Heal Me: a poem (for Anneliese, suggested by her writing)

Bell bottoms to suits—

and “The Division Bell.”

Flowers and IED’s,

(IED’s?)—

to rage within the machine.

“Welcome to the Machine.”

Love and peace—

to “all you masters of war.”

Altered minds—

to “I Want a New Drug.”

“In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,”

(in a Garden of Eden?)—

to “In the white room with black curtains…”

all “gold pavements.”

“What’s the buzz?  Tell me what’s a-happening…

Why are you obsessed with fighting

times and fates you can’t defy?”

“Hair, flow it, show it,

long as God can grow it, my hair”—

to GQ and Elle Manniquinland.

Two-faced Janus’s—

Two sides of the same coin.

Rage within the machine.

Who?

“See Me, Feel Me, Touch me, Heal me.”

by S.A. Bort

photo:  From left: Greg Orme, Kelli Allman, President Obama and Megan Hughes at Allman’s parents’ house in Honolulu. / Kelli Allman/Contact Press Images

“Apart from the church it is not possible to find Jesus.” –Pope Francis / 23 April 2013

From facebook site: Old Paths w/a Twist of Time.

This is a reading which should be absorbed and not tucked away in a corporate cubby hole somewhere.  The copyright statement from Origins clearly tucks this content away from anyone who is not a paying customer.  If one reads my previous post on Pope Francis, who believes that anarcho-capitalism and crony capitalism leads to expanded wealth in the hands of the few and expanded poverty among those without access to the same means of wealth creation, then the hardline position of Origins becomes rather hypocritical.

I subscribe to Origins because it’s the primary source of church homilies, speechs, encyclicals, letters, fairly-presented and reasoned arguments on differing views within the church . . . .  I highly recommend subscribing, if that is what you seek.  Origins, unlike almost every other Catholic publication, is NOT slanted or apologetic.  It simply presents the most valuable documents regarding the contemporary voice of the church without political taint.

Rather you are Catholic, Christian or spiritual in an otherwise manner, this statement of Pope Francis’, I believe, should be considered.  I’m not telling you to believe him.  I’m asking you to consider his position.

I personally am Roman Catholic but have not been to mass in about three years.  There are many like me.  There are many who, for their own reasons, have just plain left and joined other churches.  I believe in Roman Catholic Christianity, but, among the church heirarchy, I see mega-arrogance and a mega-disconnect with the people they serve.  I simply had to step away from it all, and I know I’m nowhere near alone.

Pope Francis’ statement is bold and controversial.  Many who so much as see the title of this post will experience outrage.  I say read it in the context of the scriptures he references, and then exercise your God-given free will, along with prayer, as to how to act in going forward.  –SB

From facebook site: Old Paths w/a Twist of Time.

VOLUME: 43 ISSUE: 01 DATE: 20130509 SIZE: 12626

Apart From the Church, It Is Not Possible to Find Jesus

Pope Francis

Following Jesus means belonging to the church, the community that gives Christians their identity, Pope Francis said. “Apart from the church it is not possible to find Jesus,” he said in a homily April 23.  “The great Paul VI said:  It is an absurd dichotomy to wish to live with Jesus but without the church, to follow Jesus but without the church, to love Jesus but without the church.”  Dozens of cardinals living in Rome or visiting the Vatican joined the pope in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace for the Mass on the feast of St. George, the martyr.  The feast is the pope’s name day; he was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio.  In his homily, Pope Francis spoke about the persecution of the first Christian communities and how opposition did not stop them from sharing their faith in Christ, but went hand in hand with even greater missionary activity.  ”At the very moment when persecution broke out, the church’s missionary nature also ‘broke out,’” the pope said.  When the first Christians began sharing the Gospel with the Greeks and not just other Jews, it was something completely new and made some of the apostles “a little nervous,” the pope said.  They sent Barnabas to Antioch to check on the situation, a kind of “apostolic visitation,” he said.  ”Perhaps, with a touch of humor, we can say that this was the theological origin of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.”  The pope spoke in Italian; a Vatican translation of his homily follows, copyright (c) 2013 by Libreria Editrice Vaticana.

From facebook site: Old Paths w/a Twist of Time.

I thank His Eminence, the cardinal dean, for his words:  Thank you, Your Eminence, many thanks.

I also thank those of you who came today.  Thank you!  Because I feel warmly welcomed by you.  Thank you!  I feel at home with you and that pleases me.

Today’s first reading makes me think that at the very moment when persecution broke out, the church’s missionary nature also “broke out.”  These Christians went all the way to Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch and proclaimed the word (cf. Acts 11:19).  They had this apostolic fervor in their hearts; and so the faith spread!

Some people from Cyprus and Cyrene, not these but others who had become Christians, came to Antioch and began to speak also to the Greeks (cf. Acts 11:20).  This is yet another step.  And so the church moves forward.

Who took this initiative of speaking to the Greeks, something unheard of, since they were preaching only to Jews?  It was the Holy Spirit, the one who was pushing them on, on and on, unceasingly.

But back in Jerusalem, when somebody heard about this, he got a little nervous and they sent an apostolic visitation:  They sent Barnabas (cf. Acts 11:22).  Perhaps, with a touch of humor, we can say that this was the theological origin of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:  this apostolic visitation of Barnabas.  He took a look and saw that things were going well (cf. Acts 11:23).

From facebook site: Old Paths w/a Twist of Time.

And in this way the church is increasingly a mother, a mother of many, many children:  She becomes a mother, ever more fully a mother, a mother who gives us faith, a mother who gives us our identity.  But Christian identity is not an identity card.  Christian identity means being a member of the church, since all these people belonged to the church, to mother church, for apart from the church it is not possible to find Jesus.

