Update on the Ground Zero Church

Last month, I wrote a post on Saint Nicholas Church, the Greek Orthodox church by the World Trade Center destroyed by the September 11th attacks. I wrote how the agreement between the Port Authority and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese collapsed in acrimony and lawsuits, and was swept up into the ugly demagoguery surrounding the so-called Ground Zero mosque.

Today, the church and the Port Authority came to a settlement apparently satisfactory to all parties. Apparently the original proposal for a new church three times larger than the old one at a new location in the WTC site is the plan that will be built.

"Postponed"

The Mayor, and Brookfield Properties which owns Zuccotti Park, postponed their planned "cleaning" of the park today. This was announced just a few minutes ago. There will be no police confrontation, at least for now. Brookfield announced plans to work with the protesters to clean the park.


(Big sigh of temporary relief)

God and Mammon

Skip John 3:16 and go read Mathew 6:24. As for "every one for themselves" capitalism, go read Acts 4:32 - 35. For a better world read Isaiah 65:17-25.

When Jesus met the Masters of the Universe of His day, he took out a bullwhip.

etching by Rembrandt

It should be an exciting day tomorrow. Our plutocrat Mayor will try to evict Occupy Wall Street at 7AM from Liberty Plaza.

Keeping Faith With Currency

Paige Baker on Facebook told how a professor of hers held up a dollar bill before his students and asked, "What do you see?" "Money, a dollar" they all replied. "No," replied the professor, "you see a piece of paper with a picture of a dead president on it."

I wonder what would happen to the very idea of currency if some vein was struck in the earth, or some rich asteroid was found that made gold as abundant as tin foil? It seems to me that all currencies are acts of faith whether they are Federal Reserve Notes or gold coins. The value we attribute to currency is ultimately arbitrary.

One of my favorite pieces of blasphemy was a very clever academic comparing a dollar bill to the Eucharistic Host. Each in and of themselves is worthless, a piece of paper, a flavorless cracker. What made each of them valuable, he said, was what they could be exchanged for; goods and services for one, salvation for the other. The dollar could be "transformed" by faith just as surely as the wafer could be turned into Jesus.

I Luv Rushbo

That comment means a lot coming from a fat drug addict on his 4th marriage.

Hat tip to JoeMyGod as usual.

Frank Kameny 1925 - 2011

The modern gay rights movement had several mothers and fathers, and one of the bravest and boldest was Frank Kameny who died yesterday at age 86. He was a WWII combat veteran and an astronomer employed by the government mapping office in the 1950s. He was dismissed from his job in 1957 during the purges of homosexuals. He was the only one out of thousands who challenged his dismissal. He founded the Washington DC chapter of the Mattachine Society, and made it into one of the society's most militant chapters. Together with Harry Hay in the early 1960s, he held the once very controversial view that there was nothing inherently wrong with homosexuality ("Gay is Good," a phrase he coined), a view not shared by most gay men and lesbians of the time. Kameny played a large role in what he called the "mass cure" in 1973 when the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of pathologies.
In later life, he played a major role in removing homosexuality as a disqualification for government service, and in 2009, received a formal government apology for his own dismissal in 1957. He was also active in the campaign to abolish DADT (Don't Ask Don't Tell), the last military policy aimed at banning gay men and women from service.

Thanks for everything Frank, and rest in peace.

The 53%

This new conservative counter-movement I think is testimony to the success of Occupy Wall Street. The OWS hippies are doing what the Democratic leadership (including the White House) couldn't and wouldn't do, seize the initiative and set the terms of the public debate, instead of reacting to Republican initiatives and debating on Republican terms.

The "53%" are those who pay federal income taxes as opposed to the 46% who don't. This assumes that the other 46% are simply freeloaders. My friend Doug Hayes over on Facebook points out that this is really an embarrassing admission by the right, that 46% of the population doesn't earn enough to pay federal income tax, and as we all know, that income threshold is a very low one (about $17,000 for a married couple filing jointly in 2011). That means that 46% of the population earns a pittance that does not even pay the bills.

The Dems are too inept and compromised to point this out, but I'm sure legions of others already have and will do so promptly.

The Establishment punditocracy wrings its hands over the trouble the Democratic Party leadership will have with an insurgency from its base. Good. I hope so.

The insurgencies from the right and left that both parties now face point to a major corrosive effect of concentrated money on democracy: elected representatives are no longer accountable or responsive to the people who elected them. In our system of legalized corruption, those who can donate huge sums of money to buy broadcast time and professional sales campaigns will always have the ear of elected representatives. Policy will always be shaped with the next extremely expensive election campaign in mind.







And for those of you who haven't seen it yet, Alan Grayson shuts down PJ O'Rourke and makes a clarion call: