December 2013 - OE - lists.wedgeblade.net

12/05/13, Spong: America's Health Care Debate and What it Reveals
by Ellie Stock 05 Dec '13

05 Dec '13

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR America's Health Care Debate and What it Reveals Every nation I visited on my recent European lecture tour has a National Health System, paid for by tax dollars and run for all the people by the government itself. Contrary to the propaganda of the American political right, these health services are well run and enormously popular in both conservative and liberal circles. The citizens in these democracies assume that health care is a right, guaranteed by the state to all. It is not a perk of the workplace, available only to those who are employed. It is an asset of citizenship. So Europe’s leaders and its citizens across the political spectrum viewed the recent American episode in political brinkmanship, which attempted to defund the Affordable Care Act, as the act of an adolescent America, demonstrating yet again that its leaders are not mature enough to govern the world’s most powerful nation. Sometimes it is salutary to see our nation through the eyes of others. To them America’s Tea Party leaders were refusing to address the social problems that plagued Europe in the 19th century, problems made quite vivid by the novels of Charles Dickens! The idea that a few of the Congressional majority would actually force America into default and bankruptcy, bringing on, the Europeans feared, a world wide depression in order to stop people from getting health care, left them disillusioned with America’s political leadership. I share that anger and view with alarm not only the behavior of the Tea Party leaders, but also that of the moderate wing of the Republican Party for not standing up to the bullying, almost neo-Nazi like tactics, of these right wing extremists. Have we as a nation really come to the place where one of our two major political parties is willing to let the poor, who have no insurance, die because they can’t afford treatment? Are we now so individualistic as a nation that we will refuse to act out any sense of corporate responsibility toward the less fortunate of this land? Are we willing to say that people who have pre-existing medical conditions cannot buy health insurance? Have we come to the place where we act as if medical care is only the privilege of the wealthy? The stated propaganda, recycled through every right wing politician, that the United States has the best health care in the world is challenged by the facts. It also reveals how little privileged politicians know about the real world of America’s poor. There is not one single category in which U.S. health care is statistically the best in the world when the entire population is averaged in! What we do have is the most expensive health care in the world, but America’s patients get less bang for their buck than in any other developed nation. Too many people feed at the trough of the American practice of medicine. The drug companies sell drugs to every other country of the world at a lower rate than they sell them in America. Trial lawyers, who live off suing doctors and hospitals, also add to the costs of our system of health care. Medical equipment builders and suppliers want independent hospitals to compete for their state of the art devices, even though they reach a saturation point in urban areas and once they are purchased, the doctors are encouraged to use them whether competent care calls for that test or not. The medical profession itself has become for many doctors not a vocation in which they serve, but a position that can and does make them quite wealthy. Is an income of over a million dollars a year necessary for some doctors to provide good health care? I am not anti-doctor. I know quite well the high cost of a medical education and the years of very low salaries as an intern or a resident, but should there be no limit on how much profit anyone can make on the sicknesses of our fellow citizens? Should paying dividends to shareholders or massive salaries to executives of Health Care Companies be a necessary or even a moral component in delivering health care to the masses of our citizens? The same Congress who tried to defund the Affordable Care Act has also refused to consider increasing taxes on those whose ordinary income exceeds a million dollars a year; they have refused to cap insurance settlements awarded by juries in malpractice cases; they have balked at closing loopholes, which make it possible for the secretaries of doctors to pay a higher percentage of their incomes in taxes than do the doctors, and they have made no effort to reign in the excessive profits of the health care corporations or the medical device businesses. There is something ethically wrong when the political passion is to provide tax cover for wealthy people while at the same time trying to gut the health care of ordinary Americans. It is scary as well. I listened in vain to the Tea Party congressmen, to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and to those who supported their efforts to hear what alternative they had to offer, if they actually had succeeded in defunding and thus killing the Affordable Care Act. The fact is that they have no alternative to offer and when pressed on this glaring omission, they fall back on slogans like “self insurance” that have long ago failed, leaving some 40 million United States citizens, most of them women and children, without insurance and thus without significant health care. When we clear away the political rhetoric and propaganda, there are only three alternatives for providing health care to the citizens of this country. One is to create a National Health Care System that includes every one and is funded by tax dollars and run by the government. This is the system adopted by every developed nation in the world except the United States. Critics marshal their arguments against this system which, when examined and tested by experience, are blatantly not true. “No government can