Entangled States

SWINE FLU: PRECAUTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Update & Recommendations:  Swine Flu Outbreak (April 30, 2009)*

 

Swine Flu Update

As you may already know, human cases of swine influenza A (H1N1) virus infection have been identified in several states and in other countries, primarily Mexico.  So far in the U.S., 109  cases have been identified, and one  death has been reported.  In Mexico, according to current data from the WHO (World Health Organization), 26 laboratory-confirmed cases have been reported with 7 deaths.

According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), this influenza virus had previously been transmitted among swine, with no human-to-human transmission.  However, the virus has mutated, and human-to-human transmission of the virus is now occurring and appears to be spreading, representing the threat of a pandemic. In fact, the WHO  has upgraded the threat to a phase 5 level, which is a “strong signal that a pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication, and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short.”  With this in mind, it becomes prudent for churches and communities to take precautionary measures to protect people and take advantage of a narrow window of opportunity for intervention, hence the following recommendations:

 

General Recommendations

(1)    If you’re sick or have symptoms that resemble the flu, stay home!  Anyone who develops fever with either cough or sore throat should be strongly encouraged to stay at home for seven days after the onset of illness or at least 24 hours after symptoms subside, whichever is longer. Persons who experience these symptoms and wish to seek medical care should contact their health care providers to report illness before seeking care at a clinic, physician’s office, or hospital. However, anyone who has difficult breathing or shortness of breath or who is believed to be seriously ill should seek immediate medical attention.

 

(2)    When possible, avoid contact with crowds not only to protect yourself from becoming ill, but also to protect others if you’re unknowingly incubating the virus.  This is especially important if your immune system is compromised.

 

(3)     Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue if you’re coughing or sneezing.

 

(4)    Wash your hands often!  Use either soap or one of the readily available hand sanitizers to help protect you from viruses and other microbes.  (Hand sanitizers are inexpensive and readily available in drugstores or supermarkets.)  Hand washing is the single most effective way of preventing the spread of not only the flu virus, but also other infectious agents.

 

(5)    Avoid touching your eyes, nose, or mouth.  Microbes are readily spread when one touches something that’s contaminated and then touches one’s eyes, nose, or mouth.

 

(6)    Practice good health habits.  Get plenty of sleep, get exercise, manage your stress, drink plenty of fluids, and eat nutritious food.  In other words, good health habits can build up your resistance to germs.

 

Recommendations/considerations for churches

            Have hand sanitizers readily available (credence table, narthex, parish halls, etc.).

If you’re taking communion to someone in the hospital, care facility, etc., be sure to use these sanitizers.

Consider receiving communion in one kind only (that is, receiving only the host), instead of  drinking directly from the chalice.

            Post signs in restrooms and other public areas reminding people to practice good hygiene.

            Have qualified people available for question-and-answer sessions.

For the time being, refrain from shaking hands during the Peace because microbes are most easily passed from person to person by touching.

 

Diocesan Emergency Preparedness Committee

 

 

*Adapted from CDC guidelines (www.cdc.gov/swineflu/).

Butler Bass: Post-Modern Progressives

Diana Butler Bass has another great essay up - this time she tries to explain why the old categories of "liberal" and "conservative" are failing as we try to describe what is starting to take root in theological and ecclesiastical conversations.

She describes herself as a post-modern, post-partisan, neo-pragmatic progressive and then writes of the rise of post-liberalism:

"‘Post-liberalism,’ a post-modern theology, has transformed into a new sort of post-modern progressive Christianity. It moves beyond (as indicated by the word, ‘post’) and is subsequent to the traditional categories of liberal-and-conservative. Instead, it takes a non-dualistic, discrete, narrative, and situational approach to religion—very different from the former arguments between the Truth claims of older theological structures.

Because of its essential modesty in regard to truth (opting instead for speaking of ‘truthfulness’ rather than Truth), it finds itself as ‘post-partisan’ and doesn’t take sides in the old arguments. As a result, it tends toward theological pragmatism: How does one enact justice in a fallen world? With whom can the faithful make alliances for the sake of shalom in the world? It constructs the world more in terms of a journey of justice rather than a destination of truth. Hence, post-modern progressives are post-partisan, neo-pragmatic pilgrims.

