Mark's Notebook

All Articles - November 2005

Found a pic of Don

I found this pic of Don Schottman at Powerhouse of Deliverance:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cityteam/48488372/in/set-1085413/

Don is sitting, with the laptop, wearing glasses. Don is one who is primarily responsible for us having gone to Mississippi.

It's part of a larger set of pics from early on.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cityteam/sets/1085413/

Debriefing

Be sure to check out Lawrence's picture album. You can see the team, the camp, and the destruction:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/lukl78/album?.dir=/5327&.src=ph&.tok=phP4qAEBz7kIA
a70

Tonight (Wednesday) is debriefing. The rest of the group got the 15-minute version on Saturday when they returned, but Mary and I missed it because we came in on a different flight. Tonight is the longer version. We still don't know what it's all about.

Don Schottman told me there is supposed to be a reunion dinner for everyone who has gone to Mississippi. It will be this coming Saturday at 6:30 pm at the Zanker offices. I haven't heard anything about it directly from CityTeam, but I suppose they'll let us know about it tonight.

News from the front

From Hester, Sunday Nov 27:

I talked with Pete today and for all those who were concerned, the House Of Grace ladies faired well despite the downpour which lasted all night long. James and Richard placed pallets in their tents to get them off the ground to stay dry. They are off on a tour of New Orleans today - so, we have to go back if we want that tour :-) Also, the rain caused the Calvary Chapel group to evacuate.  

From Marvette, Monday Nov 28:

A couple of links that brought back memories:

http://risingfromruin.msnbc.com/2005/11/hippies_say_goo.html

http://risingfromruin.msnbc.com/2005/11/a_differnt_kind.html#posts

From Lawrence, Monday Nov 28:

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I know there is much to thank God for. Well, I finally posted up my pics on my yahoo photo albums for you to take a look at. For those of you in San Jose, see you on Wednesday! Enjoy!

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/lukl78/album?.dir=/5327&.src=ph&.tok=phP4qAEBz7kIA
a70

From Carol, Tuesday Nov 29:

God has filled me with so much joy. Employees asked me how it went and all I can say is “It was one of the top 5 Thanksgivings of my life” – it compared with the first thanksgiving I spent at CityTeam where I handed my first food box to an eight year old boy that was trying to gather enough food for his family all by himself.

Target and The Salvation Army create charity Web site

Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal

A year after banning The Salvation Army's trademark red kettles from its storefronts, Target Corp. has forged a new partnership with the nonprofit.

Target and The Salvation Army have created The Target/Salvation Army Wish List, a Web site providing essential items for those affected by recent hurricanes, and other less-fortunate individuals and families.

From Nov. 25 to Jan. 25, 2006, visitors to Target.com/salvationarmy can purchase clothing, household items, gift cards and more for donation to families across the country. The Salvation Army will distribute the items.

http://twincities.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/2005/11/14/daily4.html

Hurricane season ends today

San Jose Mercury News

By John Pain, Associated Press

MIAMI - The victims of the busiest and costliest Atlantic hurricane season on record may be comforted now that it's finally ending Wednesday: No hurricane has been known to hit the United States between December and May.

But despite the end of the June 1-to-Nov. 30 season, tens of thousands of Americans are still dealing with the devastation from Hurricanes Wilma, Rita and Katrina, the nation's worst natural disaster in modern times.

Thousands remain homeless along the Gulf Coast, where Katrina hit three months ago. The storm plunged New Orleans into the kind of chaos usually seen in developing countries, exposing the gap between rich and poor, and raising serious doubts about the country's readiness for another catastrophe, caused by man or nature.

Forecasters say 2006 could be another brutal year because the Atlantic is in a period of frenzied hurricane activity that began in 1995 and could last at least another decade.

Government hurricane experts say the increase is due to a natural cycle of higher sea temperatures, lower wind shear and other factors, though some scientists blame global warming.

In 154 years of record-keeping, this year had the most named storms (26, including Tropical Storm Epsilon, which formed Tuesday), the most hurricanes (13), the highest number of major hurricanes hitting the U.S. (4), and the most top-scale Category 5 hurricanes (3).

Katrina was the deadliest U.S. hurricane since 1928 (more than 1,300 dead) and replaced 1992's Andrew as the most expensive one on record ($34.4 billion in insured losses).

The worst damage, of course, was inflicted by Katrina. Miles of coastal Mississippi towns such as Waveland and Gulfport were smashed. Eighty percent of New Orleans was under water after its levees broke. The world saw families stranded on roofs, and hungry and thirsty refugees stuck in the Superdome and Convention Center. Bodies lay on streets for days or floated in the fetid floodwaters. Hundreds of thousands of people have yet to return to their homes - or have no homes to return to.

http://www.mercurynews.com:80/mld/mercurynews/news/13290402.htm

County jail is being sold on eBay

Associated Press

Associated Press

HUNTSVILLE, MO. -- Along with concert tickets, sports memorabilia and designer handbags, add a Missouri jail to the list of things you can buy on eBay.

Randolph County officials have decided to sell their old jail on the auction site as soon as Wednesday. Bidding starts at $32,500, said Jim Myles, a county commissioner.

County leaders say they got the idea to sell the jail from neighboring Howard County, which sold its jail to a Los Angeles lawyer who plans to renovate it into a country getaway.

"After Howard County sold their jail, we were kind of jealous," said Myles. "We wished we had been first."

The two-story structure resembles a quaint home more than a secure lockdown That's because until 1989, the jail doubled as home to the county sheriff and his family, with a separate living quarters including a full kitchen and fireplace. The sheriff's wife even cooked meals for prisoners.

How Katrina Made Me Thankful

Christianity Today

When the deadly hurricane tore me apart from my young son, I reached out to God like never before.

By Stacy Nolan as told to Berta Delgado-Young

I was in a caravan of three cars with two of my children—4-year-old Jeremiah and 1-year-old Ashanti—and 17 other people from our extended family. The goal was to get out of the city. But first, I had to find my youngest child.

My 7-month-old son, A'Mahd, had been staying with his godmother, my friend Nikolle. When it became clear Katrina was definitely coming, I scrambled to contact Nikolle, who lived on the other side of town. I punched her cell phone number repeatedly and heard the same message over and over—"No signal; call again later." We tried to drive to Nikolle's house, but the streets were too jammed with traffic. My heart raced in panic. I have to get to my son!

Suddenly, I faced the most painful decision any mother could imagine: Stay or leave? Wiping the tears from my eyes, I prayed to God that He would keep A'Mahd and Nikolle safe in His hands. I trusted Him to watch over them.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/tc/2005/006/3.00.html

Turning to Bibles for Divine Returns

Yahoo News

More people are turning to the Bible as a safe refuge from a struggling stock market and rising inflation, pouring large sums of cash into rare 1611 King James Bibles, centuries-old Matthew-Tyndale Bible leaves, Hebrew scrolls, prayer books and other ancient liturgical texts.

At Sotheby's Western Manuscripts sale in London in June, a three-volume, 13th century Bible in Latin with prologues attributed to Saint Jerome sold for $1.8 million, while an 11th century Bible sold for $164,081, well above the estimate.

Rare biblical work "is like California coastline real estate — there's a finite quantity of it," says John L. Jeffcoat, Greatsite's owner, who estimates that the value of most rare Bibles appreciates by 15 percent each year, and first editions sometimes rise 25 percent.

"The biggest concern could be the hassle of protecting it," said Mark Ferris, an Old Saybrook, Conn., financial planner. "If you really had a Gutenberg Bible — could you keep it in your house on a stand?"

But as collectibles go, some people swear on the Bible for its steady and stable returns. "There is probably nothing out there that has done better as an investment than rare Bibles," said Tom Cloud, founder of Turamali Inc., a Duluth, Ga., tangible-asset investment manager.

A popular investment — the rare 1611 King James Bible — sold five years ago for $50,000. Now, the same Bible would sell for between $250,000 and $400,000, according to Cloud. Meanwhile, pages from an original Gutenberg Bible are selling for $100,000 to $150,000 a page, almost double what they sold for five years ago, he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051121/ap_on_bi_co_ne/managing_money_bibles_1

Meet Arthur Blessitt: The man who helped George W. find Jesus.

Mother Jones

By Tim Dickinson

There's more than a touch of irony in a story that has George W. Bush being converted by a self-described liberal fundamentalist who in the 1960s was known as the "Minister of Sunset Strip," preaching to Hollywood's hookers and hippies from a free coffeehouse called His Place. In footage from the era, Arthur Blessitt possesses all the gawky grace and comic overearnest intensity of a Will Ferrell character. Then, on Christmas Day in 1969, Blessitt says, he answered a call from Jesus. He lifted the 90-pound cross off of the coffeehouse wall and began his trek across the United States.

Blessitt says he's been turned away from more than half the churches where he's asked to spend the night (though he claims he has never been denied lodging in a bar or nightclub anywhere in the world). Seeing him walk with his giant cross, he says, "people always roll down their windows and say, 'You're a nut!' And I say, 'But at least I'm screwed on the right bolt. How 'bout you!?' "

http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2005/12/prayer_for_w.html

Habitat For Humanity Frames Houses Offsite

Yahoo News, AP

By Elliott Minor, Associated Press Writer

To speed up the recovery, Habitat volunteers around the country have been building house frames that are being shipped to the Gulf Coast, where they'll eventually become homes for hurricane survivors in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.

In partnership with NBC's "Today" show and Warner Music Group, volunteers in September worked around the clock to frame 65 homes at New York's Rockefeller Plaza. The effort was nationally televised each morning and featured dozens of celebrities.

Similar house-framing drives have occurred in Jackson, Miss., and Burbank, Calif. A partnership with Major League Baseball also resulted in more homes being framed in Houston during the World Series.

Habitat's latest build took volunteers to the Washington Mall last week, where they planned to assemble another 51 house frames in partnership with Freddie Mac, which assists institutions that grant home mortgages.

Despite the focus on the recent disasters, Habitat affiliates have been able to maintain their normal home-building pace elsewhere in the past year. Worldwide, Habitat volunteers build about 20,000 homes a year, including 5,000 in the United States.

It took 26 years to build 100,000 homes, but only five years to build the second 100,000.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051123/ap_on_re_us/habitat_s_visibility_1

Consider the alternatives to compact discs

San Francisco Chronicle

By Aidin Vaziri, Chronicle Pop Music Critic

The music industry has declared war on its customers. Now it's time to fight back. There's really no reason to buy another compact disc ever again.