run anything competently,” they say. Yet Medicare is a government run health care program that patients and doctors alike applaud. “You will have no choice in how you are treated or by whom,” is another incorrect fear-mongering attack. The fact is that the insurance companies dictate to us the doctors who are in their system that we are allowed to see. “Death panels will be set up and life or death decisions will be made by bureaucrats.” That was the Sarah Palin line. It is also blatantly untrue and it is little more than fear being peddled by people with a vested interest to protect. There comes a time when life and death decisions must be made. A “Living Will” is one way to do that and the choice to do so is always in the hands of the patient. If we could get past our fears, there are many advantages to a national health care system. Its focus is on health maintenance and prevention, not on treating the disease once contracted. There is a tremendous saving in a single payer plan. For many in the United States, however, such a plan smacks of “socialized medicine” and even though that response is both irrational and uninformed, it is nonetheless powerful. That is why in the United States alone, some method that will provide universal health care through private corporations has been cobbled together. To do it this way is enormously complicated, which then allows its critics to castigate it for the red tape and complicated decision-making by bureaucrats rather than by doctors. If medical care is to be run as a free enterprise, profit-making system, the health corporations will of necessity be forced to control costs. The free market is designed to insure profit to share holders. So you can’t have it both ways. The Affordable Care Act passed in the first two years of the Obama administration was in fact patterned on a plan developed by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Republican think tank. Its original purpose was to counter any attempt to build a national health care service. It was adopted first by the state of Massachusetts under the leadership of Republican Governor Mitt Romney. In order to work, it requires universal enrollment or a fine paid by those who do not enroll. Everyone, including the young and healthy, must be in the system to keep costs down. If young people can opt out of the system it will simply collapse financially. The trade off is that people pay when they are young to be able to afford health care when they are old. To mitigate against the price shock to the young, a provision was added to the law to enable young people to stay on their parent’s heath care plan until age 26, if they were still living at home either unemployed or working on a graduate degree. It also requires that exotic health care practices be regulated. An enormous percentage of every health care dollar is spent in the last year of a person’s life. Decisions will have to be made as to when we are prolonging life and when we are simply postponing death. That fact of life, faced everyday in every hospital in this land, is what politicians use to spread fear of death panels and “allowing Grandma to die.” A mature society must be willing to define the moment when meaningful life comes to an end. If there is no universal national health care system then this privately run, for profit, health care bill is the only alternative. The Affordable Care Act represents this alternative. The Tea Party wing of the Republican Party would not tolerate a national health program and now apparently they are not willing to tolerate a privately run health care program either. They want to defund this “disaster” before it can get established. Fair enough, we say, then what is your alternative? They have none! They propose none! So what does that mean? It means that they desire that health care be available only to those who can afford it! That is the inevitable result if this part of the Republican Party has its way. Health care thus becomes an asset that only the well-to-do can enjoy. The rest will depend on charity, the good will of a few doctors or the beneficence of a patron. Those who want to defund the Affordable Care Act surely must know that this is their only alternative. Can the Affordable Health Care Act be improved? Of course, but that will have to be accomplished through the legislative process. The bulldozer tactics of the Tea Party will never accomplish reform. So this nation’s choice is either to make the Affordable Care Act work or to embrace the only cruel alternative that remains. I am sick of ideologically-driven politicians who do not know or admit the consequences of their own outrageous rhetoric. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Alice Smith of Chattanooga, Tennessee, writes: Question: Your columns are always thought provoking and filled with such wisdom. Thanks for sharing your incredible knowledge and insight with us. I was thrilled when you came to Chattanooga several years ago and I actually got to hear you in person at Grace Church. A recent column reminded me of one you wrote last summer right before my granddaughter was to be baptized. In last summer’s column you wrote about performing a baptism and being struck with the language used in the baptismal service. I have been a member of the Church of the Good Shepherd in Chattanooga for over 40 years, but I have to admit I was a little surprised when my son, who lives with his wife and daughter in California, said he wanted to have his daughter baptized here in the church where he grew up. Although he is a very spiritual person, he hasn’t attended church for years. I myself rarely attend services at our church because when hearing the liturgy and reciting the creeds, I feel as if I am being forced to wear shoes that I have outgrown and that feel several sizes too small. I am eternally grateful, however, that the church allows our dream group to meet there and encourages our “sacred studies” group to hold weekend workshops there as well. I have thanked our priest on more than one occasion for being open to