And they do not fit into the categories of ‘purist’ or ‘accommodator.’ Like the ‘purists,’ they are idealistic—they truly believe in God’s reign, in justice, and work (often prophetically) so that the world might be better. But, like the ‘accommodators,’ they are pragmatic, seeing always the ‘both-and’ (or the ‘and-and-and-and’) rather than the ‘either-or.’"

Read the full article here.

She finds a kindred soul in our President - who (like me) is a member of Generation Jones.

She points out that the massive paradigm shift that we are all undergoing is forcing us to rethink our categories, and some folks are further along with the task than others.

I'm giving a talk to the National Workshop on Christian Unity here in Phoenix next week on essentially the same idea, just extended to the topic of ecumenical conversation.

Tweaking General Relativity to explain dark matter

The observation that the Standard Model of particle physics works really well in explaining most of what we see in our present experience, and yet is incapable as yet of explaining, much less predicting the experimental evidence of large scale deviations from gravitational predictions of the modern universe is hardly unremarked upon. The anomalous gravitational effects seen in galactic rotation curves and in the unexplained apparent change in gravity at great look-back distance is today explained by invoking Dark Matter and/or Dark Energy. Modern models that include dark matter and energy generally calculate that the normal matter that you and I are made of represents less than 10 percent, perhaps only 1 percent of the total gravitational matter in the Universe.

It's pretty disconcerting that the model which does so well in explaining what we can "see" does so badly for the vast majority of everything else. Either we've just gotten lucky, or there's something wrong with the model, or with the observations.

Lots of folks have played around with the Standard Model trying to make it more sophisticated. That's primarily what String Theory is all about. But there are some who want to leave the Standard Model as is, and who would rather look again at the anomalous gravitational observations with the idea that perhaps we'd be better off messing around with gravity theory instead.

That might not be such a terrible thing. Einstein's theory is already known to fail in certain high-energy regimes, and it has never yet been successfully made to interact with quantum theory.

What if we tried to tune the gravitational model by introducing some variable parameters which could then be tweaked to make gravitation predict what we observe without having to invent dark matter and dark energy?

Jose Cembranos is trying to do just that. An article on Physics.org reports on what Cembranos is calling the R2 model of gravitation:

"The model that Cembranos developed also allows you to tune the parameters of the system in order to explain dark matter. ‘I wanted to focus on the dark matter issue,’ he says, ‘because dark matter seems a little more straightforward. All you need to do is introduce more stuff into the model. We can do this with R2 gravity.’

Cembranos points out that while R2 gravity is an interesting approach to the problem, it doesn’t hold all the answers. ‘Many people have used different modifications of gravity in order to explain dark matter and even dark energy,’ he says. ‘However, usually these explanations end up being worse than Einstein gravity. Einstein gravity clearly has problems, but nearly all the other explanations are worse.’

What makes the model studied by Cembranos more promising, he insists, is that using the R2 term isn’t worse than Einstein’s gravity theory. ‘It’s not any better, but it’s also not any worse. It’s more or less the same, but a little more complicated.’"

Read the full article here.

What I find so interesting about this attempt is that it is very similar to what Plank did back in the 19th century to find a solution to the UV disaster in the black-body radiation curve. Plank introduced a tunable parameter that he called "h" (now called the Plank constant), and worked out its magnitude by fitting the black-body radiation curve to the spectrum that would be created by a simple harmonic oscillator limited with an "h" sized granularity.

That worked well so well that we now have an entire regime of physics based on Plank's work (as explained interestingly enough by Einstein in his work on the Photo-electric effect).

Perhaps here's another go that will have the same sorts of payoff?

Mark Vernon: Did Socrates and the Buddha ever meet?

Gosh - here's an interesting thought. There are scholars who now put the date of the Buddha's birth so that he and Socrates are roughly contemporaries of each other. And the same scholars find some evidence that the Buddha was exposed to Greek thought early in his studies.