Consider the alternatives: Free music available online legally. Online radio. iTunes and other digital music services. Amazon.com free music downloads. Buy tapes and LPs at Goodwill.

And the best of all ... get out and enjoy some live music direct from the source.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/11/28/CDS.TMP&nl=top

Housing Prices Higher But Sales Are Slowing

San Jose Mercury News

By Pete Carey, Mercury News

Santa Clara County's sizzling housing market cooled a little bit last month, but the median price of a single-family home jumped to a record of $714,250, bucking speculation of a downturn or bursting bubble.

That's a 19 percent increase from October of last year, when the median price was what now seems a modest $600,000.

But sales of single-family homes were nearly 10 percent below last October's, suggesting the continuation of a slow move toward balance in a market that just a few months ago was so hot homes sold almost overnight.

One reason for the slowdown could be mortgage rates. They've been climbing steadily, this week reaching an average 6.37 percent nationally for 30-year fixed loans, the highest level since 2003. That's nearly a percentage point above this year's low of 5.53 percent.

The fall months typically produce slower home sales than the spring and summer, so the slowdown is not entirely unexpected. The median price edged above the previous record of $714,000, set in August, and topped September's median of $705,000.

In the nine-county Bay Area, the median price for a single-family home was up 16.7 percent over last year, to $644,000, but sales were down 6.2 percent. The number of homes sold dropped for the seventh month in a row.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/13200145.htm

Fresno Tackling Poverty

Washington Post

By Evelyn Nieves, Washington Post Staff Writer

Fresno, the largest city in California's expansive Central Valley, may have gleaming new office buildings and an award-winning baseball stadium, but it remains a poor city overwhelmed by need. A short hop from City Hall, people live in slum buildings where roaches crawl in tenants' ears, the black mold looks like wallpaper and families split the rent by sleeping in walk-in closets, laundry rooms and bathtubs.

This city at the heart of the richest farmland in the world has been poor for so long, no one can remember it otherwise. Last month, when the Brookings Institution issued a report that said a higher proportion of poor people in Fresno lived in areas of concentrated poverty than in any other major city in the country -- pre-Katrina New Orleans was number two -- no one here was surprised.

But fighting poverty in Fresno (which ranks 16th among the nation's largest cities in terms of its overall poverty rate) may prove more than daunting. Unlike the other cities the Brookings report found with the most concentrated poverty -- New Orleans, Louisville, Miami and Atlanta -- Fresno is still, in many ways, a farm town. The city's dominant industry, agriculture, depends on a cheap, seasonal work force that keeps renewing itself as successive new waves of immigrants arrive.

Rising rents are sending full-time workers to soup kitchens. Poverello House estimates that 70 percent of the average of 1,200 meals it serves each day are to people with minimum-wage jobs who cannot get by without help.

The Fresno Rescue Mission, which operates the largest homeless shelter in the region, providing 300 beds a night, has found the lines longer at its soup kitchen and the demand for shelter greater than ever. About one quarter of the people who now come to the mission for meals work full time but cannot pay all their bills. "Apartments that were $400 two years ago are now $800 to $900 a month," said the Rev. Larry Arce, director of the mission.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/20/AR2005112001018.
html

Course Casting

Newsweek

By Peg Tyre

This fall, a dozen colleges across the country have introduced a controversial new teaching tool called course casting, aimed at supplementing—and in some cases replacing—large, impersonal lectures. Students at Purdue University have downloaded 40,000 lectures since the start of the semester -- not bad for a school with an enrollment of 38,000. Drexel, Stanford, Duke and American University have begun course-casting programs, too. But critics complain that digital lectures delivered through earphones cut down on the vital interaction between professors and students.

Some academics worry that much is lost when sophomores scroll between audio files of a philosophy lecture and the latest hit by Franz Ferdinand. Students learn an important skill when they are required to show up for a lecture: creating a schedule and sticking to it. Being in class keeps them in regular contact with professors, which, experts say, is a key to keeping dropout rates low. Lectures, too, force students to focus for long, uninterrupted stretches. A topnotch lecture should be provocative, catch you up short and make you think in ways you never have before. Those kinds of intellectual epiphanies rarely happen at the laundromat.

But converts say course casting is an easy way to add a much-needed jolt to the large introductory courses most departments must offer to underclassmen each semester. Weaned on fast-paced music videos and thrill-a-minute game systems, students often complain that 90-minute lectures are mind-numbingly dull. The technology makes it easier for professors to enliven lectures with guest speakers and primary-source material. Some professors actually act more like DJs than Ph.D.s, composing musical intros, adding gong sounds, jokes and other aural cues to emphasize important ideas on the digitalized version of their lectures.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10117475/site/newsweek/

Recovery Is Stagnant In Mississippi Coast Towns

Washington Post

By Michael Powell, Washington Post Staff Writer

PASS CHRISTIAN, Miss. -- Three months ago, Katrina all but scoured this old beach town of 8,000 off the face of the Earth. To walk its streets today is to see acres of wreckage almost as untouched as the day the hurricane passed.

No new houses are framed out. No lots cleared. There is just devastation and a lingering stench and a tent city in which hundreds of residents huddle against the first chill of winter and wonder where they'll find the money to rebuild their lives.

Like New Orleans to the west, hundreds of square miles of Mississippi coastland look little better than they did in early September. At least 200,000 Mississippians remain displaced, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency is short at least 13,000 trailers to house them.

Fifty thousand homeowners lack federal flood insurance and cannot rebuild. The unemployment rate has quadrupled, now topping 23 percent in the coastal counties.

The personal shock of it all hasn't subsided. Locals say it's not uncommon to hear perfectly rational people talk of suicide.

Not all the news is grim. Workers in Biloxi have carted away 1 million cubic yards of debris. They have stretched blue tarps over tens of thousands of damaged roofs. Every town along the Gulf Coast has an operating school -- the last one opened in Bay St. Louis on Nov. 6, albeit with only 100 of its original 300 students.

There are twin devastations in Mississippi, and it would take Solomon to pick the worse of the two. There are the coastal cities and there are such places as tiny Pearlington, deep in the woods and marshlands along the Louisiana border. Here a 35-foot-high storm surge roared up the Pearl River.

This is a self-reliant corner of the state, and neighbors sawed and hauled debris -- one even shot a 12-foot alligator lolling in a living room. But the local school remains shredded, its roof a spaghetti of metal beams. Everyone lost cars and trucks, and there's no money for replacements. Many people sleep in tents or shacks that have been roughly thrown together.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/24/AR2005112400796.
html

'Tis the season to be cautious

San Francisco Chronicle

By David Lazarus

Tim Kasser isn't surprised that Americans are once more turning out in droves to spend money they don't have for products they or their loved ones don't need.

Kasser is an associate professor of psychology at Knox College in Illinois who focuses on consumer behavior. Economic conditions might be uncertain, he told me, but most people will be unable to resist the impulse to shop that's cultivated by corporate and political interests.

"We think we're all individualists," he said. "But we're actually being manipulated by the largest and most expensive propaganda system ever developed."

Americans are constantly bombarded with messages promoting a sense that materialism will foster feelings of satisfaction and contentment. "It's always the same: Buy stuff and you'll be happy, buy stuff and you'll be complete," he said. "And it works. People are buying stuff. But studies show that it doesn't really make them feel happy."

Kasser likens our culture's powerful materialism to a drug addiction. Momentary euphoria gives way to feelings of emptiness, and then to a burning need to go out and buy something else.

"Christmas is a time when we're supposed to be celebrating the birth of one of the greatest anti-materialists who ever lived," he observed. "Instead, it's become a time to go out and spend a lot."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/11/25/BUG08FS
09G47.DTL

We are home

We arrived at San Jose airport at noon. Kathleen and David picked us up and brought us out for lunch. We got to our house about 1 pm. It was very cold inside. Mary turned off the furnace while we were away. It's just starting to warm up now. Been reading email and fixing a couple things on the blog.

Photos are FIXED

I'm terribly sorry. The photos in some previous articles showed up just fine for me, but I did make a mistake in the URLs. Here are the articles with photos, and the links are now fixed:

• Photos 1
• Photos 2

Homeward Bound

Because of a family emergency, we'll be coming home early from our mission here in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. It's now about 11 pm and we'll be leaving here around 4 am to catch a 6 pm flight back home. Another large group has been here since Monday and they are also leaving tomorrow. We'll be traveling with them as far as Houston, but then we split up because the last-minute travel changes put us on a different flight back to California.

While we're home, I hope to continue to collect information about the situation here in Mississippi and post it here in this notebook. It might be news that I find in the newspaper, and it might be news that I obtain from continued contact with CityTeam or new contacts with Calvary Chapel Relief.

We hope to come back here after the holidays, possibly as early as the first of January. By then, the group might have transitioned into doing "mucking" work instead of the food back. Mucking involves removing the damaged sheetrock from homes, and treating the frame to remove and inhibit mold growth. But based on conversations I've had with many people here, it seems the mucking stage is about done for most, and the next stage is actual rebuilding of the homes.

I talked to one gentleman today whose home has been cleared, but he needs to rebuild it himself. He can't afford to pay anyone to do it. He is 62 years old and in poor health. The only help he has to rebuild his home is his older brother, who is 65 years old but in better health. He figures that he will be living in the FEMA trailer for another 8 to 12 months before finishing his house.

This will probably be my last post from Mississippi for now. Mary and I still have about an hour of computer entry that we need to do before we can go to bed. We both got showers today so they won't toss us off the plane tomorrow. But we can't wait to get back to a real shower at home. I hope Mary finishes her shower soon ... I feel like I'm up all alone and everyone else has gone to bed. The lights are out. Everyone's bracing for a very early morning tomorrow.

Good night ...

In The News

The newspaper for southern Mississippi is the Sun Herald. Their web site is

http://www.sunherald.com/

The headline story was the Thanksgiving meal we helped to serve yesterday.

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/13253631.htm

Here are some quotes:

Cooks responsible for community meals had to prepare a whole bunch of food simultaneously, and they needed a whole team of people to get it done.

In Bay St. Louis, three volunteer groups - Rotary International, Calvary Chapel Relief and WBIR-TV 10 of Knoxville, Tenn. - set about the task of feeding the entire town - and doing it with restaurant service.

Troy Haynes arrived at the Depot grounds expecting to stand in a line. Instead, he was asked to please take a seat and had volunteer waitstaff making sure his glass was full and piling seconds and thirds on his plate.

"I know I've been getting in lines ever since the hurricane," he said. "Everything has lines, even to pay a bill."

