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Behold this your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed

"Almighty God, we pray you graciously to behold this your family, for whom our Lord Jesus Christ was willing to be betrayed, and given into the hands of sinners, and to suffer death upon the cross; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen." - The Book of Common Prayer (1979), The Episcopal Church.

A radical definition of family for a radical definition of sacrifice.

An atheist friend of mine always attends Good Friday services at his local Episcopal Church, the one time each year he crosses the threshold of a house of worship. Once, I asked him why. "Because the f#$*ing bastards killed Christ." The resurrection he rejects in its literal sense. But, there is for him still the crucifixion, which he recognizes as a distressingly human event, and deeply political, and very significant: the enormity of the betrayal, the abuse of might against right, the exploitation of the mob by cynical figures of authority, the baying for blood, the rejection of meekness, the will to power against a new order offered by an unlooked-for messenger, the process of positive change through sacrifice, the despair that may later be revealed as the tragic beginning of a new dispensation, if not a metaphysical dispensation, then a new way of doing things, a new way of being. First the money-changers' tables were overturned. And now this. This! There is violence in the story, and it is not for the faint of heart.

Photo: St. Mark's Church (Episcopal), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, Good Friday, 2013.

Plaque with the Crucifixion and the Defeat of Hades, mid-10th century Byzantine; probably made in Constantinople.
Ivory 5 x 3 1/2 in. (12.7 x 8.9 cm)
Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917 (17.190.44)

Click to view an enlarged version.

More here.

Hat-tip to Medievalists.net.

We Found Our Son in the Subway - NYTimes.com

The story spread like an urban myth: You’re never going to believe what my friend’s cousin’s co-worker found in the subway. What neither of us knew, or could have predicted, was that Danny had not just saved an abandoned infant; he had found our son.

via opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com

Hat-tip to MUG.

While we're on the subject of family:

BRIEF FOR POLITICAL SCIENCE PROFESSORS AS AMICI CURIAE IN SUPPORT
OF RESPONDENTS IN THE
DENNIS HOLLINGSWORTH, ET AL.,
Petitioners,
v.
KRISTIN M. PERRY, ET AL.,
Respondents.

and

AMICI CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF RESPONDENT WINDSOR in IN THE
UNITED STATES,
Petitioner,
v.
EDITH SCHLAIN WINDSOR, IN HER CAPACITY AS EXECUTOR OF
THE ESTATE OF THEA CLARA SPYER, ET AL.,
Respondents.

 

Kathleen Wynne - first woman to lead Ontario & Canada's first openly gay provincial premier

In Canada, the Liberal Party elected its new leader on January 26, 2013, replacing Dalton McGuinty--who announced back in October that he would be resigning--with Kathleen Wynne, a Cabinet minister and member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, representing the riding of Don Valley West. 

The Premier-designate of Ontario will be be appointed premier by Lieutenant Governor David Onley on February 11, 2013. She will be both the first woman to lead Ontario and the first openly gay provincial premier in Canada's history.

"On top, for now", The Economist:

When Ms Wynne, a former federal cabinet minister, takes over in Ontario, she will head a minority government at a difficult time. She must grapple with a budget deficit forecast at C$11.9 billion ($11.9 billion) this year, while finding a way to satisfy teachers and civil servants angry at Mr McGuinty’s austerity measures.
.....
Ms Wynne echoed other women premiers when she spoke of finding a new way to do politics, seeking common ground and free from “rancour and viciousness”. But sisterly spirit has not been much in evidence in the spat between Alberta and British Columbia over building the Northern Gateway oil pipeline; nor in the dispute between Ms Marois in Quebec and Kathy Dunderdale of Newfoundland & Labrador over a hydroelectric project on the Churchill River.

Belfast Council's wrong decision about the Union Jack

Violent protests in Northern Ireland continue for the 40th day following Belfast City Council's unbelievably ill-considered decision to not regularly fly the Union Jack (also known as the Union Flag--contrary to popular belief, both terms are acceptable and interchangeable).

