Beauty, eh?

Bob & Doug's 12 Days of Christmas

Festival of Lessons and Carols

Tune in to the BBC World Service here

A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is the Christmas Eve service held in King's College Chapel. The Festival was introduced in 1918 to bring a more imaginative approach to worship. It was first broadcast in 1928 and is now broadcast to millions of people around the world.

A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is broadcast by BBC Radio 4 on 24 December at 3pm. It is also broadcast at various times on the BBC World Service.

Note: another carol service, Carols from King's, is recorded for television earlier in December and broadcast by BBC2 on Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas

Living with a priest means that Christmas is often the busiest and least restful time of the year. The pressure has been ramped up this year. Yesterday, our Deacon Tony who is driver of much of my church's work, suffered a heart attack and is in hospital. So I will be working in his stead. Please keep Tony in your good thoughts and prayers.

So allow Baby-the-wondercat and I to take this moment and wish everyone a Merry Christmas. I hope you celebrate this wonderful day of Love-breaking-into-the-darkness with family and friends.

Who says C-SPAN doesn't carry comedy?

The caller is probably a spoof, but it's no more absurd than many other things we heard in 2009.



If anything 2009 should be remembered as the Year of the Ironies:

+ The name of the so-called "Teabagger" movement.
+ Signs with "Keep government off my medicare".
+ Complaints that the Washington DC subway didn't properly accomodate the hundred or so people who went to Capitol Hill to protest "socialism".
+ Divorced and remarried people screaming about protecting the sanctity of marriage.
+ Right wing white people accusing a black president of being Hitler.
+ "Astroturf" organizations equating providing universal access to healthcare to the Holocaust.

2009 was a sucky year, but John Stewart laughed all the way to the bank.

Copenhagen

Healthcare reform: rant of the day

Who would of guessed that 40 years ago a washed up, b-list Hollywood actor could have kicked off a political movement that emasculated the government and put big business in charge of this country's destiny? Reagan's nine bogeyman words "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" transformed and poisoned American political debate since.

It's difficult to understand how that sentence encapsulated a propaganda movement that made our democratically elected government the enemy, and unelected big corporate interests our friend. Anyone who gives it a second thought knows it's absurd. But it was a propaganda coup. It played on America's latent racism by raising the spectre of the Cadillac driving welfare queen sponging off welfare, or the illegal immigrant getting amnesty [even if we use their labour to keep the cost of living low], or the fear of an expanded public transport system bringing "those people" into the neighbourhood.

It destroyed medium and small business by dismantling the regulations designed to help them. Now everything from our banks, to retail, to our radio and television outlets are in the hands of a big business oligopoly. YOU try to start a bank or radio station and see how easy it is in business friendly America. (Try switching cable companies!)

Most sadly, 2009 should go down as the year when it should be clear to anyone that America is run by a corporate oligopoly, not an elected government. When a government, with a clear left of centre majority, cannot institute a healthcare system with a public option, much less a single payer system: a system that puts the needs of the citizenry first, a system that has been tried and works in most industrialized countries and is shown to reduce healthcare costs by up to 70%, it should be pretty obvious that democracy is a facade. When a government, with a clear left of centre majority has deep pockets to bail out banks and fight unwinnable wars, but not assist blue collar industrial workers or homeowners, it should be pretty obvious that democracy is a facade.

In 2009 America's corporate dictatorship was unmasked.

It didn't have to be that way, but America's racist legacy runs deep. When other nations implemented universal healthcare, America's progress was stymied because right-wing whites didn't want integrated hospitals or their tax dollars to help "those people". Oddly, most people can never see themselves as one of "those people" through life circumstance, because sitting next to ingrained racism is an ingrained belief in the prosperity gospel. "Moral people are successful, immoral people are poor." Since then, "tough of crime", "welfare reform" and school reform/vouchers have been code phrases to "stick it to the Blacks" and "the losers".

Sadly, the so-called "culture wars" have even been exported to other nations where you'll find American code entering the Canadian, New Zealand, UK and Australian political lingo. Stephen Harper of Canada, Tony Abbott of Australia and John Key of New Zealand have all attempted to exploit white middle class resentment of immigrants and the poor to bring down the institutions that help those in need.

So now we have a Senate bill. It helps corporate America more than its citizenry. It doesn't do much to help medium and small business insure their employees. It makes not having insurance a crime punishable by a hefty fine on those who can afford it least.

It's corrupt and ineffective... but I have to say: Let it pass.

Einstein (or was it Franklin) said: "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".

Does anyone think another Senate bill will be better? The players haven't changed. We'll have the same Republican obstructionism and the same corporate corruption. It may even be worse if the Republicans gain seats in the 2010 election. We'd have an energized wingnut base if the first one is killed and work harder to destroy another one.

Another year of ignoring other issues (finance reform, DOMA, foreclosure assistance, etc.) to re-fight this? No thanks....

The cultural biases are too deep for significant change right now. Maybe Americans will one day realize that big business isn't our saviour. Maybe people will realize that there is no prosperity gospel. We did that after the 1920s crash. And maybe the increasing diversity in this country will put the racist demons to sleep. Maybe people will be ready for change BEFORE all the skilled jobs are exported overseas, healthcare coverage isn't part of white-collar employment and schools and America's once great public universities are nothing more than daycare facilities. I can only hope so.

