HOW MANY DEATHS WILL IT TAKE?

LAPLACE, La. Two sheriff's deputies in Louisiana were shot to death and two others were injured in an early-morning shootout west of New Orleans, authorities said Thursday.

Five people - both male and female - are in custody, and two of them are hospitalized, authorities said. They said both wounded deputies and both wounded suspects are expected to survive.
....

Earlier Thursday, a tearful Tregre said that the incident started about 5:30 a.m., when a gunman opened fire for unknown reasons on a deputy working an off-duty job along a highway that connects U.S. Highway 61 with the busy industrial corridor along the Mississippi River. That deputy was wounded.

Tregre said someone called deputies with a description of a car fleeing the scene, and officers tracked it to a nearby mobile home park.
....

"Another person exited that trailer with an assault weapon and ambushed my two officers," Tregre said. Two deputies were killed and a third was wounded.

Two suspects were wounded in the shootout before officers subdued them, Tregre said.

The slain deputies were identified as Brandon Nielsen, 34, and Jeremy Triche, 27. The wounded officers are Jason Triche, 30, and Michael Boyington, 33, identified as the first one shot. They were being treated at area hospitals but the extent of their injuries was not known.
....

"There were more than 20 gunshots," said Col. Mike Edmonson, head of Louisiana State Police, which investigates shootings in which other Louisiana law-enforcement agencies are involved.

The persons arrested were reportedly on watch lists in De Soto Parish, Louisiana, and other states and were under scrutiny by the FBI.  The deaths of the two deputies demonstrate why so many in law enforcement would like to see assault weapons banned. The officers face danger every day as they do their jobs, but should they be at added risk from assault weapons? 
 
How many deaths will it take?  How long before we pass laws to remove assault weapons, the guns that are capable of shooting round after round of bullets, from the hands of citizens?  Those in favor of no gun control reference the Second Amendment to the Constitution, but the foundational document in which we declared ourselves independent of the British, the Declaration of Independence, states:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

What about the right to live?

ENGLISH JOKES

I was at an ATM yesterday when a little old lady asked if I could check her balance, so I pushed her over.

Statistically, 6 out of 7 dwarves are not Happy.

My neighbour knocked on my door at 2:30 a.m. this morning! Can you believe that, 2:30 a.m?  Luckily for him I was still up playing my bagpipes.

A wife says to her husband, “You're always pushing me around and talking behind my back.”
He says, “What do you expect? You're in a wheelchair.”

The wife has been missing a week now. Police said to prepare for the worst. So I have been to the charity shop to get all her clothes back

I saw a poor old lady fall over today on the ice! At least I presume she was poor - she only had $1.20 in her purse.

Don't blame me.  Blame Frank.  A few were not publishable, so I censored them out.

WORD OF THE DAY - MITT ROMNEY

"The president's campaign has put out a campaign that's talking about me and attacking me."

H/T to  Charles Pierce.

SINKHOLE, SALT CAVERN, BUTANE UNDER PRESSURE

The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality has asked the operator of a salt cavern near a sinkhole in northern Assumption Parish to describe what would happen if all butane that could be held in the underground storage facility were released to the surface, state officials said Tuesday.

DEQ Secretary Peggy Hatch asked for the updated worst-case scenario from Crosstex Energy LP of Dallas by close of business Wednesday after reviewing the company’s current risk management plan for the cavern, state officials said in a news release.

The Crosstex salt cavern, which holds 940,000 barrels of liquid butane under pressure, is 1,600 feet from the sinkhole on the adjacent Texas Brine Co. LLC property south of La. 70 south.

DEQ says the Texas Brine is in compliance, but the what-if ramifications if the salt dome has failed are sobering, indeed.

DEQ officials said Tuesday there are “a lot of dynamic things” happening around the butane cavern, including expected well drilling, and community concerns have arisen.
....

DNR scientists suspect the Texas Brine cavern may have been carved too close to the edge of the Napoleonville Dome and failed, releasing its brine contents and causing the sinkhole.
....

DEQ officials said Crosstex’s updated plan submitted in January considers risks for butane, natural gas and other gases and suggests a full release might lead to windows being broken at two-thirds of mile. Piehler said two-thirds of a mile is close to the Bayou Corne community, which has about 150 residences, but does not actually include it.

Jill McMillan, spokeswoman for Crosstex said:

“Based on these findings to date, we believe our facilities have not been impacted by the slurry-filled sinkhole, and there has been no indication their integrity has been compromised,” she said in the email.

Let's hope and pray that none of the worst-case scenarios happen, nor a scenario that none of the experts have thought of, and we hear the lament, "Who would ever have expected...?"  That amount of butane under pressure sounds quite dangerous to me, and I hope the authorities are not playing down the seriousness of the situation as authorities are wont to do.

For those of you who may be concerned about us, we are about 30 miles away from the site and presumably safe.

Thanks to MM for his concern.  I planned to post on the situation yesterday but never got around to it.

MARY, SISTER OF MARGINALIZED WOMEN

Eleusa Theotokos with scenes from the life of Mary, 18th century

My friend Ann sent me a link to the wonderful sermon about Mary that Ian McAlister will preach this coming Sunday.  Below is an excerpt.

While Mary was one of the original Jewish Christians, she was never a Gentile. It does her no honour, therefore, to take to her Jewishness with a bottle of White King Bleach. Don’t think we haven’t done that, believe me. We have.

We’ve turned her Jewish complexion into that of a blond, blue-eyed Caucasian. Not content with disfigurement, we’ve also taken to her spiritual life and made her into a 20^th/21^st century version of a Christian woman, which she ain’t.

