MEMORIAL DAY - REMEMBERING THE FALLEN

Note: The picture and parts of the post are taken from my Memorial Day tribute last year, and the year before, and the year before, with the numbers of dead in the US military for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan changed. As of today the number of the fallen from the Iraq War stands at 4400 and the number in Afghanistan at 1087. Last year, the numbers were 4300 for the Iraq War and 687 in Afghanistan. When will it all end? When will the bodies stop coming?

The picture moves me greatly. Some years ago, a video surfaced showing the deeply respectful manner in which the caskets were transported to and loaded upon the planes headed for Dover Air Force Base, but it soon disappeared due to directives from the Bush maladministration, for "security reasons" and "respect for the fallen and their families". I don't recall that names were visible anywhere, and I'd think that many families and friends of the fallen would have cherished the portrayal of the loving respect with which the brothers and sisters in arms treated the remains of their loved ones. But it was not to be.

President Obama lifted the ban on media coverage of the remains of the fallen arriving at Dover, so long as the families don't object, which is exactly how it should be. The families' desire for privacy must always be respected.

Memorial Day is a day of remembrance of those in all our wars who gave everything in the service of their country. We honor them for their courage and dedication to duty. We extend our sympathy to their families and friends, whether the loss is recent or from long times past. We stand with you. We mourn with you.

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.’
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between many peoples,
and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away;
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more;
but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees,
and no one shall make them afraid;
for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. Micah 4:1-4

Lord God, Almighty and Everlasting Father, we pray for all those who have died in wars. We pray the they may rest in peace in the perpetual light of your love. We pray for your blessing upon the families and friends of all those who have died in service to their country. Console them for their aching loss. Bring them healing of body, mind, and spirit. Give them strength and courage to go forward, and Lord God, above all else, give them your peace that passes understanding to keep their minds and hearts.


UPDATE: Below is the faded bumper sticker that I put on my car in 2003 after the start of the war in Iraq. Originally, the top letters were bright yellow, and the bottom letters were bright blue and red.

The war in Afghanistan began in 2001. The military are suffering more losses now in Afghanistan than in Iraq. So far as I know, President Obama is following the time table for withdrawing troops from Iraq. I pray that he focuses on getting our troops out of Afghanistan. Nine years is enough.

 

WELCOME TO WASHINGTON, DC

 

Thanks to Lapin for the cartoon.

JIM NAUGHTON ON THE PENTECOST LETTER

From The Lead.

About halfway through weighing some of the issues that I’ve written about here before, I had a sudden realization: reflecting on Rowan Williams’ letter wasn’t a worthwhile use of my time; writing it was not a worthwhile use of his. The issues at stake have become so trivial—We are not debating right and wrong, we are debating whether there should be trifling penalties for giving offense to other members of the Communion.—that to engage them at all compromises our moral standing and diminishes our ability to speak credibly on issues of real importance.

Amen. The time I spent parsing the Archbishop of Canterbury's letter could have been better spent.

PLEASE PRAY FOR STEVE AND HIS FAMILY

From Ann Fontaine about her brother Steve, whom we prayed for last Friday:

My brother died this am
Thanks for the prayers
It was quick and pain free physically

May Steve rest in peace and rise in glory.

Receive, O Lord, your servant, for he returns to you.
Into your hands, O Lord, we commend our brother Steve.

Wash him in the holy font of everlasting life, and clothe him in his heavenly wedding garment.
Into your hands, O Lord, we commend our brother Steve.

May he hear your words of invitation, “Come, you blessed of my Father.”
Into your hands, O Lord, we commend our brother Steve.

May he gaze upon you, Lord, face to face, and taste the blessedness of perfect rest.
Into your hands, O Lord, we commend our brother Steve.

May angels surround him, and saints welcome him in peace.
Into your hands, O Lord, we commend our brother Steve.

For all who love Steve:

Let us also pray for all who mourn, that they may cast their care on God, and know the consolation of his love.

Almighty God, look with pity upon the sorrows of your servants for whom we pray. Remember them, Lord, in your mercy; nourish them with patience; comfort them with a sense of your goodness; lift up your countenance upon them; and give them peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

(Book of Common Prayer, pp. 465-467)

VACUUM THE OIL!

Yobey Benjamin at SFGate writes an excellent post on what the next steps should be now that the BP's attempt at a top kill has failed to stop the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. Since the flow of oil may continue until August, when the relief well operation begins, (if all goes well!) shouldn't increased efforts be directed to mitigation and containment of the oil?

What about the toxic dispersants? Are they of any use, but to hide the amount of oil in the Gulf?

STOP THE DISPERSANTS

Corexit is illegal in the United Kingdom. As I wrote in an earlier post, if there is a similar problem in the UK's North Sea, BP would not be allowed to use Corexit.

The dispersant Corexit and even the "less toxic" alternative Sea Brat are both highly toxic to marine life. Yes the ocean will look better on the surface but it does not solve the problem.

There is no good reason to use dispersants because all it does is hide the oil from the surface. Are our seas and marine life not as important as the UK's North Sea and their marine life?

WHAT COAGULANTS?

The real solution seem to be "coagulants" so that congealed oil could be mechanically collected from the water surface. In the Saudi Aramco disaster, Nick Pozzi reported they successfully used flour (yes, flour for baking) and straw (yes, the one you feed to livestock) to absorb oil. The congealed oil was then mechanically collected and properly disposed of.

Sucking congealed oil floating on top of the water is easier than shoveling oil out of beach sand. In the marsh, corral reefs or Everglades it is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to extract oil.
....

VACUUM AND SUCK THE OIL OUT OF THE GULF NOW!!!

In 1993, a massive 800 million gallon oil spill happened in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Aramco successfully cleaned up that spill. The lead engineer that cleaned that spill was an American engineer who worked for Aramco. His name is Nick Pozzi and is based currently based in Houston. Apparently Pozzi offered his solution to BP and Coast Guard and they promptly dismissed his solution.

Was it too expensive?

It's a lot simpler to understand than the top kill. It simply requires oil tankers equipped with giant vacuums (think a massive wet/dry shop vac) to suck the oil and water into oil tankers. Using a centrifuge, the tankers have the capability to separate the oil and water. The water is filtered and sent back to the ocean. The oil is recovered and processed as usual.

The method has been validated by John Hofmeister, former CEO of Shell Oil. So why are we not trying it? Nobody seems to know.

How about it, White House? The author's suggestions make a lot more sense to me than any I hear from BP. BP tried the top hat, the top kill, spoke of using the junk shot, and will next attempt to cap the well with a containment valve, which is not guaranteed to work. What are the chances that it won't? If past attempts are any indication....

Read Benjamin's entire post. Lots of good stuff there.

STORY OF THE DAY - BIRTHDAYS

When people asked how old she was,
she would say 1009365, more or less,
because she was so glad to be alive that
she counted every day a birthday.

She had some disagreement from her
knees about the actual figures though.


This one is mine, folks, written for me.

From StoryPeople

BP TOP KILL FAILED TO SHUT OFF GUSHING OIL WELL

From The Huffington Post:

BP PLC Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said the company determined the "top kill" had failed after it spent three days pumping heavy drilling mud into the crippled well 5,000 feet underwater. More than 1.2 million gallons of mud was used, but most of it escaped out of the damaged riser.

But BP has another plan.

Suttles said BP is already preparing for the next attempt to stop the leak that began after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in April, killing 11 people.

The company plans to use robot submarines to cut off the damaged riser from which the oil is leaking, and then try to cap it with a containment valve. The effort is expected to take between four and seven days.

"We're confident the job will work but obviously we can't guarantee success," Suttles said of the new plan, declining to handicap the likelihood it will work.

He said that cutting off the damaged riser isn't expected to cause the flow rate of leaking oil to increase significantly.

Confidence, but no guarantee of success. If BP guaranteed that their next plan would work, would you believe them? What if the next plan doesn't work? Why do I doubt that the next plan will work? If the powers at BP are confident that the next plan will work, why didn't they try to cap the well with a containment valve, before they tried the top kill?

The relief well won't be operational until August.

THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY'S PENTECOST LETTER

Mark Harris at Preludium posted the entire text of Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams' Pentecost letter.

What to make of the Pentecost letter? The missive is not Good News for one member of the Episcopal Church, namely moi.

The ABC recently hosted an annual seminar The Building Bridges Seminar, at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. The seminar "is a unique annual series which brings together a range of internationally recognized Christian and Muslim scholars for intensive study."

The Archbishop seems to put forth a good deal more effort to build bridges with Christians of other denominations and with Muslims than he does with the Episcopal Church in the US, a member church of the Anglican Communion of which he is primus inter pares. Did he speak one word to or even lay eyes on an Episcopalian while he was in the US?

Back to the letter.

When the Church is living by the Spirit, what the world will see is a community of people who joyfully and gratefully hear the prayer of Jesus being offered in each other’s words and lives, and are able to recognise the one Christ working through human diversity.

The Archbishop wants diversity, but not too much diversity, at least with respect to to Holy Orders and our GLTB brothers and sisters having access to all orders of ministry, should they be in faithful, partnered relationships and out of the closet.

And if the Church is a community where we serve each other in the name of Christ, it is a community where we can and should call each other to repentance in the name of Christ and his Spirit – not to make the other feel inferior (because we all need to be called to repentance) but to remind them of the glory of Christ’s gift and the promise that we lose sight of when we fail in our common life as a Church.

I'll say it plainly. I call the ABC to repentance for straining the bonds of affection by what I can only call his contemptuous attitude towards the Episcopal Church. Any of you who have read the entire letter, feel free to call me to account for my use of the word "contemptuous". I emphasize that I don't mean to make the archbishop feel inferior.

In several places, not only in North America, Anglicans have not hesitated to involve the law courts in settling disputes, often at great expense and at the cost of the Church’s good name.

The English tell me that the property laws are clearer for Church of England property than for the property of the Episcopal Church in the US, but I believe the laws are pretty clear here, despite the fact that certain people choose to test them. However, what if a breakaway group from the Church of England occupied a church and would not leave? Would the authorities in the Church of England simply turn the property over to the group if negotiations failed to get them to leave, or would they call the police to evict the group? I suppose the expense would be all on the part of the police, but nevertheless, there's the good name of the church to consider.