Winter blues?

Let me bore you with some snaps I took in Rarotonga in the Cook Islands (near Tahiti) back in 1994. The Cook Islands are off the beaten track but easy enough to reach via Honolulu. Few Americans go; it tends to be more of a destination spot for New Zealanders.

If you want to warmed by the sounds of the South Pacific you can access Radio Cook Islands: the Voice of Paradise here. They mostly play Polynesian pop music which will warm up the chilliest of days.

Today is the Winter Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. The days only get longer from here...

Downtown Avarua - the capital

Another shot of Avarua's main square

Cook Islands Christian Church - with the cemetery in the front

The public transport system

The friendly natives

The tranquil beaches

The Kiwi friends I made

The breathtaking sunsets

Feel better?

Socked in

For a guy who grew up in the snow and usually regards it with grudging acknowledgement, there is something about snow in New York that lifts my heart. Perhaps it is due to the fact that the "city that never sleeps" not only takes a breath but actually rests and even plays for a few hours.

The sound of traffic, car horns, jackhammers, idling trucks and other racket is replaced with silence apart from the laughter of kids (and some adults) on sleds. The contrast between the apocalypic scenarios delivered in alarming tones on the Weather Channel and 1010 WINS Newsradio and the silent beauty outside is striking. There is probably no place on earth where people live so apart from nature than New York City, yet at moments like this, she reminds us all who is in charge.

Whereever you are and whatever you celebrate, I hope you have a great holiday.

Which path?

This is a very good video on how to think when it comes to Climate change.




Where I would part ways with him is I would say that he labels his "Column A"/"Climate change is false" box is a purely negative outcome. I believe that even if we retool our economy as if climate change is going to happen and it doesn't, we'd be ahead as far as moving off fossil fuel dependence. That will also help minimize against the political, health, social and environmental catastrophe that will hit us when oil becomes too expensive to use in modern society. Most climate change measures push us toward the path of energy sustainability anyway.

Brokeback Christmas

Gay Nova Scotia MP Scott Brison's Christmas card seems pretty tame to me, Brokeback Mountainish but tame. I've seen blue collar good old boys stand closer together than this couple.



Still, even this "wholesome" card caused so much hate in the Globe and Mail's comment section that the paper had to disable it and put the following comment:

Comments have been disabled

Editor's Note: Comments have been closed due to an overwhelming number of hateful and homophobic remarks. We appreciate that readers want to discuss this issue, but we can't allow our site to become a platform for intolerance.

God forbid gay couples are presented as anything but sick, depraved, disease ridden people. Even when it's a real picture of a real gay couple.

Limp noodle

While even conservative evangelical groups are condemning the Ugandan bill, we have heard nothing but crickets from Canterbury. Now, only after every one else has paved the way, he finally says something. Why the foot dragging? Either take a principled decision that you aren't going to speak on it (and let the chips fall where they may), or do it immediately.

It's the wimpishness that really gets to me.

Archbishop of Canterbury condemns proposed Ugandan anti Homosexuality Bill


Rev Sharon Ferguson, Chief Executive of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) has welcomed wholeheartedly an assurance from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Press office to LGCM that he condemns the proposed anti Homosexuality Bill currently before the Ugandan Parliament.

The Archbishop of Canterbury’s press secretary has told LGCM that Archbishop Rowan Williams is ‘very clear that the private Member’s Bill being discussed in Uganda as drafted is entirely unacceptable from a pastoral, moral and legal point of view.’ The press office went on to tell LGCM that the proposed Bill was ‘a cause of deep concern, fear and, to many, outrage.’

LGCM has spoken recently on its concern that the Archbishop had not spoken out against this Bill, the Archbishops office assured LGCM that ‘the Archbishop has been working intensively behind the scenes (over the past weeks) to ensure that there is clarity on how the proposed bill is contrary to Anglican teaching.’

Rev Sharon Ferguson said ‘I only hope and pray that Archbishop Rowan Williams will now instruct all Anglican clergy in Uganda to speak out against this Bill and to take whatever action is needed to safeguard the lives of lesbian, gay and bisexual people. ‘

"If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone." John 8:7



Inclusive Church

UPDATE: I should have read it closer. It's not the ABC who is doing the condemning, but his press secretary on his behalf. That passive-aggressive prat.

I really need to learn from my progressive Catholic friends. Church leadership is amoral, corrupt and should be ignored. It's the parish where the God's love can be found.

Death by a thousand cuts

How is it that I go to the emergency room twice (in a hospital which is in my insurance network), present my insurance card, get treatment, pay my $35 co-pay on the way out each time, and yet receive from the hospital eight bills for small amounts of money - ranging from $40 to $200? None of these bills explain anything: like which treatment was denied by the insurance company and why. They merely say that I was at hospital on such-and-such a date and that I owe money. Furthermore, they all demand immediate payment. If they don't receive payment to their Philadephia office within a fortnight they will be forwarded to a collection agency.

Most importantly, when will these bills stop showing up in my mail? I am almost afraid to pick up my mail every day. Is it really so difficult for the hospital to send ONE bill for the entire amount and give me a reasonable time to pay it, like 30 days? Even my credit card company gives me more time than this.