The great Paul VI said:  It is an absurd dichotomy to wish to live with Jesus but without the church, to follow Jesus but without the church, to love Jesus but without the church (cf. Evangelii Nuntiandi, 16).  And that mother church who gives us Jesus also gives us an identity that is not simply a rubber stamp:  It is membership.  Identity means membership, belonging.  Belonging to the church:  This is beautiful!

The third idea that comes to my mind – the first was the outbreak of the church’s missionary nature and second the church as mother – is that, when Barnabas saw that crowd, the text says, “and a great many people were brought to the Lord” (Acts 11:24), when he saw that crowd, he rejoiced.  ”When he came and saw the grace of God, he rejoiced” (Acts 11:23).  It is the special joy of the evangelizer.

It is, as Paul VI said, “the delightful and comforting joy of evangelizing” (cf. Evangeli Nuntiandi, 80).  This joy begins with persecution, with great sadness and ends in joy.  And so the church moves forward, as a saint tells us, amid the persecutions of the world and the consolations of the Lord (cf. St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, 18:51, 2: PL 41, 614).

This is the life of the church.  If we want to take the path of worldliness, bargaining with the world – as the Maccabees were tempted to do back then – we will never have the consolation of the Lord.  And if we seek consolation alone, it will be a superficial consolation, not the Lord’s consolation, but a human consolation.  The church always advances between the cross and the resurrection, between persecutions and the consolations of the Lord.  This is the path:  Those who take this path do not go wrong.

Today let us think about the missionary nature of the church:  these disciples who took the initiative to go forth and those who had the courage to proclaim Jesus to the Greeks, something that at that time was almost scandalous (cf. Acts 11:19-20).  Let us think of mother church, who is increasing, growing with new children to whom she gives the identity of faith, for one cannot believe in Jesus without the church.  Jesus himself says so in the Gospel:  But you do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep (cf. Jn 10:26).

Unless we are “Jesus’ sheep,” faith does not come; it is a faith that is watered down, insubstantial.  And let us think of the consolation Barnabas experienced, which was precisely the “delightful and comforting joy of evangelizing.”  Let us ask the Lord for this parrhesia, this apostolic fervor that impels us to move forward as brothers and sisters, all of us:  forward!  Forward, bearing the name of Jesus in the bosom of holy mother church, as St. Ignatius said, hierarchical and Catholic. Amen.

From facebook site: Old Paths w/a Twist of Time.

MARGIN NOTES  [additional, by ORIGINS Online]

Pope Francis called for an end to slave labor and human trafficking as well as greater efforts to create dignified work for more people.

The problem of unemployment is “very often caused by a purely economic view of society, which seeks self-centered profit, outside the bounds of social justice,” he said, marking the May 1 feast of St. Joseph the Worker during his weekly general audience.

“I wish to extend an invitation to everyone to greater solidarity and to encourage those in public office to spare no effort to give new impetus to employment,” he said. “This means caring for the dignity of the person.”

The pope touched on the same theme during the homily at his early morning Mass, before a congregation of unwed teenage mothers and their children in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae, where he lives.

In his homily, the pope said unemployment “is a burden on our conscience” because when society is organized in such a way that it cannot offer people an opportunity to work, “there is something wrong with that society:  It is not right!”

“It goes against God himself, who wanted our dignity to begin with (work).”

“Power, money, culture do not give us dignity,” he said.  ”Work, honest work, gives us dignity.”

However, he said, “today many social, political and economic systems have chosen to exploit the human person” in the workplace, by “not paying a just (wage), not offering work, focusing solely on the balance sheets, the company’s balance sheets, only looking at how much I can profit.  This goes against God!”

“People are less important than the things that give profit to those who have political, social, economic power.  What point have we come to?” he asked.

—From facebook site: Old Paths w/a Twist of Time.

The pope recalled the recent tragedy in Bangladesh, where more than 400 garment workers were killed when the building they were working in collapsed.  The workers reportedly earned $38 a month.

“This is what you call slave labor,” the pope said.

The biggest threat to the church is worldliness, Pope Francis said in his daily morning Mass homily.  A worldly church becomes weak, and while people of faith can look after the church, only God “can look evil in the eye and overpower it,” he said April 30.

The pope celebrated the Mass with members of the Vatican’s investment agency in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae.  The day’s reading from the Gospel of St. John recounts Jesus telling his disciples, “I will no longer speak much with you, for the ruler of the world is coming;” but Satan “has no power over me.”

The pope said, “If we don’t want the prince of this world to take the church in his hands, we have to entrust her to the only one who can defeat the prince of this world.  Entrusting the church to the Lord is a prayer that makes the church grow” and is an act of faith because “we can do nothing.  All of us are poor servants of the church,” he said.  Israeli President Shimon Peres officially invited Pope Francis to Israel, telling the pope “the sooner you visit the better, as in these days a new opportunity is being created for peace, and your arrival could contribute significantly to increasing the trust and belief in peace.”

The Israeli president’s remarks were reported in a statement released by the Israeli Embassy to the Vatican after Peres met Pope Francis April 30.  The statement said Peres told Pope Francis about efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, mentioning specifically the meeting April 29 in Washington between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and the foreign ministers of the Arab League.

Peres also told the pope that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas “is a genuine partner for peace,” the statement said.  Peres left the meeting at the Vatican telling the pope, “I am expecting you in Jerusalem and not just me, but all the people of Israel.”

—From facebook site: Old Paths w/a Twist of Time.

Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, told reporters, “The pope would be happy to go to the Holy Land,” although there are no concrete plans for the trip.  The Vatican said that during their half-hour private conversation, the pope and the president discussed “the political and social situation in the Middle East, where more than a few conflicts persist.”