Belfast City Council lacks the authority to make such a decision in the first place, and had they kept that in mind, the violence could have been averted. They rushed to the short-term, impulsive view--however arguably well-intentioned it was--instead of beginning their thinking with fundamental concepts: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a nation-state and, as its name denotes, includes North Ireland and, as the name denotes, is a monarchy--in this case, a British-style one, which means bound by constitutional laws and precedents.

The violent consequences of the decision belie the value that presumably the council placed on their own supposed wisdom. They ought to have appealed to the Crown to not fly the flag daily, and permission would almost certainly have been granted because neither the Crown nor Her Majesty's Government want trouble in Northern Ireland, and both respect the fact that uncompromising decisions inflame public opinion there. At that point, Loyalist violent protest almost certainly would have been completely headed off. Yes, there would have been Loyalist grumbling (and I think rightly so), but Loyalists could hardly vociferously protest a decision approved by the Crown itself.

It's called the rule of law, and it's where diplomacy ought to start, and decisions about state and national symbols in conflict-torn areas are matters of diplomacy. If you don't like the law, seek to change it--at least at first--but don't just pretend rule of law doesn't exist. The Belfast council no more had the right to make this decision than the council of New York City has the right to decide how the flag of the United States of America is or is not flown somewhere in New York City.

The council should publicly acknowledge its mistake, appeal to the Crown, and the Crown should grant the request as made.

America's problem with gun ownership. BBC Radio 4 - Letter from America by Alistair Cooke (1993 broadcast)

A 14-minute rebroadcast version of the 1993 gun ownership program from Alistair Cooke's Letter from America BBC series, which ran for 58 years (2,869 installments), the longest-running speech radio show in history. "Does a multiple murder on a Long Island train prove that America has a problem with guns?" This program is available through December 29, 2012.

The problem of US gun ownership, and why the American constitution doesn't actually guarantee a right to bear arms, as examined by broadcaster and journalist Alistair Cooke in 1993.

Paddy O'Connell introduces a shortened archive edition of Letter from America first broadcast 19 years ago on 29 October 1993.

In this edition, Alistair Cooke took the American nation's temperature on gun control in the midst of that early-90s panic, as Congress was about to pass the Brady Act in 1993, after more than a decade of lobbying by Jim Brady, President Reagan's former press secretary, shot with the President in an assassination attempt in 1981.

Alistair Cooke's talks on American life, history and politics - Letter from America - were broadcast weekly on BBC Radio from 1946 -2004. Over 920 archive editions are available to listen or download for free on the Radio 4 website.

Presenter: Alistair Cooke
Introduced by: Paddy O'Connel
Archive producer: Zillah Watson.

via www.bbc.co.uk

Margin of victory

The Economist looks at the remaking of the president:

Mr Romney won the white vote by 59% to 39%—an improvement over John McCain’s showing in 2008. But in Midwestern swing states, that margin was narrower: just four points in Wisconsin, for example, and 15 in Ohio.
.....
Over the course of his presidency, [Obama] has pointedly unveiled policies designed to appeal to each element of this coalition.
.....
Perhaps the best illustration of Mr Obama’s campaign-by-niches is his wooing of gay voters. The 5% of voters who identified themselves as gay in exit polls opted for Mr Obama by 76% to 22%—enough to account for his entire margin of victory.

via www.gorevidalpages.com

Image.

Treasury to Cut A.I.G. Stake Below 50%...and expected to make a profit

So, temporary and emergency nationalization of AIG will end up making a profit for the taxpayer. Too bad so many banking professionals who helped get the world in this mess got away scot-free. Enough golden parachutes were handed out for an airborne division.

The Treasury Department said on Sunday that it was planning its biggest sale of shares in the American International Group (A.I.G.) to date, making the federal government a minority shareholder in the bailed-out insurer for the first time since it took control of the company four years ago.

With the sale of at least $18 billion worth of shares in A.I.G., a number that could grow to $20.7 billion if investors prove enthusiastic, the Treasury Department could reduce its holdings to as little as 15% from 53%.