Also I have received at least a dozen statements from the insurance company which say "This is not a bill" in big letters at the top, but seem to have unpaid amounts on them. These are more serious, ranging from $250 to $1,000 each. Does this mean I will actually receive a bill for these amounts at some point?

This is all so confusing.

Dan's War on the holiday, Pt III

What is Christmas without the hideous sweaters???

We can't afford healthcare...

... or student loan forgiveness, or foreclosure aversion assistance, or...

But we certainly have unlimited deep pockets when it comes to corporate welfare.

The federal government quietly agreed to forgo billions of dollars in potential tax payments from Citigroup as part of the deal announced this week to wean the company from the massive taxpayer bailout that helped it survive the financial crisis.

The Internal Revenue Service on Friday issued an exception to longstanding tax rules for the benefit of Citigroup and the few other companies partially owned by the government. As a result, Citigroup will be allowed to retain $38 billion in tax breaks that otherwise would decline in value when the government sells its stake to private investors.

While the Obama administration has said taxpayers likely will profit from the sale of the Citigroup shares, accounting experts said the lost tax revenue could easily outstrip those profits.

Washington Post

I am off to the gym to hit the punching bag. I hope it survives intact.

Climategate debunked

A pretty convincing exposé of the out of context quotes used by climate change deniers based on the stolen emails from the University of East Anglia.



Not that this will stop the lies from being repeated. One thing the right-wing is good at is "rebunking" debunked claims by simply ignoring correction and restating the lie.

(Can you count the number of Fox News clips there were?)

Evangelical decline

While right-wing Anglicans point with glee to the Episcopal Church's declining membership numbers as some kind of judgment on its spiritual health, mainline "malaise" is spreading to conservative churches. I have always boiled this down to changing birthrates and thought that once evangelical Christians joined the middle and upper classes and started having children a the same rate as middle and upper class folks do, their congregations would start to resemble the older mainline churches.

These trends are starting to show up in membership figures:

Recently a Pew poll demonstrated how many Americans mix faiths. But how long will there be faiths to mix in America? 'Faiths' here means bodies of believers, gathered in communities such as congregations. Has the United States begun to follow the overall pattern of decline in membership, attendance, activity, support, and visibility that is so patent in, say, Western Europe?

Forty years ago it was hard to find a seat at mass in Ireland or Quebec. Today it is harder to find mass-goers in countless parish churches. Now in America 'Distance Early Warning' signals of decline almost across the board are becoming clouds on the horizon or cold winds already blowing.

Yes, decline is selective: Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Assemblies of God, and the Church of God of Cleveland, Tennessee were 'up' a bit or two bits in 2000, remaining the four exceptions in a field of scores of church bodies. Catholicism declined, but by less than one per cent, bolstered as its ranks are, by the continuing influx of Hispanics, who may make up one-third of the Catholic flock. Claims that the conservative turn nurtured by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI would lead to revival have not been realised.

So did “the conservative turn” much reported on, bragged about by the turners in that camp, and raising points of envy among non-growers, prove durable? Dean Kelley’s 1972 Why Conservative Churches Are Growing, and a host of later sociological studies, turned into prescriptions that became manuals-of-arms in denominational conflicts, where gloaters and bashers derided 'mainline,' 'moderate,” and 'liberal' churches as they suffered losses.

Post-Kelley, the counsel against moderation was: Prosper by being strict, demanding, maybe fundamentalist, certainly conservative, ready to battle for 'values.' There is enough to that counsel for it to be taken seriously, but some cultural trends in America have shown that that strategy for winning wars in denominations has a limited pay-off value in the new America.

Ekklesia

What these membership figures don't show is a free fall in participation in the Roman Catholic Church and the high turnover rates in the Mormon and Jehovah's Witness sects, which are estimated as high as 20% within the first year. These three denominations tend to keep members on their rolls long after they cease to participate, which speaks to the difficult of comparing denominations with each other. They all use different criteria to determine membership. But even with that in mind most conservative churches that show growth are growing at a declining rate.

The ugly truth is that decline is a phenomenon affecting most forms of Christianity nowadays. Falling birthrates play a large role in this decline, but there are other factors: modern "fact-fundamentalism" which doesn't recognize the role of myth in conveying truth and forces people to accept the Christian story as completely factual or completely false, scandals in the press, worship that seems out of touch and a general refusal to "join" anything that demands commitment.

Perhaps one day Christians across the spectrum can stop pointing fingers at each other and work together to find ways to turn this around. With all its faults the church can ideally make the lonely less so, comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable and be a force for social justice.

Ok. This is what I don't get...

Via Balloon Juice - Why I prefer French Healthcare:

For a dozen years now I’ve led a dual life, spending more than 90 percent of my time and money in the U.S. while receiving 90 percent of my health care in my wife’s native France. On a personal level the comparison is no contest: I’ll take the French experience any day. ObamaCare opponents often warn that a new system will lead to long waiting times, mountains of paperwork, and less choice among doctors. Yet on all three of those counts the French system is significantly better, not worse, than what the U.S. has now...

