Hunger

It's becoming increasingly apparent to me that human memory is unreliable, at best. This unreliability is especially apparent to me when I think of the novel, Hunger, by the Norwegian writer, Knut Hamsun.

To the best of my recollection, I first heard of Hamsun in the 1980's, in a magazine interview with the American writer, Henry Miller who, in the interview, gave Hamsun credit for being an influence on his writing.

I can remember having read the interview in the mid 1980s when I was living in Rome, GA. It must have been an old magazine because Miller died in 1980, before I ever moved to Rome. I actually don't recall anything else from that interview - only Miller's praise of Hamsun, who I had never read or heard of before this.

I remember going to the local library in Rome to try and find any novel written by Hamsun. This was long before the Internet and Amazon.com. The only novel by Hamsun in the library was Hunger, which I immediately checked out.

I don't recall just how much of the novel I read at the time. I know it wasn't very much. I can remember finding the life of the unnamed protagonist just a wee bit too close to an earlier life experience of my own - thereby depressing and frightening me to no end.

Many years later, I felt a need to pick up Hamsun. He was being favorably compared to Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who is nearly incomparable in my eyes. At some point, I downloaded a copy of Hunger as an ebook.

This time, upon reading it, I fell in love with the novel. Yes, I still recognized the similar life experiences, but this time I didn't find them depressing or frightening.

I've been recently meaning to reread the novel, and after finishing a number of novels by C.S. Forester, I uploaded Hunger to my Kindle. Prior to this new reread, I remembered having read the novel twice before on Kindle. However, I've been keeping lists of the books I've read each year since 2011 and that year is the only year I've had Hunger on my book list.

In 2014 I did put two of Hamsun's novels -Pan and Shallow Soil- on my book list. That is also the year my first Kindle was destroyed while traveling to Philippines from the U.S., and I may have reread the novel that year and simply neglected to put onto a proper list.

At any rate, I've begun rereading Hunger and at this point in the novel, most of what I'm reading seems new to me. I have forgotten a good deal of the novel, but it has been years, after all.

The version I'm reading, and have read, is the 1899 translation by Mary Chavelita Dunne (under the alias George Egerton). That version is available for free at Project Gutenberg. From what I've seen lately, the 1996 translation by Sverre Lyngstad is considered to be definitive. Lyngstad's translation is available for Kindle at Amazon.com - for a price. Perhaps one day I will see my way into purchasing it and rereading the novel once again.

New Minimum Wage for Northern Mindanao

According to the About Cagayan de Oro website, a new minimum wage for northern Mindanao will take effect on July 16, 2017. As seen in the photo, the new wage can be different depending on type of work and the city where the work is done.

The new minimum wage ranges from a low of 304 Philippine pesos to a high of Php 338.

At the current rate of exchange, Php 338 is worth $6.76 in U.S. Dollars. It should be noted, however, this is not an hourly wage. The minimum wage is the daily rate. When the new wage goes into effect, these workers will be paid less per day than the current U.S. federal minimum wage per hour.

Think about that the next time you demand $15 per hour to flip burgers.

Cocoa, Slavery and Child Labor

In a recent post on the connection between "Big Chocolate" and slavery, Mark Shea stated that "Hershey, Mars, Nestle, and Cadbury exploit child slavery in the chocolate trade". I've heard of the use of slavery and child labor in the production of chocolate - and coffee - and I seem to recall reading that Cadbury has been involved in the fairtrade movement for a number of years. Unlike Mr. Shea, I'm a bit skeptical about everything I read on the Internet. It's possible that Mr Shea accepted the information given in the article he linked to because it fits the narrative that all corporations are evil.

A quick search lead me to this statement on the fairtrade.org.uk website informing us that "Cadbury Dairy Milk has been Fairtrade since 2009 and was the first mainstream chocolate brand to become Fairtrade certified. Cadbury and Fairtrade are now building on this relationship through a global partnership between Cocoa Life and Fairtrade". Looking further, I found out that Mars Chocolate is working with fair trade certifiers through its Sustainable Cocoa Initiative to certify its products. If the information I've come across is true, Cadbury and Mars don't belong on the list with Hershey and Nestlé.