Mayor Eddie Favre showed up in his apron to help serve the meal, but the volunteers insisted he take a seat in the shade so he could spend time with his friends, neighbors and other townspeople. Favre said Calvary Chapel is the second religious organization to adopt his city.

"In spite of all our losses, we have so much to be thankful for," Favre said. "We wanted Thanksgiving to be special."

The turkeys came courtesy of Rotary International, particularly three clubs from Jonesboro, Ark.

Calvary Chapel Relief is involved in all types of recovery help. The Rev. John Milhouse of Moreno Valley, Calif., said volunteers from Calvary churches have been in Bay St. Louis since the third week of September.

"I can't say we know what we're doing," Milhouse said. "We came to the city and said 'what can we do to help?'

The help has included serving hot meals, distributing clothing, helping people repair homes and giving them new family portraits. After the hurricane, Bryan and Judy Howell of Waveland had watched precious pictures dissipate before their eyes as they carefully removed them from glass frames or gingerly tried to pry apart stacks of snapshots. They had a portrait made with their daughter and son-in-law.

"It's a new beginning really," Bryan Howell said. "We lost basically all our portraits."

Mucking

Imagine ...

Imagine that your house has been damaged and that you need to work on it to fix it. Now imagine that you have no place to live while working on your house, or that you have only a trailer for a family of five. Imagine that you've had no running water for a couple of months while trying to repair your house. Imagine that you have to tear out the sheetrock from the inside of your house, but when your house was damaged, all your power tools were lost or damaged, including a nice saw and a drill, but you are left only with a small hammer and a crowbar.

Now imagine that the tools and supplies you need are double the price they were a few weeks ago, unless you are able to go to a neighboring state like Alabama where prices are normal. Imagine that you have no job and you have to spend an hour in line at the food bank only to find out that the specific item you need is in short supply and ran out earlier in the day. Imagine that all your mementoes like photographs have been destroyed. Imagine that you get up every morning and try to find the energy to clean it up a little more. Imagine depression like you've never experienced in your life.

Give up yet? Well, that is the life these people have been living for the last 12 weeks. Any kind of electical equipment like stoves, washing machines, power tools, and computers is inoperable. The salt water left most vehicles still running but not for very long. Wet homes have to have drywall removed up to the water line, then the entire interior washed and treated to destroy and prevent mold. Sheetrock must be replaced, then floors, then carpet, then appliances.

I talked to lots of people on Monday and Wednesday. Their stories are sad but their will is strong. Many know Jesus and know they will find their way out of this mess. Some see the entire flood and "mucking" phenomenon as a grand metaphor for the way God cleans up our lives.

We're tired today ... I'll stop now and let you contemplate the things you are thankful for. If nothing else, be thankful you're not here.

Thanksgiving Take Out

Today the city held a Thanksgiving dinner for all the community. The dinner was sponsored by Calvary Chapel Relief, Rotary International, and Channel 10 WBIR-TV of Knoxville. In particular, the volunteers were well represented by three different Rotary Clubs of Jonesboro, Arkansas. The dinner was free for all and consisted of everything ... turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, green beans, cranberries, and, of course, peCAN pie. (I'm told the pronunciation varies depending on what state you're from, but most of the pie servers were from Arkansas, the peCAN capital.

The purpose of this dinner was not just to serve the community, but to serve them in a special way. First, you must understand that everything around here revolves around waiting in lines. I've heard that it take two hours just to check out of Wal-Mart once you've got in line. Even at the CityTeam food bank, you must wait in line in order to be processed (present ID, etc.)

So the object of this dinner was to seat people at tables in the park, and they would be served by volunteers who would wait in line for them and bring them food. Each table had servers assigned.

The CityTeam group stayed together and staffed the "take out" booth. Mostly other volunteers would deliver meals to the elderly and shut-ins, and we would be putting them together first. I worked "the line" for only a few minutes, and I think I was part of making over 100, perhaps 200 meals during that time.

The leadership expected at least 1000 people to show up, and as many as 7000. I don't know the actual numbers, but I think they served 1000 people in the park, and delivered as many as 500 meals to others offsite.

Due to a family emergency at home, Mary and I will going home to San Jose early, perhaps as early as tomorrow or Saturday. We both feel that it really took until Monday or Tuesday until we began to feel comfortable here, and we also agree that we will come back later when family circumstances allow it, perhaps as early as the first of January. We've heard that by that time the volunteers might be housed in buildings instead of tents, but we might still prefer the tents because of the mold situation in the buildings. If CityTeam has transitioned to doing "mucking" work (tearing out the insides of buildings), we might have to ask for another assignment because neither of us can really do that and stay in good health.

Being here has really caused us to reflect and be more thankful for even the little things we take for granted, like a soft bed, a change of clothes, and a shower. While eating lunch today, Mary and I spoke with a new volunteer from another organization I won't name. He complained a lot about some vandalism that had been done to his car in NYC while working, and he complained about little job annoyances at home. He had just arrived, and he hadn't really seen the full scope of things here. After he's been here a few days, he'll appreciated more that he has a car at all, that he has a job to go to, and that he has a house to go home to at night.

Second Time Around

I typed up this page one time already, then I lost it. Let's see if I can remember what I said.

We got a new crew today. Actually, they arrived around 11 pm last night, but we didn't get to meet them until this morning. They include two other married couples, a family that consists of father, son (a youth pastor) and daughter (a student at Cal Poly SLO), and a few other people. They are a friendly group and I expect this week to work out really well.

Mary and I are now the "old hands" here who are supposed to know everything and teach the next group. By some weird fate of scheduling, most of these people will be leaving before we will. That means we must train them, then we must again train the group that arrives on the first of December, when we finish up. Also, there will be a few lean days we might be understaffed after this group leaves but before the next arrives. We might volunteer to stay here a few extra days to help provide some continuity.

We ate breakfast at the Calvary Chapel tent today. They serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I personally am very thankful for them. The volunteers come from Calvary Chapels all over the country. I found this web site for them:

http://www.calvarychapelrelief.org/

We ate lunch and dinner at the Waveland Cafe, another volunteer setup in nearby Waveland. They have a restaurant, food bank, hospital, and all kinds of other assistance. It is set up in huge domes in a shopping center parking lot. I couldn't find an official web page, but I did find this:

http://www.welcomehome.org/REMA/

They must close up after Thanksgiving, but they plan to relocate near New Orleans and continue similar operations there.

The group got a tour through some particularly devastated areas today. Mary and I missed the tour because we were working in the comptuer tent and missed the bus. Just as well, because Mary had paperwork to catch up on and I was able to help her. I was also able to take a shower and do laundry. Since another group is coming in on Saturday, we expect that they'll do another tour on Sunday and we'll catch it then. I'll certainly have some interesting photos to post then. (BTW, we also bought some disposable cameras, and we'll have some real photos to share after we get home.)

Tomorrow promises to be a particularly busy day: new crew, extra special goodies to pass out, and today we were closed.

We really need your prayers right now. We are personally doing very well but we miss our families and they miss us. Thanks to all of you who have sent emails. We really appreciate it.

More Photos

Here are more photos from today.

Waveland Cafe, where we ate lunch and dinner. Run by a bunch of "hippie christians." I don't even know what that means. These people are all over, but the current crew has a lot of people from Wisconsin, well known as "hippie central."

Choir at St Rose de Lima Catholic Church, a black Catholic church that did a free concert just for encouragement to the community.

Photos

I took a few photos from my cell phone so you can see where we are. The photos are not very good quality, and I don't have the capability right now to edit them in any way or make thumbnails.

• Latrine and hand wash station
• Where I slept the first few nights with Sal
• Where I'm sleeping now, with Mary
• More tents
• Mess tent and dish washing station
• Inside the store
• Entrance station (left), Store tent (right), Warehouse tent (center rear)
• Main Entrance

• In addition Mary took this picture of the steeple at the Methodist Church in Waveland, where we ate lunch last Sunday.

Shirley

The last group went home today after lunch. We had a teary-eyed meeting for devotions early this morning. John served communion. He reminded us how both the bread and the wine are symbolic of Christ because they are created by crushing, and out of that crushing comes life. Several members shared ways in which they have been crushed over the years (not just the last two weeks), and they also shared how life has come from their experiences. It was a lot to think about.

Today was much like the other days I have worked in the food bank. It looks like Mary might take over Alice's logistics job, which involves among other things ordering the materials we will distribute. I will probably remain working in the store, because the new crew coming tonight is almost all women. We need to train one of them to take over Mary's job after she leaves, and stocking the store with canned goods is primarily a "guy job."

Today I had the job of "toilet paper cop." This is an important job in the store! We have limited amounts of toilet paper, paper towels, bleach, and certain other items. We allow each family to take only one of each product, and without a "cop" a few people would just clean us out. The unfortunate thing about this job is that it brings you face to face with the less friendly element in the community here. Some people will argue, lie, and steal. I don't like to dwell on it, but it does happen. Mary's job has some of the same drawbacks because she has to process each person who comes into the store. She has to verify that they are Hancock County residents, and after Thanksgiving, they will have to be Bay St. Louis residents. It's difficult because people will lie and present obviously false papers.

Tonight Shirley made us a dinner of spaghetti, sausage, and apple cobbler. She is an angel! I've mentioned Shirley several times, and I thought I'd tell you a little about her. She has a house across the street from the ballpark where we are camping. It is a rental house, she actually lives on "the river" on near "the kill" but I don't know what that means. I don't know the geography here. Anyway, her sister has a FEMA trailer in front of this house and they are trying to fix the damage to the house. Shirley says she is one of the few people in the entire county who has electicity and water inside a house, with working washing machine, stove, and shower. She feels she owes it to the people around her to let them use the things she has but others do not. Also, she says she gets some food stamps every month but she can't eat that much food, so she decided to use them to buy food for us in order to keep the food stamps coming. The previous group became quite attached to Shirley and I'm sure our group will feel the same way.

Shirley has a friend Deb, whose mother started the Hancock County food bank many years ago. The food bank fed about 50 families per day before its building was damaged in the storm. Since the county has a population of perhaps 20 thousand, that is a proportionately large number of people here living in poverty.

I did have some fun today. I finished putting the books in boxes so that they are displayed attractively. Also, we got a few boxes of stuffed animals, and instead of just tossing them in the toy box, I put the nicest ones on a low shelf, about a child's eye level. Then they really started flying off the shelf!

