. . . a revolution of hearts and minds . . .
The experts maintain that their messages are consistent—that they were always flexible on Americans going outside, that they want protesters to take precautions and that they're prioritizing public health by demanding an urgent fix to systemic racism.
But their messages are also confounding to many who spent the spring strictly isolated on the advice of health officials, only to hear that the need might not be so absolute after all. It’s particularly nettlesome to conservative skeptics of the all-or-nothing approach to lockdown, who point out that many of those same public health experts—a group that tends to skew liberal—widely criticized activists who held largely outdoor protests against lockdowns in April and May, accusing demonstrators of posing a public health danger. Conservatives, who felt their own concerns about long-term economic damage or even mental health costs of lockdown were brushed aside just days or weeks ago, are increasingly asking whether these public health experts are letting their politics sway their health care recommendations.
The WHO’s emergencies director Michael Ryan stressed that putting on a fabric mask is primarily about preventing the wearer from possibly infecting others, rather than self-protection.
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| Alfred Eisenstat's famous photo of the "Kissing Sailor" in Times Square on VJ Day, as originally published in black and white in Life, and as colorized by Swedish artist Sanna Dullaway in 2012. Click to enlarge. |
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| From the New York Post, earlier today; click to enlarge. |
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| Bishop George Packer being arrested in Duarte Square on Sunday, December 18 |
But I didn’t expect that she had thirty-two hours of jail time ahead of her, and I had thirty-two hours of trying, mostly in vain, to find out where she was and what was going to happen to her. . . .
[After her daughter was finally released:] On our way home, Lilah told me that when she was arrested, she had simply been standing in the street. She was asked to move, but she couldn’t, because it was packed with people and there was no room. She was shoved backward with a nightstick poke to the stomach. Then she was pepper-sprayed. Then she was forced to the ground, zipline cuffed, and pulled by her wrists so hard it felt as if her shoulder was about to dislocate. She was given no information about her charge or her status for the thirty-two hours she was in custody—not a thing, not until she walked into her arraignment.
After we got home, Lilah went to the doctor. She has nerve damage to her wrist. She’s wearing a wrist brace. She has bruises all over her arms. So she has her battle scars. Lilah’s great-grandmother marched as a suffragette, her grandmother marched against the Vietnam War, I got arrested protesting nuclear weapons, her sister has attended every OWS protest in New York. We’re a traditional family.
Wright has said being openly gay would likely hurt her career. She told the Los Angeles Times homosexuality is still taboo in the country music industry.
“They would rather you were a drug addict than be gay,” she told the newspaper. “They will forgive you if you beat your wife, lose your kids to the state, get six divorces, make a sex tape, get labeled as a tramp — any and all of it is better than being gay."
The bishops of the dioceses of Central New York, Long Island, Rochester and Western New York have announced that priests there may preside at the marriages of same-gender couples while in Albany and New York the bishops have refused. . . .
Enactment of the New York law takes place for Episcopalians against the backdrop of General Convention 2009 Resolution C056m, which says that bishops, "particularly those in dioceses within civil jurisdictions where same-gender marriage, civil unions, or domestic partnerships are legal, may provide generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this church." . . .
As the bishops weighed in with their policy stances, the NYC-Metro chapter of Integrity USA said that while it "would rejoice if all bishops were to immediately solemnize marriages, we realize that this is not immediately likely for varying reasons, and we urge charity and pastoral engagement on all sides in other dioceses." The group also said that clergy ought to hold same-gender couples to the same standards of preparation expected of heterosexual people as well as the marriage rubrics in the prayer book. . . .
Citing the marriage rubrics in the Book of Common Prayer, Diocese of Long Island Bishop Lawrence Provenzano said in a pastoral letter that he will "allow for the use of such rites that bless marriages between persons of the same gender and further permit the celebration of the Holy Eucharist in the midst of such blessing."
His letter, titled "A Theological Perspective and Practical Guideline on Marriage in the Diocese of Long Island as New York," was sent to all diocesan clergy and is to be read in Long Island parishes on Aug. 7.
