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Month: January 2006

who’s to blame?

who’s to blame?

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From the Los Angeles Times (Exxon Reports Record-Breaking Profits)

Exxon Reports Record-Breaking Annual Profits
By Jesus Sanchez, Times Staff Writer

ExxonMobil Corp. today said its annual profits soared more than 40% last year to a record-breaking $36.1 billion as the world’s largest publicly owned energy company reaped the benefits of soaring prices and demand for crude oil and gasoline.

The company’s annual and quarterly profit figures, which were even larger than Wall Street had expected, sent the company’s shares up more than 3% in early afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

ExxonMobil’s annual profit was the largest ever reported in corporate history, Standard & Poor’s stock market analyst Howard Silverblatt told Associated Press.

The energy giant also claims the second-largest annual corporate profit ever reported, $25.3 billion in 2004.

The Irving, Texas-based company’s profits rose strongly across most of its units despite the damage and disruption to production and refinery facilities suffered during the Gulf Coast hurricanes. For the fourth quarter, the company said profits, including special one-time items, surged 27% on a year-over-year basis to $10.7 billion.

Company officials, mindful of the anger triggered by last year’s surge in energy prices that sent gasoline soaring to $3 a gallon in many parts of the nation, stressed the company’s investment in expanding production. Last year, ExxonMobil spent $17.7 billion in exploration and facilities.

“There is a great deal of public interest in global energy prices,” ExxonMobil Chairman Rex W. Tillerson said in a statement. “We recognize that consumers worldwide want and need reliable supplies of affordable energy — to fuel their vehicles, light and heat their homes and run their businesses. Our strong financial results will continue to allow us to make significant, long-term investments required to do our part in meeting the world’s energy needs.”

ExxonMobil and other industry officials have been active in trying to head off renewed calls to slap a windfall profits tax amid record profits.

Last week, Chevron Corp. also reported record high fourth quarter and annual profits despite costly repairs to its Gulf Coast facilities. The San Ramon, Calif.-based company said that annual profits surged to $14.1 billion last year from $13 billion in 2004.

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We have no one to blame but ourselves. We create the demand that drives up prices. We do not worry over much about finding alternative sources for tomorrow’s energy needs as long as we have enough to maintain our accustomed lifestyles today. We cannot blame elected leaders or oil company executives for an economic reality that we have created and we permit to endure.

And yet … There is something disturbing, something almost sinister, about the juxtaposition of regular folks in our own nation and around the world feeling the energy squeeze, choosing between heat and food, choosing between heat and health care, with the huge oil companies (and their executives) reaping unprecedented profits. Maybe that’s how the economic “game” works, but there are clear winners and losers. The pain is not shared. The people’s pain is the oil company’s gain.

I know I would have a hard time living with myself if my windfall came at the expense of someone else’s suffering …

wackos?

wackos?

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Environmentalists are just a bunch of wackos …

  • They believe that every human being is entitled to breathe clean air and to drink clean water.
  • They believe that a healthy planet is essential to the welfare of all living things, including human beings.
  • They believe in leaving the world a better place for future generations.
  • They believe in the virtue of making small sacrifices now to preserve the bounty of the earth’s resources for later.
  • They want their children and their children’s children and their children’s children’s children to experience the same awe and wonder they experience in encountering the astounding variety and complexity and beauty of the natural world, of all that human beings have not made for themselves and barely understand.
  • They believe that the divine mandate to be good stewards of this earth means to take care of it, not to exploit it.
  • They believe that a horned owl or a piping plover or a topeka shiner or an eastern prairie fringed orchid have as much right to exist as they do, and that plants and animals and matter itself have value in and of themselves, not just in their usefulness to the human economy.
  • They believe in respecting life, in appreciating life, in enjoying life, in all its forms.
  • They love this earth and show that love by being zealously protective of its well-being.
New River Gorge

Just loony, isn’t it?