Shea is correct in putting Nestlé on the list of companies supporting slavery and child labor as well as the Hershey company. My main problem with Mr Shea's post is his immediate attack on conservative, pro-life Catholics. He believes that those in the pro-life camp will defend "Big Chocolate" and turn a blind eye to the slavery and exploitation found in the cocoa business.

Reading his post, I get the impression that Mr Shea has only recently discovered the slavery component to cocoa and may have feelings of guilt about his love of chocolate. Perhaps his attack on pro-life Catholics helps to ease his conscience.

Minimum Wage Increase For Dumaguete

A local community Facebook page I follow -Hulagway ug Kasikas sa Dumaguete - posted an announcement yesterday that there will be a Php 13 increase in the minimum wage for the province of Negros Oriental. Dumaguete is the provincial capital.

This 13 peso increase now puts the minimum wage at 323 Philippine pesos a day. Read that sentence again. That's Php 323 a day.......not an hour, but a day.

At the current rate of exchange, that's $6.41 a day in U.S. currency. The minimum wage in this area of Philippines is less per day than the current U.S. minimum wage per hour, and we all know how far the U.S. minimum wage goes.

Loading Sand at Dhelvies

Dhelvies is the name of the company in Magatas Sibulan where we purchase the materials used in building our house. Some of the materials purchased at Dhelvies include cement, hollow blocks, sand, gravel and re bar.

My wife and I have been to Dhelvies several times to order the materials we needed and to pay for the materials that have been, or will be, delivered, as well.

In a post from January, I put up a video of one of their delivery trucks getting stuck in mud while bringing a load of sand to our property. I've seen the sand and gravel on the ground at their place of business, and I've seen the trucks, full of sand or gravel emptying their load, but I had never witnessed just how the sand or gravel was loaded onto the dump truck. In all my visits to Dhelvies, I have never seen a bucket loader. Of course, there is the possibility that there is one at the location, but kept in another area until needed. I had my doubts about that, however.

My question was answered this morning when I saw two men using shovels to transfer sand from one truck to another. If there had been a bucket loader on the premises, the most sensible way to move the sand would have been to dump the sand onto the ground and then load the sand onto the second truck using the loader. Obviously, using a loader would involve much less work than having men do the work with shovels.

Mark this as yet another reason why I am so ever grateful that I was not born in this country. I might not have had a glamorous, high paying job when I was working in the U.S., but these men probably make somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 to 350 Philippine Pesos a day doing manual labor. This is not an hour's pay - it's for the whole day. At the current rate of exchange, 350 pesos amounts to about 7 U.S. dollars. I can't imagine having to do the work they do, while earning less money after a day's work, than the minimum wage worker in the U.S. makes in one hour.

Homeless in Dumaguete

While roaming about Dumaguete this morning, I happened upon this homeless boy sleeping on a sidewalk. This isn't the first time I've come across homeless children in the city, but the first I've posted.

Christmas Photos

Something to think about this Christmas day. These are not photos of sheds built for Nativity scenes. These are photos of houses where people live.

Merry Christmas.

Plumbob Squarepants

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my wife and I drove out to the property in Magatas, Sibulan to see how the work was coming along. As can be seen in the photos, they were putting up reinforced concrete posts as part of the foundation.

All you folks working at MickeyD's in the U.S., complaining about not getting $15 an hour flipping patties, just be thankful that you don't have to work this way for the minimun wage paid here.

Alfred Electronics Shop Redux.

Back in September, I wrote a piece on Alfred Electronic Shop, an electrical fix-it-shop located near our apartment in Sibulan. As I mentioned in that post, I've been to the shop on a number of occasions to have repair work done.

The owner always did very good work for me, and in appreciation, I added Alfred Electronic Shop to Google Maps. Sadly, I returned two days ago for a repair job and found his place of business closed. After a bit of investigation, I learned that the owner, his wife and children left Sibulan for his family home, somewhere in Mindanao.