Tuesday is supposed to be only half a work day. Normally Tuesdays and Thursdays are "stocking days" when trucks might come, and we'd spend the morning unloading the trucks and stocking the shelves, and then have the afternoon off. I hope to take another shower tomorrow. Last night it rained pretty fiercely and I woke up at 4:30 am to take a potty break, to discover the entire field a mud hole. Because of the mess, I decided to wear old dirty clothes from last week today. I also hope to put those clothes in the laundry tomorrow.

I still don't know what is happening on Thursday for Thanksgiving.

What else ... we are sharing the ballfield with Disaster Corps, a volunteer organization that is stripping the damaged drywall out of homes and disinfecting the remaining interior. I think their URL is http://www.disastercorps.org/. I haven't really met anyone from there, but I thought you might want to know what other relief agencies are doing here.

City Team supposedly has their own blog, but I don't remember finding it before. You might go to their main web site http://www.cityteam.org/ and just clicking around a bit.

After the last group left today, they reorganized the sleeping arrangements. One major change is to let the married couples each share a tent! So Mary and I will be together starting tonight. Mary took a shower tonight at Shirley's house, so she is pretty happy. But we also got some bad news about health problems at the Bacho household, and we're trying to phone home to find out what happened.

Oh ... one more story. I met a deaf lady today and got to talk to her a little bit. Two ladies were shopping together and one was taking two of everything. She said the second set was for her deaf friend, with her but silent. I thoght they might be trying to pull one over on me, but I asked whether the deaf lady could read lips. I was able to tell her about my own sisters, Susan and Carol, who were born hard of hearing and are now deaf. I communicated using a combination of speaking, finger spelling, and a little signing. Her eyes lit up and she just asked whether we all signed. I told her that my sisters signed but I could just fingerspell. She seemed happy to hear about other deaf people. Every day I've been able to talk to one person with whom I share an experience ... playing piano, quilting, knowing a deaf person. It gives me a lot of joy too, and it renders the people here more than just another face, and me more than just another face to them too, I'm sure.

The Big Queasy

Today we went to church at the Powerhouse of Deliverance. It is a black church here in Bay St. Louis. The local City Team offices are there in a trailer. The story I heard is that City Team donors specifically requested City Team investigate helping out here only three days after the hurricane hit. City Team leaders came here to see where they could help, see who they could hook up with. Within 48 hours they had found friends and supporters at Powerhouse.

This is also the church where Don Schottman helped put on the roof. Right now the church is meeting in their sanctuary, but nothing is in the sanctuary. They set up folding chairs and I would estimate today's attendance about 80 including us. The church has no carpets, piano, organ, or any other instruments, not even a guitar. But they sure know how to clap their hands vigorously to praise the Lord! I attended a pentecostal bible college in the 1970's so I know how to praise the Lord with high energy when the situation calls for it.

The pastor showed samples of the new chairs and carpet they have picked out. It was exciting to see that they plan to rebuild.

For lunch we went to a potluck at a Methodist church on the beach in nearby Waveland. All that remains of the church is the steeple with the cross on top. Sitting on the ground, the steeple doesn't seem so tall or impressive, but it's a powerful symbol of the resilience of these people who continue to serve the Lord in the face of these adversities. The funny thing about this potluck is that it is normally a holiday fund-raiser, but this time they served a free Thanksgiving meal to the community. It was a real blessing, and we are thankful that Shirley and her friends invited us even though we aren't living or working in Waveland.

Waveland was hard hit by the storm. Most of it seems closer to the gulf beach than Bay St. Louis, which is on a small bay right off the gulf. The ruins there were indescribable. Bay St. Louis was fortunate in comparison. It is estimated that 60-70 percent of the 8500 Bay St. Louis residents have returned to their homes, although the vast majority of those are living in FEMA trailers (which are simply RV's hooked up directly to electricity and sewer, although not always potable water). By way of contrast, only 10 percent of Waveland's residents have been able to return. The houses there are entirely shattered. We saw many roofs without houses underneath, and many houses sitting on their sides. Mary says she saw one house sitting on its edge and resting against a telephone pole. On a previous trip, the earlier group saw a house along the beach with the entire front torn off, but everything else intact and exposed, much like a doll house. There were piles of rubble everywhere, and we even saw a vacant lot full of damaged automobiles.

Here is a web page about what has happened here in Hancock County: http://risingfromruin.msnbc.com/the_towns.html

Since we had the day off and most of the group returns to California tomorrow, they decided to see New Orleans, which is only about 50 miles away from here. The first sign of distress there was the causeway, which had only one lane of traffic in each direction on the same side, since the other side was destroyed on the New Orleans end. After "landing" again on the north edge of the city, the freeway passed over what seemed like miles of uninhabited houses, apartments, and hotels. Apart from a few work trucks parked in front of shopping centers and warehouses, the streets seemed deserted of people and even cars. We saw one abandoned auto dealership with all the lights on and all the cars still sitting on the lot. It was eerie.

We walked around the French Quarter for hours. It is apparently one of the few places in the city still functioning, and still yet not fully. There were many stores still closed, but some had signs that they will be opening again shortly. Many of the restaurants and trinket stores are now open. The aquarium is still closed. The day we arrived last Thursday, the previous group had the treat of seeing the dolphins that had been rescued from there. Anyway, we had coffee at Cafe du Monde and dinner at Desire, an unfamiliar restaurant. After emerging from dinner, the group got to see the "real" New Orleans night life, which can be a little unsavory. There were lots of drunks and one man walking down the sidewalk yelling obscenities to his friend. I joked that he was just reading the t-shirts in the windows, which was half true. We had a hard time finding "clean" t-shirts to buy.

Thanks to Kathleen Brandt and Susan Coulter who sent me more emails today. In answer to some questions, no, Mary is not looking over my shoulder tonight, nor especially not last night, when I finished at midnight central time. We love you all! We bought disposable cameras and took a few photos today, but we'll have no way to post them until we return home December 2.

Day 2

I was really tired when I was posting last night, and a little distracted. There are actually two computers sitting here next to each other, and someone was playing games on the other. Mary was looking over my shoulder and "back seat editing" as I went along. And the keyboard is a straight keyboard, which I find difficult to type on when tired. (At home I use a split keyboard.) Anyway, the reason for the title "Field of Dreams" is because that is actually what they call the project ... "if you build it, they will come." (I guess this is a line from some famous movie :-) I believe the ball field is located approximately here.

Today was very similar to yesterday. Our job consists of stocking a "store" that is a food bank. They are constantly improving the entire process, but stocking shelves is pretty much a boring job no matter how much you try to improve it.

Mary woke up with a sinus headache so she slept in and missed breakfast. She did come to devotions at 8:30 and we prayed for her. They put her at the processing table so she could learn the computer and not be on her feet all day. They are entering everyone into an Excel spreadsheet so they can more quickly verify people in the future. The people are not eligible for this food bank unless they are residents of Hancock County. After Thanksgiving, they will not be eligible unless they are residents of Bay St. Louis. So everyone must provide ID verifying their address. This can be difficult because so many people try to gain access when they are not really eligible. We must try to maintain a balance between showing compassion and not being taken advantage of. It is a tightrope. I'm glad I don't have that job.

I did get to help unload about ten pallets from a large truck today. A construction worker from Jackson, Mississippi used his day off to drive four hours each way to and from Jackson to deliver donations. Since this was much-needed material, we spend all afternoon moving these supplies from the supply tent into the food bank tent. It was hard work because the pallets had to be unloaded in one tent and the contents moved in smaller loads into the other tent, because there isn't room to move an entire pallet from one tent into the other. But the work is boring. I feel like I'm at a job and I have to "look busy" even thought I don't have to worry about getting fired. :-) But how many cans of tomato soup can one stack on a shelf without becoming bored?

Breakfast this morning was grits (a morning staple), pancakes, ham, and grapefruit. Lunch was a hamburger (yummy!), pork 'n' beans, and ... I can't remember. After the store closed at 5:00, a group of use went to downtown Bay St. Louis to a "block party" that turned out to be just an open art store that was hosting a potluck dinner. Since we didn't have a contribution for the potluck, we purloined a couple chicken wings then headed back to the Calvary Chapel tent again for a dinner of fish patties, rice, and cole slaw. The food has been wonderful and I am really grateful to Calvary Chapel volunteers for providing it.

We showed another moving tonight, "Herbie Fully Loaded" or something like that. Another group promised to pass out a free blanket to everyone who attended the also-free movie. I understand they had a large turnout. But a group of about ten of us went across the street to help Shirley clean up her house. She has become a kind of "mother" to the team here over the last couple of weeks and they wanted to show her some appreciation. We were tearing wood veneer off her walls for about three hours. In return, she let us use her shower and I got my first shower since leaving home.

What else? Today I found that one of the team members is the former Lori Mach (I hope I spelled her name correctly), who attended Holy Cross Lutheran Church at the same time I did, and who graduated from high school the same year as my younger sisters Susan and Carol. In addition, she later attended Westminster Presbyterian Church and was friends with Frank Mitchell at the same time that I lived with him in the infamous 12th Street House near San Jose Bible College. What a small world! Lori said she recognized me and we both puzzled over our histories until we figured it out. Lori is now married and she attends Calvary Chapel Gilroy. But her wonderful pastor Matt Valencia spoke in my church last Sunday instead of hers, neener neener!

We really appreciate your prayers for us. We really don't take anything for granted, and we don't expect that we can even stock shelves in a gospel-effective way without a lot of prayer behind it. As always when you are working in a close group of 15-20 people, there are differences of opinion, unintensionally hurt feelings, and true interpersonal conflict. But I'm finding that with pre-emptive prayer most of the situations resolve themselves in unanticipated ways.

Today I received emails from Kathleen Brandt, Brenda Boston, and Susan Coulter. Thanks to all of you for being mindful of us.

Tomorrow we will attend church at what I understand is a hand-clapping foot-stomping holy-rolling all-black church. I'm told we'll be "ready for lunch" after the workout. We're supposed to eat lunch at a Methodist church in Waveland where the steeple is all that is left of the building. But they serve lunch in the parking lot. Waveland was much harder hit than Bay St. Louis and they say it will be a real eye-opener for those of us who haven't been there yet. In the afternoon, I understand we might go to New Orleans, which is only about one hour away from here. The team just wants to see the French Quarter and stuff, but I've been to NO before on vacation and seen all that.

On Monday the current team will leave around noon, leaving only a skeleton crew including us to run the food bank all day. On Monday night the next team will arrive. Since Mary and I and one other gentlemen, Jim, got here a few days earlier, we will be the "old hands" and we will have to train the new people. I personally feel quite un-equipped to do this but we'll work it out.

