OUR FRIEND IT REPORTS FROM THE SCENE ON THE RALLY TO RESTORE SANITY

Do you see us? Two lesbians under the pink arrow waving! (Photo from CBS, arrow added by IT)

IT at The Friends of Jake posted an eye-witness account from the Stewart/Colbert Rally To Restore Sanity.

We started to realize it would be a Big Thing on the plane, when about 1/3 of the passengers raised their hands when asked who was going to the rally. One woman behind us said friends of hers from New York were on the train and said everyone else on their train was also going. We got to our hotel (in Crystal City, where BP lived about 25 years ago) by 8pm and had a reasonably early night, since we wanted to get to the Mall early in the AM for some sightseeing before the rally. I'll blog later about that.

The same company that estimated 87,000 for the Glenn Beck rally estimated 215,000 for this one.

How wonderful to see sane people in the US highlighted, which almost never happens. For the most part, the BIG Media did not at all understand why the sane amongst us should receive attention. Hey, guys, here it is again from Jon Stewart's closing speech:

"The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems, bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen," he said. "Or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire. And then, perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected, dangerous ant-fire epidemic."

Jon's first statement is what you are to be about if you do your job properly.

DVD TO ART, BUT DON'T MAKE WAVES

"The Wave" by Lucinda Naylor in collaboration with 2,000 households

From Jesus in Love:

An inclusive sculpture made from anti-gay DVDs was unveiled Friday in Minneapolis.

Artist Lucinda Naylor showed off “The Wave,” which she created out of 2,000 DVDs that were originally sent by the Catholic Church to oppose same-sex marriage.

Minnesota Archbishop John Nienstedt.sent 400,000 of the DVDs to Minnesota Catholics, urging them to seek a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage. Naylor responded by asking people to give her their DVDs for recycling into art with an inclusive theme of hope.

Naylor’s project made waves in the church and led authorities to fire her from her job as artist-in-residence at the Basilica of Saint Mary in Minneapolis.

And there you have it. If you work for the Roman Catholic Church, you must not make waves, not in art...and perhaps not even in the water? Who can tell us?

Lucinda, your sculpture is wonderful. You laid your job on the line for what you believe in - hope for inclusion. Thank you for standing up for justice and equality.

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
(Micah 6:8)

STORY OF THE DAY

1: trying on new looks because the old
ones take too long in the morning &
everyone just thinks "O, she's wearing
that old thing again" anyway

2: really small mirror so she doesn't
have to take the shock all at once

From StoryPeople.

ALL SAINTS DAY

St. Louie swings with his band and the dancing lady.

THEY DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS ABOUT THEM...

...until Jon Stewart told them.

From Politicususa:

Jon Stewart managed to do something with his Rally to Restore Sanity that hasn’t been done in a long time. He confused the mainstream media to the point of a near collective nervous breakdown. The media couldn’t figure out what this rally was about, and it was only when Stewart explained it to them that they realized that it was about them.

From NPR:

It wasn't until the very end of the so-called Rally to Restore Sanity that Stewart got a little serious.

"Now, I thought we might have a moment, however brief, for some sincerity," he told the crowd. "I know there are boundaries for a comedian pundit talker guy — and I'm sure I'll find out tomorrow how I have violated them."

Stewart went on to lay the blame for all the bickering, hostility and hyperbole in politics these days on the media — in part, at least.

"The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems, bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen," he said. "Or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire. And then, perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected, dangerous ant-fire epidemic."

Don't you love it? I won't soon forget the flaming ant metaphor.

H/T to Rmj at Adventus.

THE COVENANT AS LEGAL FICTION?

Paul Bagshaw at Not the Same Stream writes with great clarity on Section 4 of the Anglican Draft Covenant, the objectionable section. As I said in the comments to Paul's post:

Paul, I commend you on the clarity of your breakdown on what I choose to call the awfulness of Part 4 of the Daft Covenant.

I've said elsewhere that while many of us see no need for an Anglican Covenant, at least some of us could perhaps live with the first three sections. Part 4, with its snatching away of autonomy from member churches and its punitive consequences for those churches who don't have their doctrinal and practical ducks lined up in a proper row, is the section that is unacceptable as it's now presented. That the Daft Covenant is declared to be not subject to amendment, means that only a yea or nay vote on the document as submitted is all that is possible.

The emblem on my sidebar clearly sends the message that I see no need for an Anglican Covenant. The Anglican Communion has held together without a Covenant since 1867. Why now? If common worship and the bonds of affection will not hold us together, if, indeed, the bonds of affection are already severed in the case of several churches of the Communion with respect to several other churches, how will the Covenant restore the bonds? Will expelling members from the Communion or demoting them to second tier membership serve the purpose? As I see it, the Covenant as is now written is a set-up for accusations by one or more provinces against one or more other provinces with the consequent wrangling amongst the membership as to whether the actions (and teachings?) of a particular province should result in expulsion from the Communion or demotion from full membership.

