The commission heard that the pattern of demographic decline will likely have significant social, economic and security consequences for countries throughout the region. States will become increasingly dependent upon foreign workers in the coming decades, while there will be a dramatic decrease in the pool of potential recruits for military service, resulting in mounting social tensions “as demonstrated by clashes in some participating States in recent years,” according to Smith.

“It is alarming and sad to see xenophobic and ultranationalist violence fueled by one nation’s perceptions of long-term decline vis-a-vis another group,” Smith said.

“Likewise with the economy,” Smith continued. “It is far from clear how, in many of the most rapidly declining countries, how economic growth can be sustained by a declining population – or, to touch on the most pressing specific, how the numerically smaller younger generations will even begin to provide for the larger older generations.”

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Spending on the war in Afghanistan has skyrocketed since Mr. Obama took office, to $118.6 billion in 2011. It was $14.7 billion in 2003, when President George W. Bush turned his attention and American resources to the war in Iraq.

The increase is easy to explain. When Mr. Obama took office, he vowed to aggressively pursue what he termed America’s “war of necessity” (Afghanistan) and to withdraw from America’s “war of choice” (Iraq). He has done so; the lines on Iraq and Afghanistan war spending crossed in 2010, when the United States spent $93.8 billion in Afghanistan versus $71.3 billion in Iraq, according to the Congressional Research Service.

But the White House is keenly aware that the president is heading into a re-election campaign; with the country’s jobless rate remaining high, topping 9 percent, his poll numbers on his handling of the domestic economy have plummeted.

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How About that University of South Carolina Baseball Team?

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Two miles from the cow pasture where the Wright Brothers learned to fly the first airplanes, military researchers are at work on another revolution in the air: shrinking unmanned drones, the kind that fire missiles into Pakistan and spy on insurgents in Afghanistan, to the size of insects and birds.

The base’s indoor flight lab is called the “microaviary,” and for good reason. The drones in development here are designed to replicate the flight mechanics of moths, hawks and other inhabitants of the natural world. “We’re looking at how you hide in plain sight,” said Greg Parker, an aerospace engineer, as he held up a prototype of a mechanical hawk that in the future might carry out espionage or kill.

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Check it out.

Pakistan’s blasphemy laws were introduced in the 1980s. Though they were supposed to be used to protect the religious sensitivities of the country’s Muslim majority, in practice they are often used to persecute religious minorities.

In 2009 almost 100 people were charged with blasphemy, including 67 Ahmadi Muslims and 17 Christians.

Many of those accused or suspected of blasphemy have been assaulted or tortured. Some people detained in prisons on blasphemy charges have been killed by fellow inmates or prison wardens. Others suspected of blasphemy, but not under arrest, have been unlawfully killed without the police taking any action to protect them.

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Hurtling through the dark but missile-streaked skies over Hanoi in 1972 after his B-52 bomber was shot down, Robert Certain was pretty sure he was going to die, just like three of the men in his plane had, and remembers praying for his parachute not to open rather than dying in captivity.

Then a 25-year-old Air Force navigator, the Rev. Certain is now the 63-year-old senior priest of St. Peter and St. Paul Episcopal Church in east Cobb, but war is still very much on the mind of the retired colonel.

Now, though, he thinks more about helping the military personnel returning from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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The troops here at Honaker Miracle have received a regular barrage of attacks, more than a dozen in less than two months, some lasting several hours.

During one attack, a mortar round hit a crane used to tow disabled armored vehicles and set it ablaze, reducing the vital piece of equipment to a charred hulk.

“They tested us during the first part of the deployment, a lot in May,” said Kalaher from his office where an all-white Taliban flag, removed from a nearby mountainside, hangs from the ceiling. “We set a precedent that we are not afraid to shoot back.”

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Almighty God, by whose grace and power thy holy martyr Alban triumphed over suffering and was faithful even unto death: Grant to us, who now remember him with thanksgiving, to be so faithful in our witness to thee in this world, that we may receive with him the crown of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

O God, who art seeking in every age for loyal spirits ready to obey the heavenly vision: Grant that our ears may be open to thy voice, that when thou dost call us, we may answer gladly and readily, Here am I, send me; for the glory of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists murmured against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. And the twelve summoned the body of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brethren, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” And what they said pleased the whole multitude, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Proch’orus, and Nica’nor, and Ti’mon, and Par’menas, and Nicola’us, a proselyte of Antioch. These they set before the apostles, and they prayed and laid their hands upon them. And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith.

–Acts 6:1-7

For the seventh time in 20 years, The United Methodist Church will wrestle with the issue of homosexuality in a public church trial.

