STRESSBUSTERS

 

 

 

 

Now keep this smile on and have a great the rest of the day!!


May be used tomorrow, too.

Thanks to Doug.

"NINE LIVES" - DAN BAUM

 

An email to me from Dan Baum, the author of Nine Lives:

You were kind to write to me years ago about my daily New Orleans blog on the New Yorker website. I wanted to let you know that my book, "Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans" is being released today in paperback. It got blushingly good reviews when it was published in hardcover last year; you can read them here. If you liked "New Orleans Journal," I think you'll enjoy "Nine Lives."

Indeed, the reviews of the book are blushingly good. Here's a sampling:

The New York Times, February 18, 2009: “Nine Lives may be this young year’s most artful and emotionally resonating nonfiction book so far, and for that, to Mr. Baum, a belated New Year’s toast.”

The New Orleans Times-Picayune, February 11, 2009. “One of the most moving -- and riveting -- books ever written about the rich and complicated life we live here.”
People Magazine, February 13, 2009: “Brilliantly reported. . . . Compassionate and clear-eyed. . . “

Time, February 19, 2009: “With all that has been written about New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, few writers have been able to capture the essence of New Orleans as skillfully as Baum.”

The Los Angeles Times, February 20, 2009: Dan Baum's extraordinary book . . . resembles a vast Victorian novel in its many-sided evocation of an entire world -- worlds, actually. . . .

The New York Times Book Review, February 22, 2009: “A splendid book. . . . Crowded with memorable characters. Baum continually serves up wonderful detail and phrasing.” (A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice.”)

The Advertiser (Lafayette, Louisiana), February 15, 2009: “One of the finest books to be written about Hurricane Katrina and its effect on New Orleans waited the longest to come out, most likely because of the immense research involved. But it's worth the wait.”

The Washington Post, March 1, 2009: “(Baum’s) technique brings to mind Robert Altman's film ‘Nashville’ . . . . He adroitly moves his subjects through parades, prison, divorces, sex changes, fancy balls and gun brawls.”

Surely enough to cause Dan's face to turn fiery red.

I purchased the hardcover version of Nine Lives some time ago, and I am now about three quarters through reading the book. As I told Dan in email:

I love the book, and I am quite willing to give it publicity....I didn't want to write a post until I had got at least part way through the book. I would have bought "Nine Lives" just for the introduction, because you "get" New Orleans and New Orleanians.

Not everyone "gets" New Orleans, not even folks born and bred in the city. I have friends who moved after Katrina and the federal flood and never looked back. Not that I blame them for moving, because having your house flood more than once is enough to cause one to wish never to have the experience again. I left New Orleans over 50 years ago, and I still look back with longing to the city of my birth, childhood, teen years, and college years. I will never get over moving away. But enough about me! I'm supposed to be selling Dan's book.

From the introduction to Nine Lives:

That New Orleans is like no place else in America goes way beyond the food, music, and architecture. New Orleanians don't even understand such fundamentals as time and money the way other the way other Americans do. The future, for example: while the rest of Americans famously dream and scheme and chase the horizon, New Orleanians are masters at the lost art of living in the moment. If we're doing okay this minute, goes the logic - enjoying one another's company, keeping cool, and maybe having something good to eat - of what earthly importance is tomorrow or next week? Given the fragility of life, why even count on getting there? New Orleanians are notoriously late showing up, if they show up at all, because by and large they don't keep calendars. Calendars are tools for managing the future, and in New Orleans the future doesn't exist.

And ain't that the truth? Grandpère and I have been at odds over money and time for nearly 49 years. We settle for truces, but we have never signed a peace treaty.

From Rebecca Wright, originally from Thibodaux, a character in the book:

Cousins showed up often from Thibodaux, looking for a better life in the city. Ronald [Rebecca's adopted son] knew times when five or ten might be packed into the house, covering the living room floor like dead soldiers, standing around the table at mealtimes, spooning up Mama's rice and gravy, and talking in plantation accents that struck his ear like music. They'd tell of hog killings, alligators as long as Cadillacs, and hot pones sticky with molasses. Everybody would be shouting and laughing until Rebecca, standing over the stove with her spatula, hushed them all by snapping, "When I die, do not bring me back to that place."

Like Rebecca, I want my ashes in New Orleans. I haven't decided where yet. Perhaps my ashes could join my sister Gayle's ashes in City Park, where we spent so much time as kids. But once again, this is about Dan's book. See how easily I drift into telling stories?