But I digress. Forgive me for taking off on my own away from the subject of Paul's post, the legal fiction of the Covenant. For me, the Covenant is one of the subjects about which I say, "Don't get me started!" To put it simply, those who will share Communion at the Lord's table are those who are in communion with each other.

Please read Paul's post. As he says, "The fiction is that no Covenant signatory is in any way subordinated to an external body."

DOUBLE DOUBLE TOIL AND TROUBLE

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Thanks to Ann at What the Tide Brings In, who put the video together with great skill in matching up real people with the words in the song.

While you're at Ann's blog, please read her splended sermon for XXIII Pentecost on the Gospel reading for today, the story of Zaccheaus, the man of small stature, and his encounter with Jesus.

FOGGY HALLOWEEN NIGHT

A man is walking home alone late one foggy night . . . when behind him he hears:

Bump . . . BUMP . . . BUMP . . . .

Walking faster, he looks back and through the fog makes out the image of an upright casket banging its way down the middle of the street after him.

BUMP . . . BUMP . . . BUMP . . . .

Terrified, the man begins to run toward his home, the casket bouncing quickly behind him.

FASTER . . . FASTER . . . BUMP . . . BUMP . . . BUMP . . . .

He runs up to his door, fumbles with his keys, opens the door, rushes in, slams and locks the door behind him. The casket, however, crashes through his door, with the lid of the casket clapping

clappity-BUMP . . . clappity-BUMP . . . clappity-BUMP . . .

at his heels, so the terrified man runs.

Rushing upstairs to the bathroom, the man locks himself in. His heart is pounding; his head is reeling; his breath is coming in sobbing gasps. With a loud CRASH the casket breaks down the door, bumping and clapping toward him.

The man screams and reaches for something, anything, but all he can find is
a bottle of cough syrup! Desperate, he throws the cough syrup at the casket . . .

and . . .



The coffin stops.

Don't blame me. Blame Paul (A.). He went that way ---------------->

DO I NEED AN UMBRELLA?

TRY IT .......... NO JOKE

Before you go out the door in the morning......Click Below
This is really neat!

Do I Need an Umbrella?

Thanks to Doug.

CHURCH GROUPS AGAINST ANGLICAN COVENANT

From Ekklesia:

Two major Church of England groups, Inclusive Church and Modern Church, have joined together to campaign against the proposed Anglican Covenant.

In November 2010 the Church of England’s General Synod will be asked to approve the Covenant, which has emerged from attempts by the Archbishop of Canterbury and others to resolve the wrangling in the Anglican Communion over sexuality, authority and related issues - and from the lobbying of conservative hardliners, say critics.

The Covenant was first proposed by the Windsor Report in 2004 to put pressure on the North American churches, after a diocese in the USA had elected an openly gay bishop and a diocese in Canada had approved a same-sex blessing service.

"Many Synod members do not realise it, but it could be the biggest change to the Church since the Reformation," say Inclusive Church and Modern Church (formerly the Modern Churchpersons Union).

The groups charge that the Church of England, if it signs, will become subordinate to a bureaucratic structure and will thereby become more centralised, dogmatic, backward-facing, inward looking and clerically dominated.

Here's the pdf link to text of the ad in the ChurchTimes.

How anyone expects that the Anglican Draft Covenant, or as someone in the comments at Thinking Anglicans called it, the Daft Covenant, will serve to bring the members of the Anglican Communion together is beyond me. The ratification of the Covenant will enable any province to accuse another of breaking the terms of the Covenant. The accusations will need to be addressed by whatever powers are assigned to the task, and it seems to me that the result will be endless wrangling about whether a province is assigned a place in first tier membership, second tier membership, or banished from the Communion altogether.

Modern Church provides excellent background information on the proposed Covenant here.

UPDATE: Credit where credit due. It seems that Tobias Haller coined the phrase "Daft Anglican Covenant" in the comments to this post at Thinking Anglicans from 2007:

Perhaps what is really needed is a Daft Anglican Covenant. ;-)

Posted by: Tobias Haller on Friday, 30 November 2007 at 8:55pm GMT

I should have known Tobias was the clever (or guilty?) author. How has so apt a phrase remained hidden for years? No matter. I shall do my best to make it famous.

UPDATE 2 CORRECTION: Tobias Haller is not the clever (guilty?) party.

At Ship of Fools:

Maleveque said: Posted 18 June, 2007 17:48
I really, really don't want a covenant. Covenant churches prescribe particular belief in a way that I find oppressive. If it happens, I don't know that I'll stay - and I am such a die-hard Episcopalian that I don't know where I'd go.
Anne L.
ps - am I the only one whose aged eyes read "Daft Anglican Covenant"?

Thanks to John Chilton and Ann Fontaine for the correction.

I may have the attribution right now, unless I receive a reference to an earlier use of the phrase.

UPDATE 3: As of this moment, Tobias Haller gets credit for the first publication of The Daft Anglican Covenant.

Further updates may follow.