Discovering Kiva.org

FRONTLINE World did an intersting segment on micro-lending this Christmas, and featured a San Francisco company called Kiva. So I figured I'd join up, and am currently sponsoring four little industries around the globe.

Now we all have given to charities from time to time, and I think that's great (better even). But micro-finance is different, and worth exploring, since the lender gets that money back again (presuming all goes well for the business).

Kiva.org operates through PayPal, so donations are super easy and secure. And you get to know the individual you are funding. Lending amounts are limited to $25.00, and (at least as far as I can tell) there's no interest gained. Suits me! What else would I be doing with an extra $25 in my checking account that's gaining exactly the same interest amount?

So click on the banner above, or go to kiva.org. Take a look see and try it out.

And now hopefully, I'm back to blogging on a regular basis.

Cheers.

Classes Start October 7!

Blessed Sacrament Church
Seattle, WA

Link to Flyer

Have 34 minutes to watch this video?

I have not been this impressed with a presidential candidate in decades; or since I was old enough to care. I suppose I was too young to appreciate Bobby Kennedy, but no one speaks like John Edwards. And as much as I like Obama, he's never given a speech like this one. Check it out:

YouTube Link
UPDATE: At the SEIU Convention in Washington DC, members took a straw poll and chose John Edwards as their candidate. This is not a formal endorsement; the Executive Board of the International will make a decision next week about who the endorsed candidate will be. But an endorsement by SEIU will be a huge boost for the Edwards campaign.

Dick in 1994

Every once in a while, someone in the Bush administration suggests that "no one knew" how bad things could get in Iraq. No one could have imagined the quagmire. The deaths. The destruction. The unprecidented (well, Vietnam was a precident) mess that would result from invading Iraq. But wait! We did know! Of course we knew all along, and here's Dick to tell us exactly what we knew; at least in 1994.

Here's the YouTube Link: Dick Cheney

I love the look on his face in this photo. That's the expression my dog would have when he was caught peeing on the rug.

Bad Dick! Bad! Bad!

No End In Sight

Starts showing tomorrow night (Aug 10) at the Egyptian Theatre in Seattle. Any takers? I'm game, but probably not until next week sometime.

Grave of the Fire Flies

We will be showing Grave of the Fire Flies at Blessed Sacrament Parish in Seattle, at 8:00 PM, August 4th in the Parish Hall (below the church).

I just wanted to give a little ad for the movie, if any Seattlites are watching, and will give some kind of review after the show, in the comments section here. Don't know what to expect, exactly, but folks are very excited about the film.
Here's a link to our poster: Grave of the Fire Flies

SiCKO: Health Care is a Moral Issue

So a group of friends and I gathered to watch SiCKO last week, and it was just great. Informative, striking, funny, and jarring (one hopes to the point of action). Michael Moore seemed to tone down his confrontational style, in SiCKO, and this has worked to make his message that much more powerful. The issues are potent enough, as are the simple interviews, to convey a very moving message to Americans about their collapsing Health Care system.

To paraphrase what Al Gore had to say about Global Warming, Health Care is a moral issue. Sure it's political, but the Church has often expressed her conviction that Health Care is a human right, tied to our human dignity as children of God. In the 1963 encyclical Pacem in Terris, Pope John XXIII stated that health care is a human right, grounded in the right to life. The U.S. bishops repeated their call for universal insurance in 1974 and 1981. In 1993, the American bishops approved a resolution stating Catholic values and placing a priority on Health Care reform.

As a right, then, this whole-scale plundering of our Health Care system by insurance companies, pharmaceuticals and other profit-driven entities, is simply immoral - and ought to be made criminal. A market-driven health care system will always put profit over care at some point. It has to. There's an innate conflict of interest in such a system, which Michael Moore points out quite well in his movie.

In case you didn't know (and who'd tell you?), Michael Moore is a practicing Catholic. An article by Sarah Baker and Katie Escherich / ABC News states:

In addition to being a filmmaker and an activist, Moore is also a deeply religious man, an Eagle Scout who at one point decided to go to the seminary and become a priest. He said that "Sicko" comes from "a spiritual place."

"I don't like putting my religious beliefs out there," he said. "But I do believe that this film is coming from a very deep place, from a spiritual place in the sense that I believe as a Christian and a Catholic that it is my responsibility to make sure that not only am I covered if something happens to me, but that everyone else is covered."

Link to Article

Universal Health Care will be a huge undertaking, truly. But is the concept itself really so difficult to grasp?

I've been impressed with what the California Nurses Association is doing to alert the public about our ailing Health Care system, and their efforts in bringing about a Universal Health Care plan for this country. Check them out here:

California Nurses

Edwards Again....

I hate to make this a mini-Edwards site, but I really liked this:

Follow the link.

It's About TIME.inc

Whoa Nelly! (Can I say that?) Looky who's gone and got religion! No, not the Democrats, but the Main Stream Media! And it's even passably intelligent.

The July 23 issue of TIME has published an article entitled "Leveling the Praying Field." Cute. But it is decent, though I think sparse on the Catholic Democratic voter. [It calls the Catholic Vote the "loosest swing vote in the spiritual cosmos," but not much more is said. Well, one can't expect too much from these guys, afterall.]

Leveling the Praying Field is about the Democratic Party finally Getting It when it comes to religious voters. They just aren't Republican anymore. (Well, duh.) It spends a lot of time talking about Evangelicals, and gives Jim Wallis's book, God's Politics, some good ink.

Mostly, it's about the three top candidates running for president, and their views on religion; as well as the DNC's past blunders, and hopeful fixes.

Among the candidates, I found Barack Obama's words the most impressive. (Too bad they left out Kucinich and his Catholic views. Oh, they did mention Kerry's pathetic Catholic showing, but only to say it was pathetic. It was.)

Here's what Barack Obama had to say about religion in the public square:

If we scrub language of all religious content, we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice. Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square.

Here's the Article online. Worth reading on your coffee break.

John Edwards States it Plain

Yesterday, on the CNN / YouTube debates, John Edwards stated the truth plainly. It is so refreshing to hear, without apology; simple and direct.

You know, there's a reason we don't see much of John Edwards on talk shows or in the media. There's a reason Obama and Clinton get all the media glitz. The media doesn't like John Edwards. The media is bought off. By whom? Oh, come on. You know, or you wouldn't be here reading this.

What Edwards had to say that just torques them off:

"The people who are powerful in Washington - big insurance companies, big drug companies, big oil companies - they are not going to negotiate. They are not going to give away their power. The only way that they're going to give away their power is if we take it away from them."

Check out the video on this YouTube Link

Subsisting In... Part II

I was a bit ribald in my dealings with the Vatican's latest statement on the "Church Founded by Christ" - given the Simpsons video and all. [But hey, it was pretty funny!]

Still, on a more serious note, I was pleased and proud to read a very fine comment on the Vatican document by our own Fr. Bernhard Blankenhorn, O.P., at Blessed Sacrament in Seattle. I'm linking to it to share with you all:

Link Here
Many Protestant friends have been asking me about this, and I've been having trouble trying to express my own understanding of the document. Maybe it's the same for you? If so, I hope this helps.

God knows, the media sure made a mess of it.