In France, you are covered, period. It doesn’t depend on your job, it doesn’t depend on a health maintenance organization, and it doesn’t depend on whether you filled out the paperwork right. Those who (like me) oppose ObamaCare, need to understand (also like me, unfortunately) what it’s like to be serially rejected by insurance companies even though you’re perfectly healthy. It’s an enraging, anxiety-inducing, indelible experience, one that both softens the intellectual ground for increased government intervention and produces active resentment toward anyone who argues that the U.S. has “the best health care in the world.”...

Ok. So libertarian Matt Welch prefers French healthcare. He freely admits that their system has significant advantages.

It's so great, he actually uses the French healthcare system via his wife's French citizenship.

But when it comes to paying for it, the response is: "Fuck off. Don't touch my wallet." He works in America, where the evil socialist French can't touch his wallet and where he can express disdain for the "high tax" French welfare state which funds his care.

“We know that the horrific amount of third-party gobbledygook in America, the cost insensitivity, and the price randomness are all products of bad policies that market reforms could significantly improve. We know, too, that France’s low retail costs are subsidized by punitively high tax rates that will have to increase unless benefits are cut. If you are rich and sick (or a healthy doctor), you’re likely better off here...

I’ve now reached the age where I will better appreciate the premium skill level of American doctors and their high-quality equipment and techniques. And in a very real way my family has voted with its feet when it comes to choosing between the two countries. One of France’s worst problems is the rigidity and expense that comes with an extensive welfare state.

I am at a loss to understand how someone can write this with a straight face. How is it that people like this not realize they are nothing but parasites sucking off other taxpayers whilst refusing to contribute to the system themselves? I would have been completely embarrassed to write such a thing. What the hell happened to this country where "Fuck you. I've got mine. Now why won't you fix the pothole on that road I take to work?" became acceptable?

The hilarious thing is that Matt is completely wrong about French vs. U.S. taxrates. If you include healthcare costs, which are part of French workers' taxes, but taken as a separate deduction from American workers' paycheques, Americans pay much much more out of pocket for same services than the French. American business which subsidize [some] workers' healthcare expenses also end up paying more in corporate costs - both in direct subsidies and in the costs it takes to run "benefits" departments to manage them. In a single payer system taxes may be higher but workers wouldn't have to buy health insurance (unless they wanted extra coverage).

He's also wrong that "market reforms" would fix the ills he complains about. France, the EU and other industrialized countries all have much deeper government involvement than the U.S. does, without the problems. Providing healthcare treatment isn't the same as selling a television or a car. "Consumers" generally don't have "free choice" to refuse treatment for an illness/injury, shop around or put it off, like we do with a consumer item. Free markets are predicated on the consumer's ability to exercise free choice. Healthcare isn't a free market product. The balance of power between seller and purchaser isn't equal. But when you are a libertarian, all you have is a hammer so everything becomes a nail.

Finally I can't let this comment go by:

the premium skill level of American doctors and their high-quality equipment and techniques

An assertion without evidence, and typical American exceptionalism. Where is the evidence that American doctors are better skilled than foreign doctors?

While we ponder the loss of social capital and the rise of a culture of entitlement (a charge often asserted against those who receive welfare) good old Matt is back off to France to use the services of a doctor... he isn't supporting.

But as you look at the health care solutions discussed in this issue, ask yourself an honest question: Are we better off today, in terms of health policy, than we would have been had we acknowledged more loudly 15 years ago that the status quo is quite awful for a large number of Americans? Would we have been better off focusing less on waiting times in Britain, and more on waiting times in the USA? It’s a question I plan to ask my doctor this Christmas. In French.

I hate these people.

Oh goody

COPENHAGEN — Marking the beginning of a second, more serious week of climate negotiations here, the United States Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced Monday that industrialized countries would spend $350 million over five years — including $85 million from the United States — to spread renewable and non-polluting energy technologies in developing countries.

...The plan announced by Mr. Chu was called the Renewables and Efficiency Deployment Initiative, formulated by an international energy partnership created under the Obama administration’s Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate Change. The forum brought together the handful of countries that are responsible for more than 85 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions in a series of meetings this year.

Officials said four main components to the plan included health and economic benefits by cutting the use of guttering kerosene lamps; a program to enhance labeling and standards for high-efficiency appliances; a Web-based exchange to coordinate the deployment of clean energy technologies by major economies; and support for the World Bank’s Strategic Climate Fund to boost and held finance national renewable energy projects.


Really? A whole $85 mil? Over 5 whole years? There are individual Wall Street traders who get receive almost that much in bonus each year. Heck, people win more than that in the state lotteries.

That works out to 1/5th of a cent for every Third World citizen spread out over a period of 5 years! Feel the pain.

Dan's War on the holiday, day II

Right out of the fashion capital of the Far East... Singapore(!)... is a wonderful stocking stuffer for your loved one: the boob scarf.

C'mon. You know you want one.



Cost USD$ 6.00 here.

And lest my Jewish (wannabe) friends feel left out (since it is actually their holiday right now and someone must be itching to take the plunge and become Hebrew).

Convert to Judaism spray!

On sale at Stupid.com

Destroying marriage...

It seems like straights are doing an excellent job of destroying marriage on their own. Why worry about teh gheys? AshleyMadison.com is a Toronto based website to help married people hook up with other people. Evidently it has 4.5 million users — 70 percent of them male (which I suspect is more than the gay hookup site "Manhunt".)