letting me and the others explore our spirituality in unconventional ways. Back to my granddaughter’s baptism. We couldn’t have the service in the church because there are only certain Sundays used for joint baptisms and their visit didn’t fall on one of those Sundays. We decided to have the service at a family cabin on a lake in the woods and a friend of mine, who is an Episcopal priest, but has no parish, agreed to perform the baptism. When she sent the service to my son to read, he said he didn’t like it because there was way too much talk about sin. It was right about this time that your column came out so I sent it to him. He agreed with everything you said! My priest friend then sent him the Australian service which she thought might be more to his liking. The mention of sin in this version was a turn off as well. He said all they wanted to do was to introduce their daughter to God’s love. The priest was bound by her vows to use some form of Episcopal liturgy so my son went online and found a pastor in Chattanooga from the Unity Church who was thrilled over performing the service. It was his first baptism and he wrote the service himself. It was absolutely glorious! You have opened up a monumentally important topic in that column and closed with the question, “What can we do about it?” I await your response with an open mind and eager anticipation. Answer: Dear Alice, First, may I say that I am delighted you found the Unity Church. That group of Christians seems to me to be moving in the path that the church of the future must move and I applaud them. I think they are leading in the direction that more mainline churches will inevitably go in the future. Traditional religious concepts, however, die slowly and sometimes only after exhausting themselves in denial and irrelevance. The major problem with most baptism liturgies, including those of my own church, is that they were developed as the cure for a diagnosis that is simply wrong. They assume the pre-modern mythology that there was in the beginning an original perfection of which originally perfect human beings were a part. That is portrayed biblically in the story of the perfection in the mythical Garden of Eden. According to this biblical story, however, that perfection was broken by human disobedience, which in turn plunged human beings and the whole world into original sin. That is portrayed in the biblical story of the fall and subsequent banishment of the first human family from the Garden of Eden. It was this story that formed the original theological framework in which baptism has been cast. It postulates an originally perfect creation, which was ruined by original sin. Apart from the cleansing waters of baptism, life is doomed to be lived apart from God. That is why the church once taught that unbaptized babies suffered in hell for all eternity. That idea was so repugnant that in time it was modified and “Limbo for unbaptized children” was developed. This Limbo was not a place of eternal punishment, but it was a place where its inhabitants were forever denied the vision of God’s presence. This theology turns God into a monster who does not know how to forgive. The primary desire of this God is to punish unless this God can rescue. This theology turns Jesus into the ultimate victim of God’s wrath. Jesus had to pay the price that God required for our sins. It turns you and me into guilt-filled victims. The good news, however, is that this theology is based on presuppositions that are being dismissed increasingly because they are simply wrong. There was no original perfection. There was rather a long and complicated evolution from matter, to life, to consciousness, to self-consciousness. If there was no original perfection, there could have been no fall from perfection, so original sin is simply wrong and it has got to go. If there was no fall into sin, then seeing Jesus as the savior who rescues us from the fall that never happened, to restore us to a status that we have never possessed, becomes absolute nonsense. We must develop a new way to tell the Christ story. Human life is not fallen, it is incomplete. We do not need a savior, we need the love and affirmation that accepts us as we are and empowers us to be all that we are capable of being. Your son’s comment that all he wanted to do was to introduce his daughter to the love of God is dead accurate. That is what baptism is supposed to be about. I did a baptism several weeks ago in my church in Morristown and before I began, I tried to defang the baptismal liturgy. We still have a long way to go. I encourage clergy in all traditions to work on the theology and liturgy of baptism. Until those liturgies are changed, I urge parents to get past the words of most baptismal liturgies until you find the words “Bring them to the fullness of God’s peace and glory.” That is what baptism is all about. ~John Shelby Spong Announcements We are small, but we have huge hearts and huge ideas! Can you help us during this season of giving? We would love to continue to create curriculum that is meaningful, spiritual, and intelligent for all ages! We would love to continue to gather the best, most relevant, and inspiring liturgy for your faith community! We would love to create children's books that are spiritual and powerful for all those sweet little beings out there! We would love to create more book study guides, un-church church models, intentional community models, and interfaith awareness.... We would love to do all this and more! But we can't do it without your support. We are a small non-profit and we rely solely on donations from people like you. Please donate today so we can continue to provide all the spiritual resources that you and your loved ones can enjoy and learn from. Can you help? If you would like to see us continue to create truly progressive, compassionate, and intelligent curriculum for all ages as well as liturgies and adult curriculum for evolving faith communities, please donate today. Thank you for your consideration, ProgressiveChristianity.org, your publishers .