In addition to the normal food bank hours on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday this week, we will serve some kind of Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, and most of the logistics are still being worked out. We don't know whether we will serve a large group here, a number of smaller groups all over town, a large group at another location, or some combination of the above. There are some senior citizens and shut-ins who may have Thanksgiving dinner delivered to them personally.

It was warmer today and there were a few problems with gnats. They don't seem to like me but others couldn't keep them away. One lady "shopping" in the food bank kept complaining to me about gnats, but I said they didn't like me, they must like her because she is sweeter than me. She laughed and said that I made her day. I talked to another lady who was happy to get a quilted blanket from the new supply of blankets delivered today. As I helped her bring stuff out to her car, I told her about the quilt I am making back home. She said I must keep it since it is my first quilt. We'll see! I would have donated it to the relief effort had I finished it in time.

Well, lights are out and I have to be up in seven hours ... hopefully there will even more interesting tidbits to share with you tomorrow! If there is something specific you'd like to ask or hear about please send me an email, and I'll try to answer.

Love to all, Mary and Mark

Field Of Dreams

Regarding the flight:

We flew Continental with a connection in Houston. We arrived in Gulfport at 8:20 pm. The only ones flying this day from San Jose were Mary, myself, and Sal, whoh works at Camp Maymac in the Scotts Valley area. John, who is in charge of the operation here, took us to Applebee's then he drove us here to Bay St. Louis.

The accomodations:

We are staying in a baseball field that was donated by the mayor of Bay St. Louis. They have erected what they like to call "tents" but in some cases are just tarps lashed together to poles. We do have generators for electricity, and small electic heaters in all the tents. The "tent" I'm sharing with Sal also has a propane heater.

Fortunately Mary and I were prepared for cold nights because we had been led to believe we'd be staying in a facility with cold A/C at night. Because we're actually outside and a cold snap hit within the last week. Last night it got down to 30 degrees. (F, for those in the US; for Annette, that would be about -1 degrees C.)

What we're doing:

They pretty much have a food bank set up here in large tents. They are open four days per week, but for seven hours each days. About 250-300 people show up every day. It's not really a lot of work to keep the shelves stocked, but no trucks arrived today either. There will be a lot of work when more stuff gets delivered. Stuff can be canned goods, dry goods, toiletries, and clothing. The clothing is the most difficult to stock because it comes in random assortments of sizes and colors for men, women, and children.

Calvary Chapel has set up a kitchen in another part of town. They feed anyone from the community and also all the volunteers. We can eat breakfast and lunch there every day.

Today, Shirley, who lives across the street, made us a dinner of black eyed peas, rice, cornbread, and apple and pineapple cobblers. Someone else sent a pot of gumbo.

Our day starts at 7:30 when we leave for breakfast at the Calvary Chapel tents. Then we return at 8:30 for devotions. At 10:00 the food bank opens, and it stays open until 5:00. Then we had dinner, and at 6:30 they showed "Star Wars Episode 1" on a large screen in one of the tents. These movie showings are open to the public for free as a family activity. But not many people showed up tonight because they changed the location recently. Some of the equipment was donated by a stunt actor who was a stunt double on "Diagnosis Murder." I guess they live nearby here.

They pointed out a few damaged houses and automobiles to us, but mostly I would not have noticed a lot had it not been pointed out. But there is a lot of trash by the side of the road. Mary saw more damage than I did. Someone who came to the food bank showed me pictures of her collapsed house and dead goats. Apparently she had a farm or ranch and she lost all her animals. I also met a piano teacher who lost her parlour grand piano. Ouch!

Well, it's only 10:00 pm now but we're tired!

Obviously, we do have internet access. Please feel free to send us emails! We have heard only from Annette in Belgium. And I have exchanged some text messages with my sisters Susan and Carol. If you'd like us to send you a personal email, you'll have to send us one first. We didn't bring anyone's email address with us.

God bless ... Good night!

Bye!

Kathleen and David are here to whisk us away. All computers off now. Thanks for your prayers and talk to y'all later!

Off We Go

Mark and Mary will be in Mississippi for the next two weeks. We will be involved with CityTeam who is doing hurricane relief work in the Gulfport area. The web site won't receive any significant updates during that time. The exception would be that I hope to post our experiences to the blog if we can obtain computer access.

CityTeam started running a shelter and kitchen called the San Jose Rescue Mission over 20 years ago. Their specialty is running shelters for the homeless and those with substance abuse problems. They now run shelters in several cities around the country. The government specifically asked them to help in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina due to their experience running shelters. They are committed to remaining in the gulf area for one year.

CityTeam brings groups of about 20 volunteers to Mississippi in two-week shifts. Our group leaves today (Nov 17) and returns Dec 2. We don't know exactly what we'll be doing, but I hope to let you know as it happens if possible.

A few things we do know: CityTeam is working with at least one shelter in the Gulfport area that has housed up to 500 people at one time in the past. (The numbers housed in the shelters vary widely as new shelters are opened and closed.) They are also working with a couple of churches in the area. One early project involved putting a roof on a church that had been damaged. It was during this project that hurricane Rita hit, causing an evacuation of the team and the destruction of their encampment, but miraculously, no damage to the church or its new but unfinished roof. Most of the current projects involve cleaning the interior of buildings that have been damaged but repaired, helping the displaced to find their families and apply for government resources, and helping to retrieve personal belongings from properties that have been destroyed.

You can read more about this project in this blog topic:
http://www.mixed-up.com/markb/notebook/Katrina/

Buddhism and Science

San Jose Mercury News

"In the Buddhist investigation of reality, at least in principle, empirical evidence should triumph over scriptural authority, no matter how deeply venerated a scripture may be."

-- The Dalai Lama at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience last Saturday.

http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/2005/11/quoted_10.html

Doing the tango keeps the brain in step, too

USA Today

By Kathleen Fackelmann, USA TODAY

The hot moves of the Argentine Tango not only keep the aging body in shape, they also may help sharpen the aging brain, according to a study out Tuesday.

That study, presented in Washington at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, adds to a growing body of evidence indicating that such challenging leisure activities as dancing may offer a boost in brainpower that could offset the declines that can come with old age.

The tango is a dance that's both fun to do and involves a series of complex moves that can improve balance. A team recruited 30 seniors ages 68 to 91. Half the group got tango lessons, and the other half were assigned to a walking group.

After 10 weeks, the team looked for improvements in brainpower. Both walkers and tango dancers had better scores on memory tests, but only the tango dancers improved on a multitasking test.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2005-11-15-tango_x.htm

FEMA Tells 150,000 in Hotels to Exit In 15 Days

Washington Post

No More Free Rooms For Katrina Evacuees

By Spencer S. Hsu, Washington Post Staff Writer

The Federal Emergency Management Agency yesterday warned an estimated 150,000 Hurricane Katrina evacuees living in government-subsidized hotels that they have until Dec. 1 to find other housing before it stops paying for their rooms.

The announcement effectively starts the clock ticking toward a new exodus of Gulf Coast storm victims who have been living rent-free in 5,700 hotels in 51 states and U.S. territories under the $273 million program.

Under FEMA's decision, the evacuees will have 15 days to lease apartments, make other arrangements or begin paying their own bills.

Families in 12,338 hotel rooms in Louisiana and Mississippi may get a reprieve. Because of those states' devastated housing stocks, officials may seek extensions of hotel aid two weeks at a time until Jan. 7, at the discretion of the top FEMA official in each state, officials said.

The phaseout of the hotel program marks the latest effort by FEMA to manage the largest national housing crisis since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

"Unless they have some serious plan for helping move people from hotels into apartments ... as of December 1, there's going to be a lot of homeless people," said Sheila Crowley, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. "It appears that FEMA is working very hard to make itself so unreliable that state and local governments will say, 'We can't depend on FEMA in the future.' I can't imagine what other explanation there can be for this level of incompetence."

Nationwide, the number of Katrina evacuees living in shelters has fallen to 2,491, down from a high of 321,000 shortly after the storm, FEMA said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/15/AR2005111501704.
html

Spam correction

Correction: on average, a spam message that gets through to my computer has size about 800 bytes. Over the last five hours, the average spam message caught in the Spam Assassin filter had size about 6900 bytes.

The shorter messages are more likely to get through because there is less "there" to trigger the filters.

Eudora allows me to filter messages into separate mailboxes based on various criteria. I can filter a message directly into the trash if I think it is spam. Here's how I deal with spam:

• First, make sure I filter out all the mail I know is good. Emails from my wife, my friends, and mailing lists I'm subscribed to. Don't forget good commercial emails like Ebay or Amazon if you're a customer.

  Now, anything that's left is suspect.

• Filter out any message that has an attachment of type PIF, SCR, or ZIP. It's spam. Not only that, it's a virus. Get rid of it. Only my known friends would send me a ZIP file attachment. Those were filtered out in the first step.

• Filter out any message that has a link. Yeah, I know my own messages almost always have a link to my blog. But you've already filtered out my messages as a friend in the first step, right? RIGHT? GOOD! Anyway, the easiest way to find a link is to look for "html" or "http".

• There are words that are more commonly contained in spam emails I receive than in legitimate emails I receive. You might think they would be words like body parts or "Rolex." But no. the two most common words that spell SPAM to me are "free" and "best." Searching for the string "est " will also find variations like "fastest," "strongest," etc.

• Spam emails frequently have characters like []|*@#! in the subject of the email. Get rid of all those. Especially "!"

• Lots of spam comes from certain domains, actually certain countries. I get rid of anything from ZY (???), SE (Sweden), SG (Singapore), PT (Portugal), RU (Russia), NO (Norway), PL (Poland), MX (Mexico), NL (Netherlands), HU (Hungary), IT (Italy), ES (Spain), FR (France), CN (China), DE (Germany), AR (Argentina), and AU (Australia).

  You might know people from those countries. I don't, except Susie R from the Netherlands, and I filter her out as a friend in the first step.

  Don't forget that if you use a service like Ebay or Yahoo where you might buy things from someone in another country, you won't want to filter out their emails. So you must treat Ebay or Yahoo as a mailing list and filter those emails into the "good" pile.

• Lots of spam comes from certain IP blocks. I filter out anything from 61, 211, 217, and 218. It's all spam.

Spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam

My ISP uses SpamAssassin to get rid of fully 1 MB of spam addressed to me every six hours. I figure that on average, a spam email addressed to me has size less than 1K bytes. This means I'm getting about 4000 spam emails per day!

