“In light of such teaching … the church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture,’” although the church differentiates homosexuals from those for whom homosexual tendencies “were only the expression of a transitory problem — for example, that of an adolescence not yet superseded.”

— the Vatican’s statement, published today, regarding gays in the clergy.  

Those who fall into the latter category may be admitted into the clergy, but “such tendencies must be clearly overcome at least three years before ordination to the diaconate.”

Mimi Hanaoka

Americans are a fat lot. Given Americans’ collective chubbiness and the painfully high price of gas, one would think that Americans would be waddling towards a healthier and more sustainable mode of transport.  But no.

Bill Gifford, an Outside magazine correspondent, chronicled his attempt, inspired by a holiday to Holland, to exchange his car for the bicycle for a while. To Gifford’s horror, he discovered that Americans use the bicycle for a meager one percent of all their trips, compared to a robust 30 percent amongst the Dutch.

The argument for environmentally conscious and sustainable living is apparently failing to steer Americans away from cars and towards public transport and bicycles.  Perhaps a more grotesque and immediate statistic will urge Americans to think again; the American Obesity Association, citing research from the CDC and the NIH, reports that 30.5 percent of American adults over the age of 20 are obese; the number jumps up to 64.5 percent for the simply overweight. If only for the sake of their health, Americans might consider tapering down car use.    

Mimi Hanaoka

With almost one in every seven Americans repudiating religious affiliations, it’s no surprise that Americans are creating their own religions, and in droves; Universism is one such faith.

“Universism seeks to solve a problem that has riddled mankind throughout history: the endless string of people who claim that they know the Truth and the Way…to dispel the illusion of certainty that divides humanity into warring camps,” is how the religion’s 28-year-old founder describes its aim.  With no definite dogma — uncertainty is one of the religion’s core tenets — it’s difficult verging on the impossible to identify what, precisely, identifies Universism or many of its similarly fragmented offshoots as a religion.  

When I visited the Church of Fools last year, I was warned that the “Church of Fools is currently not suitable for children.” Undaunted by the “often colorful and occasionally offensive,” language that apparently litters the church, I knocked on its virtual door only to be told: “Sorry, but Church of Fools is closed at the moment.”

The Church of Fools is one of the newest ventures into what can loosely be defined as religion. The online church claims to be the United Kingdom’s first 3-D, Web-based church, and its target audience is the religiously marginalized. The church began as three-month “experiment” in 2004, and during that time it drew a virtual congregation of up to 10,000 visitors a day. The pious may choose a character, sing, pray, and jubilantly exclaim Hallelujah!”

Absent any sense of accountability, the aptly named Church of Fools and the vaguely named creed of Universism (with an online congregation of 8,000 strong) are certainly creating potential breeding grounds for demagoguery and charlatanism in the anonymous and amorphous space of new religion.

Mimi Hanaoka

Regardless of whether you tastefully call it an “Afrikaner community” or more realistically describe it as a racist enclave, Orania’s radio station has been silenced.   

Lydia de Souza, senior manager of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa), described the unlicensed broadcasters as bandits, and while she stated that “Our monitors were of the view that it was a racist-based station and very right-wing,” Icasa insists that they shut down the station because Orania lacked a broadcasting license.    

While the ostensible reason that the 600 or so residents of Orania flocked to the small town was to escape the violence and crime that plague South Africa, it is doubtful that security was the motivating factor for their migration to Orania, and the legacy of apartheid is alive and well in the town; the grandson of Henrik Vorwoerd, who designed the program of apartheid, currently lives in Orania.  

In one of the most insultingly timed events in recent memory, Orania leased its own whites-only currency last year, two days after the 10th anniversary of the end of apartheid.

In a baffling defense of the notion of white supremacy, Eleanor Lombard, a town spokesman, declared: “South African society is like a fruit salad — if I am allowed to be whatever I am — a banana, an apple or whatever — I can add to the flavour…If I am all squashed up, I cannot contribute.”

Mimi Hanaoka

“The administration is setting a dangerous example for the world when it claims that spy agencies are above the law… Congress should reject this proposal outright. Otherwise, the United States will have no standing to demand humane treatment if an American falls into the hands of foreign intelligence services.”