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Re: [Oe List ...] Photos from Uptown in 1970s
by jlepps＠pc.jaring.my 05 Dec '13

05 Dec '13

Yes, it would be good to hear early memories of moving into 4750 and Uptown. I was working with Phil Townley at the time, and accompanied him to a council meeting which was to provide permission for us to make the move. They asked all sorts of questions about who we were, and I was furiously scribbling answers for Phil to give. He thoroughly ignored everything I wrote (wisely, it turned out). We got the permission and moved in. One feature of the early days was security: someone was posted in the Guild Hall at night and had to check the door to the back alley every hour. The noises of a near-empty building at night made for nerve-wracking times. It wasn't ghosts that were scary -- one felt almost able to handle them, It was what was outside that created the unease. The rooms were office spaces, and some had walls; the rest had file cabinets as dividers with curtains hung from the ceiling. Privacy was hard to come by. But work space was ample on the first floor, and for the first time, many of us had actual desks and file cabinets! It would be good to hear stories from others who made the move. John Epps At 07:38 PM 12/4/2013, Marge Philbrook wrote: >As one who currently lives and works in Uptown, I'd like to say that >lots of these areas look familiar today, that we were wise to stay >out of the neighborhood as much as possible 40 years ago, that all >of us have many stories we could tell about Uptown. > >I was on the development team that visited this building to decide >whether to recommend accepting this gift. I remember Phll Townley, >Fred Buss and I and I'm no sure who else came to look at it and >decided it would be a usable gift. I remember that the 100 of >us who didn't have small school children moved in from the alley >during a night, bringing our personal belongings and our mattresses >only - We intended to sleep on the top of desks in the various rooms >on all the floors in the building and use filing cabinets for dressers.. > >I remember that the restaurant in our building at the corner of >Lawrence and Sheridan was closed and we used that as our kitchen and >dining room. I remember there were only two showers in the building >one on 4 and one on 8 so we named one "men" and one "women" and >waited in line to shower. There was and still is a shower in the >basement which some people used. > >I better stop this but I think it would be great for several of us >to look at this man's book and bring back our memories of living >here in the 70s. We always felt lucky to have a parking lot. > >Marge Philbrook > > >On Wed, Dec 4, 2013 at 12:31 PM, Shelley Hahn ><<mailto:shelley.l.hahn@gmail.com>shelley.l.hahn(a)gmail.com> wrote: >Jann, I had exactly the same reaction to that photo. It was not >about race for me at all. I saw all the pimps and pimp-mobiles >around Uptown back in the day ... and that is what this guy reminded >me of. I have a very bad feeling about what might have happened to >that little girl and her mother. I hope I'm wrong. > >Shelley > > >On Wed, Dec 4, 2013 at 1:27 PM, ><<mailto:LAURELCG@aol.com>LAURELCG(a)aol.com> wrote: >I'm grateful to Shelley for sharing this. Now I realize how little I >really got out into the neighborhood > >These pictures are amazing and so is the text, written by a >good-hearted man with an artist's eye. > >I want to make one comment. The author called both white and black >people's visceral reaction to the image of the black man hugging the >little white girl racist. I disagree. The creep factor isn't racism. >The expression on the girl's face makes me think he was a pimp. The >picture nauseated me. Learning how much trafficking goes on has made >me more aware. > >There are many stories in those pictures,aren't there? > >Thank you again, Shelley. > >Blessings, >Jann McGuire > >_______________________________________________ >OE mailing list ><mailto:OE@lists.wedgeblade.net>OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net >http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net > > > >_______________________________________________ >OE mailing list ><mailto:OE@lists.wedgeblade.net>OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net >http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net > > >_______________________________________________ >OE mailing list >OE(a)lists.wedgeblade.net >http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net

