Right there, in the middle of piles of fried chicken and biscuits, campers broke out in song, complete with choreography. Suffice it to say it’s simple enough and cumulative in its themes so that pretty much anyone can get the idea within a verse or two.
We keep talking about the changing face of church and how ministry is going to look different going forward; what if this is it? Not that I expect this is “the” model for how to do church from here forward, but there’s something to this “flash mob” concept, breaking out spontaneously into something that draws others in, right here, right now, where we are.
But we might get weird looks. We might even get in trouble.
New results from the National Oceanic Atmosphere Administration show that July 2012 was the hottest summer on record for the United States, since accurate record keeping began in 1895. With an average temperature of 77.6 degrees Fahrenheit, last month's heat wave surpassed July 1936 (which recorded an average of 77.4) to become the steamiest summer around.
In a report on NBC, NOAA climate scientist Jake Crouch explains:
"These events are kind of what we'd expect with climate change, we'd expect expanding drought, we'd expect warm, record breaking temperatures… But it's kind of hard to pinpoint this month or past several months as a telltale sign that climate change is happening. The drought is more of a local factor and isn't necessarily driven by large scale climate change, but is impacting local temperatures. But we've also seen an increase in U.S. temperatures overall."
Last month, Rolling Stone magazine featured Bill McKibben's latest plea for climate sanity on its cover. And despite every pundit's whining proclamation that climate change is such a buzz-kill, Bill's article got forwarded, commented, tweeted, and otherwise pushed around the Internet more than anything else RS has put out lately.
So somebody out there is paying attention to climate change — even if the elites can't seem to grow a spine about it.
What I liked about Bill's article was that he lays out a clear, 3-pronged strategy for really doing something about climate change while there's still time.
If we do these three things, there's a possibility that we can reverse climate change, restore health to our skies, earth, and oceans, and move forward into a future where our grandkids can not just survive, but thrive.
Here's the plan.
The Deseret News (Salt Lake City) published a thoughtful editorial this week raising some of the questions that need to be asked about drones. After citing the statistics on drone strikes and deaths over the last number of years, the editorial continues:
“This raises ethical questions about the way drones are changing modern warfare. As with nuclear weapons, which likewise changed war and its moral calculus, they prompt the question: Just because we can do something, does it mean we should?
Drones enable a warfare of focused assassinations. This strategy risks fewer American lives and is relatively easy to execute from a distance. But should risk and convenience drive the way we think about targeted killings? Do we have a clear sense of whether or when they cross a moral line? Who in our military hierarchy decides who lives and who dies, and what criteria do they use?
For a country that stands for the idea that justice should be decided fairly in courts of law rather than through contests of might, is there a line between justified killings and war crimes? How does our moral framework account for the hundreds of innocent civilians, including women and children, chalked up to collateral damage? …
The country may well come down on the side of drone strikes as a new keystone of national security. But it should do so as the result of a full discussion of the facts and a careful shaping of policies. This discussion has not yet happened. It needs to.”
God, bring your peace and calmness to the ends of the earth: to Syria where war still rages, to the Philippines as flood waters wreak havoc, and to every space where we, sinners, desperately need your grace. Amen.
"The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold and my refuge, my savior; you save me from violence." - 2 Samuel 22:2-3
"I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder." - G.K. Chesterton
The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International is holding a convention this week in Las Vegas, with an expected 8,000 attendees, 500 exhibitors, and representatives from 40 countries. The Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith writes this morning that on Sunday, Franciscan Father Louis Vitale and CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin were informed their attendance was not desired as they were attempting to secure convention credentials. Smith explains:
“For Vitale, who served in the Air Force before joining the Franciscans, the advanced technology hasn't translated into cleaner combat. The much-touted precision of the drone aircraft has kept American military out of harm's way, but it hasn't eliminated the high price of civilian casualties in the war zones.
To many, this is part of the price paid to defeat a treacherous enemy and maintain our national security. To Vitale, Benjamin and their colleagues, it's too great a price. And then he asks, "What is the impact on the people, what is the impact on our own people?"
The priest believes the incidents of predator operators suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder will be epidemic. His own experiences are anecdotal, he admits, but his conversations with British and U.S. military drone operators have been deeply troubling. Those onboard cameras not only spot suspected enemy targets, he notes, but they also reveal the damage wrought in unprecedented detail.”
From The Los Angeles Times:
Escalating violence in Syria has shut down pharmaceutical plants, piling another worry onto the woes facing the Syrian people: Severe shortages of medicine.
The World Health Organization warned Tuesday that growing clashes between forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and opposition fighters around the cities of Damascus, the capital, and Aleppo have damaged and closed many of the local plants that make the vast majority of medicines. The country produces most of its own pharmaceuticals.
Drugs to treat tuberculosis, hepatitis, diabetes and other maladies are urgently needed, along with chemical reagents to screen blood before it can be used for infusions for trauma and surgery patients, according to reports received by the United Nations agency.
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Writing for Salon, Adam Lee argues:
Despite their shared belief in God, the religious left actually has less in common with the religious right than it does with progressive, nonreligious Americans. But by choosing to play up the importance of religion and religious language, the liberal churches undermined their natural allies outside the pews, while strengthening those who insisted most loudly and most vehemently that society should be run according to the dictates of the Bible. This strategic blunder has guaranteed the relative isolation and diminished influence of the Christian left in the face of a rising tide of religious conservatism.
Read more here