Mary lived in a rural village, Nazareth, whose population consisted largely of peasants and tradies. Married to a local chippie, her life consisted of taking care of her large household. Besides Joseph and Jesus, Scripture tells us there were four brothers: James, Joses, Judas and Simon and some unnamed sisters.

Her days were filled with the hard, unpaid work of women of all ages: the feeding, clothing and nurturing of a growing household. Like other village women of her day, she was, most likely, illiterate.

Times were tough in l’le old Nazareth. This village was part of an occupied state under the heel of imperial Rome. Revolution was in the air. The atmosphere was tense. Violence and poverty prevailed.

To our shame, it’s only in recent days that we’ve even noticed the similarities between Mary's life and the lives of many others. The Flight into Egypt and the death of her son Jesus by execution compares with those who, among other horrors, have had their children and grandchildren disappear or murdered by dictatorial regimes.

Whatever else Mary is, she is a sister of the marginalized women in every oppressive situation. It does her no honour, then, to take her out of her dangerous historical circumstance and transform her into an icon of a peaceful middle-class, western woman dressed in a blue robe.

The sermon is one of the best on the mother of Jesus and offers perhaps the most realistic description of Mary and her life that I've known.  I love the emphasis on Mary's sisterhood with marginalized women.  It makes me somewhat ashamed of my rather flip and superficial question about Mary's perpetual virginity in my earlier post on the Feast of St Mary the Virgin.  How on earth did we get from the accounts in the Gospels to  "an icon of a peaceful middle-class, western woman dressed in a blue robe"?

The icon pictured at the head of the post with Mary and Jesus clothed in finery is hardly realistic, but at least the two are not blond of hair and fair of complexion.

Image from Wikipedia.

ROMNEY AND RYAN - "THE ICEMEN COMETH"

"Think of all the folks we'll leave in the dust."  "Oh yes!  Ha, ha, ha."

What a perfect headline and what a splendid opinion piece by Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite.

We are falling prey, in the United States, to the temptation to equate “freedom” with selfishness.

This is ultimately a counsel of despair and the direct antithesis of the biblical values of love and compassion.
....

Jesus of Nazareth was absolutely clear that we have a responsibility to care for one another. Jesus instructed us to “love one another” (John 13:34). Cultivating the virtues of empathy, compassion, and support for other people is the way we love one another in an individual and in a social sense.
....

Yes, Ryan’s attachment to the works of Ayn Rand is revealing of his own views and it’s deeply problematic. But the problem of selfishness as a virtue is far more widespread and corrosive in American society than the views of any one person.

Through decades of conservative ideology, the concept of freedom itself has been narrowed to mean simply ‘it’s okay to be selfish.’ In fact, caring for our fellow citizens is regarded as the antithesis of our own individual freedom.

The blood running through the veins of the individualistic, freedom-loving conservatives seems to have turned to ice water.  Ayn Rand's philosophy, or "morality" as she chose to call it, of the negation of self-sacrifice is the antithesis of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  The wonder to me is how those amongst the selfish freedom lovers who call themselves Christians reconcile the Randian morality and the teachings in the Gospel.

Thistlethwaite is correct when she says the equation of freedom to selfishness has leached into the consciousness of many in the country who may know little of Rand, while the ardent Rand disciples seem soulless in their lack of empathy.  To run a country putting Rand's philosophy into practice would result in life in a dystopia, the likes of which it would be difficult to imagine. Some brave and gifted soul should imagine and write a fictional account. 

H/T to IT at The Friends of Jake for the link.

FEAST OF ST MARY THE VIRGIN

 And Mary said,
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
   and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
   Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
   and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
   from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
   he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
   and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
   and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
   in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
   to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’

Collect of the Day: Saint Mary the Virgin

O God, you have taken to yourself the blessed Virgin Mary, mother of your incarnate Son: Grant that we, who have been redeemed by his blood, may share with her the glory of your eternal kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Do you believe Mary was a virgin throughout her life? I don't, and I hope she wasn't, for Joseph's sake and for her own. There is good evidence in the Scriptures that Jesus had sisters and brothers.

JESUS AND MO - RELY

From Jesus and Mo.

GOD DID NOT CAUSE THE DEATH OF JESUS

God surely anticipated that a person like Jesus would be killed by an order established on violence, but God did not kill Jesus, or require his death, or manipulate others into sacrificing him.  God may have found a way to triumph over this crime, but God did not cause it.  Jesus was killed by the definite plan and aforethought of the Powers, as the New Testament writers clearly state.

Walter Wink - Engaging the Powers, p 110

Picture from Wikipedia.

PERSONAL QUESTIONS AND A DRIVER'S LICENSE

A Mom is driving a little girl to her friend's house for a play date. "Mommy," the little girl asks, "How old are you?"

The mother looks over at the little girl. "Honey, you are not supposed to ask a lady her age; it isn't polite," the mother warns.

"Ok," the little girl says, "then how much do you weigh?"

"Now really," the mother says, "these are personal questions and are really none of your business."

Undaunted, the little girl asks, "Why did you and daddy get a divorce?"

"That is enough questions, honestly!" The exasperated mother drives away as the two friends begin to play.

"My Mom wouldn't tell me anything," the little girl says to her friend.

"Well," said the friend, "All you need to do is to sneak a look at her driver's license. It is like a report card: It has everything on it."

Later that night the little girl says to her mother, "I know how old you are. You are 32."

The mother is surprised and asks, "How did you find that out?"

"I also know that you weigh 140 pounds."

The mother is past surprise and shock now. "How in heavens name did you find that out?"

The little girl continues on triumphantly, "And . . . I know why you and daddy got divorced."

"Oh really?" the mother asks, "Why is that?"

To which the girl replies, "Because you got an F in sex."


Cheers,



Paul (A.)

Ouch! Don't blame me.