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Re: [Oe List ...] Photos from Uptown in 1970s
by LAURELCG＠aol.com 05 Dec '13

05 Dec '13

I'm grateful to Shelley for sharing this. Now I realize how little I really got out into the neighborhood These pictures are amazing and so is the text, written by a good-hearted man with an artist's eye. I want to make one comment. The author called both white and black people's visceral reaction to the image of the black man hugging the little white girl racist. I disagree. The creep factor isn't racism. The expression on the girl's face makes me think he was a pimp. The picture nauseated me. Learning how much trafficking goes on has made me more aware. There are many stories in those pictures,aren't there? Thank you again, Shelley. Blessings, Jann McGuire

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Website problems for Dec. 3, Giving Tuesday-UMC from Lynda C.
by Lynda Cock 03 Dec '13

03 Dec '13

I finally got through on a phone line. The US Gov't has no monopoly on trouble with websites. The good news is that the UMC is being overwhelmed with donations. They have called in volunteers to help manage the phone lines who will take your info and they will keep trying to process it from there so it will be doubled. An e-confirmation will be sent to you, but I don't think it will be immediately since the website is "jammed" now. My volunteer said they would be there until 7 pm. I hope that means that the website will be fixed by then. If possible, make your donation by phone before 7 pm for it to be doubled just in case the site isn't working by then. Lynda Cock Note from Help Desk: Lynda- Thank you so much for your support of Global Ministries and UMCOR on Giving Tuesday. I'm sorry you've had trouble with the donate button. The 1-800 number will be available at 8am and you can call and give your credit card donation over the phone with them. The number is 1-800-862-4246. Feel free to reach out to this email again if you have any further questions. Best, Heather Deal Development Associate DonationHelp [DonationHelp(a)umcmission.org] _____ From: Lynda Cock [mailto:llc860@triad.rr.com] Sent: Monday, December 02, 2013 9:48 PM To: 'Order Ecumenical Community' Subject: Dec. 3, Giving Tuesday-Reminder for ONLINE giving- from Lynda Remind your Methodist friends. This is a letter I sent to some of my Methodist connections. It also keeps ICA in their minds. Dear Friends and Family, If your mail box is like mine and has been filled with ads for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it seems in keeping with the Reason for the Season that we should also focus attention on Giving Tuesday. The United Methodist Church's Advanced Specials is an avenue to do that. One of the Advanced Specials that John and I have direct connection with is the Zimbabwe HIV/AIDS program, a program initiated by and developed by colleagues from the Institute of Cultural Affairs, the organization that we continue to work with. First Methodist, Cleveland, has photos and more detailed descriptions of the project visits made by colleagues this past summer. I would be willing to give a program at your church to a circle or Sunday School class on this work sometime in the future as my back permits more travel. This program is approved from 2013-2015. "The United Methodist Board of Global Ministries is participating in UMC <http://www.umcmission.org/Learn-About-Us/News-and-Stories/2013/October/1015 -UMC-GivingTuesday-Promises-to-Multiply-Impact> #GivingTuesday on December 3, 2013. Gifts made online through The Advance on UMC #GivingTuesday will be matched dollar for dollar, meaning that 200 percent of every donation through your Advance number on December 3 will directly go to impact the ministry." Please take a few minutes to consider a gift, large or small, whose value will be increased by this generous doubling. Help Zimbabwe to begin to deal with this massive epidemic that has cost their country so heavily with infant mortalities, premature deaths of millions of women and men, and the highest number of orphans in the world in proportion to a country its size. Go to the website and designate "Zimbabwe HIV-AIDS" project. The Advance # for this project is 3021529. Gifts may be designated as honor or memorial gifts. Donations may be made from midnight tonight until midnight tomorrow night. A gift from Dad's estate to the FUMC in Cleveland, TN went toward this mission project . http://www.umcmission.org/Give-to-Mission/Search-for-Projects/Advance-Projec t-Search Contact me if you have questions. Sincerely, Lynda and John Cock 336-790-5020