Life is short. So was this affair.

It took about a day for an infidelity-promoting ad to go from what philandering website AshleyMadison.com thought was a done deal to the dustbin of streetcar advertising when the Toronto Transit Commission rejected it Friday.

The Red Rocket is no place to encourage extramarital liaisons, the transit commission's advertising committee decided.

The eye-catching wraparound streetcar ad, with oversized white print on a mauve background, reads “Life is short. Have an affair.” It directs viewers to the company's website, whose featured package guarantees “an affair to remember” in three months or your $249 back.

Globe and Mail

This ad was also rejected by the Superbowl.

At the risk of being called prudish, I am glad a public agency rejected the ad. Some have argued that it just serves an already existing "need", but our tax dollars fund agencies like the TTC and they exist to serve the public good.

Delusions galore

File this under "ACORN stole the election". It's hard to believe that one still runs into right-wing types that insist that the Community Reinvestment Act caused the financial meltdown. None of it makes sense. The timing is way off. And the people I know who are affected by the collapse are not poor or minorities, but folks living in condo complexes in places like Miami where they can't keep the maintenance up because of so many foreclosures and resulting vacancies.

Talk to conservatives about the financial crisis and you enter an alternative, bizarro universe in which government bureaucrats, not greedy bankers, caused the meltdown. It’s a universe in which government-sponsored lending agencies triggered the crisis, even though private lenders actually made the vast majority of subprime loans. It’s a universe in which regulators coerced bankers into making loans to unqualified borrowers, even though only one of the top 25 subprime lenders was subject to the regulations in question.

Oh, and conservatives simply ignore the catastrophe in commercial real estate: in their universe the only bad loans were those made to poor people and members of minority groups, because bad loans to developers of shopping malls and office towers don’t fit the narrative.

New York Times

Still it speaks to some social dysfunction where we have competing versions of reality. How a country can tackle serious problems like the eroding middle class, failing schools, decaying infrastructure, much less peak oil, when a portion of the population exist in an alternate reality is beyond me. I also have no clue on how to bring these people back to this universe.

Dan's War on the holiday

Madpriest and Padre Mickey started it:

C'est noel au québec
Uploaded by lomgchamp. - Watch more music videos, in HD!

Doesn't that just make you want to slit your wrists?

Some meritocracy...

Another reason to break out the pitchforks. A New Economics Foundation study confirms what we all suspect. Underpaid hospital cleaners and childcare workers generate up to £10 in wealth for every £1 they are paid, while banking executives, who get millions in bonuses (for what exactly???) and advertising executives are the social leaches, actually destroying wealth.


Cleaners 'beat bankers in worth'

Hospital cleaners are worth more to society than bankers, a study suggests.

The research, carried out by think tank the New Economics Foundation, says hospital cleaners create £10 of value for every £1 they are paid.

It claims bankers are a drain on the country because of the damage they caused to the global economy.

They reportedly destroy £7 of value for every £1 they earn. Meanwhile, senior advertising executives are said to "create stress".

The study says they are responsible for campaigns which create dissatisfaction and misery, and encourage over-consumption.

And tax accountants damage the country by devising schemes to cut the amount of money available to the government, the research suggests.

By contrast, child minders and waste recyclers are also doing jobs that create net wealth to the country.

The Foundation has used a new form of job evaluation to calculate the total contribution various jobs make to society, including for the first time the impact on communities and environment.

Eilis Lawlor, spokeswoman for the New Economics Foundation, said: "Pay levels often don't reflect the true value that is being created. As a society, we need a pay structure which rewards those jobs that create most societal benefit rather than those that generate profits at the expense of society and the environment".

She said the aim of the research was not to target individuals in highly paid jobs, or suggest people in low paid jobs should earn more.

"The point we are making is more fundamental - that there should be a relationship between what we are paid and the value our work generates for society. We've found a way to calculate that," she said.

A total of six different jobs were analysed to assess their overall value. These are the study's main findings:

* The elite banker

"Rather than being wealth creators bankers are being handsomely rewarded for bringing the global financial system to the brink of collapse

Paid between £500,000 and £80m a year, leading bankers destroy £7 of value for every pound they generate".

* Childcare workers

"Both for families and society as a whole, looking after children could not be more important. As well as providing a valuable service for families, they release earnings potential by allowing parents to continue working. For every pound they are paid they generate up to £9.50 worth of benefits to society."

* Hospital cleaners

"Play a vital role in the workings of healthcare facilities. They not only clean hospitals and maintain hygiene standards but also contribute to wider health outcomes. For every pound paid, over £10 in social value is created."

* Advertising executives

The industry "encourages high spending and indebtedness. It can create insatiable aspirations, fuelling feelings of dissatisfaction, inadequacy and stress. For a salary of between £50,000 and £12m top advertising executives destroy £11 of value for every pound in value they generate".

* Tax accountants

"Every pound that a tax accountant saves a client is a pound which otherwise would have gone to HM Revenue. For a salary of between £75,000 and £200,000, tax accountants destroy £47 in value, for every pound they generate."

* Waste recycling workers

"Do a range of different jobs that relate to processing and preventing waste and promoting recycling. Carbon emissions are significantly reduced. There is also a value in reusing goods. For every pound of value spent on wages, £12 of value is generated for society."