As Mark Vernon writes:

"What does this mean for Buddhism today? Well, it might be one way of re-making Buddhist concepts for the West. For example, duhkha - usually translated as 'suffering' - might better be thought of as indicating the tragic state of existence, the fact that human life is marked by transience, impermanence and death. The point is that duhkha is not always painful, as the term suffering implies. However, it must be fully understood if an individual is to 'wake up' and see things clearly.

If that is right, I wonder whether anything might be learnt about duhkha from the ancient Greek conception of tragedy. Roughly, in the tragedies of the great playwrights, the hero is the individual who is able to face the fate the gods have decreed for them. They are the ones to be admired; they are the focus for the catharsis provided by the action. You might say they are the ones who understand reality as it has come to them, with all its transience and impermanence. They are able to let go of the craving for life and are, thereby, typically honored by the gods - escaping the cycles of joy and sorrow that usually characterizes the life of mortals. Might that be a model of Buddhist 'heroism'?

The most scholarly text on these links, Thomas McEvilley's The Shape of Ancient Thought, doesn't push the parallels between ancient Greek and Buddhist ideas back to the life of Gautama and Socrates themselves. Rather McEvilley focuses on how, say, Platonic philosophy helped to shape early Buddhist thought. Platonic Ideas, for example, are like Buddhist dharmas - the 'really real' of which phenomena are but shadows. Alternatively, Buddhist practice seems not unlike what Plato has Socrates say in the Republic: 'We must be able to discern the presence of Ideas themselves and also of their images in anything that contains them.' Wisdom is a kind of right seeing."

Read the full article here.

Very interesting. I'm not nearly as familiar with Buddhist thinking as I am with Platonic - but if Vernon is right and there is a different lens that can be used to view this, perhaps it's worth taking some time to read up on.

Plato has been interesting especially to me as a help to contrast more clearly the surprising message of Christianity and the ways it parallels and the ways it refutes traditional Greek thought.

Perhaps it's worth reading some Buddhist thought to see how it, by contrast, might make clearer what the Fathers are responding to in their writings as Christianity pushed East.

Bishop Whalon reflects on the proposed Anglican Covenant

There's a wonderful essay posted by Bishop Whalon on his reflections regarding the proposed Anglican Covenant.

It's motivated in part by wanting to have something for the Anglican Consultative Council which is meeting this month, but it's driven (it seems to me) by his recent close reading of a book by Prof. Norman Doe on the Covenant process.

Bishop Whalon's essay really deserves to be read in full. Here's just a taste:

"The large majority of comments and responses collected by Doe and later, Lambeth Indaba, as well as very recent comments on the Ridley Draft, show that few people wanted a Covenant that could be used to decide that a particular church is no longer part of the Anglican Communion. Overwhelmingly, people were far more content with a document that presents a theological, biblically-grounded notion of covenant. The rich and varied experience of the Reformed churches, for whom ‘covenanting’ is of first importance in their understanding of what is a church, also points to the desirability of continuing to define relationships among Christians in the terms by which we became Christians. The Ridley Draft delivers a panoply of theological statements, supported by a lot of texts that have received unanimous acceptance by the constituent churches of the Communion. There is a final section that sets forth a consultative process for determining whether a church has violated the Covenant. It is then up to the Instruments of Communion—the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lambeth Conference, the Anglican Consultative Council, and the Primates Meeting—to decide what to do next. It unequivocally states that each church remains independent in terms of its own internal life. Signing on to the Covenant does not confer any power on outside jurisdictions to interfere in any church’s affairs.

[...]But, 'Within any important issue, there are always aspects no one wishes to discuss', as George Orwell purportedly remarked. One such aspect has to do with churchmanship. Now, whether one is Low, High, or Broad is not supposed to matter anymore—everything boils down to ‘Liberal’ or ‘Conservative,’ cutting across confessional lines. But clearly, in the comments and responses, including the most recent, the church parties re-appear in what people say is lacking in the Covenant. The Low-church folks want doctrine, clearly stated, accepted Or Else, about Scripture and how it is to be interpreted, and could we have the 39 Articles, too? The High-church folks want as much prelacy as possible, some citations of the Church Fathers thrown in, and why not a little Aquinas, and many more references to sacramental liturgies and quotes from them. The Broad-church folks, the ‘hazy ones’ (‘High and crazy, Low and lazy, Broad and hazy’), would rather have no document at all. But if we must, then let it be a brief reminder to us that the poor we will always have with us, never mind all this palaver about doctrine and liturgy and (ecch!) Bishops! —and that we should go out and get on with doing justice, making peace and feeding the hungry. Since none of the parties get what they want in this Ridley Draft, which would be in effect to bend other Anglicans to their party agenda, this is certainly a strength."

