After Pope John Paul II’s death on April 2, the European Parliament was torn over a “difficult” decision – whether to lower the flags of the European Institution to half-mast. It seems that some members thought it was inappropriate to honor one of the most pro-European statesmen who ever lived with such a simple gesture. Eventually, they came to their senses and agreed to do so.
Read more on The Extent of European Antipathy Towards Christianity…
On this date in 1955, Ray Kroc starts the McDonald’s chain of fast food restaurants in Illinois.
On a related note, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is the latest political figure to float the idea of a “fast food tax,” the newest incarnation of the “sin” tax. The reasoning is that fast foods, which tend to be higher in fat and cholesterol than other types of food, are unhealthy, and therefore worthy of special government attention.
1) According to the BBC, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, “The bulk of the money that Saddam [Hussein] made came out of smuggling outside the oil-for-food programme, and it was on the American and British watch” (HT: The Corner). This assertion is based on the contention that the $4 billion that Hussein was alleged to have received in the oil-for-food program is “dwarfed” by the $14 billion is said to have come from “sanctions-busting,” illegally smuggling oil to neighboring states such as Jordan and Turkey.
Courtesy of Pulpit & Pew comes Factors Shaping Clergy Careers: A Wakeup Call for Protestant Denominations and Pastors, by Patricia M. Y. Chang (HT: Mere Comments). This study is based on surveys conducted primarily with mainline Protestant denominations.
From Live Science, there are plans to create a pseudo-woolly mammoth from frozen DNA. The trick is to take the male sperm DNA from a woolly mammoth sample and the egg from its closest living relative, the elephant. “By repeating the procedure with offspring, a creature 88 percent mammoth could be produced within fifty years.”
In the words of the Cornwall Declaration, “A clean environment is a costly good.” A round-up of recent stories attests to the truth of this statement.
Wal-Mart pledged on Tuesday to provide $35 million for use to protect wildlife habitat. Wal-Mart can afford to use this money to “buy an amount of land equal to all the land its stores, parking lots and distribution centers use over the next 10 years” in part because of its economic success, topping the 2004 Fortune 500 list.
C.S. Lewis calls “Friendship” the “least natural of loves; the least instinctive, organic, biological, gregarious and necessary.” Head on over to Mere Comments to see my response to “Walking With Friendships.”
For those concerned about the way corruption hinders development in Africa, a hopeful story in the Wall Street Journal today (subscription required). Here’s one paragraph:
“Since taking charge of the new Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr. Ribadu has pursued oil mobsters, Internet fraudsters and corrupt politicians. The former street cop has 185 active fraud and corruption cases working their way through the courts, up from zero before the commission started its work two years ago. Working in the capital of Abuja from an office overlooking goats grazing in a vacant lot, the wiry 44-year-old has locked up 200 alleged smugglers and seized $700 million in property, including a collection of office buildings, from suspects in oil smuggling and other crimes. Royal Dutch/Shell Group, whose joint venture with the state petroleum company pumps about half of Nigeria’s oil, says the amount of crude stolen from its network has fallen by almost half since early last year.”
Bob Woodson of National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise fame taught me a lot about strategic partnerships. In the interest of getting something important done for needy people, it’s ok to invite others with good contributions to make to join you, despite disagreements with them on other issues. Good advice. And on the 50th anniversary of Dr. Jonas Salk’s vaccine and Dr. Albert Sabin’s oral polio vaccine, Rotary International demonstrates an impressive strategic partnership with the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, partnering with the World Health Organization, U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Rotary is the world’s first volunteer service organization, tapping 1.2 million members in 166 countries when it launched a flagship PolioPlus program in 1985 to achieve a polio free world for all children. Polio cases were cut 99% by 2004, but there are six polio endemic countries including Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Niger, Afghanistan and Egypt, and five countries where transmisison has been re-established in the Sudan, Central Aftican Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, Chad and Burkina Faso. Multiple volunteers have travelled safely into war-torn Sudan and Cote d’Ivoire to vaccinate children.
Contributions have been received from 528 or the 529 Rotary Districts and from 153 countries. Twenty thousand clubs have made contributions and eight districts have rasied more than $1 million each. Rotary contributions to the global project will exceed US$600 million. Rotary is to be commended for not looking at an overwhelming global issue and thinking “governments should fix this.”
Such is the admirable Soul of Civil Society.
136 Catholic schools were closed nationwide in 2004, even as the Catholic population in the United States has been rising. Kevin Schmiesing writes that “the economic bind that religious schools and their students increasingly find themselves in highlights an injustice at the heart of American education.”
Read more on Taxes and Tuition: Families Squeezed by Rising Costs of Religious Education…