SpamAssassin gets rid of most of my spam, but about 4500 messages per month still get through, which is about 150 messages per day, or about three percent of the spam that gets into my spool.

Our wonderful tech guru Mike has taken steps to reduce my spam. Since we'll be gone a couple of weeks, this is a great chance to evaluate the changes. Without his changes of today, I'd expect to get about 2000 spam emails in my inbox after two weeks away. So we'll see.

Spam was down early in 2005 but has exploded the last couple of months. Here are my figures this year. This is what got past SpamAssassin and onto my computer at home.

2005 January .... 1900 ... 100%
2005 February ... 2400 ... 126%
2005 March ...... 1100 ...  58%
2005 April ...... 1100 ...  58%
2005 May ........ 1700 ...  89%
2005 June ....... 1700 ...  89%
2005 July ....... 1600 ...  84%
2005 August ..... 1800 ...  95%
2005 September .. 2600 ... 136%
2005 October .... 4800 ... 252%
2005 November ... 3100 (so far; anticipate 5700 or 300% for the entire month)

I wish I knew enough Java to draw a chart with this data.

Why did God create mosquitos, anyway?

We had to go to REI in Fremont to find it, but it was worth the extra mileage on the truck. (And we made a side trip to Ho Chow to pick up Honey Walnut Prawns for dinner. Highly recommended.)

What is it?

Cutter Advanced Insect Repellent. New active ingredient. Insect protection without the odor. Active ingredient: Picairdin 7.0%. Keep out of reach of children and other small animals. Now available in the U.S. Won't harm plastics. It is a violation of Federal law to use this product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling. Misuse will cause a 50-game suspension on the first offence. Do not apply to hands. (I guess you're supposed to spray it on your elbows then rub them all over your body.) Never place unused product down any indoor or outdoor drain.

Yipee!

De plane! De plane!

Several people have asked us what airline we are flying, what flight, etc.

We don't know!

CityTeam has our tickets. Kathleen and David will take us to the CityTeam offices around 10:00 tomorrow morning. We leave around 12:20 pm from San Jose airport. CityTeam will bus us to the airport.

Don Schottman says that we will probably be flying on Southwest, possibly on Continental. We will probably make one stop; my WAG would be Dallas-Fort Worth. We'll end up at the Gulfport-Biloxi airport in Mississippi.

I believe we will be working in either Waveland or Bay St. Louis. Here is a map:

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?country=US&&city=waveland&state=MS

We expect to be working with a team of about 20 people. CityTeam deploys the teams as needed when they arrive. The team will probably serve together, but we don't know yet what project we will be working on. Most of the CityTeam work consists of assisting people in the shelters. Most of the heavy work like putting on roofs is done. But there is still a lot of cleanup to do, and we've been advised to bring strong work gloves. The cleanup will probably happen mostly within a church that was damaged, within a shelter that has been over-used, or at a school that was being used as an emergency shelter. I'm really guessing here.

Contacting us while we are in Mississippi

If you need to contact us while we are away:

• If you call our number at home, your call will be forwarded to our cell phone.
• If you call our cell phone, we may or may not have service, so leave a message if necessary. Even if there is no cell phone service, we should be able to retrieve our messages from a land-line phone if we find one.
• You can contact us through Debra Reyes at CityTeam.

We are told that one of the shelters or churches has computers and internet access, so I hope to post our daily activities and special blessings on this blog. We have no guarantee that this will happen, but I feel confident that we should be able to post somehow. When we gain internet access, I should be able to retrieve emails. But ... recently I've been getting about 150 spam emails per day, and only about 20 legitimate emails. (This is after SpamAssassin which the ISP provides.) So, while I'm away, I don't have all the extra spam filters that are on my home computer. This makes away-from-home email difficult.

Prayer Requests

We are so ignorant that we don't even know what to pray for or what to ask others to pray for. But here are some things that come to mind:

• Please pray that our travels will be smooth and safe.

• Please pray that we will be kept healthy throughout the trip. We both have food allergies, and we won't be able to eat much of the food that will be provided for us, but we are praying that God will "suspend" our food allergies while we are working for him. Also, my back has been acting up and it might limit the kinds of work I can do, so we're praying for divine healing.

• Please pray that God will bring us in contact with just the people that our own experience will enable us to help. We feel that God has chosen us for this mission, and he will use us to accomplish things that others could not.

• Please pray for courage in witnessing and evangelism. We are both weak in this area but we expect God to use this experience to encourage us.

• Please pray for those who are ministering in Mississippi now, and those who will be coming to Mississippi after we leave. Also pray for the CityTeam volunteers who are there longer term. Pray that God will give them wisdom, grace, encouragement, and power to do God's work.

• Please pray that we will not be discouraged.

• Please pray for the people in the shelters, that God will use this situation to change their lives in a good way.

May God bless all of you who are praying for us. Thanks!

One day to go ...

OK! We leave tomorrow! We leave Thursday, November 17 around noon. We must be at the CityTeam offices at 10:00 am. We return on Friday, December 2 around noon. Kathleen and David Brandt are giving us rides to and from the CityTeam office. Thanks, David and Kathleen!

Our schedule has been really cramped. We visited Mary's family in Vacaville on Monday afternoon. They were having a birthday party for Brenda Boston. We couldn't stay into the evening because our on-again-off-again C3 tape group was meeting in Concord at Gail's house. On Tuesday evenings, I've been taking a quilting class for men only with instructor Kathleen Crittenden at Fabrics 'n' Fun in Milpitas; Mary attends the ladies bible study at Calvary Chapel San Jose. I will attend the men's Bible study after the quilting class is over. Last night was the final session of the current class, but they might start a second class for men in January.

Right now, Mary and I are at Network Appliance in Sunnyvale. Mary makes hand-stamped cards and silk scarves, and she occasionally sells them at holiday boutiques. We are selling them in the NetApp lunchroom. Well, Mary is selling them, and I help set up (read: drag stuff in from the truck into the building). They set me up with a blue cable and here we go. (They have WiFi in the cafeteria but it is password secured.)

We also had an appointment with our financial advisor Michael Hubbert on Monday morning, and my truck was in the shop at Piercey Toyota all day Monday and half the day Tuesday. It needed major service, an oxygen sensor, and a new timing belt, which is always expensive. The truck has 105K miles, and its original timing belt was really living on borrowed time. The total came to almost $1000, but that was after a "coupon discount" they gave me because a friend of mine works there.

On Sunday night we were shopping at Wal-Mart for strange things like flat sheets, work gloves, and insect repellent. These are all among the items CityTeam asked us to bring to Mississippi. CityTeam suggested getting a mosquito repellent with DEET, but Don Schottman said Mississippi has a new strain of mosquito that is actually attracted to DEET. He suggested we find something called "advanced formula" or something like that, but we couldn't find anything except DEET.

Yesterday, Mary spent all day getting ready for today's boutique, and I spent most of the day making sure all the bills are paid up through the time we return.

SO, we haven't really had to be anxious about this trip. We still really don't know what to expect. Some things they covered at the training meeting:

• How to deal with the media, who might try to interview us while we are there.
• Expect the living situation to be "like camping but even worse."
• Bring a celll phone, but expect that there will be no signal and no power for charging the phone.
• Southern culture: "Miss," "Mister," "Sir," "Ma'am," how not to offend.
• Pack small; you need to be mobile. You might have to move several times.
• Banks and ATMs may not be available, but don't carry cash anyway. CityTeam will provide for all transportation, lodging, and meals. Also, don't wear jewelry.
• "If you can't afford to lose it, don't bring it."
• How to detect if someone is using drugs or alcohol, so you can pass them off to someone trained to deal with that.
• There will be no TV! (What about my weekly fix of House and Crossing Jordan? (and should I even admit to watching South Park?)
• How to do counseling, evangelism, discipleship, and bible study.
• The necessity of multi-tier "debriefing" upon return.

U.S., Darfur Have Shouting Match

Yahoo News, AP

By Rodrique Ngowi, Associated Press Writer

SHEK EN NIL, Sudan - A senior U.S. envoy got into a shouting match with a Darfur government official Thursday over peacemaking in the restive region of western Sudan.

Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick had just listened to African Union military observers describe a recent outbreak of violence that had turned southern Darfur's Shek en Nil into a ghost village of burned out homes, and heard local leaders profess their commitment to peace.

Regional commissioner Sadiek Abdel Nabi followed as Zoellick stepped away for what was to have been a private additional African Union briefing in the remnants of a village home.

An angry Zoellick ordered Nabi out, saying: "I want to hear a straight story ... and I can't trust your government."

When Nabi refused, Zoellick said he would protest to President Omar el-Bashir.

"I am Bashir here!" Nabi shouted three times in English, standing inches from Zoellick. Nabi previously had relied on an Arab translator.

An AU officer persuaded Nabi to back off, and Zoellick heard details of three attacks on Shek en Nil in late September — all violations of a tattered cease-fire.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051111/ap_on_re_mi_ea/sudan_us

Wrist Slap

World Magazine

SAUDI ARABIA: The Bush administration grants diplomatic waivers to its kingpin Arab ally while evidence of religious oppression grows

by Priya Abraham

In 2004—and again on Nov. 8 this year—the United States named Saudi Arabia one of the worst violators of religious freedom in the world, in an exclusive band of just eight countries. By law, the United States must take action to pressure such "countries of particular concern," which can include sanctions.

Saudi Arabia, however, so far has won a free pass, receiving a six-month waiver on Sept. 30. In the meantime, abuses against minorities remain. The question is whether the Saudis will make systemic reforms in the coming months—and whether the United States will penalize them if they do not.

After the Trafficking in Persons office succeeded in ranking Saudi Arabia as a country doing little to combat rampant slavery, U.S. sanctions or suspended aid could have followed. Instead, the kingdom received a "national interest" waiver.

John Hanford, U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, emphasizes that the Saudis' extension is only 180 days. "We feel like our discussions are productive, unlike discussions with some other countries," he said. "We feel like the government of Saudi Arabia is moving in the right direction. . . . My heart and passion in this is to advance religious freedom as far as we can. And if I feel like some additional time to discuss some important issues may yield some meaningful change, I want to give that a try."

http://www.worldmag.com/subscriber/displayarticle.cfm?id=11273

Relief Update

We leave for Mississippi on Thursday November 17, but we're far from ready!

Mary and I got shots on Tuesday October 18. We had to get Hepatitis A and B and Tetanus TD. We were able to get the shots at our doctor's office. We are supposed to get booster shots after 30 days ... we're told we can do that on Monday November 14, a few days early. We want to make sure that if we have any reaction, it will be before we leave.