The research also makes a variety of policy recommendations to align pay more closely with the value of work.

These include establishing a high pay commission, building social and environmental value into prices, and introducing more progressive taxation.


BBC Business News

Brrrr....

Record cold in Edmonton and the prairies... already. It's been a long time since I have experienced -60C wind chills.

Alberta shivers amid record lows


Edmonton has established a record it would probably rather forget.

The Alberta capital recorded the lowest temperature in North America overnight Saturday — and set a record as the lowest temperature on a Dec. 13 in the city's history — as the current deep freeze established records across the province.

"Edmonton International Airport was the coldest place in Canada," Peter Spyker, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said Sunday. "It was -46.1 [Celsius] without the wind chill. I believe at one point it got to -58 with the wind chill."

The previous record for Dec. 13 was -36.1 C, set in 2008.

A mechanical problem unrelated to the cold left about 6,000 homes without electricity for about an hour around noon on Edmonton's southeast side.

Several other cities in Alberta saw record lows, including Cold Lake, Grande Prairie and Whitecourt.

The brutal temperatures have also brought out the best in some Calgarians.

On Saturday, Calgary police duty Insp. Rob Williams was travelling on the northbound Macleod Trail near the 22X overpass when he spotted what appeared to be a large, multi-vehicle collision.

In fact, several cars had screeched to a halt when a tiny kitten, searching for a place to get out of the cold, had wandered onto the busy road, which has a 80 km/h speed limit.
Kitten seeks warmth

The scared kitten climbed up into the engine compartment of one of the stopped cars, Williams said in a news release, and several drivers tried to retrieve the kitten with no luck.

Working together after nearly 30 minutes in –25 C conditions, one man jacked up the front of the small car while another crawled underneath.

Williams pushed the kitten down through a tiny opening to the undercarriage where it was safely retrieved.

The owner has not been located, Williams said.

The expected low heading into Monday is a bone-chilling –33 C in Edmonton, with Calgary just behind at –31 C.

More seasonal temperatures are expected by the end of the week.

CBC News

Stay indoors, build a fire and grab a hot toddy.

Nothing but sex please, we’re vicars . . .

Sex, sex, sex. Do church leaders think of nothing else? Well, of course they do. One of the smaller injustices of our time is that, with the media dominated by a secular and often sneering agenda, almost nothing is written or broadcast about the Church as a force for social fairness, as a comfort to the lonely and counsellor to the distressed, as one of the institutions still binding local communities together, and as a catalyst and a channel for charitable gifts and deeds. It is all of those things, as even fair-minded atheists admit. Yet we rarely hear about it.

But whose fault is that? If the Church had appointed the well known City PR firm of Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer & Old Nick to handle its public image, it couldn’t have made a better job of bringing Christianity into disrepute than the clerics have managed by themselves. And all because they seem obsessed to the point of clinical neurosis about knowing (and making a huge fuss about) who’s doing what to whom in the bedroom.

The latest row — into which the Archbishop of Canterbury has stumbled like a blind man into a bog — is over the “lesbian bishop” elected by the American Episcopal Church (the equivalent of the Church of England). According to Ruth Gledhill, The Times’s reliable Religion Correspondent, this single appointment places the future of the entire Anglican Communion “in jeopardy”. Such is the froth of hysteria about sexuality in the upper echelons of the Church that this astonishing claim seems quite plausible.

I’m not a theologian. I may be overlooking something in the recorded sayings of Jesus Christ. But as far as I can recall, the founder of the Church said nothing whatsoever about sexuality — either his own or anyone else’s. We don’t know whether he was gay or straight; celibate, monogamous or promiscuous. Nor what he expected his followers to be — if he expected anything. Mercifully, perhaps, the gospel writers — compiling their chronicles 30 years or more after Christ’s death — lacked the ruthless digging skills and insatiable prurience of today’s biographers. Had Kitty Kelley rather than St Mark been around in 1st-century Judaea, the story might have been racier. But as things stand, there is no justification in the pronouncements of Christ for anyone in the Church to pontificate (I use the word advisedly) about harmless activities that go on in private between consenting adults — even if some of those adults are the Church’s own clerics.

What Christ did apparently say (and, as a soundbite, it’s as potent as anything from the silver tongue of Barack Obama) is: “Let him without sin cast the first stone”. Let’s recall the context. A bunch of zealots were about to stone to death a woman for adultery (they would pick on the woman, naturally). Christ was asked if he would approve this punishment, since it was laid down in the law of Moses. It was a trick question, of course. He neatly sidestepped it. Instead he turned the moral searchlight on the zealots. Such was the force of his argument, we are told, that the persecutors decided to slink off and leave the woman alone.

To me, that’s a clear indication of what Christianity should not be: spiteful and punitive, especially in the field of sex. That’s not a licence for licentiousness (after all, Christ told the woman to “go and sin no more” — quite a challenge!). But it does send a signal that the Church, and society at large, has no business prying into private lives, unless there are compelling signs (child abuse, domestic violence) that someone is being harmed.