Read the full article here.

I find that his identification of the reemergence of the classic church parties in Anglicanism is spot on. I come out of the High Church wing of the Episcopal Church and as such am much more comfortable with the traditions of prelature and discipline based on patristic thought. It's interesting to see how in some places that leads folks to make common cause with the Low Church (reformed) voices from whom the whole idea of Covenant first comes. But it's Bishop Whalon's recognition of the role of the Broad Church, especially within the Episcopal Church, that is rejecting the Covenant pretty much out of hand that is both surprising and accurate to me. I hadn't recognized what he points out, but now that he has, it makes good sense to me. I want to spend some time thinking that through - it's a simultaneously exciting and somewhat disappointing development.

Bishop Whalon ends on a very irenic tone, with a call to the American church to fully participate in the Covenant process, even recognizing that it is likely that the ACNA proto-province will sign on as well.

I have to say that I agree with him. I'm grateful for any connection, any relationship, no matter how tenuous with other Christians and other Anglicans. Because if I refuse to pray with them, how can they convince me that I'm wrong on an issue - or I them?

You want incense? You got it...

We used incense at two of our later services on Easter Day. As with anytime we use incense as an aid to prayer, there are some who find it helpful and some who find it a distraction.

Which is why we list one of our main choral services as "smoking" and the other as "non-smoking". Just to make it clear to those who have strong feelings either way.

For me, assuming the thurifer is using quality charcoal so that we smell the incense and not the gunpowder used to keep the charcoal alight, I've always found the memories triggered by the smell of the incense to a be powerful tool in focusing my spirit to an attitude of prayer. My wife feels the same way. We've both made it clear in our funeral plans that we would like a great deal of incense to be added to the faithful Rite I prayers of the gathered people.

But this is a little over the top, even for me...

Thanks to Deacon Ormonde Platter for the pointer.

Easter 2009 Photo Gallery

We had a glorious day yesterday with Bishop Smith celebrating, the choir's singing and the people worshiping together.

One of our cathedral members took a set of pictures at the third of our four liturgies. You can see them all following the link below and you can get a sense of what it was like.

See them all here.

Hopefully I'll be able to post some samples of the special Easter music that was offered by the choir at some point this week too.

Easter Day 2009: What's the big deal?

Why is this day such a big deal? Because Jesus’ came back from the dead? Because his tomb was empty?

Other people have cheated death. Some of them - like Elijah - and (according to many) the Virgin Mary - managed to avoid dying at all.

That’s not it apparently.

At least not if you read the text carefully.

It's reasonable to expect that the women at the tomb on Easter Morning were present with Jesus in Bethany the week before when Lazarus was raised.

Even if they weren't present, surely they must have heard all about it from those who were there.

There’s something else going on here.

Is it nothing to you, all who pass by?

The new light rail service in downtown Phoenix has changed the feeling of the downtown, including the immediate neighborhood around our Cathedral. The streets used to be pretty much deserted of pedestrians with only the occasional homeless man walking by. Now the streets are lively and filled with all sorts and conditions of people. It feels much more like a real urban center.

I hadn’t realized until today though how much different it was. It is our custom here at the Cathedral to mark the noon hour of Good Friday by praying the Stations of the Cross out in the courtyard. The stations are arranged around the outside of the pavement labyrinth; we make our way slowly around the perimeter following a deacon carrying a cross while another deacon reads prayers from the outdoor pulpit.

In past years we would do this with very few spectators. The street that the Cathedral courtyard opens up toward is relatively busy, but it’s right at a complicated intersection and in previous years the whole area was torn up and traffic lanes were a bit of puzzle. People trying negotiate the puzzle tended to keep their eyes on the road. And there wasn’t anyone walking by.

