TODAY IN GOD:
RELIGION NEWS BITES FOR YOUR SNACKING PLEASURE
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WHEN WILL WE LEARN? Executions Criticized After Botched Lethal Injection

Lucasville, Ohio – Death penalty opponents called on the state of Ohio to halt executions after prison staff struggled to find suitable veins on a condemned man’s arm to deliver the lethal chemicals.

(The photo above is of the execution chamber at San Quentin prison.)

The execution team stuck Christopher Newton at least 10 times with needles Thursday to insert the shunts where the chemicals are injected.

He died at 11:53 a.m., nearly two hours after the scheduled start of his execution at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility. The process typically take about 20 minutes.

“What is clear from today’s botched execution is that the state doesn’t know how to execute people without torturing them to death,” American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio attorney Carrie Davis said Thursday.

“Having one botched execution is too many; that Ohio has now had two botched executions in as many years is intolerable.”

Officials said the delay was due to Newton’s size – he weighed 265 pounds (120 kilograms). In May 2006, the execution of Joseph Lewis Clark was delayed about 90 minutes because the team could not find a suitable vein. He was a longtime intravenous drug user.
FOR THE FULL STORY (AP VIA BELIEFNET.COM) CLICK HERE

Army and Air Force Deny Formal Links To Christian Event
After complaints by a government watchdog group, the Air Force and the Army partially distanced themselves yesterday from a three-day evangelical Christian event this weekend at a Georgia theme park.

The Memorial Day weekend “Salute to the Troops” celebration at Stone Mountain Park is sponsored by Task Force Patriot USA, a private group that says its purpose is “sharing the fullness of life in Jesus Christ with all U.S. military, military veterans and families,” and whose Web site says “Christ is our Commander-in-Chief.”

In recent days, both the Task Force Patriot USA Web site and the newspaper of Robins Air Force Base, Ga., described the celebration as “an official U.S. Air Force 60th Anniversary event.” Along with speeches by evangelical ministers, church services and distribution of Bibles, the published schedule promised “hourly flyovers” by Air Force jets, performances by military bands, color guard presentations, a parachute demonstration by the Army’s elite Silver Wings jump team from Fort Benning, Ga., and exhibitions of Air Force equipment.

The promotional materials also said that an active-duty B-2 pilot, Air Force Maj. Brian “Jethro” Neal, would give Christian “testimony” during an outdoor worship service punctuated by a special flyover of B-2 “stealth” bombers.

A Washington-based advocacy group, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, sent letters yesterday to Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne and acting Secretary of the Army Pete Geren contending that the military’s extensive cooperation in the event would be unconstitutional.

“The Air Force and the Army have crossed the line here: A reasonable observer, upon examining the promotional materials, the Robins Air Force Base newspaper, and the current program schedule, could not help but believe that the Army and Air Force fully support and endorse the Christian substance of the celebration,” the letters said.

In response, the Air Force issued a statement saying it is “not a sponsor” of the event and was “not aware until recently of the religious connotations surrounding Task Force Patriot’s participation.” After seeing the schedule, “Air Force officials began taking steps to avoid the appearance of any endorsement or preferential treatment of any religious faith or worship service,” the statement said.
FOR THE FULL REPORT (my homey Alan Cooperman in the WASHINGTON POST) CLICK HERE

A market edge for Muslims
The strategy is almost heresy on Wall Street: Find a top-performing investment by seeking out a mutual fund with some of the industry’s strictest ethical screening requirements.

Yet that approach, if adopted, would work in at least one case. The Amana Income Fund, which avoids not only alcohol, tobacco, and gambling stocks but also pork producers and lenders who charge interest, received a Lipper award earlier this year for outperforming 180 equity income funds – screened and unscreened – over the past three years.

Amana Funds dominate the relatively small niche of socially responsible investing (SRI) that aims to reflect Islamic law, or sharia. The idea is for an entire portfolio to reflect moral values from the Koran, which deems pork products unclean and regards the charging and paying of interest as immoral endeavors that foster exploitative relationships.

“If Islam forbids it, then we’re not going to buy it,” says Monem Salam, deputy portfolio manager at Amana Funds. That principle generally “keeps us out of trouble,” he says, by requiring the funds to avoid such ticking time bombs as Enron and WorldCom, which imploded in accounting scandals a few years back. Both were too heavily leveraged to pass muster at Amana.