Nine Lives tells the stories of ordinary and not so ordinary people from New Orleans before Katrina and after. In Dan's words:

These stories come to the reader through two filters. The sensibilities, emotions, and memories of the nine principal characters color them most of all. They all sat for many hours of interviews, unpacking their innermost moments for a stranger, with nothing to gain but the very New Orleanian pleasure of storytelling. Although I supplemented those interviews by talking to many of my characters' friends, relatives, and associates, I chose to recount these nine people's lives from their own points of view. They invited me into their heads and hearts, so that seemed the best place from which to tell their stories.

So. If you're looking for something good to read and think you might like to read about other quirky and wonderful (blushing) people like me, consider buying Dan Baum's Nine Lives.

HAITI - LEST WE FORGET - 2

My friend Georgianne Nienaber made her way to devastated Haiti to write about the plight of the people there. She has written eloquently in The Huffington Post about the desperate and dangerous situation of the people of Congo. And now she is on the story in Haiti.

From The Huffington Post:

What should the mainstream media do when the guy who identified the H1N1 outbreak in Mexico and was a key player and founder of ARGUS, a global detection and tracking system for the early detection of biological events, says Haiti is facing a serious gap in preparedness, early warning, and rapid response regarding pediatric diarrheal disease? If they are doing their homework, they talk to him and other epidemiologists and doctors in the field who say that the big NGOs and the United Nations are fudging the facts about their accomplishments.
....

As [Jim] Wilson reports on his website, and contrary to what the United Nations and Care International have reported , about safe drinking water and sanitation in the IDP camps, the opposite is true.

This man is telling the truth. I was there. So was my physician husband, and what we witnessed is beyond the pale. Hand washing is non-existent and raw sewage is flowing throughout the camps. Walk anywhere with peril. Human feces are everywhere, even in the ruins of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Port-au-Prince. Open sewer grates serve as pit toilets. At the risk of providing too much information, I abandoned my shoes because they had become too saturated with human waste picked up in the camps.
....

The cat may already be out of the bag. My husband saw and identified cases of infant diarrhea on March 12 in a camp of 5500 outside of Petionville. Here is some raw video of the conditions on that day. When we returned seven days later, a small Irish NGO, HAVEN, was trying to build latrines, but you can imagine what the surrounding grounds were like with 5500 people having no sanitation facilities.
....

Ordinarily, I would have been on top of Dr. Wilson's request immediately, but I was incapable. Why? I had picked up the disease myself and have spent the last two days and eight hours of that time with constant bouts of simultaneous diarrhea and vomiting. It was the worst illness I have ever experienced in years of traveling and I can only imagine what it is like for a baby, let alone an adult, to sleep in the rain and mud at night, have no shelter under a blazing sun and 90 plus degrees, and no hope of feeling better. I had access to the best antibiotics and palliative care, including rehydration that is not available to these people. Infants can die within 24 hours of contracting this disease.

The rainy season has not even begun yet.

As Dr. Wilson says, "Complacency is a dangerous state of mind."

Read the entire article and watch the video at HP. The situation in Haiti remains dire. We must not permit our interest and our concern for our neighbors to the south to flag. We must continue to offer our help.

Want to help? Here's the link to Praecipio International, "a non-profit organization that tracks disease outbreaks globally, [and] is planning to re-deploy to Haiti to assist in curbing unfolding infectious disease crises as the rainy season begins." You can donate at their website.

IF WOMEN RULED THE WORLD

 

 

 

 

Thanks to Ann.

DERRICK GOES TO THE PROM

From Macon.com:

Gay-rights supporters from across the country are offering to buy everything from boutonnieres to dinner for a Bleckley County High School senior who was granted permission to take his boyfriend to the prom.

At least two supporters have offered to rent a stretch limo for Derrick Martin and his boyfriend.

Martin asked his principal this year if he could take another male to his senior prom, set for April 17.

At first school officials told the 18-year-old that the town of Cochran, with a population of 5,200, wasn’t ready for it.

The high school only had a policy that barred bringing a date older than the age of 21, so school officials subsequently told Martin they granted his request.
....

But because of the media attention, Martin’s parents have kicked him out and the teen is staying with a friend, he said.

Ann sent me a link a few days ago, but I'm just now getting to post Derrick's story. How sad that Derrick's parents won't share his joy at being allowed to take the person of his choice to the prom. How wonderful that so many people want to help Derrick and his date enjoy their evening and that he has a friend with good and welcoming parents. Derrick's parents now have the negative attention of the media. How embarrassing - much more embarrassing than if they'd shared in their son's pleasure that the school authorities allowed Derrick to take his date of choice to the prom. A tip of the hat to the school authorities for doing the right thing.

