one giant step back

woke up to the news that the leaders of the anglican communion have given the american episcopalian branch about 7 months to ban blessings of same sex unions. this is where i read it.

the leader of the communion, the archbishop of canterbury, said: (this is) “an interim solution that certainly falls very short of resolving all the disputes.”

the article notes that: "The primates said their instructions were intended to reassure other Anglicans “who have lost faith in the Episcopal Church,” to minister to conservative Episcopalians who have rebelled against their leadership’s more liberal stance and ultimately to curtail efforts by bishops from other countries to take over parishes within the United States."

hmmmm ... in the usa they are fighting right now about who gets to keep the property if conservative parishes try to secede from the episcopal church.

i'm sorry, i need to rant for a moment:

WITH ALL THE TERRIBLE THINGS HAPPENING IN OUR WORLD AT THE MOMENT LIKE WAR AND POVERTY AND CHILDREN DYING OF HUNGER, THE ANGLICAN CHURCH IS GETTING ITS KNICKERS IN A TWIST ABOUT THIS? FOR GOD'S SAKE!

i think that libby purves and i are actually on the same page.

ok. rant curtailed. for now.

meanwhile, in the times ruth gledhill reports that there are plans to reunite the anglican church with the roman catholics under the leadership of the pope. she writes:

"Were this week’s discussions to lead to a split between liberals and conservatives, many of the former objections in Rome to a reunion with Anglican conservatives would disappear. Many of those Anglicans who object most strongly to gay ordination also oppose the ordination of women priests.

Rome has already shown itself willing to be flexible on the subject of celibacy when it received dozens of married priests from the Church of England into the Catholic priesthood after they left over the issue of women’s ordination."

ruth discusses the issue more in her blog

the week before the elections

only in america ... a snippet from today's times from an article about last-minute republican campaigning for next week's mid-term elections:

"In one electoral district in Texas, the last-minute campaign strategy has been to play down the fact that a candidate is dead.

Glenda Dawson, a Republican congresswoman in Pearland, died in September but a campaign leaflet distributed this week shows her smiling and noting her achievements for the district and did not mention her passing.

Ms Dawson is expected to win the reliably Republican district, in which case a special election will be held in a few months time. State Representative Dennis Bonnen, who is running her campaign, denied deliberately obscuring her death.

"We don’t suggest that there’s a great thing she’s going to accomplish for the voters in the future," he said. "We had already made it clear to voters in one piece that she had passed away. We didn’t think it was necessarily necessary to repeat it.""

it's incredible, isn't it, that dead people are even allowed to run. *pause while we insert appropriate joke about currently serving politicians and how dead they may be* but then better dead than red, eh? or than rainbow or black or anything else.

supermarket strategy

north america is full of supermarkets the size of aircraft hangers (although they seem small when compared to a wal-mart). once or twice a month, i am compelled to enter such edifices. this is because when i open the door of my fridge, i see only a couple of jam-jars containing one last cracker-sized smear, some old bottles of salad-dressing, 4 triangles of vache qui rie lite and many cans of the tropicana sugar-free lemonade that causes volcanic eruptions in my guts. o yes, and a kodak waterproof instant camera with the sell-by date of some time in 1996.

i'm not very good at supermarket shopping. i'm not really any good at any kind of shopping. i can, however, with great patience, be trained. i have learned not to enter the aisles that have chocolate in them. i have learned not to enter the supermarket that has maltesers and hob nobs in it. the greatest tool i have been given with regard to success in supermarket shopping is "the list". it is a strange idea - write down what you run out of as you go along, and take the list with you so you can get what you need. sadly, i don't usually do that, which is why last night i unpacked and found i had bought 7 tomatoes, 3 little squirty lemon juice bottles, diet fudgsicles (2 extra for free), party size hummus for garlic lovers, 6 packets of multigrain pita, bananas and a tube of preparation h. o, and a people magazine, strictly for my mother of course :-) . meanwhile, i asked the checkout person why when they ask 'paper or plastic?' and you say 'paper', they put the paper bag in the plastic bag? she said that they have to do it cos the paper bags don't have any handles.

happy bye bye to the brits day

culturally torn here because i am, of course, a u.s. citizen; but i am also daughter of a loyal brit and one who grew up there. add to this the fact that my father grew up in vicksburg where the 4th of july was not celebrated at all, and you may see how my mixed heritage might ravage my soul. meanwhile, my fear of loud explosive noises has me jumping around my flat as my neighbours demonstrate their independent spirit by making lots of loud explosive noises in a state where fireworks are illegal. since i do not eat anything that had eyes except potatoes, the scent of grilling animal flesh brings tears to my own eyes, and saliva to a mouth that responds to impulses more primeval than pc vegetarianism.

on the other hand, i did enjoy seeing 'bewitched' yesterday, although i think the cinema lost the reel with the last ten minutes on it. either that, or the producers just said "time's up!" and they stopped filming and began to run the credits. would like to see 'war of the worlds' except that tom cruise is being such an arse at the moment that i think it would be difficult to watch the character rather than seeing the face of the actor and thinking about his imo ridiculous public statements of recent weeks. i say that as someone who considers her life to have been saved a couple of times by anti-depressant meds. even rosie blogged her disagreement.

would it not be a blessing if people stopped waving the red white and blue ego, and peace broke out all over? that is something i can pray for:

god bless america, my home sweet home!