Life can be very difficult here; I hope he and his family do better with their new endeavors. He seemed to be a nice guy and I wish him the best of luck.

Note: After writing this post, I went to Google Maps to mark the shop as permanently closed - the saddest edits I've ever made to the Google Maps website.

On the Streets

On my walk to the market in Sibulan this morning, I came upon this group of puppies sleeping in the road. I didn't see any sign of a mother; I don't know if these dogs belong to someone or if they're feral. It's not uncommon for folks here to allow their dogs to wander about.

Some reading this may view this as cruelty - callous indifference to the fate of these animals. Some may even be surprised that dogs could be treated in such a manner.

It shouldn't come as a surprise, considering that human beings are treated in the same callous and indifferent way.

The Press Misunderstands Pope Francis. What Else is New?

Recently, Bernie Sanders announced that he had received an invitation to speak at a small, invitation-only scholarly conference at the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences.
Of course, that's not exactly right. Sanders has led us to believe that he would be speaking to Pope Francis. He was neither invited by the Pope, nor will the Pope be attending the conference. It is highly unlikely that the two will even be in the same room together - much less have a conversation.

Now, we have a number of opinion writers telling us just how much Mr Sanders and Pope Francis have in common.

Kathleen Parker believes the two might share a similar worldview, and Brent Budowsky maintains that Bernie Sanders and Pope Francis Stand Together on quite a few things.

First, let me state the obvious.Bernie Sanders and Pope Francis are worlds apart on the issues of abortion and same sex so-called "marriage". There's no point in even going there.

Folks like Parker and Budowsky want to put the two together because both speak out on matters of economic equality, social justice, combating poverty and human rights. Earth to Parker and Budowsky: Sanders and the Pope may agree on the problems, but not the solutions.

Socialism is not the only system fighting inequality and poverty.

According to an article in the Catholic Encyclopedia Socialism is defined as -

"A system of social and economic organization that would substitute state monopoly for private ownership of the sources of production and means of distribution, and would concentrate under the control of the secular governing authority the chief activities of human life. 

The term is often used vaguely to indicate any increase of collective control over individual action, or even any revolt of the dispossessed against the rule of the possessing classes. But these are undue extensions of the term, leading to much confusion of thought. State control and even state ownership are not necessarily Socialism: they become so only when they result in or tend towards the prohibition of private ownership not only of "natural monopolies", but also of all the sources of wealth. Nor is mere revolt against economic inequality Socialism: it may be Anarchism (see ANARCHY); it may be mere Utopianism (see COMMUNISM); it may be a just resistance to oppression. Nor is it merely a proposal to make such economic changes in the social structure as would banish poverty. Socialism is this (see COLLECTIVISM) and much more. 

It is also a philosophy of social life and action, regarding all human activities from a definite economic standpoint. Moreover modern Socialism is not a mere arbitrary exercise at state-building, but a deliberate attempt to relieve, on explicit principles, the existing social conditions, which are regarded as intolerable. 

The great inequalities of human life and opportunity, produced by the excessive concentration of wealth in the hands of a comparatively small section of the community, have been the cause and still are the stimulus of what is called the Socialistic movement. But, in order to understand fully what Socialism is and what it implies, it is necessary first to glance at the history of the movement, then to examine its philosophical and religious tendencies, and finally to consider how far these may be, and actually have proved to be, incompatible with Christian thought and life."


True Socialism calls for the abolition of private property, and is in opposition to the teachings of the Church.

Every Pope since Pius IX has written and spoken out against the evils of Socialism.

Sanders isn't a religious Holy Man because he is against oppression, poverty and inequality. We are all against those things. It's the methods and solutions Sanders presents that are questionable. More government control is not the answer and I don't believe I've heard Pope Francis call for that.

Looking Backward: 2000–1887

In the wikipedia article covering the novel, Looking Backward: 2000–1887 ,by journalist Edward Bellamy, is described as a "Utopian science fiction novel". Utopian is an accurate description, but calling the novel science fiction is stretching the term a bit much.