STORY OF THE DAY - EPIPHANY

She saw herself reflected in the store
window & then the sun changed & she
disappeared & all she could see was her
eyes & she remembered thinking, I make
a very nice floor lamp & that was the day
she decided to quit her job.


From StoryPeople.

SEX EDUCATION FOR ENGLISH GIRLS

 

Click on the image for the larger view.

Don't blame me. Blame Doug, if the image is a page out of a book from 1890, instead of 1950.

SENATE PASSES HEALTH CARE REFORM BILL

Now back to the House of Representatives for another vote, where Nancy Pelosi will steer the bill through to President Obama's desk.

From the New York Times:

After running through an obstacle course of Republican amendments and procedural objections, the Senate on Thursday afternoon approved of a package of changes to the Democrats’ sweeping health care overhaul, capping a bitter partisan battle over the most far-reaching social legislation in nearly half a century.

President Obama spoke about health insurance reform in Iowa City on Thursday.
Republicans, raising procedural challenges, identified flaws that struck out minor provisions to the bill. Because of those changes, it now goes back to the House for one more vote, though passage seemed virtually assured.

Democrats said they were confident the measure would soon be on President Obama’s desk for his signature.

The vote, just after 2 p.m., was 56 to 43, with the Republicans unanimously opposed. Senators cast their votes standing individually at their desks, a ceremonial gesture reserved for historic occasions. Three Democrats opposed the measure, Senators Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

Count me relieved. I'll be even more relieved when the president signs the bill into law. Mary Landrieu voted yes. She said she would if the bill did not include the public option.

UPDATE: And the health care bill passes in the House!

MORE ON THE CHILD ABUSE SCANDAL

After so many posts that I've lost count, I'm pretty well played out with commentary on the child abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church throughout countries in Europe. Turns out that the abuse was not simply an anomaly in the materialist United States of America.

I probably have one more post in me before I reach true catharsis, a post outlining the worst of my personal grievances with the RCC, which may come in due time. For now I offer the best of the links which have come my way recently from the folks who truly keep Wounded Bird going, my faithful stringers. As I said in my comments, keep the cards and letters coming (preferably with cash enclosed), because I couldn't do this without you ;-). So. Instead of more commentary, I give you links and brief quotes from several news sources, to opinions and articles on the subject. I include one opinion column on the expulsion of two little girls from their Roman Catholic school because their mothers are lesbians.

From Andrew Brown's blog at the Guardian:

I said there was something extraordinary and rather shocking hidden in Mgr Charles Scicluna's interview last week. It's hidden in plain sight, so obvious that it has so far been invisible: there was no Vatican conspiracy. There was no Vatican cover-up.

Instead of one centrally ordered cover-up, there were hundreds of little local ones. They didn't require special regulations. They grew quite naturally out of the clerical culture. They worked by silence and omission rather than anything more obviously sinister. The scandal is going to be much worse as a result.

I'd concluded that the cover-up was handled from central command at the Vatican, because a similar pattern of protecting the institution rather than the children was evidenced in different parts of the world. Andrew Brown and Mgr Scicluna say otherwise, and they are probably right.

Thanks to Cathy and Lapin for the link.


From the New York Times:

Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit.

The internal correspondence from bishops in Wisconsin directly to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, shows that while church officials tussled over whether the priest should be dismissed, their highest priority was protecting the church from scandal.

Thanks to Ann and Lapin.

The NYT's link to the documents of the lawsuits against Fr Lawrence Murphy contain information that is truly shocking.


From CNN:

An Irish bishop resigned amid a Catholic church sex abuse scandal, apologizing in a statement Wednesday for any abuse that occurred in his diocese.

Bishop John Magee of the diocese of Cloyne said he tendered his resignation to Pope Benedict XVI on March 9.

"I have been informed today that it has been accepted, and as I depart, I want to offer once again my sincere apologies to any person who has been abused by any priest of the Diocese of Cloyne during my time as bishop or at any time," Magee said in a statement posted on the diocese Web site.

Thanks to Ann.


From Patrick Boyle at The Huffington Post:

With depressing regularity, the men who run the Catholic Church do something that reminds me of why I'm part of the fastest growing religion in the country: Raised Catholic.

You know the type. Someone asks us what our religion is, and we act like you've stumped us on a game show. "Well," we explain, "I was raised Catholic, but ..."

The reasons for the "but" are many, and the archbishop of Denver just handed us another: He kicked two little girls out of Catholic school because they are being raised by a lesbian couple.

Thanks to Ann V.