This year this was not the case. The people in the cars stopped at the lights and looked at us with a sort of incredulity that wondered why folks would be doing such an odd thing as walking in a small crowd around a courtyard carrying a cross. The young men and the mothers wheeling strollers on their way to and from the light rail station next to our building looked on in amazement. Some of the young men found it funny. A couple made rude noises suggestive of flatulence and then controlling their giggles quickly shot around the corner. Some people just seemed embarrassed for us.

I was thinking about all this as we neared the halfway point of the liturgy. The people were under a tree, making their way through a pair of gates that represent the eighth station. I was watching a passerby try to look at what was happening without appearing to be looking and I found myself remembering the Opening Sentence from Morning Prayer this morning.

“Is it nothing to all you who pass by? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow which was brought upon me, whom the Lord has afflicted.” (Lamentations 1:12)

People were just going about their everyday business. They were running to grab a bite to eat. They were taking the babies to the park. They were coming home from classes for lunch. They were heading out early from the office. On Good Friday. And they were just driving by us as we were trying to be present once again at the Cross. Most of them seemed to have no idea what we were doing. They probably didn’t really understand the meaning of the day, or perhaps even realize in the first place that there was anything unusual about this Friday at all.

My mind started to wander. It wandered back to a fall Friday about twelve years when I was living in Western PA. Our youngest daughter had just died after a long and difficult illness. Karen and I were in the back seat of big long black limo that some parishioners had hired for us. We were sitting all by ourselves in the back of this enormous empty space with our daughters ashes on the seat between us. We were exhausted and silent. We just looked out the windows as our little procession drove down to the Cathedral in the center of Pittsburgh where our daughter Jackie was interred.

I remember that day. I guess there’s no way I’ll ever forget it. What I remember most of the drive though was the way everyone else in the world was carrying on as if it was a normal day. They were going about their everyday business. Driving to work. Heading out to the shopping. Making deliveries. They had no idea that our daughter had just died. They had no idea of the grief and the emptiness that was on the other side of the tinted windows of the limo they were passing. It was just a day like any other for them. Just as it should have been I guess.

I remember thinking then that this must be what it is like for everyone when they lose someone they love. Their world is standing still, but the rest of us go on as if nothing has happened. There are these little islands of personal grief adrift in the teeming seas of humanity. And we pretty much always just miss them. We’re too busy doing what needs to be done to see. To stop. To stand in silence. In the old days people used to stop when a funeral procession drove by. People even removed their hats (or so I’m told). That doesn’t happen anymore. Now people zoom by, or hop in line briefly so as to run through a light.

Occasionally, if the procession is slowing them down too much for their need to get things done, they decide to share their frustration by flipping off the hearse. I’ve been flipped off a number of times as I rode at the head of procession. People can no longer imagine the floating islands of grief are passing so close to them I guess.

And just as that thought was passing through my mind, I looked down this afternoon.

There at the foot of cross on the labyrinth, the one that marks the tenth station, I noticed a flower. A flower wrapped in a palm leaf. Probably a palm that I had blessed on Sunday as we all gathered in the courtyard to start the Palm Sunday Liturgy.

That little flower, so carefully arranged, had been left at the foot of the cross by some person who must have attended the service. Maybe someone from the Cathedral congregation. Maybe someone from the neighborhood. Maybe someone just passing by. It was obviously an act of prayer by who ever put it there. A secret, private act of prayer.

Someone had had eyes to see. The sign was there at my feet. I had suddenly been given those same eyes I guess. The cross in the yard meant something to someone. And they had marked it in their own way. And that marking reminded me that not all of us are unaware of what is happening, or unable to see the islands of private pain. And that made it better. The fact that someone saw mattered. It didn’t matter that most didn’t. It mattered that someone did.

Maybe that’s how it was in Jerusalem that day back then too. Some people saw. Most didn’t. But the ones who did, saw on behalf of all of us. Maybe it really was only Mary and John at the end. But they saw. And through them, we see too.