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Fwd: Black Friday
by wangzhimu2031＠aol.com 03 Dec '13

03 Dec '13

A bonus to the Saipan Tribune normal biweekly column. Black Friday I came to Shenyang Aerospace University in 2011 after I lecturedon developmental economics to Chinese and third world students, eliciting aninvitation to teach. Most of theforeigners were from Africa where I went in the early 80s until I picked upmalaria in Ijede by Lagos lagoon in Nigeria, cutting short a scheduled trainingevent that was to proceed to Zambia, and then a prolonged stopover at a networkof development projects in Kenya. Halfway into the semester, the university wanted me to teachmore econometrics. Having perused allthe algebraic equations students did not need to learn but are forced to studyand memorize because academics and the expensive textbooks say so, while the practicingeconomists do not even bother, I wanted to quit the gig. However, the school needed students to learn how to speakEnglish. Most had sat through an average of 10 years ofEnglish training but were unable to speak. Having dug deeply in the pedagogy of language learning at the ruralvillage and urban ghetto level, I took on the challenge confident that I mightknow a thing or two on methods. Now, I have Chinese students in the economics departmentmajoring in finance as well as marketing, with some in tourism, which requiresthem to learn how to draft ad copies for print and broadcast. I do not teach any formal economic subjects,but I do use as a context the current situation of a new China that has turnedto domestic consumption to fuel and balance its robust export-oriented economy. Just for the sake of talking, I run an exercise with my classon what they would save if they found the price of an item of interest at thelocal department store lower by 50 percent than previous offering; say, aprevious bag at ¥100, now selling for ¥50. Students then come up with reasons and the students usually repeatphrases picked up from textbooks like "supply and demand","opportunity cost", "comparative advantage", and"incentives". The point is to get the students talking in English, and theshow-offs generally do. I then push theminto the "practical and realistic" realm, and they temper their ideasa bit, but seldom does anyone raise the fundamental question of whether a"savings" in fact occurs. Close to the tail end of the class, I then make mypontifical pronouncements. If in thesupply-and-demand scale, a consumer needs the item but deferred previously frompurchase due to other priorities, or had wanted the item but thought it to betoo expensive, or has the money and thinks the bargain is a good deal, the consumerstill pays 50 RMB that s/he would not normally spend. So, in the transaction, there is no suchthing as a "savings". Theconsumer spends, s/he pays for an item! That's when we segue into the word of advertising andmarketing where the object is make someone feel they either suck if they do notpurchase an item, or if they do, made to feel inadequate when they purchase thebargain item rather than the "real" thing. In either case, advertising makes you feelunfulfilled until you "shop till you drop!" We recently witnessed where this ethos leads to; it islamentable. In Honolulu, rental ofstorage places is a growth industry. Notonly do folks haul their full garbage disposal bins once a week to the curb,they also rent places to store items they seldom or no longer use but are habituallyaccustomed to hoard. In many suburbanneighborhoods, the garage is turned into an extra room, usually a storageplace, which is no big deal in tropical Hawai'i where the car can stay parkedoutside all year (unless the home owners' association says it is a "no-no")but in temperate zone, that congests city streets badly. Consumerism being a stated policy in China since 2008, andgetting double downbeat in 2012, the admonition to be perpetual shoppers hasgone off the charts. That's how"black Friday" got into our students' vocabulary. It is a term coined not too long ago by U.S.merchants and it symbolizes the influence of American promotions and marketingpractices in China's economy. Black firstreferred to the pandemonium in traffic that happened the first day of Christmasshopping on the Friday after Thursday's Thanksgiving Day, once a solemnreligious tradition. It has sinceslipped from the Parson's guidance to the directors of many Chambers ofCommerce. In some shops, it is thebeginning of their annual raison d'etrewhere merchandizing is profitable until shortly after New Year's day. Bleak "black" became the desired "black"in accounting where an investment finally makes profit. Black Friday sales' events in some departmentstores do not even wait for the sunrise. They stay open while the turkey is being deboned, and a mad rush occursshortly thereafter. Since we in the United States have exported the lifestyle ofperpetual debt and easy credit access to be emulated by the rest of the world,allowing financial institutions and stock market gyrations to determine thedance steps of our lives, Black Friday is globally making the rounds 24-hoursthis day. Fellow Americans dance to themusic with gusto. I am staying home. Jaime Vergara pinoypanda2031(a)aol.com yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!