If it is crazy to harbor such beliefs … I pray that there may there be a worldwide epidemic of such insanity!

saying “no” to torture means “no”

saying “no” to torture means “no”

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I am hopeful that we may be of one mind as a nation in saying an unequivocal “No” to using torture in any and all circumstances. I am concerned, as are the retired miltary officers cited in the following article, that the “signing statement” appended to the bill undermines the intent and effect of the McCain amendment banning cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of detainees in any form.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A group of retired military officers urged President George W. Bush on Thursday to spell out how he will enforce a ban on the torture of U.S.-held prisoners, complaining he muddied the issue in a statement last month.

Bush reluctantly accepted the ban, pushed by Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, after scandals over abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, harsh interrogations at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and reports the CIA ran secret prisons abroad to hold terrorism suspects.

Retired military leaders including Marine Gen. Joseph Hoar, who was U.S. Central Command commander-in-chief, said Bush should clarify his stance after making a statement last month that some experts said signaled he would bypass rules for treatment of detainees when he saw fit, even after he signed them into law.

The 22 former military officers in their letter said Bush should ensure that “your administration speak with a consistent voice to make clear that the United States now has a single standard of conduct specified in law that governs all interrogations.”

In a telephone news conference, Hoar said Bush’s statement last month “diluted the impact of the McCain amendment” by indicating “that there were going to be exceptions and the president has the ability to do that.”

McCain, who endured torture as a war prisoner in Vietnam, spearheaded the bill to set standards for detainees’ treatment that won big majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives.

Bush’s statement, issued on a Friday evening after he signed the bill putting the amendment into law, said the “executive branch shall construe (the law) in a manner consistent with the authority of the president … as commander in chief.”

The statement also said the White House’s approach would be “consistent with the constitutional limitations on the judicial power, which will assist in achieving the shared objective of the Congress and the president … of protecting the American people from further terrorist attacks.”

Elisa Massimino, Washington director of Human Rights First, said Bush should “clarify the signing statement so there is no question that the commander-in-chief considers this law binding on all U.S. personnel.”

Human Rights First held a news conference on the letter from retired generals and admirals.

Retired Rear Admiral John Hutson, a former Navy judge advocate general, said the McCain amendment reinstated long-standing U.S. policy on the treatment of prisoners. “Then to have a signing statement in which that becomes blurred again causes us great concern,” he said.

By Vicki Allen

martin luther king still has something to say to us

martin luther king still has something to say to us

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An excerpt from the last speech given by Martin Luther King:

Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. One day a man came to Jesus; and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters in life. At points, he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew, and through this, throw him off base. Now that question could have easily ended up in a philosophical and theological debate. But Jesus immediately pulled that question from mid-air, and placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. And he talked about a certain man, who fell among thieves. You remember that a Levite and a priest passed by on the other side. They didn’t stop to help him. And finally a man of another race came by. He got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by proxy. But with him, administering first aid, and helped the man in need. Jesus ended up saying, this was the good man, this was the great man, because he had the capacity to project the “I” into the “thou,” and to be concerned about his brother. Now you know, we use our imagination a great deal to try to determine why the priest and the Levite didn’t stop. At times we say they were busy going to church meetings—an ecclesiastical gathering—and they had to get on down to Jerusalem so they wouldn’t be late for their meeting. At other times we would speculate that there was a religious law that “One who was engaged in religious ceremonials was not to touch a human body twenty-four hours before the ceremony.” And every now and then we begin to wonder whether maybe they were not going down to Jerusalem, or down to Jericho, rather to organize a “Jericho Road Improvement Association.” That’s a possibility. Maybe they felt that it was better to deal with the problem from the causal root, rather than to get bogged down with an individual effort.

