General News

Global Maternal Deaths Decline, & Our Odd Relationship To Good News

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From today’s New York Times:
For the first time in decades, researchers are reporting a significant drop worldwide in the number of women dying each year from pregnancy and childbirth, to about 342,900 in 2008 from 526,300 in 1980. But some advocates for women’s health wanted The Lancet, British medical journal that reported the research, to suppress the news until a couple of major meetings at the UN and in Washington DC on maternal health had been held. They thought the good news would detract from the urgency of their cause. Fortunately the editor of the journal disagreed, saying he thought the news helped their cause rather than hindered it. At least one activist agreed:
An advocate for women’s health, Dr. Flavia Bustreo, director of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, said the improvements described in the new report represented “hope at last.”

General News

"Why Stay Catholic?" Why stay with anything, even a nation? How does a Collective Ego Repent?

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Meredith Gould is holding a fascinating conversation with Jesuit priest, publisher and blogger Paul Brian Campbell over on their two blogs. I have quoted Meredith here before, about her description of herself as “Jewish in identity, Christian in faith, and Catholic in religious practice” and her comments on Catholic bishops’ blunders in relations with Jews. Paul started off by asking Meredith “Why do you choose to stay in the Catholic church when it appears to be in crisis?” It’s a good question for someone who was not born and raised in a religion but chose it as an adult. Meredith converted from Judaism. I myself converted from being part of an intense religious movement to happily being part of no group at all.

Rethinking Religion

Irving Berlin's Easter Parade

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It is a celebration of love. It is about love of drums and pianos and violins and of human beings loving each other. It is the joy of music and the insouciance of dances danced with a grace that turns the body into an instrument of happiness. It is the promise of new beginnings. And that is a holy promise.

Environment

Not April Fool's, But “April Folly”: Recovering Folly as Wisdom

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Here in Brazil, some friends decided to put a new spin on April Fool’s Day. The prank was this: instead of tricking people with an “untruth,” why not encourage people by announcing something that we wish were true. “We decided to come up with some ‘fictitious’ headlines that we would like to announce. But the good news is that all this is really possible. It could be true.”

General News

Chuck Grassley, "Medicaid Fraud" and the IRS

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Cross-posted as a Morning Feature at Daily Kos. Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann and other luminaries are skewering Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) for crowing about his insertion of a new IRS rule into the Health Care Reform Bill after first voting against HCR. Because he has publicly mocked and blocked HCR (along with other Repubs), and because the importance of his new rule is only appreciated by hospital financing aficianados, his announcement had the loft of a lead comforter. I love Rachel Maddow. I wake up every weekday at 5:00 am to her podcasts.

Christianity

An Eostre / Easter Imperative: Catholic Women's Ordination

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You may know that the name Easter is taken from the Old English Eostre (also Eastre) as in the Anglo-Saxon month Eostur-monath, the month in which the Christian missionaries to northern Europe were already celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus. Why did they choose to rename the holiday, when:
Easter is linked to the Jewish Passover by much of its symbolism, as well as by its position in the calendar. In most European languages the feast called Easter in English is termed by the words for passover in those languages and in the older English versions of the Bible the term Easter was the term used to translate passover. (Wikipedia)
It seems that it is for the same reason that the Virgin of Guadelupe appeared in the place sacred to the Aztec goddess Tonantzin, and so became the old goddess in new guise, with new attributes. The Catholic Church has been masterful at coopting and transforming the previous religion’s rituals (e.g. Christmas took off from the old Saturnalia).

Christianity

Suffer the Children to Come Unto Me: the Pope, Pedophilia and Authoritarian Religion, Families, & Schools

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The newspapers are full of the latest priestly sex abuses. This is an on going story. Within the last year, mass scandals have erupted in Brazil, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria. and the United States. Figures from the John Jay School of Criminal Justice estimate that since 1950, an estimated 280,000 children have been sexually abused by Catholic Clergy and deacons.

Judaism

Spiritual Wisdom for Passover: Seder Haggadah Supplement

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This week’s spiritual wisdom is an excerpt from the Passover supplement published in the March/April 2010 issue of Tikkun. Passover is not meant to be merely a celebration of the Jewish victory for liberation in our past, but is rather meant to stimulate us to extend that liberation to the whole world. Such liberation would bring an end to the destruction of the environment. It would bring an end to the cheapening of cultural life by the dominance of an ethos of “looking out for number one.” It would bring an end to rampant materialism and our society’s belief in salvation through mechanical objects and technological fixes …

General News

Pelosi Boinks Boehner: HCR Passes and We Wonder What's Next

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If you’re like me, you stayed glued to your computer Sunday watching every last hurled insult and suspenseful motion to recommit. You had trouble understanding why a faceless Republican (who was eventually discovered to be Randy Neugebauer from Lubbock, TX) called Stupak a “baby killer” and why Dems seemed happy Stupak’s motion had passed. If you were like me, you were engaged in life’s other duties for several hours, didn’t know Stupak had reached an agreement with the President and had no idea that his motion to recommit (or whatever) was actually a motion to bring HCR to the floor for a vote. You eventually exulted with the Democrats and thumbed your noses at sulking Repubs without being quite sure exactly what had happened. Parliamentary procedure is a labyrinthian sport.