quackquack

In 17 months in office, President Obama has already outdone every previous president in pursuing leak prosecutions. His administration has taken actions that might have provoked sharp political criticism for his predecessor, George W. Bush, who was often in public fights with the press.

Ephphatha Poetry: “Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black” - Tim Wise via Seekinginthezeitgeist

A more complicated scandal that reverses some of the standard good guy/bad guy assumptions.

Clergy sexual abuse is taking place across the theological spectrum. Yes, there was a spike in abuse of children, but especially teen-aged boys, soon after Vatican II and that may have had something to do with the fact that many priests left to get married, contributing to the creation of what insiders have called a gay subculture in seminaries. And, yes, the whole liberated atmosphere of the ’60s and ’70s may have played a role. But those realities hid the larger truth, he said. There were conservative Catholics with dark secrets to hide and they were especially open to blackmail threats. There was also an incentive to enthusiastically preach conservatism, in an era of conservative leaders, while living a secret life that contradicted one’s sermons.

I have come to the conclusion that it is also a political act to come out openly as a supporter of people who are LGBT. As I have begun talking to folks in my own meeting and beyond about my concern that LGBT folks need to be accepted as co-equals, the vast majority of folks have nodded, and explained that they had already quietly come to that conclusion themselves. On the one hand, this has been very reassuring. On the other hand, it has been a little troubling.

The missing joy factor is one of the reasons I am finding it hard to go to… [my] Quaker Meeting. I’m so hungry for joy these days, and we seem so hung up on the problems of the world, and seem to conceive of God mostly as a personal problemsolver or some sort of life coach who helps us with our attitude. I long to be with people who trust that God is working all things together for good, yes, that God works even after earthquakes and wars and heals people and transforms our hearts! I long to celebrate that even in the deepest, darkest places, God brings hope of better things to come.

micahbales:

This video pretty much says it all about the first year of Obama’s term.

From the blogger:

I want to reengage with my readers and with contemporary issues with a new series of posts on Jesus’ politics and, specifically, on the politics behind his words and actions in the last week of his prophetic ministry. By ‘politics’ I mean, in general, the relationships a person or a movement or community has with the institutions of power in their culture and with the people who wield that power.

If you look back at relatively recent history, almost no one will cop to have supporting a since-disgraced position. Few will admit to opposing the Civil Rights Act, for example, and did anyone vote for Nixon? But twenty years from now, internet searches will almost certainly include our 2010 status updates and tweets. Teabagging rants will be like digital tattoos that never go away. I kind of like that. So keep it up, everyone, tell us all about Obamacare. It’ll all give us a chuckle in 2030.

Politician known for stance against gay-marriage announces he’s gay after being arrested for drunk driving outside a gay bar. Trying to explain the seeming-inconsistency of the voting record is Wayne Besen of truthwinsout.org:

“It’s a perfect mask for someone who’s trying to stay in the closet,” said Besen in a telephone interview. “They hope that people will think that they’re heterosexual. It’s quite common; we’ve seen it over and over again. … They’re already living a lie and this takes it to a new level.”

He added, “They’re willing to harm themselves to protect an image of who they’re not. It shows how extreme and harmful that homophobia is. The closet will force people to make decisions that will harm their own lives.”

An interesting interview with Quaker activist George Lakey:

One that weighed heavily with me was a sense of demoralization that came out of the ‘60s. Many felt it was all over and we’d failed. So how do you start something new in a largely demoralized bunch of activists? We needed confidence building measures. We needed to know that we could do something now, as well as project a vision and a strategy. Another impulse was making a living. We didn’t picture being a fundraising organization with that subsidizing the activists. Activists had to provide their own income. But, by living communally, the costs go way down. So some people said, “We love the idea of printing, so how about we start a collective print shop?” And that was employment for a lot of people. And a couple other people said, “The cheaper we can get quality food, the better, so let’s start a co-op.” Cheap food, that’s great, and livelihood for the people who’d be managers. So we had a chance to create something and make it work and provide some benefit to the neighborhood. So I think several agendas came together around prefigurative politics.

I wrote about MNS back in April and was involved in a lot of the second-generation post-MNS culture (publishing house, food coop). My interest in this is partially preparation for the New Monastics and Convergent Friends workshop C Wess Daniels and I are going to lead at Pendle Hill this May.

A good article in Business Week on how Google runs a meeting. Takeaways: minimize office politics, don’t run on feelings (“I like”) and take official notes in real-time.

In a shop like Google, much of the work takes place in meetings, and her goal is to make sure teams have a firm mandate, strategic direction, and actionable information, while making participants feel motivated and respected.

In light of some recent political violence in Russia:

Kelly wants neither the escapism of other-worldly piety nor the obsession with here-and-now effectiveness of church-as-social-agency. It is the constant awareness (fading inevitably from foreground to background, and back again) of Divine Presence that gives us both endurance and perspective. As I contemplate how life is not a chess game where we have unlimited time to construct a perfect strategy, it’s a great comfort to me to consider that my only real task at any given moment is to remain in that Presence.

The question of whether it is ever right for Friends to support (or appear to support) one side over another in a conflict is not new. There is a difference between conscientious neutrality,…

Friends are now at a crisis… We can conform to political culture… liberal Friends siding more and more with the democrats, Orthodox/evangelical more and more with the republican Religious right. We…

Yes, it’s coated in a kind of diplomatic double-speak, but listen to it:

“Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near term (next 12 months) — while Afghan security capacity matures — risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible,” General McChrystal writes.

This is an eight year war and the US’s top general is saying he doesn’t think the other side can be defeated without an emergency influx of more troops.