Jesus' silence and the questions facing the Communion

Wonderful post by Ben Myers entitled "Alfred Hitchcock, the Church, and the silence of Jesus" of which this is just a part:

"In his remarkable book, Christ on Trial, Rowan Williams suggests that what we mean when we speak of God’s transcendence ought thus to be refracted through what he calls the ‘obstinate uselessness’ of Jesus’ silence before his accusers.

‘If we are really to have our language about the transcendence – the sheer, unimaginable differentness – of God recreated, it must be by the emptying out of all we thought we knew about it, the emptying out of practically all we normally mean by greatness. No more about the lofty distance of God, the sovereignty that involves control over all circumstances: God’s ‘I am’ can only be heard for what it really is when it has no trace of human power left to it.’

It is in this way that Jesus’ silence could begin shaping the practice of the Church. To participate in Jesus’ silence would mean to commit ourselves afresh to an alternative, non-instrumental mode of communal life. It would require that we abandon that perverse moral calculus that implicitly – and, at times, even explicitly – determines what is worthwhile and useful and constructive in Western society.

That is how I understand Stanley Hauerwas’ oft cited axiom: that the first task of the Church is not to make the world a better place, but to make the world the world. In other words, the sheer difference of the Church’s common life – what one might call our sacramentality – represents a kind of refusal to convey upon our given social, political and economic structures any moral legitimacy. It stands for the refusal to resign itself to the soulless Realpolitik that now structures and defines our societal sanity."

Read Ben's complete post here.

Not resigning ourselves to the World is not the same as overthrowing the World, or just simply rejecting the World. It is, to paraphrase Neibuhr, a call to stay engaged with the World so as to transform the World.

I guess at the core, this the reason that I see the Covenant process as being worth pursuing. (For what it's worth there was a new draft of the proposed Anglican Covenant released yesterday. I've not really had a chance to do anything more than skim it, and won't until next week.) Following the same reasoning as Hauerwas' I think it's worth staying engaged with the Covenant process because I think the Episcopal Church with our uniquely American polity has something to bring to the table. I don't particularly like that we're all being asked to sign on to something, but since we Episcopalians lost that Anglican Communion vote, the best course of action now is to stay at the table.

And oddly, perhaps paradoxically, I say this out of the line of reasoning that Myers is enumerating above. Walking away is the worldly response. It is an abnegation of Hope.

Walking away would be a form of rejection and would seem to me to choose the path of resignation and not engagement.

On the beauty of the Pearl and our wrinkles

In a youth obsessed culture like that here in the United States, it's no surprise that there's a great deal of funding available for anti-aging research. I mean this is the culture that is bravely going into that long night declaring that forty is the new thirty. Or fifty... depends who's hosting the beauty segment on the Today Show.

That aging research has paid off a bit as there is report of a new understanding of what causes us to age - wrinkles, grey hair and all.

The basic idea is that our increasingly "ravaged" faces are a result of mistakes made as our body attempts to repair damage made to our skin and other organs:

"The new idea from Michelitsch and co relates to this second mechanism. They contend that the accumulation of faults on the cellular and molecular level are certainly involved in aging but are not the mechanism of aging. These faults trigger the body's repair mechanisms, which fix everything up, most of the time.

But sometimes these repair mechanisms go wrong, leaving small regions of misrepair. The new idea is that aging is the result of the accumulation of these misrepairs over time.

This leads to a key prediction about aging. The team says: 'Our theory suggests that for extending lifespan all efforts need to focus on the reduction of misrepair.'

So what should you do if you want to live longer? Avoid damage as far as possible, say Michelitsch and pals, emphasising that 'it is especially important to prevent chronic inflammation, which is an important source of misrepair.'"

Read the full article here.

So, if you want to look your youthful best, don't force your body to clean up after your experiences.

Which is good news to me as a pasty faced nerdling. Since I hardly leave the basement, my skin is still as soft as a baby's...

When I read this news report I was immediately reminded of the solid-state phenomenon of color-centers. In a crystal lattice, where atoms and molecules are evenly placed in regular array, occasional mistakes in the lattice structure give rise to all sorts of interesting effects.