We went to what they call "training" on October 25. It was really just an orientation. They talked about what we need to bring (and not bring), what kinds of things we might be doing, what kind of people we might meet (and their problems), and how we can easily talk to people about Jesus.

We have to pack some odd things like "shower shoes" (flip flops to wear while using a grungy shower), our own toilet paper, just one flat sheet, and strong work gloves. On the other hand, we probably don't want to bring expensive cameras or electronics, since there is no way to lock them up.

Don Schottman says that he spent part of his stay in a tent, but for the most part they are housing the relief workers in churches. These are not the same locations where they housing the homeless.

BTW, Don also says we should have computer and internet access, so I hope to continue posting to the blog while there.

Since the orientation, we have not heard much from CityTeam. We did hear a week ago that they were buying our airplane tickets and we would hear from them soon. I think they are really swamped but we have confidence that everything will come together this week.

Flu Shots

Don Schottman suggested we get flu shots before going to Mississippi. He said he came home with the flu. He was in Mississippi only three weeks after Hurricane Katrina.

We had been thinking about getting flu shots for a while. CityTeam said we needed only Hepatitis A and B and Tetanus TD. But they said some others were also getting Typhoid shots. We could not find a source for Typhoid shots. Web sites were mixed ... some relief agencies say Typhoid shots are not necessary, while others refuse to send you unless you have taken them. We have chosen not to because there is no time to find them.

Anyway, by snooping around on the Longs Drugs web site, I found these links:

Centers For Disease Control: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/

American Lung Association Flu Clinic Locator: http://www.flucliniclocator.org/

We found that in the San Jose area, flu shots are being offered at Valley Fair mall and Oakridge mall on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 11:00 am to 4:00 pm.

We went to Valley Fair but the line was quite long ... 40 people or more. Mary timed them at about 2-1/2 minutes per person. This was on Friday November 11, and we had forgotten that this would be a school holiday. Valley Fair was packed.

We left and went to Oakridge instead. There were only about 12 people in line there, and the line went much more quickly, only about one minute per person. We easily made up whatever time we had lost by driving from one mall to the other.

We met a nice woman named Marge. (I forgot her last name.) Marge goes to Los Gatos Christian Church and she knows my Aunt Katie and Uncle Phil, who is an usher at the church. She was happy to get information about CityTeam's relief efforts. CityTeam had made an appearance at her church also, but she hadn't got all the information.

You can find more information about CityTeam here: http://www.cityteam.org

God, politics and taxes

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Guest Commentary

ON OCT. 31 LAST YEAR, the Sunday before the 2004 presidential election, former Texas legislator Rick Green spoke before 3,500 congregants at the Calvary Chapel, an evangelical church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “Vote for righteousness,” Mr. Green urged, and directed people to voters guides published by the conservative Christian Coalition that were on display in the hallway of the church.

Meanwhile, in St. Paul, Minn., at the Nativity of Our Lord Catholic Church, the Rev. Christopher Wenthe simply declared that love of humanity “must begin with the protection of life, from conception to natural birth.”

Across the country in Pasadena, Calif., at All Saints Episcopal Church, former Rector George F. Regas delivered a guest sermon. He said that “good people of profound faith” could vote for either candidate, but then proceeded to blast Mr. Bush’s policies on Iraq and tax cuts for the wealthy.

Three churches, three sermons. Now one of these churches has been notified by the Internal Revenue Service that it may have its tax-exempt status revoked for intervening in political campaigns and elections.

Guess which one?

Those with suspicious minds will guess that the IRS has political motivations for singling out All Saints, one of Southern California’s largest and most liberal congregations. “It seems ludicrous to suggest that a pastor cannot preach about the value of promoting peace simply because the nation happens to be at war during an election season,” the church’s tax attorney told the L.A. Times.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/editorialcommentary/story/AABF
7A49EAF2C636862570B400532383?OpenDocument

Zondervan Launches New iPod Bible

Publishers Weekly

by Lori Smith, Religion BookLine

In a move being billed as "twenty-first century technology meets a 2,000-year-old book," Zondervan will release a TNIV Bible designed specifically for the iPod in February. The TNIV Audio Bible for iPod will be the first audio Bible available in Apple retail stores. It will also be sold through Christian and general market bookstores and other retail outlets.

The new format will allow users to listen to the audio version, view Bible text on their iPod screen, and link to study notes from the bestselling TNIV Student Bible.

http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6282442.html

U.S. Cites Top Violators of Religious Liberties

Washington Post

By Alan Cooperman, Washington Post Staff Writer

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice named eight countries yesterday as the world's worst violators of religious liberty and denied that there has been any wavering in the U.S. commitment to global human rights, despite disclosures of secret prisons run by the CIA in Eastern Europe.

The State Department's seventh annual report on religious freedom listed the same eight countries that it did last year as the most egregious violators, or "countries of particular concern." They are Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Vietnam.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent, bipartisan panel established by Congress, had recommended adding Uzbekistan to the category of worst abusers because of its mistreatment of Muslims, including the brutal suppression of a demonstration in the city of Andijan in May.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/08/AR2005110801584.
html

Be the one!

Christianity Today

by Ellen Vaughn

In America, we tend to tell our neighbors how thankful we are if we get a great deal on deck furniture or find a big sale on gas grills. We would do well to strip off our sophistication, remember in thanks our own rescue, and get back to the really good news like our brother in Cuba—or that first-century leper whom Jesus healed.

One day about two thousand years ago, Jesus is on the road when ten tattered lepers call to him from afar. They dare not draw nearer.

"Jesus, Master, have pity on us!"

Jesus' heart moves for them. He tells them to go show themselves to the local priest.

Off they go. Faltering but hopeful.

And as they are going, the Scriptures say, they are healed.

Piling to a stop, slamming into one another like clowns at the circus, they stare at each other's faces, mouths wide open. They unwind the rags from their hands, shouting because they have fingers again. They leap into the air; they land, sure-footed. They strip off their bonds and clap their arms around each other's shoulders, laughing with joy. They can't wait to find their families. They sprint toward town.

But one whirls and turns in the other direction, back toward Jesus. He runs fast with his new feet. Weeping, he falls and kisses Jesus' perfect ones.

"Thank you!" he sobs.

Thank you. Thank you.

Ten were rescued, cleansed, given a brand-new beginning. Yet nine ran the wrong way. Only one ran for home base, where Jesus was.

Friends of ours have a family mantra. "Be the one!" they tell their kids and each other. "Be the one who thanks Jesus. Let others go where they may. You be the one who is grateful."

Be the one!

Some believers seem to be looking for life principles that are just a little more spiritually sexy. Be thankful? Oh, of course. But give me something more exciting, more dramatic, something remarkable that I can do to change my life.

Developing the meditative habit of constantly whispering thanks to him—no matter the situation—is, in fact, a mustard seed of life-changing power. Radical, for it goes to the root of who we are. Small, seemingly insignificant, yet it has the power to change our lives and blow our socks off, right in the midst of the everyday. When we really give God thanks in everything, we are acknowledging that he is sovereign and that we trust him. And we find that it changes us.

Truly grateful people can't be stopped. They bubble and overflow, refreshing others. Their habitual gratitude serves as a springboard to give a reason for the buoyant hope bouncing within them. They attract those who are stuck in the cares of this world and woo them to the eternal good.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/011/26.46.html

Cat Show Plans Memorial Service for Dog

San Francisco Chronicle, AP News

By Jim Fitzgerald, Associated Press Writer

This will probably be the first time a dog's memorial service is attended by 300 cats. A schnauzer-Siberian husky mix named Ginny will be eulogized Nov. 19 at the Westchester Cat Show, where she was named Cat of the Year in 1998 for her uncanny skill and bravery in finding and rescuing endangered tabbies.

Ginny died in August at age 17, after a long career as a one-dog rescue party for cats on Long Island's South Shore. The club says she saved hundreds of cats who were abandoned, injured or in harm's way.

Among the best-known rescues is the time Ginny threw herself against a vertical pipe at a construction site to topple it and reveal the kittens trapped inside. She once ignored the cuts on her paws as she dug through a box full of broken glass to find an injured cat inside.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2005/11/10/national/a11540
3S60.DTL

The Real New Orleans

Washington Post

By Peter Slevin and Peter Whoriskey, Washington Post Staff Writers

The litany of problems faced by New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is unmatched by any other U.S. city in recent history. Billions of dollars in public and private funds are going to be spent on rebuilding New Orleans, but those efforts could be undermined by forces that have long beset the city -- a tradition of corruption and dysfunction and a weak economy that clouded New Orleans's future years before the rains began in August.

"Always broke. Worst school system in the state. Highest crime rate in the nation. Shrinking population. All the corporations have moved out," said Bernie Pinsonat, a political analyst in Baton Rouge. "Any poll I do, the rest of Louisiana thinks, 'New Orleans is a deep, dark hole, and no matter how much money we send, it doesn't seem to get better.' "

In a recent Louisiana State University poll of 419 business executives, corruption was ranked among the worst aspects of doing business in Louisiana. Investors and managers elsewhere are reluctant to come "because they don't want to pay the corruption tax," said Rafael C. Goyeneche, president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission.

"We've seen every type of corruption imaginable," said U.S. Attorney Jim Letten, whose office indicted 44 public officials in the past fiscal year alone. He pointed to skimming, bribery and shakedowns across a spectrum of government employment: judges, police, teachers, administrators and traffic court workers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/09/AR2005110902311.
html

Upon the cross, an iPod cleaves

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Scott Wilson invented the iBelieve --- an attachment that turns an iPod Shuffle into a cross that can be worn around your neck --- as a comment on how we worship consumer products. The iBelieve, he felt, was "a social commentary on the fastest growing religion on the planet" --- meaning iPod-mania.

Rather than take offense, however, Christians have embraced the new gizmo. He says he has been deluged with orders from people who wanted to buy one ($12.95, 10 percent of which goes to charity, at www.devoted1.com), as well as e-mails from churches and media.

http://www.ajc.com/living/content/epaper/editions/saturday/faith_values_34c602ea
801f60100092.html?COXnetJSessionIDbuild103=DvvTfr68lr4BxkInRJ86vuOBb9zyBqePuiwjRcEnghRYgyezpsye!-1120072298&UrAuth=aN%60NUOcN%5BUbTTUWUXUTUZTZU%60UWUbUWUZUbU%5EUcTYWVVZV&u

In Quiet Protest

San Francisco Chronicle

By Tom Lanham

For fans of this composer's typically vitriolic invective, a nonvocal set might come as a shock. As far back as 1984's Central America-themed "If I Had a Rocket Launcher," Canadian folk firebrand Bruce Cockburn has railed against social and political injustices, often visiting the foreign lands he sings about to more fully empathize with their problems. It's difficult for anyone to keep this Canuck quiet.