Going to confession isn’t like heading off to be tortured or punished, nor is it like going to the dry cleaners to get out a stain, Pope Francis said in a morning Mass homily.  ”It’s an encounter with Jesus” who is patiently waiting “and takes us as we are,” offering penitents his tender mercy and forgiveness, he said April 29.

Members of the Vatican’s investment agency and a group of religious women joined the pope for the Mass in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae.  ”God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all,” the pope said, quoting from the First Letter of John.

While everyone experiences moments of darkness in life, the verse refers to the darkness of living in error, “being satisfied with oneself, being convinced of not needing salvation,” he said.

As John continues, the pope said, “If we say, ‘We are without sin,’ we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”  People have to start out with the humility of realizing “we are all sinners, all of us,” he said.

Christians should pray for great courage and great humility as they respond to the call of Jesus to share his Gospel with the world, Pope Francis said.  Preaching the good news must be done with “humility, service, charity, fraternal love,” the pope said April 25 during his homily at a morning Mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae.

Some might respond, “‘Lord, we must conquer the world.’  That word ‘conquer’ just won’t do,” the pope said.  “The Christian shouldn’t be like soldiers who, when they win a battle, take away everything in sight.”

While aggression is not part of the missionary call of Jesus, courage is, the pope told staff members of the secretariat of the Synod of Bishops and Vatican police officers attending the Mass.  “A cowardly Christian doesn’t make sense,” he said.

A generous heart and outgoing spirit are part of the Christian vocation, offering “always more” and moving “always forward.”  At the same time, he said, recognizing that one “preaches the Gospel with witness more than with words,” a Christian also must have humility and treasure the little things.

From facebook site: Old Paths w/a Twist of Time.

Please see my previous posts on Pope Francis for more on him and his papacy: 

Is Pope Francis a Socialist ?  (16 May 2013) ;

Pope Francis:  His First Homily:  the Journey – Walking, Building, Professing  (15 March 2013)

Pope Francis of Argentina: a Response to “Urbi et Orbi” (to the City and the World)  (14 March 2013)

Is Pope Francis a Socialist ?

Here are two recent articles specifically on the subject stated in the title.  Basically, the belief is that Pope Francis is neither socialist nor capitalist.  The articles clarify this seemingly incongruent statement.

1.)  Pope Francis: A Man of the Left ?

http://www.acton.org/pub/commentary/2013/03/20/pope-francis-man-left

Acton Institute

March 20, 2013

          ~

by Samuel Gregg

          ~

It was inevitable.  With the election of a new man to the Chair of Peter, we’ve already seen an effort to portray him as “socially conservative” yet “economically progressive.”  This seems to be the way virtually every pope has been presented since Leo XIII’s long reign.  And it’s a profound illustration of the limits of applying secular political categories to something like the Catholic Church.

No one in their right mind would describe Jorge Mario Bergoglio, S.J., as an ecclesiastical Milton Friedman or a closet free marketer.  Plainly, he’s not.  But Francis does have two particular concerns with regard to economic issues.  One is the naked materialism and consumerism that disfigures so many peoples’ lives.  No Catholic is going to affirm people seeking their salvation in the endless acquisition of stuff.  Francis’s asceticism is a clear repudiation of that mindset.

Francis’s second concern regarding economic issues is the materially poor.  Again, that’s precisely what you would expect from any orthodox Catholic.  As Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia (who’s no social liberal) once memorably wrote:  “Jesus tells us very clearly that if we don’t help the poor, we’re going to go to hell.  Period.”

Over the centuries, however, Catholics have actually disagreed among themselves about how best to help the needy.  Indeed, the Church teaches that (1) these issues fall largely into the area of what it calls prudential judgment and (2) it is primarily the responsibility of lay Catholics.  No Catholic can be a Communist.  Nor can they be an anarcho-capitalist.  But there is a lot of room between these extremes.

And how Catholics cash out that “in-between” is heavily influenced by the circumstances in which they find themselves.  And in Pope Francis’s case, it’s the conditions of the economic basket-case otherwise known as modern Argentina.

Argentina is a once-prosperous nation that experienced a rapid spiral into seemingly perpetual economic dysfunction throughout the 20th century.  Over and over again, Argentina has been brought to its knees by the populist politics of Peronism, which dominates Argentina’s Right and Left.  “Kirchnerism,” as peddled by Argentina’s present and immediate past president, is simply the latest version of that.

In concrete terms, this pathology translates into big government, high taxes, hostility to business and foreign investment, heavy debt, and a level of corruption that defies imagination.  That adds up to a strange mixture of unsophisticated Keynesianism and naked crony capitalism.  And it doesn’t benefit the poor.  It benefits the powerful and well-connected.  In Argentina, you don’t get ahead through being economically entrepreneurial; you get ahead through political power and as many privileges from the state as you can.

This is the disaster that Pope Francis’s limited commentary on economic matters has sought to address since he became Argentina’s leading churchman in 1998.  And Francis has made it abundantly clear that liberation theology is not the solution.  One of the reasons he’s not so popular with some of his fellow Jesuits is that he stopped the Jesuits in Argentina from going down that path in the 1970s and 80s.  Liberation theology’s Marxist components, he knew, were plainly incompatible with Catholicism.  Father Bergoglio also foresaw that it would turn much of the Church into nothing more than just another utopian-revolutionary movement, as occurred in other parts of Latin America.

My suspicion is that Pope Francis is not going to invest enormous intellectual energy in proposing various schemes for economic reform.  He will certainly continue to champion the interests of the poor against those who want to maintain the corrupt status quo prevailing throughout many developing nations.  There is such a thing as economic justice and the Catholic Church has a definite view of what that looks like.  But inferring that the new pope is going to bring Occupy Wall Street to the Vatican takes more than a stretch of the imagination.  In fact, it’s a form of Kirchneristic wishful thinking that simply doesn’t do justice to the wisdom and sanctity of the man.

