Monday, March 18, 2013
Orthodox patriarch to Rome for pope's installation
Bartholomew I, the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodox Christians, headed Monday for the Vatican to attend Pope Francis' installation Mass -- the first time a patriarch from the Istanbul-based church is attending a papal investiture since the two branches of Christianity split nearly 1,000 years ago
Friday, March 15, 2013
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Choose your own pope – with our interactive Pontifficator | World news | guardian.co.uk
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
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Wednesday, February 27, 2013
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Saturday, February 09, 2013
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Friday, September 28, 2012
Tuesday, July 03, 2012
Independence Day
There are over 190 sovereign nations today, some big, some small, old and new, big and small. Each has a national day of independence. How do our celebrations differ?On July 4, Americans celebrate our 236th Independence Day. The day is chosen to commemorate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, declaring our independence from Great Britain.What is the first word that comes to mind when any of these terms are mentioned, July 4, Independence Day? My guess is fireworks. Wikipedia’s Independence Day article starts by noting:
Independence Day is commonly associated with fireworks, parades, barbecues, carnivals, fairs, picnics, concerts, baseball games, family reunions, and political speeches and ceremonies.
Perhaps it is the time of year (the hot hot summer), or perhaps its the roots of how the day was marked in the very beginning, but signs of classical, American patriotism are generally absent (save that the glut of advertising for “4th of July specials” all draped in the “stars and stripes”). The deeper patriotism among Americans is more evident on Memorial Day, a little over a month prior.The roots of how the day was marked? Well, John Adams one of the five on the committee to draft the declaration wrote home after its adoption to say:
[This day] ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.
It looks like the first part of his recommendation has waned over the years, but the second part grows unabated. Other possible roots (apart from Adams’ thoughts in his letter to his wife Abigail) could be that on the first anniversary (1777), commemorations included 13 gun salutes both in the morning and in the evening. In 1778, General George Washington marked July 4 with a double ration of rum for his soldiers and an artillery salute. I am sure more than one American tomorrow will honor this fine tradition of our founding president with our own “double ration of rum.”
But independence days differ from country to country. I just returned from participating in the National Day of Luxmebourg, Independence Day June 23. Though also a hot hot summer day, how very different are the modes and mindset of these two celebrations. It would seem that the Luxembourgers read John Adam’s letter to wife Abigail quite the other way around, very elegantly and passionately invested in solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty, but only peripherally indulging in pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations.
Yes there are fireworks, magnificent over the deeply carved peaks and valleys of Luxembourg city. There are concerts in the open squares throughout the city, mostly for young people. But all of this happens the night before. The fireworks are not designed as the grand finale and the prime carrier to stir our hearts for God and country.
The national commemoration of Luxembourg Independence itself is marked very differently from the fireworks and concerts the night before. The cornerstone of the commemoration is the Te Deum (Latin for “To God”) that takes place in the Notre Dame Cathedral in Luxembourg City. It is led by the nation’s Archbishop (presently Jean-Claude Hollerich), in the presence Luxembourg’s royal family (presently Grand Duke Henri Albert Gabriel Félix and Marie Guillaume of Luxembourg).Luxembourg is a secular state, but is predominantly Roman Catholic. It is a a representative democracy with a constitutional monarch, it is ruled by a grand duke, and now the world's only remaining sovereign grand duchy.
The ceremony is attended by Luxembourg's ministers, deputies, ambassadors and other figures of political and public life, as well as international guests and dignitaries. The ceremony is open to the public, but seating is bound by the limits of the capacity in the cathedral.
How differently each country celebrates. But these traditions our United States, and this small European nation, as different as they are, are from closely allied friends. There are vigorous Luxembourg-American friendship groups in both countries, and there are important ties politically through NATO, the European Union, and more. Each year the US Government, through its Secretary of State sends official good wishes to Luxembourg on its sacred day of National Independence.
There are many styles of modernity and many styles of democracy. We should learn from our alliances and friendships, and learning should always be a two-way street.
