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Printless in Seattle, but Rocky Mountain high

22 Mar 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

If ever he forgets the Lord, the psalmist says this Sunday, "let my tongue be silenced." A longstanding voice in the world of print journalism fell silent this week with the final print edition Tuesday of the 146-year-old Seattle Post-Intelligencer (P-I). The Hearst Corporation, owner of the venerable daily, failed to find a buyer for the paper, which has been losing money. The P-I will shift entirely to the web. "It's a really sad day for Seattle," said P-I reporter Angela Galloway. "The P-I has its strengths and weaknesses but it always strove for a noble cause, which was to give voice to those without power and scrutiny of those with power." Seattle follows Denver in losing a daily newspaper this year. The Rocky Mountain News closed after its owner, E.W. Scripps Co., couldn't find a buyer. In Arizona, Gannett Co.'s Tucson Citizen is set to close Saturday, leaving one newspaper in that city. And last month Hearst said it would close or sell the San Francisco Chronicle if the newspaper couldn't slash expenses in coming weeks. Four newspaper companies, including the owners of the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and Philadelphia Inquirer, have sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in recent months. Still, the loss was palpable in the P-I newsroom. "A daily newspaper tells the stories of a community and lets the people of a city know who they are, who their neighbors are, and the life and issues they share," said Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist David Horsey. "When you lose any one newspaper, you lose a piece of that." On the hopeful side, with backing from three entrepreneurs, staffers of the recently shuttered Rocky Mountain News in Denver plan to start an online news publication if they can get 50,000 paying subscribers by April 23-what would have been the News' 150th anniversary. The local venture, InDenverTimes.com, will go live on May 4 if backers meet their subscription goal. Former news reporter Tillie Fong is among those who would be hired at In Denver Times if enough subscribers sign on. "I want to be a journalist. This is 'what I want to be when I grow up,' " she said. "When the Rocky closed, it was traumatic, shocking. It was a hard blow. It was a death. This is sort of like a phoenix." Source: Articles by the Associated Press

newspapers in denver times indenvertimescom david horsey philadelphia inquirer chicago tribune los angeles times san francisco chronicle tucson citizen gannett co ew scripps co the rocky mountain news denver angela galloway hearst corporation p-i seattle post-intelligencer tillie fong

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Unsettling news for Mideast peace talks

13 Sep 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

We hear in the reading from the Letter of James this Sunday that faith without works is dead. Those who had faith in fledging Israeli-Palestinian negotiations said Israel's decision this week to approve construction of hundreds of new housing units in the occupied West Bank could strike a death blow to the peace process. Israel officially approved construction of more than 450 new homes in the occupied West Bank, the first new government-approved construction project in the West Bank since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to power in March. The issue is expected to be discussed when Netanyahu's aides meet U.S. special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell later this week. But today's announcement can only complicate a possible resumption of meaningful peace talks with the Palestinians. A senior Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said Israel's decision further undermined its credibility as a partner for peace. "Israel's decision to approve the construction nullifies any effect that a settlement freeze, when and if announced, will have," Erekat said. Close to 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built since Israel's 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem. Some 2,500 housing units are currently under construction. The settlements are illegal under international law, though Israel disputes that characterization. Source: Articles by BBC News

israel peace talks saeb erekat george mitchell settlements peace negotiations west bank benjamin netanyahu palestinians east jerusalem

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Good idea!

10 Jan 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

"With you I am well pleased," the voice from heaven in this Sunday's gospel says of Jesus, who "went about doing good," as the Book of Acts reading option tells us. One way to beat the post-holiday blues and dreary headlines is to offer a helping hand to those in real need. An advice column called "My Goodness" offers a roundup of "smart and easy ways" to get 2010 off to a generous start. The columnists suggested that those interested in helping consider organizations that boost the local economy. The Chicago Community Trust, for example, puts out a monthly report on the impact of the economic crisis locally and funnels donations to local organizations providing food, shelter, and heating to those in need. The Trust is also currently matching every $1 donated to the Unity Challenge (which is focused on supporting local service agencies) with $2 from the Trust. Other community foundations have similar programs to help the most vulnerable, such as the Neighbors in Need Fund in Washington, D.C. and the Building Resilience Fund in Seattle. If you are fortunate enough to have some money to spare, said the columnists, give to the organizations you want to thrive but also to your local safety-net providers that provide food, water, electricity, and other basics. Source: An article by Patty and Sandy Stonesfir for Slate.com's December 30, 2009 "My Goodness" column

needy donation building resilience fund neighbors in need fund unity challenge chicago community trust my goodness