2.)  Pope Francis Blasts ‘Cult of Money’ That Harms the Poor: ‘Money Has to Serve, Not to Rule!’

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/16/pope-francis-blasts-cult-of-money-that-harms-the-poor-money-has-to-serve-not-to-rule/

The Blaze / May. 16, 2013 2:50pm Billy Hallowell

During a speech Thursday, Pope Francis blasted the “cult of money” that he says is tyrannizing the poor and turning humans into expendable consumer goods.  These comments were particularly important, because they marked the first time the pontiff has spoken out about the subject (as pope, that is).

It’s no secret that Pope Francis is frugal.  Stories about his penchant for a simple life are now widely-known since he rose to the top of the Catholic Church.  While many of the questions surrounding the faith leader’s views on poverty and finances have dissipated, his denunciation on Thursday of the global financial system is capturing quite a bit of attention.

—Pope Francis, Juan Martin del Potro.  In this photo provided Thursday, May 16, 2013 by the Vatican newspaper l’Osservatore Romano, Pope Francis is greeted by Argentine tennis player Juan Martin del Potro, who gave him his tennis racket, at the end of the pontiff’s general audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Wednesday, May 15, 2013. (AP Photo/L’Osservatore Romano, ho)

In addition to decrying the overall obsession with money, Francis demanded Thursday that financial and political leaders reform the global financial system to make it more ethical and concerned for the common good.  He said: “Money has to serve, not to rule!”

It’s a message Francis delivered on many occasions when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, and it’s one that was frequently stressed by retired Pope Benedict XVI.  Francis, who has made clear the poor are his priority, made the comments as he greeted his first group of new ambassadors accredited to the Holy See.

Pope Francis kisses a child from the Popemobile at the end of a canonisation mass in Saint Peter’s Square at the Vatican on May 12, 2013.  The Pope led a mass on Sunday for candidates to sainthood Antonio Primaldo, Mother Laura Montoya and Maria Guadalupe Garcia Zavala.  AFP PHOTO / FILIPPO MONTEFORTE (Photo credit should read FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/Getty Images)

Previously, TheBlaze explored Francis’ views on the poor in detail, tackling a question some critics have posed and feared:  Is Pope Francis (formerly known as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio) a socialist who will allow liberation theology to infiltrate the Catholic Church?

As we noted back in March, while it is true that poverty is close to Francis’ heart, there’s no indication that he’s a socialist and it’s on record that he combated liberation theology as a result of its Marxist roots.

It will be interesting to see how Francis will continue to speak about the issue of poverty in the coming months and years.

For a full analysis of the pope’s past and present views on morality and the economy, read our previous coverage.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[For more on Pope Francis, please see my posts:

Pope Francis:  His First Homily:  the Journey – Walking, Building, Professing  (15 March 2013)

Pope Francis of Argentina: a Response to “Urbi et Orbi” (to the City and the World)  (14 March 2013)]

[Please also see the brand new ebook "Pope Francis:  From the End of the Earth to Rome" at http://harper.hc.com/popefrancis?utm_source=wsj&utm_medium=online&utm_campaign=wsj_pf_hda for "a detailed, timely and original biography of the new Pope Francis."]

Not Enough Dark: a poem

A psuedo-hippie—

in suit only,

shamed by his whiteness

when faced with their blackness.

A vogue songwriter/singer/guitarist

with red hair and

Emerald-City green shirt

falling down over

faded denim—

~

Zoot-suitish, Brett Dennen appears, but

his songs authentically mesmerize,

hypnotize, Deadhead-dancetize

with lovely-crafted honesty—

still, suited truth only—

missing, lonely, an

exclamatory tear, grease-painted

below his left eye—

~

“I wonder how so many can be in so much pain

while others don’t seem to feel a thing

then I curse my whiteness

and I feel so damned depressed

in a world with suffering

why should I be so blessed.”

~

He wishes to fix it,

to even the fields—

clicks his heels three times—

to conjure a commune

of equal scores,

of family shares.

~

Jack Kerouac, archetypal hippie,

snapped our fingers as he

clicked-clacked-typed-rolled a

black ribbon over his ’55

butcher-paper scroll:

~

“I walked with ever-

-y muscle aching

among the lights of

27th and

Welton in the Den-

-ver colored section,

[SNAP]

wishing I were a Negro,

[PAUSE]

feeling that the best

the white world had of-

-fered was not enough

ecstasy for me,

not enough life, joy,

kicks, darkness, music,

[SNAP]

not enough night.”

Brett Dennen

–poem by S.A. Bort (except for bold-texts by Brett Dennen and Jack Kerouac)

–photo by S.A. Bort except for that of Brett Dennen

[see my post Hippies! for a history of hippies.]

Rocket Your HAIKU to Mars!

    

~

Ray Bradbury’s eye

Red, lonely canals and dust

Humanity’s fate?

~

–by S.A.Bort / copyright 13 May 2013

~

~

PLEASE VOTE FOR ME ONLINE BEGINNING 15 JULY 2013

~

~

RELEASE:  13-125  NASA Invites Public to Send Names And Messages to Mars  WASHINGTON –

~

     NASA is inviting members of the public to submit their names and a personal message online for a DVD to be carried aboard a spacecraft that will study… the Martian upper atmosphere.  The DVD will be in NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft, which is scheduled for launch in November.

~

     The DVD is part of the mission’s Going to Mars Campaign coordinated at the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (CU/LASP).

~

     The DVD will carry every name submitted.

~

     The public also is encouraged to submit a message in the form of a three-line poem, or haiku.  However, only three haikus will be selected.  The deadline for all submissions is July 1.

~

     An online public vote to determine the top three messages to be placed on the DVD will begin July 15.

