Remembering Kirstin

JCF represented the FoJ community at Kirstin Paisley's memorial last month and sends these scans of the order of service.  Plus, appropriately, a recipe for bread. You should be able to click for a closer view!

Old Time Tent Revival

What about TX Gov. Rick Perry's Olde Time Tent Revival? From Time(emphases mine):

The Response, the prayer gathering that Perry sponsored in Houston last weekend, was a fairly typical evangelical revival. It featured personal testimonies, group prayer and smaller prayer circles, and lots and lots of worship music. But it was very clearly an evangelical revival. There's nothing wrong with a politician speaking and praying at such an event. There's also nothing wrong with a politician calling for a day of prayer and fasting. But a politician, especially a governor who is elected to represent everyone in the large and diverse state of Texas, cannot sponsor an evangelical revival. And if he calls for a day of prayer, it cannot be limited to those "fellow Americans" who "call upon Jesus." To do so is to break a rule in something called the Constitution. ...

Perry and his defenders do not seem to understand or care about these distinctions. They emphasized repeatedly that the event was not "political," as if critics were concerned that Perry would use the occasion to speak about a candidacy or question federal policies....

Instead, religious liberty advocates including clergy from around Houston objected to Perry's sponsorship of the revival because his position as governor is always political. Although he was introduced at The Response as simply "Rick Perry, Austin, Texas," Perry can never set aside his official role. Again, Perry can pray to God in public. If he feels a need to ask for Christ's forgiveness on behalf of the nation's sins, he can do that at his church. He can attend an evangelical revival every day of the week if he wants to. But he cannot organize an evangelical Christian revival so that "as a nation" we can "call upon Jesus to guide us."

The fact that this has to be spelled out speaks volumes about our inability to discuss religion and the public square. It worsened during the Bush years, when many liberals treated any expression of religiosity by Bush as inappropriate and when conservatives dismissed as irrelevant constitutionality concerns about some aspects of the faith-based initiative.

Now comes Perry, whose remarks on Saturday contained more religiosity than Bush ever uttered publicly, and whose supporters don't even think that church and state should be kept separate. And because of that, they interpret concerns about Perry's use of his office to promote one religion as criticism of his faith itself. You can't have a conversation when the response to "If the governor wants to hold a day of prayer, maybe it should be open to all faiths" is "Why are you uncomfortable letting us pray?"

If he wants to wear the mantle of Evangelical Christianity, he's going to put off a very, very large swath of voters. It might help in the primary. I think it will hurt in the general.

What do you think?

Walking a mile in my moccasin....er, boot.

Those of you who know me IRL or on Facebook, have heard that I had a bad fall doing a trail run 10 days ago, leading to a very badly sprained ankle (with two small cracks for good measure!) I'm now wearing an aircast boot and walking with a cane. In 2 weeks I start physical therapy; the boot will be on for a month.

In short, I have joined the ranks of the disabled. And the view is rather different!

I'm an active person, noted for my fast walking pace. Not now…. I can't walk fast, and I'm restless with enforced inactivity. At work, I use a standing desk… not now, since I can't stand comfortably for extended periods, so I have to wedge my laptop on a table in my office and sit. At home, I am the gardener… not now, as it's difficult to navigate the pots and the hose on the patio. My routine is streamlined so I know exactly how long it will take… not now, as taping my ankle in the morning and my reduced mobility make everything take longer, from getting dressed to walking to the bus.

But where it's really striking is on my train commute. Normally, I take Amtrak (I have a blog about that too). The Surfliner is a large, two-level train, crowded with commuters. At every stop, the conductors recite the mantra "downstairs seating reserved for seniors and disabled" which I've always heard as background, as I troop up the narrow stairs with the other regulars. We whip out our computers, and the trip is accompanied by the tap-tap-tap of the keys and overheard business calls on cell phones. We check our watches regularly, bitch when the train is late (it almost always is) and position ourselves for a quick get away when we get to our station.