Published in 1888, the novel tells the story of a young man who falls into a deep hypnotic trance and awakens in the year 2000 to find the United States has been transformed into a socialist utopia where war, poverty, crime, prostitution, corruption, money, or taxes no longer exist. Ownership of private property is a thing of the past and the national government owns and operates all businesses.

Bellamy's vision of the year 2000 AD bears no resemblance to the way things have actually turned out. Although many have wished socialism upon us, the Federal government, as it exists, does not have the control Bellamy's fictional government has.

Of course, Bellamy has no way of knowing of the two world wars that happened between his 1887 and the real 2000. His future has no airplanes, or radio, or automobile, not to mention cell phones, computers or television. He was not even able to imagine musical recordings. In his novel, households do have access to music 24 hours a day, but the music comes from live performances transmitted over the telephone - the only piece of "modern technology" already invented in Bellamy's time.

Unfortunately, there is very little action in the novel; it's mostly conversations between the hero, Julian West, and two people he meets - Doctor Leete and his daughter, Edith.

Edward Bellamy may have had good intentions - as did the hundreds, if not thousands of members of the various Bellamy Clubs that popped up in the U.S. following the publication of the novel. Unfortunately, Bellamy's hope for the future was based on wishful thinking regarding human nature. We are not as self sacrificing and altruistic as the folks in Bellamy's year 2000.

The Overcoat.

The latest novel to make my 2016 reading list is Dostoyevsky's Poor Folk.

At one point in the novel, Dostoyevsky makes reference to Nikolai Gogol's short story, Shinel. The Russian title is sometimes translated as either The Cloak, or The Overcoat, or The Mantle.

The translation by John Cournos, (The Cloak) can be found at Project Gutenberg in a collection of short stories, Best Russian Short Stories and Taras Bulba, and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol. The translation by Claud Field (The Mantle) is also on Project Gutenberg, The Mantle, and Other Stories by Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol.

A translation can be found (by an unknown translator) as The Overcoat at eastoftheweb.com.

Not having read the short story prior to this, I immediately read both the Cournos and the Field translations.

Oddly enough, in the notes for the wikipedia article for The Overcoat, the short story is said to have heavily influenced the Japanese writer, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa' in his writing of Yam Gruel. Yam Gruel was among the short stories I read in 2015 in Rashomon and Other Stories. After reading the two translations of the Gogol short story, I reread Yam Gruel .......because I did not recall the story being at all like Gogol's Shinel. My memory was faulty. Although the ending is in no way similar, I saw the influence in the very beginning as I reread the story.

As an aside, included in The Mantle, and Other Stories by Nikolai Vasilevich Gogol. is The Nose. I had read that particular short story ages ago. I remember making a joke about the story while standing in line to see the very first Star Wars movie with my friends, Dave and Lew. Unfortunately, the joke is too complicated to explain here.

Progressives Attempt to Divide Conservatives With Laudato Si.

There is no lack of "news" headlines on the Internet attempting to spin the Pope's "climate change" encyclical into a political groove.

From USA Today - Pope's climate change statement a challenge for Republicans.

Desmogblog writes - Republican Presidential Candidates Attack Pope’s Climate Change Encyclical

And from Huffington Post - Right Wing Steamed Over Pope's Climate Change Encyclical

Hoping to divide Republicans, Democrats are overjoyed that GOP Catholics more convinced about climate change than other Republicans.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has even gone so far as to say, "We really must listen to his Holiness as we go forward.".

Are the Democrats ready to embrace Pope Francis and his encyclical, Laudato si completely?

Is Pelosi, fellow CINO John Kerry, and Democrat Presidential favorite, Hillary Clinton ready to accept what is written concerning abortion in Laudato si ?

nationaljournal.com quotes the papal encyclical:

"Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties?"

Another bothersome quote for Democrats:

Instead of resolving the problems of the poor and thinking of how the world can be different, some can only propose a reduction in the birth rate. At times, developing countries face forms of international pressure which make economic assistance contingent on certain policies of "reproductive health". Yet "while it is true that an unequal distribution of the population and of available resources creates obstacles to development and a sustainable use of the environment, it must nonetheless be recognized that demographic growth is fully compatible with an integral and shared development." To blame population growth instead of extreme and selective consumerism on the part of some, is one way of refusing to face the issues.