[This] is the realization of a long-held goal by both the Obama administration.... The Treasury Department expects to earn a profit on its investment in A.I.G., though it is unclear how large.

via dealbook.nytimes.com

The problem with the bailout was not so much that it happened as a means for proventing total collapse, but that it cost many banking leaders nothing--no ruined careers, no jail time, no fines, no real humble-pie eating even. In short, no real justice, and thus no real sustaining of moral hazard. No paying the price for failure. However, costs of their failure without a bailout would have fallen unduly harshly upon the consumer, which would have been an even more disgusting outcome, especially given that many consumers--in particularly those who weren't customers of the investing arms or morgage businesses of banks--had no real knowledge (nor could have had any easily) of the sort of risk-taking their banks were wallowing in.

(Update: A friend commended on Facebook about this post:

the amount of money that these failed, and in some cases criminal, executives got is unbelievable. It shows that Wall Street "regulates" the government, instead of the reverse.)

America's Tory President

Andrew Sullivan:

I have long been baffled as to why people said my preference over Obama was some kind of shift to the ideological left. Nope. Against a radical right, reckless, populist insurgency, Obama is the conservative option, dealing with emergent problems with pragmatic calm and modest innovation. He seeks as a good Oakeshottian would to reform the country's policies in order to regain the country's past virtues. What could possibly be more conservative than that? Or less conservative than the radical fusion of neoconservatism, theoconservatism and opportunism that is the alternative?

For thinking conservatives of a classic variety, Obama is the best president since Clinton and the first Bush. We need him for the next four years if we are to avoid the catastrophes that always follow revolutionary ideology. Like another Iraq; or another Katrina; or another Lehman.

via andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com

(Image: Edmund Burke, PC, (1729-1797), by Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792), National Portrait Gallery, London, an Anglo-Irishman in the conservative Whig faction in the British House of Commons during the American Revolution and widely considered a representative of classical liberalism and the philosophical founder of modern Conservatism.)

Gore Vidal (1925-2012)

In Memoriam

Left: Warrant Officer Junior Grade Gore Vidal circa 1944, the Gore Vidal Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University; right: Gore Vidal in 2006 © Stathis Orphanos

October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012

Writer and provocateur of America's mid-century political and literary circles, Gore Vidal was raised in a prominent Washington D.C. Democratic family but describes himself as a conservative. He was the son of airline pioneer Eugene Vidal, grandson of Oklahoma Sen. T. P. Gore, stepbrother of Jackie Kennedy, and friend of writers and actors including Tennessee Williams, Anaïs Nin, Christopher Isherwood, Tim Robbins, and Paul Newman. A man of contradictions, he has been described as controversial, playful, acerbic, arrogant, and warm; as a gadfly, a conspiracy junkie, a paleo-isolationist, an America-hater, and a patriot; but also "the master essayist of our age" by the Washington Post and America's "greatest living man of letters" by The Boston Globe. He explored history, religion, sex, politics, and power in 25 novels--including his "Narratives of Empire" series about American history--several plays, movie scripts, and more than 200 essays.

PHOTO GALLERY, The New York Times: Gore Vidal 1925-2012

The New York Times: Prolific, Elegant, Acerbic Writer

San Francisco Chronicle: Gore Vidal, Celebrated Author, Playwright, Dies

BBC News: US Author Gore Vidal Dies Aged 86

The Guardian: Gore Vidal, US writer and contrarian, dies aged 86

CNN: Chronicler of American life and politics, dies (and CNN "This Just In" blog: A dozen thoughts from Gore Vidal)

The Atlantic: Gore Vidal - A Salute to Self-Absorbed yet Selfless Genius

Word & Film: Remembering Gore Vidal - Cultural Polymath, Political Gadfly, and Social Butterfly

AntiWar.com: Gore Vidal - the Last Jeffersonian

HuffingtonPost: The Legacy of Gore Vidal

 

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1776

★ July 4, 1776 ★ 
The United States Declaration of Independence 
officially declares independence from
the British Empire.