~

     “The Going to Mars campaign offers people worldwide a way to make a personal connection to space, space exploration, and science in general, and share in our excitement about the MAVEN mission,” said Stephanie Renfrow, lead for the MAVEN Education and Public Outreach program at CU/LASP.  Participants who submit their names to the Going to Mars campaign will be able to print a certificate of appreciation to document their involvement with the MAVEN mission.

~

     “This new campaign is a great opportunity to reach the next generation of explorers and excite them about science, technology, engineering and math,” said Bruce Jakosky, MAVEN principal investigator from CU/LASP.   ”I look forward to sharing our science with the worldwide community as MAVEN begins to piece together what happened to the Red Planet’s atmosphere.”

~

     MAVEN is the first spacecraft devoted to exploring and understanding the Martian upper atmosphere.  The spacecraft will investigate how the loss of Mars’ atmosphere to space determined the history of water on the surface.  ”This mission will continue NASA’s rich history of inspiring and engaging the public in spaceflight in ongoing Mars exploration,” said David Mitchell, MAVEN project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

~

     MAVEN’s principal investigator is based at the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.  The university will provide science operations, science instruments and lead Education and Public Outreach.

~

     Goddard manages the project and provides two of the science instruments for the mission.  Lockheed Martin of Littleton, Colo., built the spacecraft and is responsible for mission operations.  The University of California at Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory provides science instruments for the mission.  NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., provides navigation support, the Deep Space Network and the Electra telecommunications relay hardware and operations.

~

To participate in the Going to Mars campaign, visit

http://lasp.colorado.edu/maven/goingtomars

~

Benghazi Cover-up 5.10.2013: ABC News and The Weekly Standard Open the Spill Gates

1.)  ABC News’ “Exclusive: Benghazi Talking Points Underwent 12 Revisions, Scrubbed of Terror Reference,”

2.) The Weekly Standard’s ”The Benghazi Talking Points:  And how they were changed to obscure the truth,” and

3.) The full texts of the 12 Talking Points.

[ For more early facts on the Benghazi Cover-Up, please see my previous posts at:  http://whenisapartynotaparty.wordpress.com/category/benghazi-cover-up/ ]

http://www.bongonews.com

1.)  Exclusive: Benghazi Talking Points Underwent 12 Revisions, Scrubbed of Terror Reference

By Jonathan Karl @jonkarl Follow on Twitter

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/05/exclusive-benghazi-talking-points-underwent-12-revisions-scrubbed-of-terror-references/

May 10, 2013 6:33am

When it became clear last fall that the CIA’s now discredited Benghazi talking points were flawed, the White House said repeatedly the documents were put together almost entirely by the intelligence community, but White House documents reviewed by Congress suggest a different story.

ABC News has obtained 12 different versions of the talking points that show they were extensively edited as they evolved from the drafts first written entirely by the CIA to the final version distributed to Congress and to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice before she appeared on five talk shows the Sunday after that attack.

AFP/Getty Images

Related: Read the Full Benghazi Talking Point Revisions

White House emails reviewed by ABC News suggest the edits were made with extensive input from the State Department.  The edits included requests from the State Department that references to the Al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia be deleted as well references to CIA warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi in the months preceding the attack.

That would appear to directly contradict what White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said about the talking points in November.

“Those talking points originated from the intelligence community.  They reflect the IC’s best assessments of what they thought had happened,” Carney told reporters at the White House press briefing on November 28, 2012.  “The White House and the State Department have made clear that the single adjustment that was made to those talking points by either of those two institutions were changing the word ‘consulate’ to ‘diplomatic facility’ because ‘consulate’ was inaccurate.”

Summaries of White House and State Department emails — some of which were first published by Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard — show that the State Department had extensive input into the editing of the talking points.

State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland raised specific objections to this paragraph drafted by the CIA in its earlier versions of the talking points:

“The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al-Qa’ida in Benghazi and eastern Libya.  These noted that, since April, there have been at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador’s convoy. We cannot rule out the individuals has previously surveilled the U.S. facilities, also contributing to the efficacy of the attacks.”

In an email to officials at the White House and the intelligence agencies, State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland took issue with including that information because it “could be abused by members [of Congress] to beat up the State Department for not paying attention to warnings, so why would we want to feed that either?  Concerned …”

The paragraph was entirely deleted.

Like the final version used by Ambassador Rice on the Sunday shows, the CIA’s first drafts said the attack appeared to have been “spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo” but the CIA version went on to say, “That being said, we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa’ida participated in the attack.”  The draft went on to specifically name  the al Qaeda-affiliated group named Ansar al-Sharia.

Related: ABC News’ Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl Answers Your Questions About Benghazi

Once again, Nuland objected to naming the terrorist groups because “we don’t want to prejudice the investigation.”

In response, an NSC staffer coordinating the review of the talking points wrote back to Nuland, “The FBI did not have major concerns with the points and offered only a couple minor suggestions.”

After the talking points were edited slightly to address Nuland’s concerns, she responded that changes did not go far enough.

“These changes don’t resolve all of my issues or those of my buildings leadership,” Nuland wrote.

In an email dated 9/14/12 at 9:34 p.m. — three days after the attack and two days before Ambassador Rice appeared on the Sunday shows – Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes wrote an email saying the State Department’s concerns needed to be addressed.

“We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don’t want to undermine the FBI investigation.  We thus will work through the talking points tomorrow morning at the Deputies Committee meeting.”

Related: Diplomat Says Requests For Benghazi Rescue Were Rejected

After that meeting, which took place Saturday morning at the White House, the CIA drafted the final version of the talking points – deleting all references to al Qaeda and to the security warnings in Benghazi prior to the attack.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said none of this contradicts what he said about the talking points because ultimately all versions were actually written and signed-off by the CIA.