I've read Pope Francis' latest encyclical and I've found nothing in it that I can object to. I'm not a scientist by any stretch of the imagination, so my thoughts on whether the planet is experiencing anthropogenic climate change involves a certain amount of trust in "authorities". I trust Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, President Obama and their ilk about as far as I can hurl the planet Earth, but I don't put much faith in the scientific views of Rush Limbaugh or Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe either.

Is the Earth warming? If so, is that warming due, in large part to human activity? I have absolutely no proof one way or the other, but I trust Pope Francis more than anyone else speaking on the issue.

What Would Jesus Do About Wealth Redistribution?

According to an article on the Al Jazeera website -What Would Jesus Do About Tax Policy?- Jesus wants us to pay more taxes to the government.

After years of debate and study "..........the Presbyterian Church USA, has come out with a detailed report that ties the religious duty of believers and government tax policy."

A link to that report on pdf can be found here.

From the report;

"It is a basic mark of a healthy social covenant that all share in the society’s benefits and burdens. Just taxation is a foundational part of a moral society’s answer to poverty and its close relatives, inequality, economic insecurity, and social immobility. Just taxation is also a key tool for enabling communities to thrive, for advancing science and culture, and for sustaining democratic institutions. Each citizen has an affirmative duty to contribute to the common good by paying their fair share of taxes."

Like a true Protestant, the writer of the article (as well as the original Presbyterian document) cherry picks an assortment of Gospel texts to inform us that Christianity demands progressive taxation and redistribution of wealth to the poor.

I will not argue that tax reform in the U.S. isn't needed. Of course, the need is there. I also believe that more could be done to help the poor - not just in the United States, but world wide.

I do have a bone to pick with the Presbyterian Church USA, however.

The Presbyterian Church USA doesn't seem to have a problem with following the Gospel and traditional Christian teachings when it follows their political agenda. Tax the rich, feed the poor? That's fine with them. Maintain traditional Christian teaching and values regarding abortion and same-sex "marriage"? Not so much.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) voted down measure to condemn ‘abortion’ of babies born alive.

US Presbyterian Church votes to redefine marriage, offer gay ‘marriages’ .

You could legitimately argue the merits of tax reform and redistribution of wealth, but when you attempt to argue that to do otherwise goes against Christ's teachings, your disregard of Christ's teachings on abortion and marriage don't help your case.

Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso's Appeal Rejected.

According to reports, [inquirer.net] Indonesia is preparing to move a Filipino death row inmate for execution after she lost her appeal in the Indonesian Supreme Court earlier this week.

While Philippine Vice President Jejomar Binay renewed his appeal on Friday to Indonesian President Joko Widodo for the commutation of the death sentence of Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso, Indonesia has so far turned a deaf ear to all appeals from the international community.

Last week, rappler.com published an article on the impact this tragedy has had on Veloso's parents.

I continue to ask for prayers for Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso and her family in Philippines.

thinkthingsthrutotheirlogicalconclusion.org

The Left-leaning website, thinkprogress.org is not on my list of "must reads". I was recently led to the site, however, while looking for information on Pope Francis' upcoming encyclical on climate change. "Progressive" publications and websites are generally not complimentary toward the Catholic Church; the Church's view on climate change being the one notable exception.

Most of what I've come across lately, concerning the Pope and other Catholic Bishops, with regard to climate change has been encouraging. I'll go further into that subject in a later post, but for now, I want to write about thinkprogress.org's general assessment of the Catholic Church.

On the website's menu bar, we find nine sections - not counting the "Front" or Home page. These sections include, Climate, Economy, Health, Justice, LGBT (of course) World, Culture, Sports, and Election. In the same issue where I came across the article, Pope Francis Expected To Instruct One Billion Catholics To Act On Climate Change, I found no less than five additional articles on the Catholic Church. In the nine sections listed above, I found an article in all but three.

