuses
Lord, Keep Us Loosely Connected to Your Word
My Hope Is Built on Nothing Much
My Faith Looks Around for Thee
O, God, Our Enabler in Ages past
Oh, for a Couple of Tongues to Sing
Oh, How I like Jesus
Onward, Christian Reservists
Pillow of Ages, Fluffed for Me
Praise God from Whom All Affirmations Flow
Self-Esteem to the World! The Lord Is Come
Sit Up, Sit up for Jesus
Special, Special, Special
Spirit of the Living God, Fall Somewhere near Me
Spirit of God, Descend upon Their Hearts
Take My Life and Let Me Be
There Is Scattered Cloudiness in My Soul Today
There Shall Be Sprinkles of Blessings
We Are Milling Around in the Light of God
What an Acquaintance We Have in Jesus
When Peace, like a Trickle
When the Saints Go Sneaking in
Where He Leads Me, I Will Consider Following

Following weeks of media coverage of sex abuse by priests in the United States, Ireland and Germany, three deaf men from Italy appeared on national TV last week.

Gianni Bisoli, 61, entered a Catholic institute for the deaf in Verona at age 9. He described how he was subjected to three years of sexual abuse. And he listed the abusers’ first names ”” many of whom are still serving as priests.

Bisoli described how he was often taken to the home of the local bishop, who used him as a sexual toy. The network bleeped out the bishop’s last name. A total of 67 former students of the same institute for the deaf had signed similar affidavits last year.

Their story was briefly in the news but was quickly swept under the rug.

Robert Mickens, Vatican correspondent for the British Catholic weekly The Tablet, says that was possible thanks to a long entrenched code of silence.

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The world’s mega-cities are merging to form vast “mega-regions” which may stretch hundreds of kilometres across countries and be home to more than 100 million people, according to a major new UN report.

The phenomenon of the so-called “endless city” could be one of the most significant developments – and problems – in the way people live and economies grow in the next 50 years, says UN-Habitat, the agency for human settlements, which identifies the trend of developing mega-regions in its biannual State of World Cities report.

The largest of these, says the report – launched today at the World Urban Forum in Rio de Janeiro – is the Hong Kong-Shenhzen-Guangzhou region in China, home to about 120 million people. Other mega-regions have formed in Japan and Brazil and are developing in India, west Africa and elsewhere.

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