In theory, Islamic funds face an uphill battle since about half of the stock market universe – including most financial services companies – is off limits to them. But in practice, Islamic funds fulfill their moral ideals in considerable measure by mimicking some revered habits of billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

For instance, because excessive stock trading amounts to gambling in the eyes of Islamic authorities, Islamic funds practice a buy-and-hold strategy that helps keep trading costs down. Also, concern about the ethics of borrowing and lending leads Islamic fund managers to avoid deeply indebted companies, such as several big-name airlines, which tend to stumble in recessions and in times of slow economic growth. Both practices are quintessential Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, based in Omaha, Neb.

As Islamic funds gain notice, observers are weighing whether their extra-high moral standards might actually provide them with a leg up on both their unscreened competition and conventional SRI funds, which are often heavily weighted in ecofriendly financial stocks. It’s a matter of some debate.
FOR THE FULL STORY (CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR) CLICK HERE

Barcelona to open first nuptials boutique for groom and groom
BARCELONA, Spain – Spain’s eastern city of Barcelona next week will open purportedly Europe’s, and perhaps the world’s, first wedding wear boutique for gay couples, according to Mexican proprietor Santiago Porrero.

The discreet outlet for the groom and groom in Barcelona’s thriving gay quarter will seek to provide an alternative range of wedding attire away from traditional gear, Porrero, surrounded by a team of Spanish couturiers, told AFP.

Porrero explained he wanted to attract “a man of personality who will here find products which do not exist elsewhere in terms of their design and material.”

He added he had the idea of opening the store after realising there was great demand for same-sex marriages in Spain, which gave such unions the go-ahead after the Socialist government introduced legislation to that effect two years ago.

“We hope to propose a mixture of classic tailoring and ready to wear” items, said Porrero, adding he was targeting “fashion conscious” men.

The opening of the boutique, called “By,” will coincide with bridalwear week in Barcelona.
FOR THE FULL REPORT (AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE VIA YAHOO NEWS) CLICK HERE

The “kosher Internet” has arrived
The kosher Internet has been launched. With a host of blocks against surfing prohibited sites, with a small white list of approved sites, and with an identified e-mail address that will enable identifying rogue ultra-orthodox who do not use the kosher Internet, the ultra-orthodox have launched the war against the greatest enemy technology has presented to them: the Internet.

Behind the “kosher Internet” initiative is “the Rabbinical Council for Communication Affairs,” which is run by the most important ultra-orthodox rabbis: Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the Hassidic Leader of Gur [Ya’aqov Arye Alter], [SHAS spiritual leader] Ovadya Yosef, hassidic Jewish law adjudicator Shmu’el Halevi Wozner, and Rabbi Tuvya Weiss, the head of the zealots’ stream of the ultra-orthodox sect.

Many ultra-orthodox already use the Internet, whose potential educational and spiritual damage is considered far worse than that of television, not only because of the sex websites, but because of the very exposure it offers to the outside world.

“The kosher Internet” is not intended to sanction across-the-board entry into the Web; rather, it stems from the need to provide an answer to ultra-orthodox businessmen, institutions, and the like, who must use it and are already connected to the “dangerous” general Web. The rabbis’ committee has recently presented a programme that would allow limited and indispensable Internet usage, while implementing a series of blocks that would prevent the ultra-orthodox users from surfing open websites outside the kosher Internet.

According to the programme, the ultra-orthodox subscribers will be blocked both through the net – by Bezeq or HOT – through the Internet provider, and through a special programme that will disable surfing prohibited sites. The rabbis’ programme is being supported and directly accompanied by the Science, Culture, and Sport Ministry, which is interested in allowing limited ultra-orthodox Internet usage whilehttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif respecting the restrictions imposed by the rabbis.

Apart from the restricting surfing to the websites that appear on the “white list,” the ultra-orthodox e-mail addresses will also have special suffixes that will enable controlling which ultra-orthodox was not using the kosher Internet. The special identification formula already works on kosher mobile phones, where the ability to send or receive SMS messages or access the Internet was limited, and where specific prefixes enable the ultra-orthodox leadership supervise who was using a non-kosher cellular phone.
SOURCE: BBC MONITOR

Rejected by PBS, Film on Islam Revived by CPB
In an uprecedented move, the agency that oversees public broadcasting has stepped in to arrange distribution for a TV documentary on Islam that PBS had rejected as unworthy.

The federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting helped find a new distributor for “Islam vs. Islamists: Voices From the Muslim Center” after seven Republican members of Congress and one Democrat demanded that CPB ask PBS to air it or release it elsewhere.

The 52-minute film contends that moderate Muslims are being intimidated by radical Islamists in several Western democracies, including the United States.

The dispute over the film thrust CPB into the middle of a politically charged affair. The film’s producers claim that PBS and its producing station, WETA, both of Arlington, are kowtowing to conservative Muslims in “suppressing” the film. In an interview yesterday, Frank Gaffney Jr., one of the film’s executive producers, said PBS and WETA were predisposed against it on personal and ideological grounds.

“I am a person they regard as a conservative, and they regard the airwaves as a liberal domain,” said Gaffney, a former Reagan administration defense official who now runs the Center for Security Policy.

WETA and PBS officials denied this yesterday. “We had no problem with the concept or ideology,” said WETA spokeswoman Mary Stewart. “It was about filmmaking and documentary standards. We had no problem with the argument laid out in the film.”

To break the logjam over the documentary, CPB this week released the film to Oregon Public Broadcasting, which will distribute it to stations around the country. The Oregon broadcaster also will stage a panel discussion about issues raised in the film that will run immediately afterward.
FOR THE FULL STORY (PAUL FARHI IN THE WASHINGTON POST) CLICK HERE

Photographs capture unseen
A relatively new art form in Shambhala Buddhism finds beauty in pictures of the inconspicuous
“Check it out!” hollered Laurel Hill, 12, of Evanston, brandishing her digital camera on the sidewalk outside the Shambhala Meditation Center of Chicago in Rogers Park on a recent Sunday.

“That is the most awesomest picture ever, ever, ever!”

Instructor David Schreier, 43, of Rogers Park looked at the shot on her camera screen — a close-up of a teal and navy triangle pattern decorating a black car door — and nodded. “You’ve got that good eye,” he said.

It wasn’t an idle compliment. “Good eye” is the translation of the Tibetan word “miksang,” the name of a form of photography that represents one of the newest contemplative arts in the Shambhala Buddhist tradition. Laurel was one of five pupils in Schreier’s first miksang workshop for children held at the center this month.

Miksang students try to capture, through photography, unexpectedly rich glimpses of color, texture and patterns in objects that most of us overlook. As in other Buddhist-inspired art forms, the goal is to wake up practitioners to the beauty and vividness of the universe.

“It’s about directly perceiving our everyday world,” Schreier said. “It’s a matter of seeing how vibrant and fresh everything is.”

A blue water-bottle cap in a patch of grass. A rusty metal pole. A bit of red elastic abandoned on a sidewalk. In miksang, these and other seemingly insignificant objects can jolt us into mental and spiritual clarity, Schreier said: “A strong miksang shot freezes your mind, stops you where you are and almost takes your breath away.”
FOR THE FULL STORY (CHICAGO TRIBUNE) CLICK HERE

Ninety-plus Briton makes Aristotle homage — by taxi
ATHENS, Greece – A retired British teacher in her nineties took a cab to Greece to see the site where Alexander the Great took lessons from Aristotle, the semi-state Athens News Agency (ANA) reported on Thursday.

Kathleen Searles made the trip from Britain to northern Greece accompanied by her nurse, spent half an hour at the site of Aristotle’s School, then got back in the cab for the journey of several thousand kilometres (miles) home, ANA said.

Searles had a lifelong dream to visit the site in Isvoria, near the modern Greek city of Naousa, where the famous philosopher tutored the heir to the Macedonian throne and other nobles in 342 BCE.

The teachings of Aristotle, one of the leading philosophers of Greek antiquity, are believed to have heavily influenced Alexander, who resolved to spread ancient Greek culture in the vast empire he subsequently carved out in modern-day Turkey, Egypt, Persia and India.
SOURCE: AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE VIA YAHOO NEWS