Any positive feelings toward the Church that might have been found in the piece on climate change was wiped away in the anti-Knights of Columbus article, How One Religious Organization Bankrolls America’s Social Conservative Movement. That the KoC would support the Church's teachings on abortion and same sex "marriage" is beyond the "brights" who write for thinkprogress.org. The site isn't called thinkthingsthrutotheirlogicalconclusion.org, after all.

In the article, New Catholic Survey Asks About People With ‘Homosexual Tendencies’ writer Jack Jenkins has to put in the old, “who am I judge?” comment. Progressives are so predictable.

In the Economy section, they speak highly of the Pope again by pointing out that Francis celebrated his birthday by giving sleeping bags to homeless people. They also have to mention, of course, that there was some "internal opposition in the Vatican" to his helping the homeless.

Finally, in Health writer Sam P.K. Collins' article, Low-Gluten Diet Alternatives Have Reached A New Frontier: The Catholic Church, there is absolutely no understanding of - or sympathy for - the Church's teachings on the Blessed Sacrament.

In an earlier post, I wrote of "my desire to get as many POV's as I could when trying to get the ends and outs of a variety of stories". Be that as it may, a link to thinkprogress.org will not be added to my News Sources column on the right.

Thoughts on the Living Wage.

In a piece for National Catholic Reporter entitled Wal-Mart & Catholic Social Teaching, in which he discusses the City Council for the District of Columbia passing a new 'living wage' law that "applies specifically to large scale businesses like Wal-Mart, writer Michael Sean Winters opens with a quote from Pope Leo XIII's encyclical, Rerum Novarum:

"There is a dictate of nature more imperious and more ancient than any bargain between man and man, that the remuneration must be enough to support the wage-earner in reasonable and frugal comfort. If through necessity or fear of a worse evil, the workingman accepts harder conditions because an employer or contractor will give him no better, he is the victim of force and injustice."

Winters contends that while hardly - if ever - sympathetic to Catholic concerns, the DC City Council did the right thing in mandating that Walmart be required to pay employees no less than $12.50 an hour.

Parenthetically, this is the same City Council which recently passed a bill allowing "transgender and intersex residents to amend their birth certificates to reflect their correct personal information, such as gender and name, and obtain unmarked, updated copies of the certificates".

Winter's discussion of a "living wage" lead me to reread Rerum Novarum and to look further into the idea.

The Living Wage Action Coalition defines a living wage this way:

 "A living wage is a decent wage. It affords the earner and her or his family the most basic costs of living without need for government support or poverty programs. With a living wage an individual can take pride in her work and enjoy the decency of a life beyond poverty, beyond an endless cycle of working and sleeping, beyond the ditch of poverty wages."

According to one so-called "living wage calculator", an individual living in my area, while supporting a household consisting of 2 adults and one child, should earn at least $16.26 an hour.

As a Catholic, I agree with the notion that everyone should be paid a decent wage, but nowhere in Rerum Novarum is it written that it is up to the State to enforce this ideal on businesses.

Obviously, should Walmart be forced to pay workers in Rome, GA. either the minimum wage of $12.50 an hour, or the living wage of $16.26, the company would be forced to shut it's doors. The prices Walmart would be forced to charge it's customers would make their products unaffordable. $16.26 would no longer be the "living wage" in this area. It's called inflation.

If the State wanted the workers to earn a living wage, it should encourage the workers to live frugally and soberly, and further their education. Instead, the State encourages materialism, gambling, substance abuse and sexual immorality.

Rather than expect government to force businesses to pay $16 or $17 or $18 an hour, one should concentrate on making oneself worth higher wages.

Lent 4.5 ....... Fail.

During Lent, 2011, I came upon a website for a program called Lent 4.5. On March 6, 2011 I write a post for this blog regarding my thoughts on the program and website - ( Lent 4.5)

The basic premise behind the program is that a formula has been developed to determine how many acres of land is used to maintain your current lifestyle. The example the group gives for those of us living in the USA, is that, on average, it takes 22.3 acres of land to maintain our standard of living. If you take the land mass of the Earth - divided by the 6.5 billion folks said to inhabit the planet - then we are only entitled to use 4.5 acres of land to support ourselves. Obviously, according to the group, we are using far more than our fair share.

