Disaster Area

It's Adopt-A-Cat Time

Over the past few months I've come to the conclusion that I just can't handle three cats. In addition to just routine care, it's extremely difficult to give them the attention they all crave. As the last to arrive, and the most demanding in terms of attention, Cleo is the most obvious choice for relocation (or the witness protection program).

So here's the ad...

http://www.pet-classifieds.com/pet11270204.htm

Just in case you've forgotten how cute she is, here's a taste:

Hypocrisy and Just Desserts

If I were to write about it, I'd hardly be the first person to remark on the Eliot Spitzer scandal. It's just such a nice round story, though. The Mr. Clean crusader who swooped through the finance markets turns out to have spent in the neighborhood of $80,000 on high priced call girls. Little wonder his exposure was greeted with cheers on Wall Street. One could perhaps feel sorry for him in other circumstances, but those who play holier-than-thou have basically set themselves up to be judged by higher standards than mere mortals. And don't even get me started on Dr. (not really) Laura Schlessinger who, on NBC's Today Show, managed to actually blame Spitzer's wife for not taking care of her man's needs. More specifically:

"It's interesting. what you said about what men need -- men do need validation. When they come into the world they're born of a woman. Getting the validation from mommy is the beginning of needing it from a woman. When the wife does not focus in on the needs and the feelings sexually, personally, to make him feel like a man, to make him feel like a success, to make him feel like our hero, he's very susceptible to the charm of some other woman making him feel what he needs. These days, women don't spend a lot of time thinking about how they can give their men what they need."

"Susceptible to the charm of some other woman"? She was a $5,000 an hour call girl, Dr. Laura - are you some kind of moron? Oh wait, you don't have a book due out this week, do you? You do? Oh, quelle surprise! Of course, Dr. Laura ripped this off directly from Mark Driscoll, who used this defense on behalf of Ted Haggard, whose wife was thrown unceremoniously under the bus too.

Speaking of holier-than-thou, it doesn't get any more so than at the Vatican, where the seven deadly sins have been revised to include accumulating obscene wealth - something the Vatican has more experience with than any body on the earth, so I guess they know whereof they speak. I'm guessing Archbishop Gianfranco Girotti, the Vatican's number two man in "sins and penance", probably signed the order with a solid gold fountain pen, and the irony would be completely lost on him. Far too many people have made hay with that, too, so I hardly feel original here.

There's another heaping portion of hypocrisy lying around waiting to be stepped in in the good old Church of England. There's the case of the Bishop of Horsham, who is apparently just another good ol' (sort of) closeted gay Anglo-Catholic bishop who just loves to support our ever so lovely gay bashing so-called Anglican renegades from the Episcopal Church. Now, even this wouldn't be so bad, if it wasn't for the fact that the Bishop of Horsham is still welcome to fulfill all of his episcopal duties without hindrance. He will also be off to Lambeth without a care in the world, and with the full blessing of the Archbishop of Canterbury - unlike a certain Bishop of New Hampshire. "Don't ask, don't tell" was a stupid policy when the US military adopted it, and it remains a stupid, hypocritical policy today, but apparently it's still alive and well in the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion.

All of which just makes it sadder to see a series of posts from Maggi Dawn about a very nice visit to Cambridge a couple of weeks ago by the Archbishops of York and Canterbury. It's nice to see the personal and human side of public figures, espoecially ion the wake of Rowan's Sharia Law Escapade (now there's an idea for a TV show...). However, at some point the Archbishop of Canterbury surely has to realize he can't appease Rome, and the rabid conservatives in the Anglican Communion, and move the church into the 21st (dare I even say the 20th) century.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - it took a woman in Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts-Schori to begin dismantling the old boys network here in the Episcopal Church, and it will probably take a woman to do it in the Church of England, except... fat chance of even getting a female bishop there within the next ten years or so and maybe fifty before we see a female Archbishop of Canterbury.

Strangely enough, hypocrisy isn't one of the seven deadly sins, and it's also one the Vatican managed to miss the second time around. Maybe it's because they don't have mirrors there...

International Women's Day - Hurrah!

It’s been a busy couple of weeks, what with the work trip to the UK a couple of weeks ago and then last week being occupied mostly by a not so fun medical procedure (nothing serious, and maybe more later - oh wait, no, sorry, I promised a friend I wouldn't - never mind).

The important event this past weekend was International Women’s Day on Saturday March 8. I’m not a big fan of special days or weeks or months for things (The International Day for Three-Legged Blind Dachshunds being a case in point), but this one is important.

In my opinion, the two most important Millennium Development Goals are Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women and Improve Maternal Health. The evidence from around the world shows that educating women has the largest positive effect on societal development. The effect is particularly evident in reproductive health, where sex education, and in particular birth control, always results in women having fewer babies, thereby stabilizing entire communities. Getting off the constant pregnancy/birth treadmill does wonders for not just the health of the women but the communities they live in, too. It's no big secret that the most godforsaken places on earth feature the highest birth rates and highest infant and maternal mortality rates.