Yet the impression gathered by the outside world is that prying into people’s sexuality, and discussing it endlessly, is what the Church’s leading lights do all day. Never mind their core business of saving souls. To judge from some of their public statements, it’s as if the evils of the modern world — genocidal wars, Third World exploitation, grinding poverty, abandoned children and old people — are minor issues compared to the vital matter of whether the new deputy bishop of Los Angeles cuddles her girlfriend at home.

That irritates me. The Church of England into which I was baptised, half a century ago, had many faults. But it was “a broad church”. Spoken or unspoken, its guiding tenet was that theology shouldn’t get in the way of decency and tolerance. It tried to accommodate people who varied hugely in spirituality and lifestyle. To that end it was unwilling — admirably unwilling — to issue Vatican-like diktats and proscriptions about doctrine or morals. If the phrase “live and let live” wasn’t actually written into its creed, it was certainly its modus vivendi. You didn’t judge the person sitting next to you in the pews. You embraced them (albeit in an embarrassed, British sort of way). Why? Because if Christians didn’t embrace each other, how on earth would they convince the rest of the world to do the same?

That tolerance seems to have vanished. The endless sex’n’gender slanging-match tearing the Church apart has revealed real hatred — to say nothing of appalling discourtesy and Machiavellian scheming — among the very people, the senior clerics, who should be setting an example.

They need to get a grip. Down in the grass roots there are thousands of priests and lay people — Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox and Nonconformist, some ebulliently evangelical, some staunchly High-Church — doing great work among the dispossessed and the distraught. If that were the image of unstinting service that the Church presented to the world — an image of an organisation galvanising the consciences and positive energies of the quarter of the globe’s population that professes to be Christian — it would be harder for the rest of humanity to dismiss it as pointless, perverse and prudish.

I can’t help wondering, as a humble churchgoer, why my spiritual mentors do get their garters in such a twist about sex. Whether it’s the Catholics insisting on priestly celibacy (in spite of the mountain of evidence demonstrating what ghastly perversions can grow out of such unnatural repression); or the hardline Anglican evangelicals determined to drive out homosexuals, rather as ancient communities drove out lepers; or the diehard misogynists fighting tooth and nail to stop the “monstrous regiment” of women from rising in the clerical ranks — one has to to ask: what exactly are the reactionaries afraid of? That their own intellectual inadequacies will be exposed, and their “God-given” authority diminished, by an influx of bright priests of different genders and sexual orientations? Or that, in a more inclusive, forward-looking church, they will be exposed as the bigots they are, rather than glorified as spiritual leaders?

The tragedy for the Church is that it is missing a huge opportunity. There are millions of young people out there who are disaffected from mainstream politics but equally dissatisfied with the mindless consumerism and callous selfishness of modern life. You can see that from the numbers flocking to espouse green causes, or to work for charities this Christmas. With so many youngsters thinking deeply about what’s right and wrong for the world, this should be a golden age for Christianity — the most revolutionary of religions. But while the Church renders itself a laughing-stock over sex, it hasn’t got a hope of converting the young. At the moment some leading clerics come across as befrocked weirdos with one-track minds. And I’m not talking about their belief in God.

Times of London

Diocese of LA elects first lesbian Bishop

Let the fireworks begin, though I remain hopeful that they will in no way be as poisonous as last time.

[Episcopal News Service] The 114th annual convention of the Diocese of Los Angeles made history for the second time in as many days on Dec. 5, electing an openly gay candidate, the Rev. Mary Douglas Glasspool, as bishop suffragan.

A day earlier, some 680 delegates attending "Faith and Our Future" at the Riverside Convention Center, elected the Rev. Canon Diane Jardine Bruce, 53, rector of St. Clements by-the-Sea Church in San Clemente, California, in the Los Angeles diocese, as their first woman bishop suffragan.

Glasspool, 55, canon to the bishops in the Baltimore-based Diocese of Maryland for the past eight years, was elected on the seventh ballot. She defeated the Rev. Irineo Martir Vasquez, a Los Angeles area priest, who received 87 votes in the clergy order and 177 lay votes.

Glasspool received 153 clergy votes and 203 votes from the laity. The ballot required 123 votes in the clergy order and 193 in the lay order. The results of all the ballots are available here. The Rev. Silvestre Romero, rector of St. Philip's Church in San Jose, California, withdrew after the fourth ballot.

After Bruce's Dec. 4 election, the field of candidates narrowed to five, with Glasspool leading Vasquez on the first two ballots. Another openly gay candidate, the Rev. John Kirkley, rector of St. John the Evangelist Church in San Francisco, withdrew after the third ballot.

Balloting for the second election, which had originally been scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 5, commenced instead on Dec. 4 shortly after Bruce was elected.

Prior to the second election, the Rev. Canon Julian Bull, headmaster of Campbell Hall and chair of the bishop's search committee, encouraged convention delegates via video presentation to elect a bishop suffragan from the remaining five candidates to complement a team ministry with Los Angeles diocesan Bishop Jon Bruno and Bruce.

"I'm very excited about the future of the whole Episcopal Church, and I see the Diocese of Los Angeles leading the way into that future," Glasspool said after the election. "But just for this moment, let me say again, thank you, and thanks be to our loving, surprising God.

"I look forward, in the coming months, to getting to know you all better, as together we build up the Body of Christ for the world," added Glasspool, who received a standing ovation by convention.

Glasspool initially greeted the gathering in Spanish and reached out to Vasquez and "to people of every ethnic group and category" as "we try to be God's kingdom on earth."

"This is my 56th Advent and I think I finally know the meaning of the word wait," Glasspool said, eliciting laughter from the gathering about the lengthy election process.

Glasspool is the second openly gay partnered priest to be elected bishop in the Episcopal Church. The first was Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, who was elected in 2003.

Reaction to the election was swift. The Rev. Canon Kendall Harmon, canon theologian from the Diocese of South Carolina, said Glasspool's election "represents an intransigent embrace of a pattern of life Christians throughout history and the world have rejected as against biblical teaching.

"It will add further to the Episcopal Church's incoherent witness and chaotic common life, and it will continue to do damage to the Anglican Communion and her relationship with our ecumenical partners."

Under the canons of the Episcopal Church (III.11.4(a)) that apply after all episcopal elections, a majority of bishops exercising jurisdiction and diocesan Standing Committees must consent to Glasspool's ordination within 120 days from the day after notice of her election is sent to them.

Bruno, responding to a question about whether Glasspool would received the required number of consents for her episcopacy to go forward, said: "If by chance people are going to withhold consents because of Mary's sexuality, it would be a violation of the canons of this church.

"At our last General Convention, we said we are nondiscriminatory. They just as well might have withheld their consents from me because I was a divorced man and in my case, it would have been more justified than someone withholding them from someone who has been approved through all levels of ministry and is a good and creative minister of the Gospel."

He added: "I would remind The Episcopal Church and the House of Bishops they need to be conscientious about respecting the canons of the church and the baptismal covenant to respect the dignity of every human being.

"To not consent in this country out of fear of the reaction elsewhere in the Anglican Communion is to capitulate to titular heads."

The Rev. Canon Dr. Charles K. Robertson, canon to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said: "This weekend witnesses the election of a new bishop diocesan in post-Katrina Louisiana and two bishops suffragan in Los Angeles. In each case, the voting representatives of the local diocese are making their decision trusting that God has called this person to be bishop. But this is only half the process, as bishops and Standing Committees throughout the Episcopal Church over the coming months will be asked through our consent process whether they confirm that God has indeed called this person to the office of bishop."

Glasspool's ordination and consecration is scheduled for May 15, 2010.

During her 28-year ordained ministry, Glasspool has served congregations in Maryland, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

While she was rector of St. Luke's and St. Margaret's Church in Boston (1992 to 2001), the small urban church's budget more than doubled from $44,000, and parish membership tripled from 50 to about 150. She also has served as program developer for the Massachusetts Bible Society.

A 2006 Harvard Divinity School Merrill Fellow, Glasspool said that in her current role she provides pastoral care to clergy and their families and makes officials visits on behalf of Maryland's bishops.

She is a 1976 magna cum laude graduate of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and earned a master of divinity degree in 1981 from the Episcopal Divinity School, where she has returned to lecture in pastoral theology. She is also a certified field education supervisor, a Cursillo Spiritual Director and has designed and facilitated spiritual retreats for more than 20 years.

Ordained to the diaconate in 1981 and the priesthood in 1982, Glasspool has been active at local, provincial and national church levels. She has served as a three-time General Convention deputy, a Province III representative and as president of the diocesan standing committee.

The daughter of a priest, Glasspool was one of two openly gay candidates on the Los Angeles slate but maintained that her sexual orientation was "not an issue" in the election.

She was born on Staten Island and grew up in Goshen, New York, where her father served as rector of St. James' Church for 35 years. Her life partner of 19 years is Becki Sander, who holds degrees in theology and social work.

Bruno said that Glasspool has for years in effect fulfilled the responsibilities of a suffragan bishop in her role as canon to the bishops in the Baltimore-based Diocese of Maryland.

He said he is looking forward to working with Glasspool because of "her congeniality and willingness to work together to bring us to a place of abundance."

"She's not afraid of conflict and is a reconciler." He added that Glasspool and her partner are an example of loving service and ministry.

The Diocese of Maryland represents about 45,000 Episcopalians in 117 congregations and encompasses parts of Appalachia as well as Howard County, the fourth wealthiest county in the nation.

In written statements, Glasspool had said gifts she hoped to bring to the new ministry included: "a profound love of people; a willingness to learn new things; an appreciation of others' gifts and skills; the broad and deep experience of 28 years of ordained ministry; the "fresh" eyes of an 'Easterner'; and the energy and enthusiasm that seem to come from the new things that God is always doing."

Bruno had called for the elections at the diocese's 2008 convention, when announcing the 2010 retirements of Bishop Suffragan Chester Talton and Bishop Assistant Sergio Carranza, after 19 and seven years service, respectively, to the diocese.

Talton was elected bishop suffragan by the Diocese in 1990 and began ministry in 1991. Carranza, the retired Bishop of the Diocese of Mexico, was appointed bishop assistant by Bruno and began ministry in Los Angeles in 2003.

With 70,000 members in 148 congregations, the Diocese of Los Angeles includes all of Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, and part of Riverside County.

The Diocese of Los Angeles is one of 110 dioceses that form the Episcopal Church, located in 16 nations and territories and part of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
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