The Rev. Amy DeLong, a lesbian clergy member of the Wisconsin Annual (regional) Conference, faces two charges of violating church law and the possibility of losing her ministerial credentials this week. Her trial begins June 21 at Peace United Methodist Church in Kaukauna, Wis.

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The question about the prospects for Greece is not whether the country will default. That is, in my view, as near to a certainty as any such thing can be. The question is whether a default would be enough to return the economy to reasonable health. I strongly doubt it. The country seems too uncompetitive for that. A default is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for a return to economic health….

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‘If we read on in this Letter to the Hebrews, we find there some very specific, very clear guidelines about moving on and growing up as believers. And we find also the warning that living in this way will not always make us popular. If we seek to make friends out of strangers, perhaps some people will attack us for being disloyal to our own folk. If we try to live honourable lives in marriage, perhaps some others will make fun of us or be angry with us for not following the easy ways of self-indulgence. If we stand out against corruption and money-grabbing or land-grabbing, we may offend powerful people. But in all this, God is with us. He demands that, as grown-up Christians, we should be honest about the problems of our society and seek to show a better way.’

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The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams began his Kenyan tour on Sunday with a plea to the African church to take a firm stand against corruption.

Speaking at Nakuru’s ACK Cathedral in a commemoration of the church’s 50th anniversary, Archbishop Williams told church leaders they must stand up against land and money grabbers. “It will pit you against some of the most powerful individuals but God is always on the side of the righteous,” the principal leader of the Church of England said.

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United Methodists will begin a trial Tuesday (June 21) against a Wisconsin minister who’s accused of breaking church rules by celebrating a same-sex marriage and being in a lesbian relationship.

The Rev. Amy DeLong, 44, of Osceola, Wis., could be defrocked if the 13-member jury composed of local clergy finds her guilty of either charge.

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Canada’s gradual shift to slick, cleaner, synthetic banknotes won’t just mean your money can stand more wear, will not tear and, for the first time, will be recycled into other products instead of destroyed.

The Bank of Canada and the RCMP hope that once the polymer-based notes are in circulation ”“ starting in November with the $100 bill ”“ they’ll also be all but impossible to fake.

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A leading bishop has warned that the Church of England must “act now” to secure its role in education amid swift policy change.

Rt Rev John Pritchard, who chairs the Church’s education board, said “very short notice” changes were “not the best way to build for the future”.

He expressed concern about support for Church-run academies and the exclusion of RE from the English baccalaureate.

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Bishop J. Neil Alexander, who leads the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta, which includes some 55,000 members in 96 congregations in Middle and North Georgia, told Northeast Cobb Patch, “The Episcopal Church’s General Convention has not approved rites for same-sex blessings, although it has encouraged bishops and clergy to give appropriate pastoral care to gay and lesbian people. In the Episcopal Church our pastoral care is ritually rooted. This is why liturgies exist for various circumstances, such as ministering to the sick and taking communion to people in the hospital.”

(The) Reverend Paul McCabe, Rector at the Episcopal Church of the Annunciation, said, “Bishop Talton has not deviated from what we are already doing in the Episcopal Church, that is to say, he has not advocated liturgy for same sex marriages, he has only stated that priests may bless individuals who are in same sex civil unions. Blessings then, are prayers for individuals who are seeking pastoral responses to their relationships and relationships they may be involved in. Prayers for all of God’s children is what we are called to do, prayers which means we don’t pick and choose who deserves them or not.”

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The café was started after Hurricane Katrina to feed those without kitchens, said the Rev. Jim Quigley, pastor of St. George’s.

Soon, it was serving up to 10,000 meals a year ”” mostly on Thursday and Friday nights ”” but as funding dried up, the church cut back to one day a week.

Quigley said St. George’s opted to make that meal breakfast, to give those in need a hearty start to their day.

“No one leaves hungry,” he said. “They can stay for seconds as well, and we treat everyone with dignity and respect.”

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Even before the state’s new budget is formally adopted social-service providers in the North Country were struggling. Now with more cuts expected they are worrying that the new budget will make things much worse.

A dozen or so representatives from various social service agencies got together last Friday in Berlin at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church.

They invited some North Country legislators to discuss what they see as a grim outlook for helping those who are down on their luck

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(The original blog post on this from August, 2009 is there.)

Budde: I’m not disagreeing with that, either, except that I think it is very dangerous to take our understanding of marriage and fidelity in relationships and try to imagine that even what Jesus was saying when he spoke the words that you quoted earlier because understandings of marriage in that time and that eras is very different from how people may experience marriage today. And to imagine that Jesus was speaking to the kind of realities that we are addressing now in same-gender, lifelong, committed relationships is just a huge distortion of the Palestinian world view that he was addressing.