In sapphire crystals, which when perfect are absolutely colorless and look like glass, the sorts of mistakes you make cause some sapphires to be blue, some to be red (we call those rubies) and some green (emeralds). That's actually how these a synthetically grown. You start by epitaxially growing pure sapphires, then introduce "contaminants" which cause mistakes in the array and give rise to the beautiful colors. The more contaminants, the deeper the color (and also the harder the gems are to grow - which is why the color of synthetic gems is not as intense as that of natural ones). My wife's engagement ring features an emerald with large inclusions (flaws and mistakes) and has deep deep green color that you can hardly find today.

It's the mistakes that give rise to the beauty that we so prize. It's the flaws that makes these gems valuable.

Isn't it surprising, and sort of sad, that it's so different with humans?

Someone pointed out to me that there's a reason that heaven has pearly gates. It's because the pearl can only be grown through pain, irritation and prolonged suffering on behalf of the oyster. The gates of heaven are opened to us because of Christ's passion - the profound suffering of our Lord to lead us out of sinful state.

Kind of makes me look at "fifty is the new thirty" in a whole new light. And it's not a good one.

INFLUENZA

                       

Since my retirement from the Centers for the Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), I am often asked questions regarding this respiratory agent. There is no question that this infectious disease has a rather dubious history along with a certain amount of dread for many of us. It is my hope to shed some light on this subject using data provided by the CDC(March, 2009). Moreover, I plan to present this information in a series of timely blogs (hopefully) for all those who may have an interest in the subject

WHAT IS INFLUENZA (ALSO CALLED FLU)?

The flu is a contagious respiratory illness caused by influenza viruses. It can cause mild to severe illness and can lead to death. The best way to prevent the flu is by getting a flu vaccination each year.

Every year in the United States, on average:

    * 5% to 20% of the population get the flu;
    * more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from flu-related complications; and
    * about 36,000 people die from flu-related causes.

Some people, such as people older than 50, young children, and people with certain health conditions (such as asthma, diabetes, or heart disease), are at high risk for serious flu complications.

SYMPTOMS OF FLU:

    * fever (usually high)
    * headache
    * extreme tiredness
    * dry cough
    * sore throat
    * runny or stuffy nose
    * muscle aches
    * Stomach symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, also can occur but are more common in children than adults

COMPLICATIONS OF FLU

Complications of flu can include bacterial pneumonia, ear infections, sinus infections, dehydration, and worsening of chronic medical conditions, such as congestive heart failure, asthma, or diabetes.

HOW FLU SPREADS

Flu viruses are thought to spread mainly from person to person through coughing or sneezing by people with influenza. Sometimes people may become infected by touching something with flu viruses on it and then touching their mouth or nose. Most healthy adults are able to infect others beginning one day before symptoms develop and up to five days after becoming sick, which means that you may be able to pass on the flu to someone else before you know you are sick, as well as while you are sick.

PREVENTING SEASONAL FLU: GET VACCINATED

The single best way to prevent the flu is to get a flu vaccination each year. There are two types of vaccines:

    * The "flu shot" – an inactivated vaccine (containing killed virus) that is given with a needle. The flu shot is approved for use in people SIX months of age and older, including healthy people and people with chronic medical conditions.
    * The nasal-spray flu vaccine – a vaccine made with live, weakened flu viruses that do not cause the flu (sometimes called LAIV for “Live Attenuated Influenza Vaccine”). LAIV is approved for use in healthy* people 2-49 years of age who are not pregnant.

Use of the Nasal Spray Flu Vaccine

Vaccination with the nasal-spray flu vaccine is an option for healthy* people 2-49 years of age who are not pregnant, even healthy persons who live with or care for those in a high risk group. The one exception is healthy persons who care for persons with severely weakened immune systems who require a protected environment; these healthy persons should get the inactivated vaccine

About two weeks after vaccination, antibodies develop that protect against influenza virus infection. Flu vaccines will not protect against flu-like illnesses caused by non-influenza viruses.

WHEN TO GET VACCINATED

Yearly flu vaccination should begin in September or as soon as vaccine is available and continue throughout the influenza season, into December, January, and beyond. This is because the timing and duration of influenza seasons vary. Although influenza outbreaks can happen as early as October, most of the time influenza activity peaks in January or later.