“The CIA drafted these talking points and redrafted these talking points,” Carney said. “The fact that there are inputs is always the case in a process like this, but the only edits made by anyone here at the White House were stylistic and nonsubstantive. They corrected the description of the building or the facility in Benghazi from consulate to diplomatic facility and the like. And ultimately, this all has been discussed and reviewed and provided in enormous levels of detail by the administration to Congressional investigators, and the attempt to politicize the talking points, again, is part of an effort to, you know, chase after what isn’t the substance here.”

UPDATE: A source familiar with the White House emails on the Benghazi talking point revisions say that State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland was raising two concerns about the CIA’s first version of talking points, which were going to be sent to Congress:  1) The talking points went further than what she was allowed to say about the attack during her state department briefings; and, 2) she believed the CIA was attempting to exonerate itself at the State Department’s expense by suggesting CIA warnings about the security situation were ignored.

In one email, Nuland asked, why are we suggest Congress “start making assertions to the media [about the al Qaeda connection] that we ourselves are not making because we don’t want to prejudice the investigation?”

One other point:  The significant edits – deleting references to al Qaeda and the CIA’s warnings – came after a White House meeting on the Saturday before Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on five Sunday shows.  Nuland, a 30-year foreign service veteran who has served under Democratic and Republican Secretaries of State, was not at that meeting and played no direct role in preparing Rice for her interviews.

2.)  The Benghazi Talking Points

And how they were changed to obscure the truth

May 13, 2013, Vol. 18, No. 33• By STEPHEN F. HAYES

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/benghazi-talking-points_720543.html#

~

Even as the White House strove last week to move beyond questions about the Benghazi attacks of Tuesday, September 11, 2012, fresh evidence emerged that senior Obama administration officials knowingly misled the country about what had happened in the days following the assaults.  The Weekly Standard has obtained a timeline briefed by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence detailing the heavy substantive revisions made to the CIA’s talking points, just six weeks before the 2012 presidential election, and additional information about why the changes were made and by whom.

As intelligence officials pieced together the puzzle of events unfolding in Libya, they concluded even before the assaults had ended that al Qaeda-linked terrorists were involved.  Senior administration officials, however, sought to obscure the emerging picture and downplay the significance of attacks that killed a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.  The frantic process that produced the changes to the talking points took place over a 24-hour period just one day before Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, made her now-famous appearances on the Sunday television talk shows.  The discussions involved senior officials from the State Department, the National Security Council, the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the White House.

The exchange of emails is laid out in a 43-page report from the chairmen of five committees in the House of Representatives.  Although the investigation was conducted by Republicans, leading some reporters and commentators to dismiss it, the report quotes directly from emails between top administration and intelligence officials, and it includes footnotes indicating the times the messages were sent.  In some cases, the report did not provide the names of the senders, but The Weekly Standard has confirmed the identities of the authors of two critical emails—one indicating the main reason for the changes and the other announcing that the talking points would receive their final substantive rewrite at a meeting of top administration officials on Saturday, September 15.

The White House provided the emails to members of the House and Senate intelligence committees for a limited time and with the stipulation that the documents were available for review only and would not be turned over to the committees.  The White House and committee leadership agreed to that arrangement as part of a deal that would keep Republican senators from blocking the confirmation of John Brennan, the president’s choice to run the CIA.  If the House report provides an accurate and complete depiction of the emails, it is clear that senior administration officials engaged in a wholesale rewriting of intelligence assessments about Benghazi in order to mislead the public.  The Weekly Standard sought comment from officials at the White House, the State Department, and the CIA, but received none by press time.  Within hours of the initial attack on the U.S. facility, the State Department Operations Center sent out two alerts.  The first, at 4:05 p.m. (all times are Eastern Daylight Time), indicated that the compound was under attack; the second, at 6:08 p.m., indicated that Ansar al Sharia, an al Qaeda-linked terrorist group operating in Libya, had claimed credit for the attack. According to the House report, these alerts were circulated widely inside the government, including at the highest levels.  The fighting in Benghazi continued for another several hours, so top Obama administration officials were told even as the fighting was taking place that U.S. diplomats and intelligence operatives were likely being attacked by al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists.  A cable sent the following day, September 12, by the CIA station chief in Libya, reported that eyewitnesses confirmed the participation of Islamic militants and made clear that U.S. facilities in Benghazi had come under terrorist attack.  It was this fact, along with several others, that top Obama officials would work so hard to obscure.

After a briefing on Capitol Hill by CIA director David Petraeus, Democrat Dutch Ruppersburger, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, asked the intelligence community for unclassified guidance on what members of Congress could say in their public comments on the attacks.  The CIA’s Office of Terrorism Analysis prepared the first draft of a response to the congressman, which was distributed internally for comment at 11:15 a.m. on Friday, September 14 (Version 1 at right).  This initial CIA draft included the assertion that the U.S. government “know[s] that Islamic extremists with ties to al Qaeda participated in the attack.”  That draft also noted that press reports “linked the attack to Ansar al Sharia.  The group has since released a statement that its leadership did not order the attacks, but did not deny that some of its members were involved.”  Ansar al Sharia, the CIA draft continued, aims to spread sharia law in Libya and “emphasizes the need for jihad.”  The agency draft also raised the prospect that the facilities had been the subject of jihadist surveillance and offered a reminder that in the previous six months there had been “at least five other attacks against foreign interests in Benghazi by unidentified assailants, including the June attack against the British Ambassador’s convoy.”