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Dec. 3, Giving Tuesday-Reminder for ONLINE giving- from Lynda
by Lynda Cock 03 Dec '13

03 Dec '13

Remind your Methodist friends. This is a letter I sent to some of my Methodist connections. It also keeps ICA in their minds. Dear Friends and Family, If your mail box is like mine and has been filled with ads for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, it seems in keeping with the Reason for the Season that we should also focus attention on Giving Tuesday. The United Methodist Church's Advanced Specials is an avenue to do that. One of the Advanced Specials that John and I have direct connection with is the Zimbabwe HIV/AIDS program, a program initiated by and developed by colleagues from the Institute of Cultural Affairs, the organization that we continue to work with. First Methodist, Cleveland, has photos and more detailed descriptions of the project visits made by colleagues this past summer. I would be willing to give a program at your church to a circle or Sunday School class on this work sometime in the future as my back permits more travel. This program is approved from 2013-2015. "The United Methodist Board of Global Ministries is participating in UMC <http://www.umcmission.org/Learn-About-Us/News-and-Stories/2013/October/1015 -UMC-GivingTuesday-Promises-to-Multiply-Impact> #GivingTuesday on December 3, 2013. Gifts made online through The Advance on UMC #GivingTuesday will be matched dollar for dollar, meaning that 200 percent of every donation through your Advance number on December 3 will directly go to impact the ministry." Please take a few minutes to consider a gift, large or small, whose value will be increased by this generous doubling. Help Zimbabwe to begin to deal with this massive epidemic that has cost their country so heavily with infant mortalities, premature deaths of millions of women and men, and the highest number of orphans in the world in proportion to a country its size. Go to the website and designate "Zimbabwe HIV-AIDS" project. The Advance # for this project is 3021529. Gifts may be designated as honor or memorial gifts. Donations may be made from midnight tonight until midnight tomorrow night. A gift from Dad's estate to the FUMC in Cleveland, TN went toward this mission project . http://www.umcmission.org/Give-to-Mission/Search-for-Projects/Advance-Projec t-Search Contact me if you have questions. Sincerely, Lynda and John Cock 336-790-5020

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Fwd: for Thursday Dec. 5 from Jaime
by wangzhimu2031＠aol.com 02 Dec '13