FEAST OF THE ANNUNCIATION

BOTTICELLI, Sandro - Cestello Annunciation - 1489-90 - Tempera on panel
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Image from the Web Gallery of Art.

Readings:

Psalm 40:1-11 or 40:5-10 or Canticle 3 or 15;
Isaiah 7:10-14;
Hebrews 10:5-10;
Luke 1:26-3

PRAYER

Pour your grace into our hearts, O Lord; that we who have known the incarnation of your Son Jesus Christ, announced by an angel to the Virgin Mary, may by his cross and passion be brought unto the glory of his resurrection; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

From the Carmina Gadelica version of the "Hail Mary!":

HAIL TO THEE, MARY
Hail to thee, Mary, Mother !
Thou art full of loving grace,
The Lord God is always with thee,
Blessed art thou Mary among women,
Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus,
Blessed art thou, Queen of grace;
Thou holy Mary, thou Mother of Jesus,
Plead for me a miserable sinner,
Now and at the hour of death,
Now and at the hour of death !

STORY OF THE DAY - HANGING ON TIGHT

Of course I hang on tight, she said. You
can't believe the kind of stuff that
happens when you let go.


From StoryPeople.

A CAUTIONARY WORD....

From the comments to the post at Thinking Anglicans on Michael Poon's paper titled "The Anglican Communion as Communion of Churches: on the historic significance of the Anglican Covenant", comes a cautionary word from a member of the Roman Catholic Church:

Speaking as a very progressive Vatican II Catholic, the last thing Anglicans need is central authority and a magesterium. The Reformation was a good thing and millions of us are praying for a second Reformation in the Latin Rite Churches. The Bishop of Rome would be a nice unifying symbol but should have no more authority than any other bishop and he should be elected by lay people and clergy. The present system is in a state of decay and it is on the verge of imploding. Anglicans have a better system, especially Anglicans such as those in the American Episcopal Church. The minute fundamentalists try to force their views down the throats of their fellow Christians, is the minute the people of God need to stand up and say enough! May the structure of Anglican autonomy continue and show the rest of the Catholic and Orthodox world that this way is preferable and more in keeping with the early Church.

Posted by: Chris Smith on Wednesday, 24 March 2010 at 9:55pm GMT

Well-spoken, Chris Smith. Thank you.

Why is it that so many within the Anglican Communion cannot see the treasure that is the Anglican way? The creeds, common worship, and the bonds of affection are sufficient. If the bonds of affection are not present, the Covenant cannot force their presence. The Archbishop of Canterbury should be, as Chris says, "a nice unifying symbol but should have no more authority than any other bishop". And rather than a Covenant, we might consider Chris' other suggestion, "he should be elected by lay people and clergy".

Thanks to Lapin for drawing the comment to my attention.

THE MIRACLES OF EMAIL

Via the miracle of email, I received a message from Casanova Donahue saying that he wants to meet me. At least, he's up front about his intentions.

Oh, and I won the British lottery again, so let the requests for money for good causes roll in.

AND SHE DID IT WEARING HIGH HEELS!

Rachel Morris in the Guardian gives credit where credit is due. She points out that before the vote on health care reform the US media were tripping over each other trying to get interviews with Rahm Emanuel, all the while missing the real hero in the struggle to pass health care reform legislation.

In the grim weeks after Martha Coakley lost her campaign for Ted Kennedy's US Senate seat, Democrats were the picture of discombobulation. They had passed their healthcare bill in both the House and the Senate, but each chamber still needed to vote on final legislation that merged their separate versions. Now, Democrats had lost their filibuster-proof Senate majority, and the winner of the special election, Republican Scott Brown, was vowing to torpedo the final procedural business required to make the bill law. It was obvious that Obama and his advisers had no Plan B in place for a Coakley loss. No one knew what the White House planned to do next.

The day after Brown's victory, in an interview with ABC News, Obama appeared to signal that he planned to pursue a scaled-back form of health care reform: "To coalesce around those elements in the package that people agree on," as he put it. In the following days, it became clear that this was the strategy being pushed by Emanuel. In fact, from the very beginning, Emanuel had advised the president to pursue more modest goals – doubtless burned by his experience as a White House staffer when the Clinton administration suffered the catastrophic defeat of its healthcare overhaul in the 1990s. Overridden by Obama, Emanuel had been a good soldier and fought aggressively for the president's policy. But now that it had hit the rocks, he advised him to settle for reining in the most egregious insurance company abuses and expanding coverage for low-income families. In the Senate, majority leader Harry Reid also appeared to favour putting healthcare on the backburner.