After the internal distribution, CIA officials amended that draft to include more information about the jihadist threat in both Egypt and Libya.  “On 10 September we warned of social media reports calling for a demonstration in front of the [Cairo] Embassy and that jihadists were threatening to break into the Embassy,” the agency had added by late afternoon.  And:  “The Agency has produced numerous pieces on the threat of extremists linked to al Qaeda in Benghazi and Libya.”  But elsewhere, CIA officials pulled back.  The reference to “Islamic extremists” no longer specified “Islamic extremists with ties to al Qaeda,” and the initial reference to “attacks” in Benghazi was changed to “demonstrations.”

The talking points were first distributed to officials in the interagency vetting process at 6:52 p.m. on Friday.  Less than an hour later, at 7:39 p.m., an individual identified in the House report only as a “senior State Department official” responded to raise “serious concerns” about the draft.  That official, whom The Weekly Standard has confirmed was State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland, worried that members of Congress would use the talking points to criticize the State Department for “not paying attention to Agency warnings.”

In an attempt to address those concerns, CIA officials cut all references to Ansar al Sharia and made minor tweaks.  But in a follow-up email at 9:24 p.m., Nuland wrote that the problem remained and that her superiors—she did not say which ones—were unhappy.  The changes, she wrote, did not “resolve all my issues or those of my building leadership,” and State Department leadership was contacting National Security Council officials directly.  Moments later, according to the House report, “White House officials responded by stating that the State Department’s concerns would have to be taken into account.”  One official—Ben Rhodes, The Weekly Standard is told, a top adviser to President Obama on national security and foreign policy—further advised the group that the issues would be resolved in a meeting of top administration officials the following morning at the White House.

There is little information about what happened at that meeting of the Deputies Committee.  But according to two officials with knowledge of the process, Mike Morrell, deputy director of the CIA, made broad changes to the draft afterwards.  Morrell cut all or parts of four paragraphs of the six-paragraph talking points—148 of its 248 words (see Version 2 above).  Gone were the reference to “Islamic extremists,” the reminders of agency warnings about al Qaeda in Libya, the reference to “jihadists” in Cairo, the mention of possible surveillance of the facility in Benghazi, and the report of five previous attacks on foreign interests.

What remained—and would be included in the final version of the talking points—was mostly boilerplate about ongoing investigations and working with the Libyan government, together with bland language suggesting that the “violent demonstrations”—no longer “attacks”—were spontaneous responses to protests in Egypt and may have included generic “extremists” (see Version 3 above).

If the story of what happened in Benghazi was dramatically stripped down from the first draft of the CIA’s talking points to the version that emerged after the Deputies Committee meeting, the narrative would soon be built up again.  In ensuing days, administration officials emphasized a “demonstration” in front of the U.S. facility in Benghazi and claimed that the demonstrators were provoked by a YouTube video.  The CIA had softened “attack” to “demonstration.”  But as soon became clear, there had been no demonstration in Benghazi.

More troubling was the YouTube video.  Rice would spend much time on the Sunday talk shows pointing to this video as the trigger of the chaos in Benghazi.  “What sparked the violence was a very hateful video on the Internet.  It was a reaction to a video that had nothing to do with the United States.”  There is no mention of any “video” in any of the many drafts of the talking points.

Still, top Obama officials would point to the video to explain Benghazi.  President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton even denounced the video in a sort of diplomatic public service announcement in Pakistan.  In a speech at the United Nations on September 25, the president mentioned the video several times in connection with Benghazi.

On September 17, the day after Rice appeared on the Sunday shows, Nuland defended Rice’s performance during the daily briefing at the State Department.  “What I will say, though, is that Ambassador Rice, in her comments on every network over the weekend, was very clear, very precise, about what our initial assessment of what happened is.  And this was not just her assessment, it was also an assessment you’ve heard in comments coming from the intelligence community, in comments coming from the White House.”

It was a preview of the administration’s defense of its claims on Ben­ghazi.  After pushing the intelligence community to revise its talking points to fit the administration’s preferred narrative, administration officials would point fingers at the intelligence community when parts of that narrative were shown to be misleading or simply untrue.

And at times, members of the intelligence community appeared eager to help.  On September 28, a statement from ODNI seemed designed to quiet the growing furor over the administration’s explanations of Benghazi.  “In the immediate aftermath, there was information that led us to assess that the attack began spontaneously following protests earlier that day at our embassy in Cairo.  We provided that initial assessment to Executive Branch officials and members of Congress, who used that information to discuss the attack publicly and provide updates as they became available.”

The statement continued:  “As we learned more about the attack, we revised our initial assessment to reflect new information indicating that it was a deliberate and organized attack carried out by extremists.  It remains unclear if any group or person exercised overall command and control of the attack, and if extremist group leaders directed their members to participate.  However, we do assess that some of those involved were linked to groups affiliated with, or sympathetic to al Qaeda.”

The statement strongly implies that the information about al Qaeda-linked terrorists was new, a revision of the initial assessment.  But it wasn’t. Indeed, the original assessment stated, without qualification, “we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al Qaeda participated in the attack.”

The statement from the ODNI came not from James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, but from his spokesman, Shawn Turner.  When the statement was released, current and former intelligence officials told The Weekly Standard that they found the statement itself odd and the fact that it didn’t come from Clapper stranger still.  Clapper was traveling when he was first shown a draft of the statement to go out under his name.  It is not an accident that it didn’t.

The revelations about exactly how the talking points were written, revised, and then embellished come amid renewed scrutiny of the administration’s handling of Benghazi.  Fox News spoke to a Special Ops soldier last week who raised new questions about what happened during the attack, and the State Department’s inspector general acknowledged that the office would be investigating the production of the Administrative Review Board report on the attacks because of concerns that investigators did not speak to a broad spectrum of individuals with knowledge of the attack and its aftermath.  On May 8, the House Oversight and Government Reform committee will hold another hearing on the matter.  And Republicans in Congress have asked the administration to release all of the emails, something that would further clarify how the changes came about.

Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.

3.) The full texts of the 12 Talking Points:

http://abcnews.go.com/images/Politics/Benghazi%20Talking%20Points%20Timeline.pdf

Beck’s sources confirm Benghazi cover-up in 6 days; Rivera’s in 8 months.

photo from TheBlaze.com

Six days after the 9/11/2012 terrorist attack on our Benghazi consulate, Glenn Beck, of TheBlazeTV, theorized that the consulate was running guns as a CIA covert operation through Turkey to Syrian, Sharia rebels.  Please see my previous post:  http://whenisapartynotaparty.wordpress.com/2012/10/16/benghazi-cover-up-9-17-2012/ .

~

Now, eight months later, according to http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/10/geraldo-rivera-my-sources-tell-me-benghazi-was-about-running-missiles-to-syria-rebels/ , Geraldo Rivera, of Fox News, states: “I believe, and my sources tell me, they were there to round up those shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, they were going to hand those missiles over to the Turks and the Turks were going to give them to the rebels in Syria.”

~

Nice work, Geraldo!  A little late, though, to listen to “your sources” (eight months compared to Beck’s six days).

~

For more early facts on the Benghazi Cover-Up, please see my previous posts at:  http://whenisapartynotaparty.wordpress.com/category/benghazi-cover-up/

Sing The Montane Spring: a poem

The first hummingbird arrived today.

and, tomorrow is the first of May.

Hummingbird hearts, did you know, beat the fastest?

Snow is forecast for overnight

here at 8,750 feet of height.

Our springs are slowest at turning away past guests.

. . .

A thick quilt of snow now blankets the ground,

and, this year’s Aprill has fallen to the reaper’s hound.

Tomorrow the snow will melt—the shoures sote and flowers will follow

with royal purple, yellow-stamined Pasque flowers first to rise.

Easter’s prayers, for weeks, have empowered these spirit-filled skies.

Winter’s heart beats slower now, up here, and will surely meet it’s sorrow.

. . .

This earth’s waters of deep blue and rich lands of green

from somewhere beyond must be all that’s seen—

a lonely orb with no fiery, mighty flames, like the sun.

Our planet’s mountains of rock and valleys of soft marsh,

from heights I can’t see, must seem modestly harsh—

contained by geographical borders lost nor won.

~

by S.A. Bort

Photo by S.A. Bort – 1 May 2013

Muslim Brotherhood Resource Update

http://www.amazon.com/An-Explanatory-Memorandum-Archives-Brotherhood/dp/0982294719

An Explanatory Memorandum:  From the Archives of the Muslim Brotherhood in America (Center for Security Policy Archival Series) [Paperback]

Mohamed Akram (Author), David Reaboi (Author), Frank J Gaffney Jr (Preface)

Book Description

Publication Date:  March 8, 2013  |  Series:  Center for Security Policy Archival Series

In August of 2004, an alert Maryland Transportation Authority Police officer observed a woman wearing traditional Islamic garb videotaping the support structures of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and conducted a traffic stop.  The driver was Ismail Elbarasse and detained on an outstanding material witness warrant issued in Chicago in connection with fundraising for Hamas.  The FBI’s Washington Field Office subsequently executed a search warrant on Elbarasse’s residence in Annandale, Virginia.  In the basement of his home, a hidden sub-basement was found; it revealed over 80 banker boxes of the archives of the Muslim Brotherhood in North America.  One of the most important of these documents made public to date was entered into evidence during the Holy Land Foundation trial.  It amounted to the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategic plan for the United States and was entitled, “An Explanatory Memorandum:  On the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America.”  The Explanatory Memorandum was written in 1991 by a member of the Board of Directors for the Muslim Brotherhood in North America and senior Hamas leader named Mohammed Akram.  It had been approved by the Brotherhood’s Shura Council and Organizational Conference and was meant for internal review by the Brothers’ leadership in Egypt.  It was certainly not intended for public consumption, particularly in the targeted society:  the United States.  For these reasons, the memo constitutes a Rosetta stone for the Muslim Brotherhood, its goals, modus operandi and infrastructure in America.  It is arguably the single most important vehicle for understanding a secretive organization and should, therefore, be considered required reading for policy-makers and the public, alike.

Product Details

• Paperback: 36 pages
• Publisher: Center for Security Policy (March 8, 2013)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0982294719
• ISBN-13: 978-0982294710
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review:
  5.0 out of 5 stars
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,047,384 in Books

Please see the following posts for more details on the Muslim Brotherhood:

1 of 2: Muslim Brotherhood Looks West to 3.2 Billion Dollar IMF Loan (2.17.2012)

2 of 2: Muslim Brotherhood Looks Away from West to Governance by Sharia Law (2.22.2012)

An excellent, more in-depth look can be found in this recent book:  Boykin, Lt. General William, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. and 17 others.  Shariah:  The Threat To America:  An Excercise in Competitive Analysis (Report of Team B II).  Center For Security Policy, 2010.

Color Wheel: a poem

Summer grass wet kisses

plains-sky lake with

distant boat on water,

hand-painted crimson,

wheel of cadmium orange and

sails of  fresh-bedsheet white.

~

Clouds jack with the light,

pale the colors.

The garlic-breathed captain

sports dungarees and shirt of

coal black and violet.

Indelible and illumining,

graying shades here and there.

~

Water laps against

this clean shore.  I can hear it

reaching, expending near my feet

with fishy gulls up in the air and

the wind batting and rippling the sails.

Always the wind.

~

Green and blue with

crimson complement and

discords of orange and

violet.

~

Too many paler than us, it seems,

and so many of grander colors.

Somewhere between, we live,

complementing the lesser shades,

who complement, in turn, the sunset.

~

–by S.A. Bort

[photo from photobucket.com]