Within five minutes of discussing his new instrumental anthology "Speechless," Cockburn's muzzle unstraps, and his powder keg of leftist opinions explodes.

"I've seen reviews of my albums that say, 'Too much political bull -- . What does this guy know? He's just an artist.' Like somehow journalists are the only people who are qualified to write about politics."

Years ago, Cockburn growls, he was trying to warn listeners via songs like "Gospel of Bondage" about the encroachment of evangelical Christianity. "It was totally clear to me then, even though Pat Robertson had not yet said, 'Go out and kill that Venezuelan head of state because he's an annoyance.' But he had said equally ludicrous and equally un-Christian things over and over again, and people were still respecting him as this Christian leader."

Cockburn used to deem himself a devout Christian, too -- much of his earlier work is suffused with spirituality. He's no longer affiliated with any one church, he says, thanks to "my understanding of spirituality being added to that, a lot of things that didn't come from Christian sources."

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/06/PKGTNFEMBQ1.DTL&type=mus
ic

Evolution Slate Outpolls Rivals

New York Times

By Laurie Goodstein

All eight members up for re-election to the Pennsylvania school board that had been sued for introducing the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in biology class were swept out of office yesterday by a slate of challengers who campaigned against the intelligent design policy.

The election results were a repudiation of the first school district in the nation to order the introduction of intelligent design in a science class curriculum. The policy was the subject of a trial in Federal District Court that ended last Friday. A verdict by Judge John E. Jones III is expected by early January.

"I think voters were tired of the trial, they were tired of intelligent design, they were tired of everything that this school board brought about," said Bernadette Reinking, who was among the winners.

The school board voted in October 2004 to require ninth grade biology students to hear a brief statement at the start of the semester saying that there were "gaps" in the theory of evolution, [and] that intelligent design was an alternative.

The board was sued by 11 Dover parents who contended that intelligent design was religious creationism in new packaging, and that the board was trying to impose its religion on students.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/09/national/09dover.html

Frankenstein vs Dracula

Scotland Sunday Herald

By Jenifer Johnston

Their fictional alter-egos have terrified and entertained for more than 100 years, but new evidence unearthed by a leading historian suggests that the real-life Dracula and Frankenstein crossed paths centuries ago and fought a bloody battle to the death.

In a collapsed, moss-covered crypt in St Mary’s Evangelical church in the Romanian town of Sibiu lie the earthly remains of Frank Baron von Frankenstein where he was buried following his execution by Vlad Dracula the Impaler in the early 15th century.

The discovery, by celebrated historian and Sunday Herald correspondent Gabriel Ronay, establishes an extraordinary historical connection between the real-life inspirations for two of the literary world’s most loved creations.

Count Dracula was modelled on Vlad Dracula the Impaler, an exceptionally cruel 15th century warlord, whom author Bram Stoker endowed with fictional, vampire traits to suit the British taste for the supernatural.

Frankenstein, as imagined in Mary Shelley’s novel, was named after the ancient German noble family of von Frankenstein. The von Frankensteins’ ancestral hill-top chateau, built near the Rhine, had deeply impressed Mary and Percy Shelley during their first romantic journey there in 1816.

http://www.sundayherald.com/52589

Copernicus' Grave Found in Polish Church

Yahoo News

WARSAW, Poland - Polish archeologists believe they have located the grave of 16th-century astronomer and solar-system proponent Nicolaus Copernicus in a Polish church, one of the scientists announced Thursday.

Copernicus, who died in 1543 at 70 after challenging the ancient belief that the sun revolved around the earth, was buried at the Roman Catholic cathedral in the city of Frombork, 180 miles north of the capital, Warsaw.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051103/ap_on_re_eu/poland_copernicus

Also:

http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051107/full/051107-3.html

Terminator vs. Gerrymander

New York Times

By Jill Stewart

In seeking to have a panel of retired judges take over drawing electoral districts, the governor is clearly looking out for the voters' best interests.

Honest observers on the left and right have long complained that California's voting district map is a masterwork of cynicism that assures victories for incumbents as well as party hacks seeking open seats. The fix is so complete that in 2004 not one of the 173 state legislative and Congressional seats being contested in California changed party hands. Robert Stern, president of the liberal-leaning Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles, told me that California's elections are "less democratic than the Soviet Politburo."

Democrats, led by Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, have aggressively tried to paint Proposition 77 as a power grab by shady retired judges and the Republicans. The fact is, to maintain the undemocratic system that now exists, the Democrats need to distract voters from the truth: that Proposition 77 is a series of fair-minded steps that assures elected leaders reasonable input in creating the panel of judges, none of whom are running for office in the voting districts they fashion.

Unfortunately, the governor is not just up against the Democrats. Many Republicans are also fighting him. After all, the "fix" also guarantees elected Republicans their automatic re-elections.

These dishonest voting districts slash across communities of interest and geography. One State Assembly district sprawls from the upscale Westside area of Los Angeles, across some mountains, to the farms of Oxnard. One Congressional district looks like a noodle draped along the coast, so skinny it is jokingly said to disappear beneath the waves of the Pacific at high tide.

Once voters are herded, by party, into these trumped-up districts, the parties feed them an incumbent or pre-selected party crony. And they are getting sick of it.

They have to realize that in the long run, this isn't about Arnold Schwarzenegger; it's about California's long-ruling Democrats, who have decided democracy is no longer part of their agenda.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/07/opinion/07stewart.html

After 34 Years, His Antiwar Song Is Still Not Out of Style

New York Times

By Andrew C. Revkin

In 1971, with Australia embroiled in Vietnam alongside the United States, Eric Bogle sat down to write what would become one of the most admired songs about war: "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda."

"I wanted to write an antiwar song but didn't want to denigrate the courage of the soldier," Mr. Bogle recalled in an interview on Wednesday before a show at the Manhattan nightclub Satalla. "There was too much of that 'baby killer' stuff going on."

Now 61, he is the archetypal touring folk singer, burly and balding and bearded, with a remarkably similar-looking sideman, John Munro, and a repertory ranging from wrenching to raunchy.

But at every stop, the audiences, many having grown gray along with Mr. Bogle, await the tune he wrote 34 years ago.

The song is in the voice of an innocent rural lad who joined the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, or Anzac, in 1915, was handed a tin hat and a gun and was shipped with 17,000 others to the killing shores of Suvla Bay, where they were "butchered like lambs at the slaughter." The refrain recounts how at every turn - when troops were dispatched, when the maimed came home, when the dead were buried, when the dying veterans marched - some martial band played "Waltzing Matilda," the unofficial Australian anthem.

The song, almost independent of Mr. Bogle's career as a folk performer, took on its own life as an antiwar standard. In a telephone interview from his home in Beacon, N.Y., Pete Seeger called it "one of the world's greatest songs."

Mr. Bogle's songbook is as variegated as folk music itself (details are at ericbogle.net). Songs range from a searing account of an apartheid prison hanging to a satirical romp on the nasal style of Bob Dylan and audiences' persistent habit of asking Mr. Bogle to play a Dylan song. (He doesn't play any.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/05/arts/music/05folk.html

US Post Office Releases New Stamps Featuring Latin Dances

September 17, 2005

The US post office has released a set of dance stamps that include Merengue, Salsa, Cha Cha, & Mambo. On the back paper of the stamps is also included a brief factoid in both English & Spanish.

Kicking off National Hispanic Heritage month, Sept. 15-Oct. 15, the U.S. Postal Service dedicated the Let's DanceBailemos stamps which brings to life four sassy Latin dances. The 37-cent Let's DanceBailemos commemorative stamps are available nationwide today.

"At the Postal Service, we understand the power our stamps have in helping to celebrate American history and culture - in this case, the contributions of Latin American art and dance to American culture," said David L. Solomon, Vice President, Area Operations, New York Metro, U.S. Postal Service, who dedicated the stamps in New York.

"Now, people all around the country will be able to sway to the left and right, and accent their mail and packages with these high energy stamps that capture the enthusiasm of dancers moving to the beat," said Anita Bizzotto, Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President, U.S. Postal Service, who dedicated the stamps in Miami.

http://www.usps.com/communications/news/stamps/2005/sr05_043.htm

Sassy Sisters

My wife Mary is participating in a Holiday Boutique tomorrow, Saturday, November 5 from 10 am - 6 pm. The show continues on Sunday November 6, 10 am - 5 pm.

The creative art consists of jewelry, acrylic, fabrics, handmade quilts, ceramics, and a special display of polymer clay items.

Mary makes hand-dyed scarves and rubber-stamped notecards. I made this business card for her by scanning one of her scarves:

Mary has her own web page here:
www.mixed-up.com/mary/

Check out her gallery on Split Coast Stampers.

This weekend's show is sponsored by Sassy Sisters Studios, a collaboration of several Silicon Valley women. They have a web site:
www.sassysistersstudios.com

The show is held in Willow Glen, at 1678 Fairwood Avenue in San Jose. The nearest cross streets are Curtner and Booksin Avenues.

Congatulation, You're "Way Retro"

In secondhand store, woman finds prom dress she made 33 years ago

Associated Press

HARRISON, Ark.

Marlene Wyatt went to a secondhand store to buy a Halloween costume last week. What she found could be just as scary: the prom dress she had made 33 years ago.

"I thought, this material looks familiar," Wyatt said. "Then I thought, 'Surely not' and finally, 'That's my dress!'"

Melissa Martin, proprietor of the Fashion Exchange, said she knew something special had happened because of the look on Wyatt's face.

"This is amazing," she said. "What are the odds of something like this happening?"

Wyatt, from Yellville, sewed the white double-knit polyester dress when she was in high school.

"We come from a large family, 12 kids," she said. "There were five girls at home at the time, so sewing my own clothes was helpful, but I always loved doing it." Wyatt said the dress has one of the first invisible zippers she ever sewed.

Martin opened the Fashion Exchange about a month ago. She doesn't remember where she got the dress, which she had labeled "Way Retro" in her inventory.

Wyatt now has it in her sewing room.

Carve your pumpkin online

Well, maybe it's a little late for this year ...

http://www.toilette-humor.com/flash/carve_pumpkin.swf

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Last updated Monday 3 August 2009