— Tom Malinowski, Washington director of Human Rights Watch, condemning the recent proposal for a presidential waiver for a measure — approved only earlier this month — that would forbid the CIA and U.S. military for using “cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment” on any detained individual, regardless of his or her location.

The waiver would exempt non-military counterterrorism operations abroad against foreign citizens from the earlier prohibition against “cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment.” This is not to say that torture doesn’t routinely occur around the world under government auspices; however, the U.S. would be breaking new ground if it creates a legal justification for something approaching torture. The repercussions of such an allowance, Malinowski warns, would be to fling open the doors to outright torture.

Mimi Hanaoka

With over 1,300 cars torched and destroyed, and with 800 people — some of them boys as young as 13 — arrested, France is literally up in flames. And there is no end in sight for the root causes of the riots, according to the government’s own admission.

The riots began in Parisian suburbs ten days ago when Bouna Traore, 15, and Zyed Benna, 17, boys of Mauritanian and Tunisian background, were electrocuted while hiding from the police. Their deaths sparked the tinderbox of frustration that has been building among the nation’s immigrant population, with poverty, unemployment, and discrimination fanning the flames of resentment.

Commenting on France’s North African immigrants and their locally-born children, Secretary of State for Local Government Brice Hortefeux stated today on French radio that “For 20 years, urban policy has been plugging holes but has not resolved the fundamental problem of integrating … We will find a way out of this with determination and firmness … But I don’t know how long it will take.” An honest but grim appraisal of the situation for a country in which 10 percent of its 60 million residents are immigrants. Even when order is restored in France, the root causes for the riots have only been highlighted, with no particular solution in sight to the grievances of the nation’s immigrants and issues relating to the nation’s immigration policies.

Mimi Hanaoka

Literature may have deemed April the cruelest month, but October is one of the deadliest; October 2005 closed with one of the highest monthly death tolls of American servicemen in Iraq, bringing the total death count among American forces to 2,025 since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Additionally, over 15,000 servicemen have been wounded, and 159,000 soldiers are currently stationed in Iraq.

President Bush’s outlook is grim; even before the indictment and resignation last week of Lewis Libby, Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, on charges relating to perjury and illegally disclosing the identity of an undercover CIA officer, the President’s popularity was waning. A recent poll discovered that approximately 53% of the populace now believes American military action in Iraq was an incorrect course of action. Bravo, Mr. President.

Mimi Hanaoka

As three bombs rocked the Palestine and Sheraton Hotels — both of which serve as bases for foreign journalists and contractors — and killed at least 17 people today, the death toll among the media rose yet again.  

“It’s about time the international community of journalists realized that Iraqi journalists make up the lion’s share of the killed list. In this year alone, 31 out of the 32 journalists killed in Iraq were Iraqis,” stated Hayet Zeghiche of the International Federation of Journalists, referring to the rising death toll — now over 100 — among journalists and the media since the American invasion in March of 2003.  

Mimi Hanaoka

“I said loud and clear that one million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in Turkey, and I stand by that. For me, these are scholarly issues… I am a novelist. I address human suffering and pain and it is obvious, even in Turkey, that there was an immense hidden pain which we now have to face.” — Orhan Pamuk, reiterating his stance on the contested Armenian genocide in Turkey that occurred during the twilight years of the Ottoman Empire. Pamuk’s remarks to a Swiss newspaper regarding the Turkish slaughter of Armenians have earned him the charge of “public denigration of Turkish identity,” complete with a December 16th court date. Crucial to Pamuk’s defense is his insistence that he has never used the word “genocide,” to describe the event.

Pamuk sparked the controversy with his comment to a Swiss newspaper in which he claimed that “30,000 Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it,” referring to the Turkish killings of Armenians in 1915 during their forced march out of Anatolia.  Pamuk faces trial and up to three years in prison for his statement.  

