There are two ways to prevail.I especially like this drawing and its accompanying words by nakedpastor.
Like the tree, you can go with the adversity. Bend with it. Be flexible in the face of it. Surrender to it.
Or, like the crow, you can lean into it. Streamline yourself against it. Endure it. Stand your ground in spite of it.
Both are wise. Both prevail.
Even against the most severe of prevailing winds.
Texas Brine Co. LLC suspended cleanup work at a large sinkhole in northern Assumption Parish after the southwestern edge of the slurry area collapsed Thursday morning, company and parish officials said.Texas Brine and the civil authorities expected the sinkhole to expand, but, despite their reassurances, I wonder about the unexpected that could happen. I fully understand that the authorities don't wish to alarm people unnecessarily, but still...
Two workers with Texas Brine’s cleanup contractor, Clean Harbors of Norwell, Mass., were rescued from their small aluminum boat by a co-worker in an airboat shortly before the workers’ boat sank into the sinkhole along with the collapsing earth, the officials said.
Assumption Parish Sheriff Mike Waguespack said the boat was tied to a leaning tree on the shoreline. The workers saw the tree begin to move and managed to get out the way, escaping with their equipment at about 8:30 a.m., the officials said.
Waguespack said an area of earth collapsed that extended from the shoreline to about 50 feet inland. The sheriff said bubbling in the sinkhole intensified after the collapse.
Crosstex also submitted a revised worst-case scenario analysis in its risk management plan Wednesday at the request of DEQ Secretary Peggy Hatch.My inner pessimist which, though buried, occasionally rises and now thinks of oxygen somehow getting into the mix in one of those who-would-ever-have-expected...scenarios. Surely my inner pessimist is way off base.
In a statement Thursday, DEQ officials noted that the cavern, which is a half-mile underground and far below the bottom of the sinkhole, cannot release its liquid butane contents without water being pumped into the cavern to push out the butane. The butane is also being held in the absence of oxygen. (My emphasis)
“While it is easy to simply convert the known quantity of butane into a blast scenario, that does not mean this scenario is possible,” DEQ officials said in a statement.
Assumption Parish Sheriff Mike Waguespack said Thursday he is now concerned the sinkhole is close to a well containing 1.5 million barrels of liquid butane, a highly volatile liquid that turns into a highly flammable vapor upon release. A breach of that well, he said, could be catastrophic.
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.
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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.
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"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.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?
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"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.
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?
I was at an ATM yesterday when a little old lady asked if I could check her balance, so I pushed her over.Don't blame me. Blame Frank. A few were not publishable, so I censored them out.
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.
"The president's campaign has put out a campaign that's talking about me and attacking me."
DEQ says the Texas Brine is in compliance, but the what-if ramifications if the salt dome has failed are sobering, indeed.
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 officials said Tuesday there are “a lot of dynamic things” happening around the butane cavern, including expected well drilling, and community concerns have arisen.Jill McMillan, spokeswoman for Crosstex said:
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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.
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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.
“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.
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| Eleusa Theotokos with scenes from the life of Mary, 18th century |
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"?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 20th/21st 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.
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| "Think of all the folks we'll leave in the dust." "Oh yes! Ha, ha, ha." |
We are falling prey, in the United States, to the temptation to equate “freedom” with selfishness.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.
This is ultimately a counsel of despair and the direct antithesis of the biblical values of love and compassion.
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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.
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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.
And Mary said,Collect of the Day: Saint Mary the Virgin
‘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.’