He was addressing property issues. He was addressing men treating women like property and disposing of them at will and calling for a more egalitarian and respectful way that — and loving way — that men and women were to deal with one another. This is a time when women were treated like chattel and to have that idea of marriage held up to the standard that God calls us to now is, I think, is trying to take any view of order which was true in the Biblical era and make that standard for us now. It flies in the face of everything we know about now about how the Holy Spirit moves and works with us over time.

Harmon: This is exactly the kind of argument I think we need to have, by the way. The difficult here is the context that becomes the trump card, notice in her remarks, is the modern context. And so the Biblical context in the ancient world gets derated and we somehow suddenly know better how the Holy Spirit works in this modern era.

What’s so crucial to point out is there is such a thing as the history of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit works through the church, especially the church globally and the church historically through time. And the church historically through time that has always understood that this kind of behavior is out of bounds and marriage is the context and what’s the height of the arrogance is that you impose this new understanding on the shoulders of the all the Christians we now understand, all the Christians around the world who haven’t been persuaded by these arguments.

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While most of the 76 million baby boomers are no longer caring for their children, more and more of them are playing the role of caretakerfor an older generation: their parents. But how ready are they for this role?

A new survey by Home Instead Senior Care, an in-home care company, shows that an alarming number of those caring for their aging parents are under-prepared.

Almost half of those surveyed by Home Instead said they couldn’t name a single drug their parents took. Also, 34 percent said they don’t know whether their parents have a safe deposit box, and 36 percent said they don’t know where their parents’ financial information is located.

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….there is another fidelity crisis in the Catholic Church that is not only ongoing and gaining in strength, has potentially even greater long-term consequences and yet is virtually ignored and unremarked on: the radical decline in the number of Catholics marrying in the Church….

“Sometimes [marriage preparation] is not as conducive as it might be in showing hospitality and welcoming people to marry in church,” Msgr. James Tarantino, the San Francisco archdiocesan vicar for administration and moderator of the curia, told Catholic San Francisco.

Making marriage preparation programs more inviting (but no less challenging) is surely part of the solution. But for every couple that approaches the Church to marry, there are many others who never take even that first step. That suggests a much deeper problem: Many Catholics seem unaware of what the Church means by a sacramental marriage, of its opportunities for grace and its advantages over civil marriage.

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It is June ”” that time of year when many of us will be receiving wedding invitations. One thing that may have changed from years past is the likelihood that the address on that invitation is for a country club, beach or community center rather than a Catholic parish.

The number of marriages celebrated in the Church has fallen from 415,487 in 1972 to 168,400 in 2010 ”” a decrease of nearly 60 percent ”” while the U.S. Catholic population has increased by almost 17 million. To put this another way, this is a shift from 8.6 marriages per 1,000 U.S. Catholics in 1972 to 2.6 marriages per 1,000 Catholics in 2010.

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Fill in the blank: Just one short decade ago, about 10 percent of America’s corn went to ethanol. Now, the number is closer to _____ percent….

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Ever since her divorce three years ago, Ms. Thomas said, she has been antisocial, “nervous about what people would say.”

After all, she had gone from Park Slope matron, complete with involved husband (“We had cracked the code of Gen X peer parenthood”) and gut-renovated brownstone, to “a Red Hook divorcée,” she said, remarried with a new baby and two children-of-divorce barely out of preschool. “All of a sudden, this community I’d lived in for 13 years became this spare and mean savannah,” she said.

It was as if, she said, everyone she knew felt bad for her but no one wanted to be near her, either. Even though adultery was not part of the equation, Ms. Thomas said, “I feel like I have a giant letter A on my front and back.”
That a woman who has been divorced should feel such awkwardness and isolation seems more part of a Todd Haynes set piece than a scene from “families come in all shapes and sizes” New York, circa 2011. But divorce statistics, which have followed a steady downward slope since their 1980 peak, reveal another interesting trend: According to a 2010 study by the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, only 11 percent of college-educated Americans divorce within the first 10 years today, compared with almost 37 percent for the rest of the population.

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Lord God Almighty, who hast given to us the vision of thy holiness, and therewith of our unworthiness to be thy witnesses: Touch, we pray thee, our lips with thy cleansing fire; that so cleansed and hallowed, we may go forth amongst men as those whom thou hast sent; for Jesus Christ’s sake.

So Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the passover for us, that we may eat it.” They said to him, “Where will you have us prepare it?” He said to them, “Behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him into the house which he enters, and tell the householder, ‘The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room, where I am to eat the passover with my disciples?’ And he will show you a large upper room furnished; there make ready.” And they went, and found it as he had told them; and they prepared the passover.

–Luke 22:8-13

ESPN’s Between the Lines at its best–watch it all.