The News

Don't have much to say about life in Omaha or my looming life in Nicaragua tonight. I was just poking through some of the headlines on BBC News and the NY Times before I head off to bed. Looks like it might be one of those days when the good stuff got overlooked...it's got to be out there somewhere. Right? I'm especially happy to see that the Catholic Church is reconciling itself with a conservative faction that it expelled 17 years ago. Don't worry about reconciliation with the Jewish faith, or the Protestants. Definitely not with the Muslims. We fought wars against them. Let's make one of the first ecumenical acts of the new papacy be a reunification with an order of priests who only believe that Mass should be said in Latin instead of Spanish, Swahili, Creole, or the hundreds of other languages in which people around the world express their faith. This, among a long list of other absurdities to which the Society of Saint Pius X adheres. Because when I think about my faith, I tend to associate what I believe about God with an ultra-conservative sect of men who believe that it is unacceptable to even allow women to SING IN THE CHOIR DURING MASS.

But it gets better...read on! According to the UN Special Envoy on AIDS in Africa, U.S. policies promoting abstinence threaten to undermine prevention efforts in Uganda that have reduced the infection rate in that country from 15% to 5% over the last decade. International public health advocates have complained that influence from the U.S. government, which to-date is the largest contributor to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, has prevented the adequate distribution of condoms and other methods of contraception throughout Uganda.

Oh, and just in case you were still feeling warm and fuzzy...gang violence in one of the most impoverished slums on the outskirts of Port au Prince threatens to derail upcoming national elections in Haiti in November, elections that could potentially mean the return of the popular former President Aristide. Should the violence subside enough for elections to actually take place in Cite Soleil, there's not much precedent for the residents of the slum to believe their vote will matter much. They overwhelmingly voted for Aristide in the two elections in which he won the presidency, but he was then removed from power by his military in 1991 and in 2000 (largely in part because of his removal of officers who had been trained in the U.S. at the School of the Americas).

I guess the good news today will have to come from outside of the media...teacher friends here in Omaha and in Baltimore report that school is off to a good start, with no major catastrophes. Three cheers for great teachers...about the only ones that still care anymore about public education or the future of children in America today.

"For the dreams that came to you when so young
Told of a life where spring is sprung."

--Nick Drake, "Cello Song"