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Unsettling developments in U.S.-Israeli relations

21 Mar 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The Mount of Olives, where in this Sunday's gospel Jesus challenges the one "who is without sin" to cast the first stone, is located on a ridge overlooking Jerusalem. This week the city of Jerusalem--sacred to Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike--is front and center to a deepening diplomatic crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations.The conflict erupted last week after Israel announced during a visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden that it would build 1,600 apartments for Jews in disputed east Jerusalem, the sector of the city Palestinians claim for a future capital.The Obama administration, fuming over what it called "insulting" Israeli conduct, has demanded that Israel call off the project. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, however, said such demands are "unreasonable" and predicted the row with the U.S. would blow over, saying neither side had an interest in escalation.But Washington notified Israel early Tuesday that U.S. envoy George Mitchell had put off a trip to the region indefinitely. Mitchell had planned on coming to wrap up preparations for relaunching Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Now it is not clear when the indirect talks will begin.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has apologized for the timing of the project's approval, but he has not said it would be canceled. On Wednesday he praised President Obama and spoke by telephone with Biden. But Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas cast more doubts on prospects for indirect peace talks with Israel soon, reaffirming a demand it first halt all settlement construction.In the heaviest clashes in the city in months, scores of Palestinians this week hurled rocks at police and set tires and garbage bins ablaze across the holy city's volatile eastern sector where the construction is planned. Source: Articles by Jeffrey Heller for Reuters, Andrew Lee Butters for TIME, and Amy Teibel for the Associated Press

israel diplomatic relations east jerusalem peace talks george mitchell settlements joe biden benjamin netanyahu mahmoud abbas united states jerusalem palestinians avigdor lieberman

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Can Middle-East peace talks avoid a muddle?

05 Sep 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

“The deliberations of mortals are timid, and unsure are our plans,” the reading from the Book of Wisdom tells us. Hoping for a better outcome than that, President Barack Obama hosts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for dinner Wednesday, a prelude to direct negotiations between the leaders Thursday. While the U.S. is calling on the leaders to forge a final peace agreement within one year, major progress in the early going is unlikely. The two sides are far apart on key issues as they meet in face-to-face negotiations for the first time since December, 2008. Heightening tensions, a Palestinian gunman opened fire Tuesday on an Israeli vehicle traveling near the West Bank city of Hebron, killing four passengers. The militant Hamas movement, which rejects Israel’s right to exist and opposes peace talks, claimed responsibility. Israeli officials called the shooting an attempt to sabotage the discussions, and the White House and Abbas weighed in with their own condemnations. To underscore the administration’s desire to avoid the kind of timid and tentative deliberations the Book of Wisdom describes, former Sen. George Mitchell, Obama’s special Mideast peace envoy, said the goal of reaching a deal within one year is intended to counter a sense among many in the Mideast that years of inconclusive negotiations mean the process is never-ending. “It’s very important to create a sense that this has a definite concluding point,” Mitchell told reporters at the White House. “And we believe that it can be done.” Spurce: A report by Michele Kelemen for NPR.org and articles by Robert Burns for the Associated Press and by Reuters

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Netanyahu calls Obama peace proposal out of bounds

29 May 2011 - Preaching the News for Sunday

“Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope,” counsels this Sunday’s reading from the First Letter of Peter. President Barack Obama Sunday defended his statement last week that an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord should be based on national boundaries that existed in 1967, “with mutually agreed swaps.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sharply criticized that position last week. Tuesday Netanyahu addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress. While he said he would make "generous" territorial concessions and was open to "painful compromises," he ruled out allowing Palestinian refugees to return to Israel, said Jerusalem must remain united as Israel's capital, and vowed that he would not negotiate with the Palestinian government as long as it includes representatives of Hamas, which does not recognize Israel’s right to exist. Palestinians want to establish their state in the West Bank, Gaza, and east Jerusalem, areas Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war. They have said they are ready for minor border adjustments through land swaps to enable Israel to annex several of the largest of the dozens of Jewish settlements it has built on war-won land since 1967. Obama Sunday tried to alleviate concerns that his administration was veering in a pro-Palestinian direction, placing a Mideast policy speech last Thursday in the context of Israel's security but also said the Jewish state will face growing isolation without a "credible peace process." "If there's a controversy, then it's not based in substance," Obama said in his speech. "What I did on Thursday was to say publicly what has long been acknowledged privately. I have done so because we cannot afford to wait another decade, or another two decades, or another three decades, to achieve peace." Obama’s speech also contained provisions Palestinians found difficult to accept, particularly his call to recognize Israel as the Jewish homeland, essentially requiring the Palestinians to accept that most refugees will be denied the "right of return" to what is now Israel. Source: Articles by Ian Deitch, Ibrahim Barzak, Bradley Klapper, and Josef Federmanfor the Associated Press and Ethan Bronner for the New York Times