The one Democratic leader who never publicly wavered from comprehensive reform was Pelosi, who derisively referred to Emanuel's downgraded proposal as "Kiddie Care". Members of her own caucus entreated her to think small, but she made it clear she would opt for nothing less than a sweeping change to the healthcare system. "My biggest fight has been between those who wanted to do something incremental and those who wanted to do something comprehensive," she later told reporters.
....

Throughout it all, Pelosi remained adamant that healthcare reform would pass.
....

Reporters couldn't seem to get past the fact that she was a mother of five and a grandmother of seven, and perhaps that's why her impressive ability to get things done has garnered a fraction of the ink that Rahm's colourful browbeating has inspired. Now, however, Emanuel the tough guy's cautious, incrementalist remedy for America's healthcare problems has been proven insufficiently bold, and the House speaker's push for go-big-or-go-home reform has won out. Obama, of course, played a pivotal role in this battle, But he couldn't have done it without Pelosi.

Rachel Morris understands our politics better than most of the media in the US, who tend to get stuck in a familiar groove. Then too, the herd instinct runs strong amongst US news persons. It seems to me that they'd rather be with their peers in deciding about which news to cover than "out there" on their own. I wonder if we could have another reporting event like Woodward and Bernstein in the Washington Post during the Watergate scandal.

So who's the tough guy here? Not Rahm, surely. I still don't see a media stampede to interview Pelosi.

When Obama chose Emanuel as his chief of staff, I was quite disappointed. Rahm and Obama are more alike than different in taking the incremental approach, and, for that reason, Obama needed a staffer who would fire him up, someone bold as his chief of staff, not a DLC type. The DLC folks, with their timid approach to almost every issue, inspire in me only slightly less anger than the Blue Dog Democrats, most of whom would fit comfortably in the less extreme wing of the Republican Party.

Thanks to Roger for the link.

IS THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND SERIOUS ABOUT WOMAN BISHOPS?

From Thinking Anglicans

The answers to the questions asked at last month’s meeting of the church of England General Synod are now available.

Questions with Answers February 2010.

Our good friend Dennis points us to a gem, Question No. 53 (p. 34), and the answers by Archbishop John Sentamu.

53. Mrs Gill Ambrose (Ely) asked the Chairman of the House of Bishops:

In view of the slow progress towards the development of legislation to enable the consecration of women as bishops, would the House of Bishops consider inviting a number of female observers to its meetings so that the insights of women are not lost to the Church at this high level of leadership and policy development?

The Archbishop of York: The simple answer is No. Although I regret the length of our legislative processes, there are no short cuts. Granting some women – however they were chosen – observer status now would not grant them a full voice in the House and would risk being a diversion from the central task, namely how to find a way of admitting women to the episcopate which also enables as many people as possible to remain in the Church of England whatever their theological convictions on that issue. We must continue to hold on to the view held by the Synod and the rest of the Anglican Communion that those who are in favour and those who are opposed are both loyal Anglicans.

Mrs Gill Ambrose (Ely): Are we to assume then that the Church can still afford not to hear the voice of women at this level when issues on which women have important things to say come up for debate in the House of Bishops?

The Archbishop of York: Many women are, in any event, members of bishops’ staff in their dioceses. Members of the House will consequently have had the benefit of their insights in policy discussions within the diocese which will inform the thinking that they bring to the House of Bishops’ discussions.

The selection of women observers would itself be invidious, I think. Other interest groups, for example young people, could also argue for such representation. Women have been present at the House as supporting staff: currently the assistant secretary to the House is a woman in holy orders. Policy matters are regularly brought to the House on appointments matters, educational issues, HR and training matters by women in advisory roles.

Pursuing this further, it would be invidious to suggest, for example, that when the House of Laity is considering some rather difficult theological issue bishops should be there as observers.

Slow progress toward women bishops in the Church of England, or no progress? If you do not cry at the wrongheadedness exhibited by Archbishop Sentamu's answer, you will laugh. So. It is sufficient that the women underlings have every opportunity to speak plainly to their bosses, the men who have control over their lives. A greater voice would be "invidious", according to the archbishop.

And the folks who fear girl cooties must be given time for what? Does anyone think they will change their minds? Is the extra time necessary for for the powers to find a way that the women can be bishops but not quite real bishops?

For heaven's sake, guys, just do it already!


UPDATE: An Englishman explains it all for us:

themethatisme said...

It would be invidious were it not for the fact that the House of Bishops can veto anything that comes to the floor of synod from the House of Laity so having anyone there as observers would make bugger all difference.

Just keep on pissing in the tea girls.