Marking International Women’s Day, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour had this (among other things) to say:

“Many States appear to have simply ignored the commitments they have made. It is shameful that, in the 60th anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, fundamental rights are still not enjoyed by many women around the world.”

The leveling of the playing field needs to continue everywhere. Even in the enlightened West there is still a long way to go before women get a decent hold on what might be called equality. It’s a crying shame that one of the last bastions of male privilege remains "the church". Replace “States” with “Churches” in the previous quoted paragraph and you still wouldn’t be far wrong.

Kathy Escobar, a contributor to the Emerging Women blog, has a really great post about women finding their voice in the Emergent “conversation”. It’s apparently still a bit like trying to order two pints of lager and a packet of crisps in a crowded British pub where the barman doesn’t know you, but still, you have to start somewhere. In particular, she highlights these thoughts, and expands on them very well:

• The only way this (restoration and reconciliation in the church) can begin to happen is if power (aka: leadership, voice, value) begins to shift.
• Those without power need to begin to step into it.
• Power is not finite. If someone gives up power, it doesn’t mean that there’s now less power in the room. It actually means that there’s more power in the room.
• Don’t underestimate how much tending and nurturing this shift is going to take.

Number three strikes me as particularly important, because to too many people in power, power sharing is seen as a zero sum game, when in fact it isn’t. Acknowledging other smart people doesn’t make you less smart. It may make you feel less superior, but shouldn’t that be a good thing?

Well, it may be a day or two late, here’s to women the world round. You deserve more than a lousy single day anyway.

Still Alive and Kicking...

Wow, a whole week without posting. It must be this almost week-long business trip to England that's cut into my blogging time.

Oh well, home soon , when normal random commeting and ranting will resume (especially if I get stuck behind annoying drivers on the way back to Heathrow and/or home from Seatac tomorrow).

Movies and Gender Roles

I just got back from staffing a diocesan youth weekend here in Seattle (appearances by both bishops - yay!). The theme was "Now Playing", basically a movie-themed weekend. I thought a fun game would be "guess the movie" based on a synopsis, a good review and a bad review - with any obvious details removed, of course. Well known movies only, of course.

I got my info from Amazon, as the bad reviews especially are easy to pick out with just a mouse click. One really interesting one star review was this one - see if you can guess the movie:

There's no way to put a good spin on this bad plot. The little meek heroine gives up her voice to get the man. Not too subtle, is it? The interesting woman in the movie is the smart, intelligent, proactive and powerful woman. Why can't they offer women role models who are powerful, smart and good? Powerful women are scary so they must be evil and seek to harm and diminish and denigrate other women. So much for sisterhood. It's very disappointing that in the 21st Century, we're still peddling this extremely negative message to little girls. And what must the heroine give up in order to have her man? Let's see...her voice, her talent, her home, her dreams, but alas, it's all worth it. Or so we're led to believe. Yuck. I am profoundly disappointed that these type of movies are still popular amongst parents and children alike.

At first I was taken aback, but quite quickly I was taken with how accurate the review was. Any guesses as to which movie it is? Answer after the jump...

Sir Edmund, RIP

Sadly, Sir Edmund Hillary passed away yesterday. The very tenuous connection to this household is that my cat Hillary is named after Sir Edmund because she has to climb on top of everything.

2007: A Summary

Each year I like to write a Christmas letter to include with Christmas cards. Some people hate them, but usually because they contain stories of how every member of the family saved nineteen kids from drowning, or solved world hunger, or mediated peace in the Middle East or some such overblown nonsense. If they contain just a simple little factual summary of the year it's nice to be able to send it along to friends and relatives who might not get to hear all the details otherwise. I wrote one this year a few weeks ago and, as you can imagine, it didn't have quite the upbeat spin of most years. In the end I only put a copy in one Christmas card I sent (out of about forty) because, to be honest, everyone I know already knew the details. So do any of you regular readers.

However, having written it, I thought I'd post it, if for no other reason than to summarize 2007 in as small a nutshell as I can. So here it is:

Welcome to 2008

Here in Seattle the big fireworks display at the Space Needle went down in flames for some reason, as a computer glitch caused several long pauses in the firing sequence. In the end, the display looked ragged anyway, more like a random air attack on Seattle rather than a well designed display.

Well, regardless of that, have a safe holiday and I wish you all a happy new year.

Merry Christmas

Because it's, well, Christmas.

May you be blessed this season.

Away for a week

I'll be gone for a week. I'll have internet access, but may not blog much. You know, sort of like real life, with too much to do to have spare time for blogging (much like the last four days,t o be honest). Well, hopefully. Fortunately, you all have stuff to do this coming week, I'm sure.

I would just like to take this opportunity to thank all of you out there for your love, prayers and support. You cannot imagine how important they have been to me the past few months. I realize I am very fortunate to have great friends here where I live and work and great friends far and wide across the globe.

In the immortal words of Bill and Ted, "Be excellent to each other".