Before And After

Image from AP.


Image from NDTV.

Taliban militants covered their faces before they executed two women on Saturday in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, alleging that they were organizers of a sex ring catering to US soldiers and foreign contractors.

A spokesman for the local governor says that they were "innocent local people." Summary execution without trial.

The pictures above showing the women awaiting their execution and after being killed are horrifying. They haunt me. I'm sorry if any of you find them offensive, but we need to know that the situation in Afghanistan is getting worse, much worse.

This terrible news comes on the heels of the news of the nine US soldiers killed in Afghanistan over the weekend.

Driving Drunk And Left Of Center

From the Daily Comet:

THIBODAUX – Nicholls State University’s student-affairs director was arrested early Saturday for drunken driving after a state trooper allegedly observed him driving on the wrong side on a city thoroughfare.

Eugene Dial, 52, the university’s vice president of Student Services, was brought to the Lafourche Parish jail where he was issued a court summons for driving while intoxicated and driving left of center.
....

Dial maintains a high profile on the Nicholls campus because of his involvement with student safety and security issues. He also wrote the school’s first drug- and alcohol-abuse grant, he said.

One wonders why Eugene volunteered that bit of information.

Happy Bastille Day!

Counterlight reminds me:

Happy Bastille Day ma cher Grandmere!

Will you be joining President Sarkozy and me for champagne and cigars again this year?

Why, of course, Counterlight! I wouldn't miss it for anything. May we invite Jane R.? She grew up in Paris.

Did the video give you your fill of French triumphalism?

In New Orleans, the celebration seems to have gone to the dogs.

Monday is Bastille Day, the celebration of the day in 1789 when a Parisian mob stormed the Bastille. It is France's national holiday, and a day to celebrate all things French, especially here in a former French colony.

One of the best characteristics of the French is how much they love their dogs. France has been the birthplace of some wonderful dog breeds.


The Bassett hound is is a French breed. My son has three, a mother, a father, and a son, and they are all getting old and having a series of medical problems. Poor babies. My son's wallet is taking a hit, too.

UPDATE: My son just called and told me that Babs, their Bassett who is 11 years old, has cancer of the spleen. The cancer is too far gone for treatment. She will have about three months or until she becomes uncomfortable. She is one of the sweetest dogs I have ever known. She had 10 puppies when she was a young lady, and took beautiful care of them. Trigger is the daddy, and Junior is their son.

Ooh la la!

From Luiz At Lambeth

Plucked from the comments because I thought it should see the light of day:

Luiz Coelho said...

All I can say is that as far as I know, some of us are gay, many more are straight... and among us, so far, it has been a non-issue. Even when we touch delicate issues, such as having to block certain people (including Gene Robinson) from some activities, I could feel that our supervisors, and most of the stewards, were really willing to overcome the differences and deal with all those delicate matters as gracefully as possible.

All those days have been such a blessing and the routine of worship 2 (sometimes 3) times a day has really been such a blessing to our spiritual lives. I've been crying on practically all services. Members from all religious orders of the Anglican Communion have joined us in worship. It's such a blessing to have them among us.

Today, Sarah (a steward here from England) preached a lovely sermon on putting our hope in Christ, and not in X, Y or Z. Sadly, many of the delegates (as we were taught to call bishops, spouses and their crews) will already come with an agenda and (God forbid) an unwillingness to worship together. I just pray they really get to pray and worship with each other, and learn more about one another.

We understand here at the University none of the "parties" is allowed to have their center of activities. Some of the fringe events will happen in rooms here, and the marketplace will have booths several of them have rented. However, the first days will be a retreat, and an opportunity for prayer and reflection. I really hope the bishops and spouses engage with their brothers and sisters.

The indaba method of discussion so far looks very interesting, and the objective here is not to have any plenaries, any power struggles, but a final document which represents the voices of the communion, and which gives all sides the opportunity to talk about themselves.

And an extra note that *has to* be said. Most of the rooms and accomodations here are as spartan as they can be without being uncomfortable. Much has been said about Lambeth being a cocktail party and a waste of money. All I can say is that, truly, at least this Lambeth is trying to be as cheap, environment friendly and modest as possible. Most of the people working here are volunteers. Bishops and spouses will basically live in UKent dorms and there's nothing really fancy about rooms that are being used.


From Wiki:

Indaba - The term comes from a Zulu language word, meaning "business" or "matter".

Current usage

The term has found widespread use throughout Southern Africa and often simply means gathering or meeting.

It is also used in the scout movement. The World Scout Indaba is a gathering of Scout Leaders.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, used the expression when he announced, in in April 2008, a move away from plenary meetings voting on formal resolutions for bishops attending the 2008 Lambeth Conference. He introduced "middle sized groups for discussion of larger issues", saying:-

"We have given these the African name of indaba groups, groups where in traditional African culture, people get together to sort out the problems that affect them all, where everyone has a voice and where there is an attempt to find a common mind or a common story that everyone is able to tell when they go away from it. This is how we approached it. This is what we heard. This is where we arrived as we prayed and thought and talked together."

The Human Body Is Full Of Wonder

The human body is a machine that is full of wonder.

This collection of human body facts will leave you won
dering why in the heck we were designed the way we were.

