Jordan River Could Die by 2011: Report

From TerraDaily

The once mighty Jordan River, where Christians believe Jesus was baptised, is now little more than a polluted stream that could die next year unless the decay is halted, environmentalists said on Monday.

The famed river "has been reduced to a trickle south of the Sea of Galilee, devastated by overexploitation, pollution and lack of regional management," Friends of the Earth, Middle East (FoEME) said in a report.

More than 98 percent of the river's flow has been diverted by Israel, Syria and Jordan over the years.

"The remaining flow consists primarily of sewage, fish pond water, agricultural run-off and saline water," the environmentalists from Israel, Jordan and the West Bank said in the report to be presented in Amman on Monday.

"Without concrete action, the LJR (lower Jordan River) is expected to run dry at the end of 2011."

The river -- which runs 217 kilometres (135 miles) from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea -- and its tributaries are shared by Israel, Jordan, Syria and the West Bank.

In 1847, a US naval officer who led an expedition along the river described navigating down cascading rapids and waterfalls. Today the Jordan is a brackish stream barely a few metres (yards) wide.

A couple of kilometres south of the Sea of Galilee -- which is actually a lake -- a dam cuts off the flow of the river. Just south of the dam, raw sewage gushes from a pipe.

"This is what is today the source of the lower Jordan River," FoEME director for Israel Gidon Bromberg says, pointing to the foul-smelling water.

"No one can say this is holy water. No one can say this is an acceptable state for a river this famous worldwide."

A few metres away, saline water -- diverted from salt springs to protect the nearby lake -- flows into the foaming brown mess.

About 100 kilometres downstream, a Russian clad in a white robe immerses himself in the river at a site in Jordan where many Christians believe Jesus was baptised.

Every year, thousands of pilgrims take the plunge in the biblical river despite alarmingly high pollution.

Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian communities along the lower Jordan river -- about 340,000 people in all -- dump raw sewage into the river.

Ironically, if the sewage stops flowing into the river -- which Israel plans to do on its stretch -- the damage could be even greater unless additional measures are taken to reduce the salinity of the water.

FoEME believes the solution lies in releasing huge amounts of fresh water into the river.

The Jordan once had a flow of 1.3 billion cubic metres (45.5 billion cubic feet) a year, but now discharges only an estimated 20 million to 30 million cubic metres into the Dead Sea.

"A new study we commissioned reveals that we have lost at least 50 percent of biodiversity in and around the river due to the near total diversion of fresh water, and that some 400 million cubic metres of water annually are urgently needed to be returned to the river to bring it back to life," said Munqeth Mehyar, FoEME's Jordanian director.

Israel, Syria, Jordan must all return water to the ailing river, the report says.

Israel, having diverted the largest share and being a developed nation, should return a proportionally higher percentage of water, it adds.

Better management could save Israel 517 million cubic metres of water a year and Jordan 305 million cubic metres, part of which could be allocated to the Jordan river, the environmental group says.

Improving the flow of the Jordan River would also go a long way towards saving the Dead Sea, which is in turn withering rapidly.

Maxims for American Intellectuals

(good for putting down right-wing bigots at cocktail parties or in the classroom)

From Chronicles
By Clyde N. Wilson

Taking off your shoes at the airport is patriotic and makes you safer.

If college athletes fail academically it is obviously society’s fault.

HIV is an unfortunate virus and not caused by human behaviour.

Presidents are good and do what is best for us, except Nixon.

Poverty causes crime and if we eliminate poverty we can eliminate crime.

America has always been a nation of immigrants.

Diversity is a wonderful thing. Everybody should be required to accept it.

Excellence in education and equality in education are the same thing.

We are bringing democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan. We ought to be, and soon will be, doing the same for Iran.

Freedom means that all forms of non-coercive sexual activity are equally acceptable, as is declared in the Constitution.

In our Constitution, the Founding Fathers established for all time that “all men are created equal.”

Our Constitution demands a “wall of separation” between church and state. Churches should never interfere in politics unless it is to support progressive causes.

There is no such thing as race, but some races deserve special advantages.

Crime and social dysfunction in Northern metropolises are caused by slavery in the South that ended a century and a half ago.

Slavery in the South was the greatest atrocity in history except for Hitler’s killing of the Jews.

People oppose Obama only because he is black.

Bigotry is totally unacceptable except anti-Catholicism and anti-Arabism.

Terrorism mostly is to be feared from right-wing bigots.

The volcano eruption in Iceland was caused by rising right-wing extremism.

Clyde N. Wilson is a contributing editor to Chronicles. A retired professor of history at the University of South Carolina, he is the author of numerous books, including Carolina Cavalier: The Life and Mind of James Johnston Pettigrew and Defending Dixie: Essays in Southern History and Culture. He is the editor of The Papers of John C. Calhoun.

Christian Preacher Arrested for Saying Homosexuality is a Sin

A Christian street preacher was arrested and locked in a cell for telling a passer-by that homosexuality is a sin in the eyes of God.

From The Telegraph
By Heidi Blake

Dale McAlpine was charged with causing “harassment, alarm or distress” after a homosexual police community support officer (PCSO) overheard him reciting a number of “sins” referred to in the Bible, including blasphemy, drunkenness and same sex relationships.

The 42-year-old Baptist, who has preached Christianity in Wokington, Cumbria for years, said he did not mention homosexuality while delivering a sermon from the top of a stepladder, but admitted telling a passing shopper that he believed it went against the word of God.

Police officers are alleging that he made the remark in a voice loud enough to be overheard by others and have charged him with using abusive or insulting language, contrary to the Public Order Act.