But I’m going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It’s possible that these men were afraid. You see, the Jericho road is a dangerous road. I remember when Mrs. King and I were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife, “I can see why Jesus used this as a setting for his parable.” It’s a winding, meandering road. It’s really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200 miles, or rather 1200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you’re about 2200 feet below sea level. That’s a dangerous road. In the days of Jesus it came to be known as the “Bloody Pass.” And you know, it’s possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it’s possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the Levite asked was, “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”

That’s the question before you tonight. Not, “If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?” The question is not, “If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?” “If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?” That’s the question …

making beauty

making beauty

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(Originally published Saturday, December 31, 2005)

I have been doing a bit of ranting lately … about the horrors of the death penalty, about the scandal of an administration that is reluctant to expressly disavow torture, about the shortsighted greed that would rather despoil an untouched wilderness than spend the time and money to develop alternative energy sources or to find ways to use our present energy resources more efficiently.

But I want to end the year on a positive note! Because in spite of all its ills and all our failings, the world in which we live is filled with much that is beautiful, most of it brought into being by the God who brought the universe into being, but some of it brought into being by us, creatures made to be like God. We are very much like God when we are making beauty. In just these last few days I have had the privilege of enjoying great beauty …

… the beauty of a sanctuary lighted by a hundred handheld candles and filled with the sound of a hundred voices singing of the dawn of redeeming grace.

… the beauty of the aroma of poached pears, a dish new to me prepared by our eldest son.

… the beauty of language, powerful and intimate, words describing feelings, words describing grief, words crafted by Joan Didion to document and make sense of a year of grieving the sudden death of her husband, beautiful because even words of grief reveal the wonder and mystery and majesty of human love.

… the beauty of giving gifts and receiving gifts when the one giving and the one receiving both know, and know each other know, that it isn’t about the gift!

We are at our best when we are making beauty. When we praise beauty and preserve beauty and especially when we make beauty, we show ourselves to be true children of the God who delights in beauty …

the year of magical thinking

the year of magical thinking

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(Originally published Monday, January 2, 2006)

The opening paragraph from chapter 17 of The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion:

Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death. We misconstrue the nature of even those few days or weeks. We might expect if the death is sudden to feel shock. We do not expect this shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind. We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe that their husband is about to return and need his shoes. In the version of grief we imagine, the model will be “healing.” A certain forward movement will prevail. The worst days will be the earliest days. We imagine that the moment to most severely test us will be the funeral, after which this hypothetical healing will take place. When we anticipate the funeral we wonder about failing to “get through it,” rise to the occasion, exhibit the “strength” that invariably gets mentioned as the correct response to death. We anticipate needing to steel ourselves for the moment: will I be able to greet people, will I be able to leave the scene, will I be able even to get dressed that day? We have no way of knowing that this will not be the issue. We have no way of knowing that the funeral itself will be anodyne, a kind of narcotic regression in which we are wrapped in the care of others and the gravity and meaning of the occasion. Nor can we know ahead of the fact (and here lies the heart of the difference between grief as we imagine it and grief as it is) the unending absence that follows, the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaninglessness itself.

In the The Year of Magical Thinking Joan Didion offers a most personal and particular account of the year following the sudden death of her husband. But because she is so honest, because she does not hold back any detail of her thoughts and feelings, her story provides a touchstone by which we may better understand our own grief and the grief of those we love. I recommend this book!

face the facts

face the facts

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(Originally published Wednesday, December 28, 2005)

Let Them Eat Guns?, Sojourners Magazine/January 2006

World military expenditure exceeded $1 trillion in 2004. The United States accounted for 47 percent of this spending.

$238 billion. Appropriations for the “war on terror” for 2003–05, which exceeded the combined military spending of the entire developing world in 2004 ($214 billion).

$236 billion. The combined arms sales of the top 100 companies in 2003. The top five companies accounted for 44 percent of this total.

$2.5 billion per year: The external funding required by 47 countries with the lowest primary school completion rates in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education.

$2.4 billion per year: The cost to halve the number of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water.

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The facts are disturbing, but I pray we will have the good sense and courage to face them and to revise our priorities!