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This would have saved the agonies of doctrine lectures, been funnier and more memorable.
The greatest miracle is not that man walked on the moon, but that God walked on the earth
Colonel James Irwin, Astronaut
Still two days to go of national chip week. It’s a relief that the chip in question is the potato variety rather than the silicon one. There will come a time when we might think more of chips with bytes rather than those with bite.
In any culture it’s an interesting question about which staple food you could not do without – potatoes, rice, pasta or bread. I’d be torn between bread and potatoes, but in the end would have to come down on the side of the spud – mashed, roasted, baked, rostied, crisped or chipped.
The bag of chips is almost our only contribution to the world cuisine of ’street food’ – a slightly condescending term. Condescended to or not, a bag of chips brings comfort after a night out like little else. And if it’s high tea you want, then wrap the chips in bread. Nigel Slater has some strict rules on how the the chip butty should be assembled:
- The bread should be white and thick sliced. The ‘plastic’ type is more suitable than real ‘baker’s bread’ because it absorbs the melting butter more readily
- The chips should be fried in dripping, not oil, and sprinkled with salt and malt vinegar
- The sandwich should drip with butter
(From Real Fast Food)
He feels its frightfully common which adds to the taste, but it’s also very un pc and about to be forced underground, as the nutrition police prepare to unleash a snatch squad at any moment.
Go eat.
A study conducted by UCLA’s Department of Psychiatry has revealed that the kind of face a woman finds attractive on a man can differ depending on where she is in her menstrual cycle.
For example: If she is ovulating, she is attracted to men with rugged and masculine features. However, if she is menstruating or menopausal, she tends to be more attracted to a man with scissors lodged in his temple and duct tape over his mouth while he is on fire.
No further studies are expected.
Bono’s been speaking to his homeboy Bush at a prayer breakfast. It’s likely it’s not a prayer breakfast in the Cistercian tradition.
The full text was on Jim Wallis’ site, who was also quoted at the weekend in connection with another homeboy Gordon Brown.
“Look, whatever thoughts you have about God, who He is or if He exists, most will agree that if there is a God, He has a special place for the poor. In fact, the poor are where God lives.
Check Judaism. Check Islam. Check pretty much anyone.
I mean, God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill. I hope so. He may well be with us as in all manner of controversial stuff. Maybe, maybe not. But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor.
God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. “If you remove the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom with become like midday and the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desire in scorched places.”
It’s not a coincidence that in the scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It’s not an accident. That’s a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions. (You know, the only time Christ is judgmental is on the subject of the poor.) ‘As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me’ (Matthew 25:40). As I say, good news to the poor.
Here’s some good news for the president. After 9/11 we were told America would have no time for the world’s poor. America would be taken up with its own problems of safety. And it’s true these are dangerous times, but America has not drawn the blinds and double-locked the doors.
In fact, you have doubled aid to Africa. You have tripled funding for global health. Mr. President, your emergency plan for AIDS relief and support for the Global Fund – you and Congress – have put 700,000 people onto life-saving anti-retroviral drugs and provided 8 million bed nets to protect children from malaria.
Outstanding human achievements. Counterintuitive. Historic. Be very, very proud.
But here’s the bad news. From charity to justice, the good news is yet to come. There is much more to do. There’s a gigantic chasm between the scale of the emergency and the scale of the response.
And finally, it’s not about charity after all, is it? It’s about justice.
Let me repeat that: It’s not about charity, it’s about justice.”
He goes on to say how the challenge of justice remains when there is a ‘monthly tsunami’ in Africa as 150,000 die from preventable disease. The challenge of Justice remains especially for those who get to the frontierland Charity, set up their stall and stay there. Justice needs pioneers rather than settlers.
I lost some text last year on charity and justice that got swallowed up into the digital Mariana Trench. Apologies to the reading several who’ve seen it before, but it’s worth having it again anyway:
Charity
Charity is social service
Charity promotes direct services
food, clothing, shelterCharity responds to immediate needs
Charity is directed at the effects of
injustice, its symptoms. It addresses
problems that already exist.
Otherwise put: LOVE MOPS UPCharity is private, individual acts.
Examples of charity: homeless
shelters, prison visiting, provision of
material or funds for the poor.
Justice
Justice is social change. Justice
promotes social change in institutions
or political structures.Justice responds to long-term needs.
Justice is directed at the root causes of
social problmes. it addresses the
underlying structures or causes of these problems. Otherwise put:
JUSTICE TRIES TO MAKE SURE THE MESS ISN’T MADE TO BEGIN WITH.
Justice is public, collective actions.
Examples of justice: legislative
advocacy, changing policies and practices, political action.
(Tim Duffy: Justice and Peace Scotland magazine)
I have no idea why truth sounds more profound in a different language. For those without Maori as a first, second or third language, the proverb unfolds as:
He aha te mea nui o te ao?
He tangata! He tangata! He tangata!
What is the most important thing in the world?
It is people! It is people! It is people!
But I wish they did…