"It is not the priest or bishop who marry the couple. The priest or bishop is present to witness and bless and, when included, celebrate the Holy Eucharist," Provenzano noted. "The function of the ordained person in the rite of marriage is to bless the marriage and provide the appropriate words in the exchange of vows, which indicate within the vows the church's call for permanence and fidelity on the part of those who marry each other." . .
Resolution C056 directs the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music to work with the House of Bishops to collect and develop theological resources and liturgies for blessing same-gender relationships. The commission is to report to the 77th General Convention in 2012 in Indianapolis, which is expected to make some statement of such blessings. A website here contains some of the materials gathered thus far.
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| Niagara Falls was lit in rainbow colors last night as gay and lesbian couples wed in this iconic honeymoon location. |
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| Kitty Lambert and Cheryle Rudd |
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| Phyllis Siegel and Connie Kopelov |
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| Michael Johnson and Michael Roberts |
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| Kawane Harris and Jeannette Coleman, fighting back joyful tears |
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| Dave Lewis and Adam McKew get some sporran action going for their wedding |
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Fredy Kaplan and Anthony Cipriano |
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| Norwegian flags and flowers left in mourning for the slain at Oslo Cathedral |
This passage from the suspect’s postings to an anti-Muslim website struck me though . . .
I dare not even think of how many Norwegian children who have been suicide because of these experiences (assault, robbery, rape, psychological terror committed by Muslim youths). There are probably several hundred in the last 15 years. . . .This from a man who (it is said) methodically killed 80 kids at a youth camp, some while they were swimming away for their lives. Always, the monster the bigot sees in others is themselves. And they are right to fear that monster.
Non-Muslim youth in Oslo aged 12-18 are in a particularly vulnerable situation in terms of harassment [from] Muslim youth.
It goes without saying that many churches, the Catholic Church in particular, oppose the very existence of medical clinics which offer abortion services. Yet they do not suggest that the County Building Inspector refuse to issue a building license or that the city Clerk refuse to process a Business License. None of this administrative process is considered to be a part of, or the administrators culpable for, the abortions that will be conducted at the site.
There simply are no religious beliefs held by any of these public employees, sincerely or otherwise, which forbid them to administer the paperwork involved with any other businesses, marriages, divorces, or other vital statistics which they find morally objectionable. And if there were, their argument is a bit specious considering that they’ve been violating those beliefs with regularity for years.
Catholic beliefs strictly prohibit them from having a gay wedding on the premises. But they're okay with gay couples staying the night in their rooms, they say, and presumably having gay sex. . . .
In addition to married couples who refuse to sign a document promising they won't use contraception and won't have sex unless it's for the express goal of having a child, and single people would need to promise that they won't masturbate.
I'm tired of bigots trotting out the religion card when they actually couldn't care less about enforcing the actual tenets of their religion when it affects anything other than the gay.
The Republican refusal to countenance any way to raise revenues to tackle the massive debt incurred largely on their watch and from a recession which started under Obama's predecessor makes one thing clear. They are not a political party in government; they are a radical faction that refuses to participate meaningfully in the give and take the Founders firmly believed should be at the center of American government. They are not conservatives in this sense. They are anarchists. . . .
They are clearly calculating that the economic devastation their vandalism could create will so hurt the economy that it could bring them back to power through the wreckage. And they will use every smear, every lie, every canard possible to advance this goal. The propaganda channel dreamt of by Roger Ailes in the Nixon era will continue to pump poison into the body politic, until they defeat the man whose legitimacy as president they have never truly accepted.
Coming from abroad, this country seems as if it is beyond dysfunctional. It looks like a banana republic on the verge of economic collapse. Now that Nixon's dream has come true and the GOP is fundamentally the party of the Confederacy, it was perhaps naive to think they could ever accept the legitimacy of this president, or treat him with respect or act as adults in the governing process.
But this is who they are.