In my post, I had used quotes from the Lent 4.5 website - and provided a link, I was critical of the group and I believed it would be only fair to present their argument as they themselves presented it.

Using the figures the site provided, even Mexico was nearly double their "fair share" by using 8 acres of land per person to support the Mexican lifestyle. I know that consumption in the US is, by far, in excess of what it should be, but I do not realistically see the average America living a standard below what is currently the standard of living in Mexico.

The biggest program I had with their idea was their tying their proposal to Lent. Far too often, in their zeal to protect the planet, many of these sorts of groups stray dangerously close to paganism in their love and worship of "Mother Earth". We are asked to fast during Lent in ordered to affect the well being of the planet when the true purpose of fasting during that season is to help the soul turn back to God through a conversion of the heart. At one point we're asked to give "contemporary meaning and value into fasting". It's like saying, "Hey, not only does Fasting provide spiritual benefits, but it'll help you fit into that swimsuit this summer".

The folks pushing Lent 4.5 may have good intentions, but we all know what road that can lead us down.

I would not have brought any of this up if it had not been for a comment left on that post by Mary Mattingly, the National Coordinator for Lent 4.5:

It has come to our attention that you have posted material copyrighted to Lent 4.5 and the Passionist Earth and Spirit Center on your blog. We respectfully ask that you remove the content.

When I received that comment, I felt that my use of the material from their site fell within the area of Fair Use. It is quite common for blogs to use quotes from a site being criticized in order to get ones point across. However, the law regarding Fair Use is vague; I'm not going to get into a legal battle over this. I have to wonder whether these folks would have pushed the issue had my post contained lavish words of praise for their idea? Personally, I suspect the group cannot accept even the mildest of criticism.

In an email from Ms Mattingly, she stated that they "were merely advised by our board of directors that we need to protect our copyright".

The folks running Lent 4.5 say we have huge global problems.
Granted.

They also say we Christians in affluent countries have a faith problem. They believe our "observance of prayer, fasting and almsgiving during Lent can become a direct response to global poverty". I don't see how lowering my standard of living to below Third World levels can raise the standard of living of someone living in poverty. Like far too many people, the people at Lent 4.5 see inequities between the "haves and the have-nots" and rather than bring the less fortunate up to a higher level, they want us to lower our standards to theirs.

Feeding The Homeless.

The headline was certainly provocative - Three arrested, accused of illegally feeding homeless - and like many news headlines designed to provoke us, this one was also designed to mislead. Even Mark Shea appears to have been blind sided. Shea writes,

"One of the main effects of our increasingly draconian security/entitlement state is that normal, healthy mediating institutions such as the Church and local charities get shoved out and the state tries to horn in and do the work of dealing with those suffering from our proliferating social pathologies. This generally boils down to a) jail and b) throwing money at them. Meanwhile, the people closest to the problem and best equipped to help are treated by the state as competitors and enemies of the state. So it's jail for them too. "

The story -
Members of the Orlando chapter of Food Not Bombs were arrested Wednesday when police said they violated a city ordinance by feeding the homeless in Lake Eola Park.
The three where charged with violating an Orlando city ordinance restricting group feedings in public parks.

According to the Food Not Bombs website, "Food Not Bombs shares free vegan and vegetarian meals with the hungry in over 1,000 cities around the world to protest war, poverty and the destruction of the environment."

Feeding the homeless is, without question, noble. I don't understand, however, the group's insistence that the food be distributed in a public park. It would seem to make more sense for the group to either establish a "soup kitchen" or otherwise donate money and/or food to an already existing shelter or food bank.

An established shelter or food bank would also be able to address other needs confronting the homeless....perhaps even helping them find a place to live, a job or helping them obtain SSI if they qualify. A once a week breakfast (on Mondays) and a Wednesday dinner in a public park isn't what these folks need.

The people involved in Food Not Bombs may have good intentions, but it appears to me that they are more interested in protesting the "establishment" rather than truly helping the homeless.