Mr McAlpine, who was taken to the police station in the back of a marked van and locked in a cell for seven hours on April 20, said the incident was among the worst experiences of his life.

“I felt deeply shocked and humiliated that I had been arrested in my own town and treated like a common criminal in front of people I know," he said.

“My freedom was taken away on the hearsay of someone who disliked what I said, and I was charged under a law that doesn't apply.”

Christian campaigners have expressed alarm that the Public Order Act, introduced in 1986 to tackle violent rioters and football hooligans, is being used to curb religious free speech.

Sam Webster, a solicitor-advocate for the Christian Institute, which is supporting Mr McAlpine, said it is not a crime to express the belief that homosexual conduct is a sin.

“The police have a duty to maintain public order but they also have a duty to defend the lawful free speech of citizens,” he said.

“Case law has ruled that the orthodox Christian belief that homosexual conduct is sinful is a belief worthy of respect in a democratic society."

Mr McAlpine was handing out leaflets explaining the Ten Commandments or offering a “ticket to heaven” with a church colleague on April 20, when a woman came up and engaged him in a debate about his faith.

During the exchange, he says he quietly listed homosexuality among a number of sins referred to in 1 Corinthians, including blasphemy, fornication, adultery and drunkenness.

After the woman walked away, she was approached by a PCSO who spoke with her briefly and then walked over to Mr McAlpine and told him a complaint had been made, and that he could be arrested for using racist or homophobic language.

The street preacher said he told the PCSO: “I am not homophobic but sometimes I do say that the Bible says homosexuality is a crime against the Creator”.

He claims that the PCSO then said he was homosexual and identified himself as the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender liaison officer for Cumbria police. Mr McAlpine replied: “It’s still a sin.”

The preacher then began a 20 minute sermon, in which he says he mentioned drunkenness and adultery, but not homosexuality. Three regular uniformed police officers arrived during the address, arrested Mr McAlpine and put him in the back of a police van.

At the station, he was told to empty his pockets and his mobile telephone, belt and shoes were confiscated. Police took fingerprints, a palm print, a retina scan and a DNA swab.

He was later interviewed, charged under Sections 5 (1) and (6) of the Public Order Act and released on bail on the condition that he did not preach in public.

Mr McAlpine pleaded not guilty at a preliminary hearing on Friday at Wokingham magistrates court and is now awaiting a trial date.

The Public Order Act, which outlaws the unreasonable use of abusive language likely to cause distress, has been used to arrest religious people in a number of similar cases.

Harry Hammond, a pensioner, was convicted under Section 5 of the Act in 2002 for holding up a sign saying “Stop immorality. Stop Homosexuality. Stop Lesbianism. Jesus is Lord” while preaching in Bournemouth.

Stephen Green, a Christian campaigner, was arrested and charged in 2006 for handing out religious leaflets at a Gay Pride festival in Cardiff. The case against him was later dropped.

Cumbria police said last night that no one was available to comment on Mr McAlpine’s case.

Arizona’s Largest Newspaper Says McCain, Other Politicians Failed on Immigration

Arizona's largest newspaper criticized U.S. Sens. John McCain and Jon Kyl and a host of other elected officials in a rare front-page editorial Sunday, saying the politicians have failed to find solutions to illegal immigration.

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Hadley Arkes Received into Catholic Church

From Catholic World News

Noted pro-life thinker Dr. Hadley Arkes, the Edward N. Ney Professor in American Institutions at Amherst College, has announced that he was received into the Church on April 24.

“The Church has become the main enclave to preserve the sobriety of moral reasoning, natural law reasoning, when the currents of relativism have inundated and corroded the academy and other institutions,” Arkes writes in a brief account of his conversion. “[T]he Church cannot be understood apart from the one who planted the Mustard Seed from which it grew and took its shape and character. Nor can it be detached from the Spirit that managed to preserve the discipline of its moral teachings even through times of trouble and disarray.”

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

• Finalmente: Coming Into the Church (The Catholic Thing)

Rockford Institute Announces 13th Annual Summer School will Study the Anglo-Saxons

The Rockford Institute, publisher of Chronicles, has announced the theme for another of their excellent summer schools. This year's symposium will examine "Arthur and Alfred: The Anglo-Saxons." The conference will be held July 6-11, in Rockford, Illinois, at the Cliffbreakers River Suites Hotel.

The Institute's announcement notes:

"Only a few Americans know that Hengist and Horsa were the legendary chiefs who led the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain, but Thomas Jefferson wanted to put the pair on the Great Seal of the United States. Like many Americans and their English forebears, Jefferson believed that the American love of liberty can be traced directly back to the free Anglo-Saxon farmers, who owned their own land, defended their families and countrymen in battle, and met in local courts and assemblies to enforce the law and make collective decisions. If it sounds like America in 1790, that is because these Anglo-Saxon customs and traditions were never fully suppressed by the Norman Conquest.

For Americans today, living under a harsher regime than William the Conqueror ever dreamed of imposing, Anglo-Saxon England represents not only the political patrimony that has been taken from us, but also a thrilling place of brave warriors, stirring epic poetry, and heroic missionaries and scholars who transformed a nation of wild barbarians into civilized Christians who never forgot how to fight.

Read Beowulf in the context of the people who gave birth to this first masterpiece of English, follow Bede’s brilliant account of the Church in England, and examine up-close the institutions of a free people that have set an enduring pattern for all of us who value liberty and understand that the Christian life properly lived is the greatest adventure of all."

Additional information and a registration form is available here.

Fifth Sunday of Easter

Wells Cathedral Choir - "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling"

Barbara Bonney - "Ave Maria" - Schubert