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"What price, freedom?" Israelis ask

23 Oct 2011 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The psalmist offers praise to the Lord for being “safe from my enemies.” There were celebrations in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip Tuesday as a complex exchange of prisoners brought safety and freedom to kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit as well as to hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Not all observers were pleased, however, with the deal Israel struck in order to obtain Shalit’s release. Israel had agreed to release 1,027 Palestinians in exchange for Shalit’s freedom, including nearly 300 who were serving life sentences for murder or terrorism. Although polls showed public support for the deal, members of victims' families said they felt betrayed. A subdued Israeli homecoming ceremony for Shalit stood in stark contrast with the mood in the Gaza Strip, where buses carrying the first freed Palestinians were escorted by heavily armed Hamas fighters. A spokesman for Hamas’s military arm suggested that the group would continue to seek opportunities to kidnap Israeli soldiers. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said signing off on the deal had been “a very difficult decision,’’ and he alluded to possible challenges ahead. “I would like to make it clear: We will continue to fight terrorism,” he said. “Any released terrorist who returns to terrorism” will be dealt with. After the family had landed in Shalit’s hometown, his father, who became a familiar figure over the years of fighting to keep national attention on his son’s plight, said he sympathized with the bereaved families, adding, “We feel the pain for the price they paid for Gilad’s freedom.” Shalit, 25, looked frail and dazed five years after Hamas fighters ambushed his tank, killed two of his comrades and dragged him into the Gaza Strip in 2006. The captive soldier has had little contact with the outside world, his father said. Each side accused the other of mistreating its prisoners. Shalit, who was denied Red Cross visits during his imprisonment, was pushed into an uncomfortable interview on Egyptian television before being handed over to Israel, and Israelis watched his measured responses and labored breathing with fury. Hamas officials said their members had been subject in Israeli prisons to “torture, compulsion, and revenge.” Sources: Articles by Ernesto Londoño for the Washington Post,Ethan Bronner for the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times

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Palestinian unity could further fracture relations with Israel

12 Feb 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

“I turn to you, Lord, in time of trouble,” the psalmist intones in this Sunday’s psalm response. Troubled Middle East peace efforts went another problematic direction Monday when Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas turned toward the Islamic militant group Hamas, agreeing to head an interim unity government that will prepare for elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. By moving closer to Hamas, Abbas appeared to be closing the door for now on any possibility of peace talks with Israel, although all such efforts have failed to get off the ground during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's three years in office. Netanyahu condemned Monday's deal, saying it would be impossible to reach peace with a government that includes Hamas, which Israel and the West consider a terrorist group. "It is either peace with Hamas or peace with Israel. You can't have them both," Netanyahu said. The Palestinians have been divided between rival governments since Hamas ousted forces loyal to Abbas from Gaza in 2007. Monday's agreement, brokered by Qatar, seemed to bring reconciliation within reach for the first time. Previous deals have collapsed amid deep suspicions and intervention by the sides' rival foreign patrons. Abbas is backed by the West while Hamas has been supported by Iran. In recent months these differences seem to have narrowed. Abbas has lost faith in reaching a deal, at least with the current hard-line Israeli government, while Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal has been prodding his organization toward a more pragmatic stance that is closer to that of the group's parent movement, the pan-Arab Muslim Brotherhood. The European Union offered qualified support Monday, saying it considered Palestinian reconciliation and elections to be important steps toward an eventual Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. Sources: Articles by Karin Laub and Mohammed Daraghmeh for theAssociated Press and Ethan Bronner for the New York Times

hamas israel palestinians mahmoud abbas benjamin netanyahu muslim brotherhood khaled mashaal