It is significant that there are still very many in The Episcopal Church, bishops, clergy and faithful, who want to be aligned with the Communion’s general commitments and directions, such as those who identify as ‘Communion Partners’, who disagree strongly with recent decisions, yet want to remain in visible fellowship within TEC so far as they can.

It is significant that ABC gives the Communion Partner bishops a nice pat on the back - the very bishops whom I see standing with one foot in and one foot out of TEC, the very bishops who would not surprise me if they decided to bolt from TEC.

A time of transition, by definition, does not allow quick solutions to such questions, and it is a time when, ideally, we need more than ever to stay in conversation. As I have said many times before, whatever happens to our structures, we still need to preserve both working relationships and places for exchange and discussion. New vehicles for conversations across these boundaries are being developed with much energy.

So. We must remain in conversation, despite our differences.

And when a province through its formal decision-making bodies or its House of Bishops as a body declines to accept requests or advice from the consultative organs of the Communion, it is very hard (as noted in my letter to the Communion last year after the General Convention of TEC) to see how members of that province can be placed in positions where they are required to represent the Communion as a whole.

Does the Archbishop of Canterbury see himself as representing the Communion as a whole? He has no basis for making such a claim. His views on certain matters do not represent my views. The thought that one province or one person can represent or misrepresent the Communion as a whole is absurd.

I am therefore proposing that, while these tensions remain unresolved, members of such provinces – provinces that have formally, through their Synod or House of Bishops, adopted policies that breach any of the moratoria requested by the Instruments of Communion and recently reaffirmed by the Standing Committee and the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order (IASCUFO) – should not be participants in the ecumenical dialogues in which the Communion is formally engaged. I am further proposing that members of such provinces serving on IASCUFO should for the time being have the status only of consultants rather than full members. This is simply to confirm what the Communion as a whole has come to regard as the acceptable limits of diversity in its practice

Wait! The ABC said previously that we should stay in conversation, despite our disagreements. But then he says not this ecumenical conversation, because we don't represent the mind of the Communion. Which he does?

At this point, I'm ready to bang my head against the keyboard. I didn't finish parsing all the parts of the letter that I'd have wished to, because I became tired and stopped.

For more brilliant and learned commentary see Mark Harris, Fr. Jake, Andrew Gerns at The Lead, and last, but not least, Caminante.

GOOD NEWS FOR STEVEN AND TIWONGE!

From the BBC:

A gay couple jailed in Malawi after getting engaged have been pardoned by President Bingu wa Mutharika.

Mr Mutharika, speaking as UN chief Ban Ki-moon visited his country, said he had ordered their immediate release.

Steven Monjeza and Tiwonge Chimbalanga were given 14-year jail terms earlier this month after being convicted of gross indecency and unnatural acts.

The case has sparked international condemnation and a debate about homosexuality in the country.

Mr Ban hailed the president's decision as "courageous".

"This outdated penal code should be reformed wherever it may exist," he said.

The BBC's Karen Allen, in Lilongwe, says Mr Ban is trying to put pressure on parliamentarians to reform anti-homosexuality laws that date back to colonial times.

Thanks be to God! And it's about time to reform the laws that date back to colonial times.

Thanks to Ann for the link.

BP - STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES

From McClatchy:

Federal regulators complained in a scathing internal memo about "significant deficiencies" in BP's handling of the safety of oil spill workers and asked the Coast Guard to help pressure the company to address a litany of concerns.

The memo, written by a Labor Department official earlier this week and obtained by McClatchy, reveals the Obama administration's growing concerns about potential health and safety problems posed by the oil spill and its inability to force BP to respond to them.
....

David Michaels, the assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health who wrote the memo, raised the concerns on Tuesday, the day before seven oil spill workers on boats off the coast of Louisiana were hospitalized after they experienced nausea, dizziness and headaches.

Late Friday, the disaster response team sent four more workers to the hospital by helicopter, including two with chest pains.
....

Graham MacEwen, a spokesman for BP, maintained that his company is being responsive to any problems as they develop.

"We consider safety a number one priority," he said. "We will continue to try to improve our safety record."

Yes, and I have this bridge....

From the AP:

At nearly every step since the Deepwater Horizon exploded more than a month ago, causing the worst oil spill in U.S. history, rig operator BP PLC has downplayed the severity of the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.

On almost every issue — the amount of gushing oil, the environmental impact, even how to stop the leak — BP's statements have proven wrong. The erosion of the company's credibility may prove as difficult to stop as the oil spewing from the sea floor.

"They keep making one mistake after another. That gives the impression that they're hiding things," said U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat who has been critical of BP's reluctance to publicly release videos of the underwater gusher. "These guys either do not have any sense of accountability to the public or they are Neanderthals when it comes to public relations."

Nothing new here really. As I've already said, the president, the federal and state agencies, and all the rest of us should verify every statement by anyone associated with BP before we believe a word of it.