WHO SHOULD GET VACCINATED?

People who should get vaccinated each year are:
    1. Children aged 6 months up to their 19th birthday
    2. Pregnant women
    3. People 50 years of age and older
    4. People of any age with certain chronic medical conditions
    5. People who live in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities
    6. People who live with or care for those at high risk for complications from flu, including:
        a. Health care workers
        b. Household contacts of persons at high risk for complications from the flu
        c. Household contacts and non-home caregivers of children less than 6 months of age (these children are too young to be vaccinated)

.

WHO SHOULD NOT BE VACCINATED

Some people should not be vaccinated without first consulting a physician. They include:

    * People who have a severe allergy to chicken eggs.
    * People who have had a severe reaction to an influenza vaccination in the past.
    * People who developed Guillian-Barré syndrome (GBS) within 6 weeks of getting an influenza vaccine previously.
    * Children less than 6 months of age (influenza vaccine is not approved for use in this age group).
    * People who have a moderate or severe illness with a fever should wait to get vaccinated until their symptoms lessen.

If you have questions about whether you should get a flu vaccine, consult your health-care provider.

* "Healthy" indicates persons who do not have an underlying medical condition that predisposes them to influenza complications.

Stop scapegoating the "other"

I've written here before of the danger of trying to find ways to blame others for the tensions that exist in society and personal relationships. Some of the most noxious examples of the last century were the ways that anti-semitism was used in Eastern and Western Europe to rally people during the times of economic depression by blaming the hard-times on the capitalist "jews".

In this past ten years here in the United States most of that scapegoating has either been of "liberals" or "the gays". Sadly, because of our cultural hegemony, our own shortcomings are being exported.

One of the most virulent users of rhetoric of scapegoating within the Anglican Communion and in Africa has been the Primate of the Anglican Church of Nigeria, Peter Akinola.

In a series of recent statements regarding draconian legislation in Nigeria to further outlaw any non-heterosexual relationships, he's used almost classic language. But now, as Seni Hensman points out, he's trying to tar the GLBT community with the responsibility for a perceived decay of traditional morals. The danger is that this is happening at a "powder-keg" moment during the global economic downturn, in a time not dissimilar to the 1930's.

She points out:

"Attempts to justify the hardening of Nigeria’s already harsh anti-gay laws have been strongly resisted by human rights campaigners locally and internationally. The reasons being used to try to justify the Same Gender Marriage (Prohibition) Bill, in which anyone who attended their son’s or daughter’s partnership ceremony or even rented a room to a same-sex couple could be jailed, may seem odd.

For instance, one of the most vocal champions of the Bill is Archbishop Peter Akinola. According to him, "As with every other thing in human development, globalization has both good and bad sides… individualism is one of the marks of secularization and post-modernism… Same sex marriage is out to foist on the world a false sense of the family which will bring disastrous consequences to mankind."

Indeed, he argues, same-sex marriage will "endanger human existence" and "is capable of engendering moral and social holocaust in this country".

In trying to link lesbians and gays with the ill-effects of globalisation, he seeks to blame them for social trends over which they have no more control than any other Nigerian, projecting genuine anxieties on to a convenient scapegoat."

Read the full article here.

Hensman is making the same point I've been. Almost all the "wedge issue" use of gay marriage hysteria is specifically working out the social dynamics of scapegoating.

It's worth paying attention to as we stand on the brink of Holy Week when our ancestors managed to do the same thing to God by seeking to find common ground between the sacred (Herod and the Sanhedrin) and the secular (Pontius Pilate) by killing God. It's only by God's willingness to die for us that the cycle has had the possibility of ending. Sadly we've managed to avoid the cure for most of our history since.

The cure, as Girard and other theological writers have pointed out, is to stop seeing the "other" as alien and to start seeing that God has actively identified himself with them in the life and death of Jesus.

Maybe Iowa's ruling today is a sign of light?

Cathedral Dean's office vandalized...

OMG! Pink Sparkle Ponies everywhere.

See all the fun here.

/me shakes fist in burst of impotent rage at perpetrators.