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Keep the bombs away, Obama urges Israel

11 Mar 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

Jesus “was calling people to faith in him, ‘Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God,’ not merely in his reputation or his deeds,” commentator Joel Schorn points out in PrepareTheWord’s “Notes on the text” for this Sunday's readings. Hoping to avert a premature strike by Israel on Iran’s nuclear development facilities, President Barack Obama has been working hard to get that country's leadership to have faith that the U.S. “will always have Israel’s back.” With Israel warning of a possible attack, Obama urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday to give diplomacy and economic sanctions a chance to work before resorting to military action. The meeting, held in a charged atmosphere of election-year politics and a deepening confrontation with Tehran, was nevertheless “friendly, straightforward, and serious,” a White House official said. But it did not resolve basic differences between the two leaders over how to deal with the Iranian threat. The president also prodded Republicans, especially those on the campaign trail, to tone down their rhetoric on Iran. During a press conference Tuesday Obama criticized Republican critics for “beating the drums of war.” He said it is his belief that there is still a "window of opportunity" to use diplomacy instead of military force to resolve the dispute the over Iran's nuclear program in the Middle East. Obama said his critics are forgetting the "cost of war" in their rush to punish Iran and defend Israel, which sees a nuclear Iran as a mortal threat in its Mideast neighborhood. Rhetoric on the right is "more about politics than about trying to solve a difficult problem," Obama said. He said he is focused on "crippling sanctions" already imposed on Iran and on international pressure to keep that nation from developing a nuclear weapon. For his part Netanyahu had an unusual gift for the president: a copy of the biblical Book of Esther. Aides to the Israeli politician referred to it as “background reading” on Iran. The book is read on the Jewish holiday of Purim, which began Wednesday. It tells the story of a plot by Persia (modern-day Iran) to exterminate the Jewish people. Sources: Articles by Jake Tapper and Alexander Marquart for ABC News, NBC News, and Mark Landler for the New York Times

barack obama israel nuclear weapons benjamin netanyahu iran esther

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When poetry gets political

22 Apr 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

"Everything written about me in the law of Moses and in the prophets and psalms must be fulfilled," Jesus tells his disciples in the gospel, while the writer of the First Letter of John says “the love of God is truly perfected” in Jesus. The attitudes toward Judaism of non-Jews can be an explosive issue now as it was then, as can be seen in the recent controversy over the newspaper publication by German author Günter Grass of a poem critical of the state of Israel's foreign policy. The nine-stanza, 69-line poem, What Must Be Said, appeared April 4 on the front of the culture section of the Munich-based newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. Mixing turns of phrase with discussions of the need for international supervision of both Israel’s and Iran’s nuclear programs, it bluntly called Israel a threat to world peace for its warnings that it might attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. By supplying weapons to Israel, including submarines, Germany risked being complicit in a "foreseeable crime,” Grass wrote. Grass acknowledged that he could be accused of anti-Semitism but said he had to speak out to prevent Israel from committing a monstrous offense. In response he earned a personal rebuke from Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, who barred Grass from visiting Israel, while Iranians praised him and German newspapers devoted pages to pillorying him. Some have called Grass, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999, a hypocrite after he admitted that he had been a member of the Hitler Youth as a boy and at the time believed in the group’s aims. He also claimed that he had been drafted into an antiaircraft unit, but in 2006, when he was 78, he revealed for the first time that he had also served in the Waffen-SS at the end of World War II. In the wake of the Jewish Holocaust (Holocaust Memorial Day is today, April 19), Germany has shown strong support for Israel, but the experience of the war has also made many Germans strongly pacifist and thus uncomfortable with the hawkish tone and threatening language emanating from the Netanyahu government. “He wrote this poem knowing from the way he wrote it that there would be condemnation,” said Frank Schirrmacher, copublisher of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, who was interviewing Grass when he made his revelation about his Waffen-SS membership. “He needs the condemnation to move on to the next step, which is to say that it is [not] impossible in Germany to criticize Israel.” Sources: Articles by Nicholas Kulish and Ethan Bronner for the New York Timesand Luke Harding and Harriet Sherwood for the Guardian (U.K.)

israel nuclear weapons benjamin netanyahu iran germany gunter grass

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