02 Dec '13

Peoples Power to thequick It has almost been a month since Typhoon Yolanda's (Haiyan) strongand unprecedented belch spewed over the central islands of the Philippinearchipelago. Having invested presenceand energy on the affected area two decades ago, I was quick to develop empathyto the aftermath's innocent suffering, but disciplined enough to distancemyself emotionally from the disaster. Visibly,whatever tangible accomplishments we might have contributed before were wipedout, but I was confident that the human spirit we shared with folks stayedaround longer. It is Peoples Power II, not in protest against the likes ofa Ferdinand Marcos, or a seemingly uncomfortable President Benigno NoynoyAquino, but in the building of something new from the old, now obliterated forgood. That is the unmistakable lesson wehear from friends and associates in the region who have buckled up and rolledup their sleeves to proceed with the building process. I am reminded of the time I was a resident community worker inthe village of Sudtonggan, Basak, Lapu-Lapu City on Mactan Island in CebuProvince, a project demonstration site. While my wife and I were facilitating acommunity replication consult at the other end of the island, our staffresidence in the middle of the coral-limestone studded village burned down. There were no fatal casualties but our two daughters, along withchildren of other staff members, ran out into safety practically naked sincesleeping in the tropical humid atmosphere did not require pajamas, or much ofanything else. I recall a couple ofvillage homes taking their children's Sunday clothes, offering them for ourchildren's use. I lost two items ofcommercial value: an Italian hand made pair of comfortable loafers, and an oldCartier watch, gifts from a previous life style. What a liberating incident the conflagration was for notonly did I no longer had to worry about the meager wealth I owned, I was also agrateful recipient of the care and compassion of those I had come to serve and laborwith. Suddenly our roles werereversed. It was at once a humbling and freedom-boostingoccasion. Something of this nature occupied my mind as I got news fromcolleagues across the Visayas, and as reports from the devastated areas beganto filter out into the world's press. Ihave grown rather confident through the years in the resiliency of theworld-wise street-smart Pinoy with whom I identify with, along with manyFilipinos in diaspora around the world from whose ranks some emerged, and I wasseeing the traits of practical realism on display in the ruins of Tacloban. Consider China's rude awakening from the viciousness ofinternational media attack on what was considered a paltry contribution tohumanitarian aid (at the time, China herself suffered the onslaught of Haiyanin its southern flank), particularly from American news services and theirinternational outlets. China's response requires no defense. I am an American of Philippine descentteaching English in China's northeast in Manchuria so I bridge the threecountries involved. To help understandcontemporary China, I was in Ya-an in Sichuan this summer where a 2008 quake devastatedthe area eliciting an outpouring of world wide aid, but the replay in 2012 hadthe locals saying, "thanks, but no, thanks", to offers of financialaid from the international community. They resolved to rebuild their communities from the ground up themselveswith national assistance. Not withoutblemish, we note. Internal fund-raisingincluded fake claims and luxuriant expenditures from those who heeded theirgreed at the expense of a needful mass. When a Pinay in Leyte-Samar was asked what she thought ofChina's meager relief response, she said, "Oh, we do not think in terms ofhow much; to anything offered, we say, salamat(thank you)". The first Chinese volunteerswho landed to deliver aid heard typhoon victims egg them on with the Zhongwen "kuai, kuai, kuai" (quick, quick,quick) to get them where they wereneeded. Quietly, but quickly, a flotilla of 50 U.S. Naval vesselsand more than 10,000 personnel delivered relief food and water by sea, land,and air. A critic of military imperialpresence and pretentions in the region, I genuinely doff my hat to the organizedgrunts and fliers who delivered needed goods. We can get our drone technology to serve weatherforecasting, and military discipline to organize humanitarian efforts, and I reserve the option to execute myROTC hand salute each time I see Old Glory flying over military equipment andpersonnel! Pinoy Peoples Power is a phenomenon around the world, apedin the gathered crowd of Arab Spring to even the clashing but dancing Red and YellowThais who leave on their own volition after occupying public buildings. Peoples Power in the reconstruction of a new Samar-Leyte (theresort island of Guiuan, Eastern Samar is already high profile) is the Pinoy'sagenda, harnessing the native powers of balikatanand bayanihan, forgiving butmanaging the rapacious propertied class and the opportunistic looters, towards a resilient and creativePinoylandia! And do so, in the new but nowwidely used term in a normally laidback land: kuai, kuai, kuai! Jaime Vergara pinoypanda2031(a)aol.com yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!

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Global Buzz
by ICA International 01 Dec '13

01 Dec '13

Enjoy catching up with what is happening in ICAs across the globe.....If you wish to SEND a report...send to your ICA contact person OR...go to the members section on the ICA International website CHECK to ensure Dates under are Correct Please click the link below for the December issue of the Global Buzz Global Buzz Report: 2013 12 01 or copy and paste this URL into your browser's address bar http://ica-international.org/buzz/7dayreport-13/2013-12-01.php ICAI Communications

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