Tags: New York | Independence Day | July 4th | United States | World | luxembourg | US Politics
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Iran and Nuclear Weapons
On Tuesday, November 8, 2011 the “New York Times ran a piece reporting on The long-awaited report, [of the] International Atomic Energy Agency noting it to be the harshest judgment that the agency has ever issued in its decade-long struggle to pierce the secrecy surrounding the Iranian program.” The report from United Nations weapons inspectors inside what the Times calls “a trove of new evidence“ makes a “credible” case that “Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear device” and that the project may still be under way.
An important element in this report, based in part on “over a thousand pages, presumably leaked out of Iran,” is the clear fact that Iran has moved “beyond the blackboard,” and in 2008 and 2009 constructed necessary implements to test nuclear triggers. The report states that “research, development and testing activities on a range of technologies that would only be useful in designing a nuclear weapon.”
For some, debate has existed until now whether Iran’s nuclear research was under development for peaceful means, but most, especially in the Western alliance (and in the opinion of this writer reasonable people) assumed that Iranian military purposes were either central or at the very least contemporaneous with whatever research might also have been under way for the sake of providing energy for the country. It has been pointed out that Iran having vast oil and natural gas reserves, hardly needs nuclear energy. Iran counters says that its goal in developing a nuclear program is to generate electricity without dipping into the oil supply it prefers to sell abroad.
Predictably President Ahmadinejad is “outraged” by the U.N. findings, seeing in them the cunning designs of the United States, “Why do you exploit the I.A.E.A. dignity in favor of the U.S. administration?” Mr. Ahmadinejad asked rhetorically in a question directed at Yukiya Amano, the director general of the agency, who oversaw the production and content of the report. And herein lies the crux of the matter. In the minds of Ahmedinejad and Iran leaders the US (and by implication Israel) is the source of all that’s wrong in the world. These are a presence in the world that are just bad by all measure. And, it is not merely the US-Israeli bond that fits into and animates President Ahmedinejad’s narrative of enmity, but also that the roots of current political Iran are born in the 1979 expulsion of Reza Shah Pahlavi. Paragraph one in the Wikipedia article reminds us that “the nuclear program of Iran was launched in the 1950s with the help of the United States as part of the Atoms for Peace program. The support, encouragement and participation of the United States and Western European governments in Iran's nuclear program continued until the 1979 Iranian Revolution that toppled the Shah of Iran.”
The simple fact is that Iran will not countenance lectures about nuclear weapons from two nuclear powers (US and Israel)
The final piece in the puzzle has to do with Russia, which plays an intensely contentious game against US and European interests in the Middle East, and Eastern European borders. The Russian construction of nuclear reactors in Bushehr was built under an agreement between the Russian and Iranian governments for $800-million, and Russian hopes to build many more reactors in Iran, and Japan, hoping to sign a lucrative oil agreement with Iran for developing Iran's huge Azaadegaan oil field (the largest oil field in the Middle East).
The debate over Iran’s nuclear ambitions (military or peacetime) should be understood by reasonable people as moot. That Iran holds the US and Israel as enemies is not a matter of doubt, so the obvious assumption must be that if Iran can gain nuclear weapons capacity it will surely do so, whether or not it need declare such intentions while developing nuclear energy for consumption.
The IAEA report, rife with evidence, this time fully compelling that Iran seeks nuclear weapons has drawn as the immediate response of Western powers the plan for further economic sanctions. These may be a necessary way to proceed in the short term, and may in fact slow down the pace of Iran’s nuclear programs. But ironically these responses simultaneously serve to strengthen Iran’s resolve, and strengthen the operative foreign policy narrative that imagines the development of nuclear arms responsible in the ideal of national self-interest and self-defense.
Recent years of a jittery and more brashly aggressive US (see Iraq, Libya, Pakistan) put the US in a more difficult position to lead in non-proliferation ideals from a moral posture. What is most needed now from creative foreign policy experts is thinking and workable proposals for penetrating and dissolving the position of hostility that defines US-Iran relations. Until real progress is made in substantially improving these relations, Iran’s nuclear weapons program will continue by hook or by crook. The first step in this direction will require forging steps that both the US and Israel, on the one hand, and Iran on the other can recognize as beneficial to the national self interests of "both sides," of all involved.
Tags: New York | Iran | United Nations | nuclear weapons | World | IAEA
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
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