The Turkish government is playing a dangerous game of semantic brinksmanship with the EU in the trial of Pamuk; with the question of Turkey’s possible entry to the EU fraught with infighting within the European community as it is, the imprisonment of an internationally acclaimed writer on charges of humiliating the state will be an ideal explanation for some European nations for Turkey’s unsuitability to joining the European club.

Mimi Hanaoka

“I did not say, we Turks killed this many Armenians. I did not use the word ‘genocide.’”
— Orhan Pamuk, swiftly backtracking after he allegedly commented to a Swiss newspaper that “30,000 Kurds and 1 million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me dares to talk about it,” referring to the contested Turkish killings of Armenians in 1915.  Pamuk faces trial and up to three years in prison for his remarks.  

Turkish and Armenian historians differ in their accounts of what happened in 1915. It is a fact that Armenians were driven out of eastern Anatolia, their ancestral homeland. It is also a fact that many Armenians died during this forced march out of Anatolia. The unresolved question is whether this incident — what amounted to a death march for the Armenians — was planned and orchestrated by the Ottoman government. The traditional Turkish answer to the Armenian accusations of state-sponsored massacre has been that the Armenians, with the backing of czarist Russia, rebelled against Ottoman rule. The deaths that resulted from the resultant conflict in 1915 must be placed in their appropriate historical context of World War I and the twilight years of the soon-to-be-abolished Ottoman Empire.

As Turkey looks towards the EU for prized membership in the European club, so too will the EU be looking towards Turkey and at Pamuk’s trial to determine the nation’s suitability for the EU.  
  

Mimi Hanaoka

Terrible spelling and choppy, stuttering sentences no longer need to be restricted to teenagers and text messages; the Bible is now available in SMS text message format, replete with absurd spellings and, apparently, a very accessible message. The SMS Bible begins with the proclamation that “In da Bginnin God cre8d da heavens & da earth.”

The Bible Society in Australia has translated the Bible and all its 31,173 verses into text messages, after six weeks of labor on the part of Mr. Michael Chant, who translated the Bible into SMS messages.

Apparently the Bible can do with a little positive marketing and image re-appraisal, as it is now also available in camouflage. “The old days when the Bible was only available within a sombre black cover with a cross on it are long gone,” stated Mr. Chant, speaking about the Bible Society in Australia’s Bible designed and tailored specifically for the nation’s armed forces.

The SMS Bible follows in the wake of the recent innovative gimmick that is the 100-Minute Bible; Reverend Michael Hinton in England has, after years of work and vicious editing, edited and published the new Bible, miniature both in content and in style, for distribution in British churches and schools. The Bishop of Jarrow, Rev. John Pritchard, served as a consultant on the book and offered a rigorously non-theological take on the 100-Minute Bible, in which all 66 books of the Christian holy text have been condensed like a literary cheat sheet.  “This is an attempt to say, ‘Look, there’s a great story here — let’s get into it and let’s not get put off by the things that are going to be the sub-plot. Let’s give you the big plot,’” was the Reverend’s sunny outlook.  
  
While Mr. Chant insists that only the spelling of the Bible, and not its language, has been changed with the SMS Bible, one wonders if something doesn’t get lost in translation.  

Mimi Hanaoka

There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, but the collective GDP of the 57 nations that are part of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, or OIC, is a trifling five percent of the world total, even if you round up the numbers. The solution to this incongruity? An Islamic common market.
  
The Organization of the Islamic Conference — whose member nations include oil-rich Saudi Arabia with its GNI of $10,430 as well as the desperately poor Chad, with its GNI of $260, and the until very recently war-torn Sierra Leone, with its GNI clocking in at US $200 — convened in Malaysia for the first World Islamic Economic Forum (think Davos, transported to Kuala Lumpur). Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the OIC chairman and Prime Minister of the host country, touted the financial and political benefits that could be accrued from unfettered — or, at least, less bureaucratically hindered — free trade between the 57 nations.  

Should such a trade agreement come to fruition, the nations would no doubt benefit; even some of the poorest member nations, such as Chad and Seirra Leone, are rich in gold and diamonds, respectively. The hinderances are the breathtaking levels of corruption within the countries that are making the nations’ economies underproductive, not to say crippled.  

Mimi Hanaoka