1. Scientists say the higher your I.Q. The more you dream.

2. The largest cell in the human body is the female egg.

3. The smallest is the male sperm.

4. You use 200 muscles to take one step.

5. The average woman is 5 inches shorter than the average man.

6. Your big toes have two bones each while the rest have three.

7. A pair of human feet contain 250,000 sweat glands.

8. A full bladder is roughly the size of a soft ball.

9. The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve razor blades.

10. The human brain cell can hold 5 times as much information as the Encyclopedia Britannica.

11. It takes the food seven seconds to get from your mouth to your stomach.

12. The average human dream lasts 2-3 seconds.

13. Men without hair on their chests are more likely to get cirrhosis of the liver than men with hair.

14. At the moment of conception, you spent about half an hour as a single cell.

15. There is about one trillion bacteria on each of your feet.

16. Your body gives off enough heat in 30 minutes to bring half a gallon of water to a boil.

17. The enamel in your teeth is the hardest substance in your body.

18 Your teeth start developing (in your gums) 6 months before you are born.

19. When you are looking at someone you love, your pupils dilate, they do the same when you are looking at someone you hate.

20. Blondes have more hair than dark-haired people.

21. Your thumb is the same length as your nose.

22. At this very moment I know full well you are putting this last fact to the test .. now remove your thumb from your nose!

Doug and I thought you'd like to know.

"Fear Not! Gene Robinson preaches at Putney"

From Walking With Integrity:

It was a lovely evening, St. Mary's Church Putney was crammed full, the music was beautiful, and there he stood, all alone in front of the altar.

He bowed his head and said, "Lord, I feel like a boy."

It was a reference to the reading from Jeremiah 1.4-9, read by Susan Russell:

"Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,
`Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.'
Then I said, `Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how
to speak, for I am only a boy.' But the Lord God said to me,
`Do not say, `I am only a boy'; for you shall go to all to
whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I
command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with
you to deliver you, says the Lord.'
Then the Lord put out his hand and touched
my mouth; and the Lord said to me,
"Now I have put my words in your mouth.'"

As he spoke, the roar of cameras clicking and the strobe of camera flashes filled the sacred space as the still photographers of the secular press took advantage of the 90 seconds granted them to take photos of the bishop of New Hampshire doing this radical thing -- preaching in a church in England.

Read the rest of this beautiful account by Katie Sherrod of Gene preaching at St. Mary's Church in Putney. Yes, this is the service that was interrupted by the heckler.

Thanks to LP for calling this to my attention.

Bishop Gene With Ian McKellen

Andrew Marr of the BBC interviewed Bishop Gene Robinson and the great actor, Ian McKellen, who is also gay. Gene radiates the love of God in the interview, and Ian McKellen is, as always, a delight to watch. Here's a link to the

Here is a transcript of the video from the BBC.

From Our Allie At Lambeth

Remember Allie Graham for whom we asked a little financial help to defray her travel expenses to work as a steward at Lambeth? Help came in, thanks to you, my readers and others, and she is now there and blogging at Tales From A Lambeth Steward.

The picture above shows what the stewards will wear as they perform their duties. They look like outfits for traffic guards, which I suppose they are in a way, shuffling people here and there to their proper places.

Below is a picture of Allie with our beloved Luiz Coelho. Allie says:

In case you are interested, here is a picture of me with fellow blogger, Luiz Coelho.

Luiz and I both serve on the Stewards Worship Group, and its been wonderful working with him and getting to know him.

 

Allie, we are quite interested. Don't they make a lovely couple? Go to Allie's blog to see more pictures and read about the work the stewards will actually be doing.

In the next day or so, I hope to make a list of bloggers at Lambeth and post it on the sidebar for the duration of the conference.

UPDATE: I fixed the picture of Allie and Luiz a little.

Bishop Gene Heckled During Sermon

From TransWorldNews:

Gene Robinson, an openly gay U.S. bishop was forced to stop his sermon at a west London church after a member of the congregation began to heckle him, calling him a “heretic” and demanding he “repent.”

Robinson began his sermon declaring the Anglican Church was tearing itself apart but was interrupted by the man who shouted it was the bishop’s fault for the fracture.

Robinson halted his sermon while a hymnal began playing. The man was escorted from the south west London church at which time Robinson resumed his sermon and asked for the congregation to pray for the man.

Here's the video from the BBC. It isn't pretty.

In The Forgotten War

From the New York Times:

KABUL, Afghanistan, July 13 — Taliban insurgents mounted a large-scale attack on an American forward operating base in eastern Afghanistan in the early hours of Sunday, the senior NATO commander in the country said.

Fierce fighting in the area, which continued through the day, left nine American soldiers dead, making the Taliban assault the single deadliest attack on Americans in Afghanistan in several years, the Associated Press reported.

Remember the Taliban? Remember Osama bin Laden? The war we started and didn't finish against those in a country in which the terrorists were being trained, the war that we turned away from because we rushed to invade Iraq, which had not harmed us in any way, is now coming back to haunt us with rising numbers of dead and wounded troops.

The violence in 2008 was certainly greater than in the same period in 2007, and 2007 was worse than 2006, he said. NATO officials have said that attacks on its forces have increased by 40 percent from the same period last year.

So much for cheery words about things getting better all the time in Afghanistan.

General McKiernan said that militant insurgents are firing almost daily across the border from Pakistan at Afghan, American and NATO military border posts. Those attacks are a main factor in the sharp increase in combat violence in Afghanistan in the last few months, he said.

But...but...but Pakistan is our friend! And they have the bomb! And we're not threatening to attack them. I pray we don't, for with the rising bellicosity of the threats against Iran, we could be engaged in three wars, and we cannot manage wars in three countries at this time, much less four. Our troops can't do what we ask of them now. They are worn out and stressed out already, and it would be heaping abuse upon abuse to ask them to do more. I wonder if the war-mongering folks in the Bush maladministration understand that. I doubt it. And what about the top people in the Pentagon? Where are their voices?

God help us all!