But downstairs, it's not commuters. It's not regulars. It's mostly retired folks, and the occasional person with serious mobility issues. There isn't a computer in sight and almost no one under 50. Folks chat down here (trains induce conversations), look out the window, talk about their destinations or their family. They don't care if the train is late (as long as they still make their connection). When they ask "where are you going?" they are surprised to hear "work!" as they don't really connect the trip with commuting.

After experiencing that demographic difference, I then discovered that my commuter regulars are impatient with me as I go down the stairs from the platform slowly, a step at a time. In the rush of people in the station tunnel, I'm leery of being bumped into and knocked over. I have found that escalators are challenging in a boot. And the steps into the bus are narrow and awkward. I never noticed that before, when I lightly ran up both with ease. And when Amtrak substitutes an older trainset, one that isn't level with our low west coast platforms, but uses rickety folding steps to reach them, it's actually hard to get on the train.

On my first day back at work, I took my big, powerful laptop in my commuter backpack as usual. Not again-- the big heavy bag is awkward to wield when one hand has a cane and balance is uncertain. Now I'm streamlined with my little MacAir and a small bag. I can't use my regular desk anyway, so it doesn't matter that I can't plug in my big monitor.

I'm a fortunate person and I'm counting my blessings. I have a good job and excellent healthcare. My ankle will heal, eventually. I'll recover the ability to navigate and my speed. But I hope my experience will stay with me. The view is different from here.  It's a good thing to experience that.

Quote of the Day

Brilliant article in the NY TImes summarizes our disappointment in Obama. He is not the man we hoped he was.

But the arc of history does not bend toward justice through capitulation cast as compromise. It does not bend when 400 people control more of the wealth than 150 million of their fellow Americans. It does not bend when the average middle-class family has seen its income stagnate over the last 30 years while the richest 1 percent has seen its income rise astronomically. It does not bend when we cut the fixed incomes of our parents and grandparents so hedge fund managers can keep their 15 percent tax rates. It does not bend when only one side in negotiations between workers and their bosses is allowed representation. And it does not bend when, as political scientists have shown, it is not public opinion but the opinions of the wealthy that predict the votes of the Senate. The arc of history can bend only so far before it breaks.

The results of the hostage crisis

S & P just downgraded US creditworthiness--because of the irrationality of Congress. The result of all that hostage taking in Congress is going to be ongoing debt and higher costs. Because, as Sen. Mitch McConnell said, they will do it again.

Steve Benen remarks:

This wasn’t just another partisan dispute; it was a scandal for the ages. It’s the kind of thing that should scar the Republican Party for many years to come.

Indeed, consider the apparent consequences. This one radical scheme has helped lead to the first-ever downgrade of U.S. debt; it has riled financial markets and generated widespread uncertainty about the stability of the American system; and it has severely undermined American credibility on the global stage.

Continuing in the reality-driven world of sober adults, Tom Friedman in the NY Times explains,

Our slow decline is a product of two inter-related problems. First, we’ve let our five basic pillars of growth erode since the end of the cold war — education, infrastructure, immigration of high-I.Q. innovators and entrepreneurs, rules to incentivize risk-taking and start-ups, and government-funded research to spur science and technology.

…For us to effectively compete…required studying harder, investing wiser, innovating faster, upgrading our infrastructure quicker and working smarter.

Instead of doing that at the scale we needed — that is, building muscle — we injected ourselves with massive amounts of credit steroids…

There is no easy, one-policy fix. We need to help people deleverage, cut some spending, raise some revenues and reinvest in our growth engines — as an integrated strategy for national renewal. Something this big and complex cannot be accomplished by one party alone. It will require the kind of collective action usually reserved for national emergencies. The sooner we pull together the better.

But I'm not hopeful, based on what just happened. In fact, I am sadly confident that the Republicans in Congress are incapable of responding appropriately. Indeed, they thrive on ignorance.

People voted for these bozos. It's ultimately the voters' fault. This is what we get now, if you vote for anyone with an "R" after his name.   It's a shameful decline of  a political party. And craven as the Democrats are, I don't see how they could have negotiated more effectively, when the opposition was fully prepared to pull the trigger.

Image from MoveOn