The Affordable Healthcare for America Act took a big step forward in the US Congress. This appears a "watershed moment" in American history, in that final passage now seems very likely, after further revision.
Gandhi said "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." He did not say that animals are more important than humans, but only that animal care is a revealing index of national greatness.
While it is hard to fault that statement, surely an even more potent index of a nation's greatness is how well it cares for the health of its human citizenry. Greatness requires goodness, and goodness is not compatible with leaving meany of the nation's sick without adequate care.
The passage of this legislation would save the lives of many and improve the lives of many others. Those who voted for the bill performed an act of moral courage. Its enactment into law would be an act of courage, wisdom, and justice on America's part. The bill embodies the teaching of our Lord in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Without this or similar legislation, we have a system under which the nation, in effect, sees its ailing fellow-citizen lying injured and half-dead by the roadside, yet does not offer help, but "passes by on the other side."
Ironically many of those who opposed the bill helped assure its passage by amending it to further restrict abortion, while many who opposed such restrictions voted to enact them into law, by voting in favor of the bill. The devil often works by dividing; on this feast of St. Michael and the Bodiless Powers, those good angels must have been inspiring many to work together for the cause of goodness.
The act includes provisions to encourage better national health and eating habits and better preventative medicine. If Americans practiced these things, it's likely that the annual national health bill would be drastically reduced, perhaps halved. Reducing alcoholism, smoking, food-related diseases like obesity, diabetes, and often cancer, cutting meat consumption by 50%, eating more fruits and vegetables and adopting an exercise routine could have that result.
(also posted in the Facebook group Progressive Orthodox Christianity)
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Vastness of Alaska
I'm gradually gaining an idea of the vastness of this state from what the students from different parts of Alaska tell me. It's big enough that there is great variation in climate and geography. I've seen or heard of tundra, of rivers, of valleys, of mountains, of glaciers, of floods, of forest.
"Tundra" suggests like a frozen waste, but in the summer, at least, it's a green grassy place that's nice to be in. A student told me how he and his family travelled for two hours to get to the tundra, just to enjoy being in it and having a picnic there. Also, I've tried "tundra tea," made from a grass that grows there, and said to have medicinal qualities.
The distances make travel expensive. For some of the seminarians, a visit home would cost $800 to $1000 for the round trip. For a family of five, that runs up quite a bill.
Each year the Orthodox Diocese of Alaska holds regional conferences, where clergy and laity from an area gather and have workshops dealing with music and other church topics. I'm considering attending the one in the Yukon River area this summer. It will be in either Pilot Station or Marshall, AK. This year, one married student, with his family, and the one single student attending the seminary, were from Pilot, as they call it.
To get there, I would fly from Kodiak to Anchorage by jet or turboprop, then to the hub town of Bethel by the same, and from there to Pilot or Marshall by small plane. Thus it would be a three-leg journey. If I were travelling from the island village of Port Lions, there would be in addition a flight by small plane to get to the hub town of Kodiak, making that a four-leg journey.
"Tundra" suggests like a frozen waste, but in the summer, at least, it's a green grassy place that's nice to be in. A student told me how he and his family travelled for two hours to get to the tundra, just to enjoy being in it and having a picnic there. Also, I've tried "tundra tea," made from a grass that grows there, and said to have medicinal qualities.
The distances make travel expensive. For some of the seminarians, a visit home would cost $800 to $1000 for the round trip. For a family of five, that runs up quite a bill.
Each year the Orthodox Diocese of Alaska holds regional conferences, where clergy and laity from an area gather and have workshops dealing with music and other church topics. I'm considering attending the one in the Yukon River area this summer. It will be in either Pilot Station or Marshall, AK. This year, one married student, with his family, and the one single student attending the seminary, were from Pilot, as they call it.
To get there, I would fly from Kodiak to Anchorage by jet or turboprop, then to the hub town of Bethel by the same, and from there to Pilot or Marshall by small plane. Thus it would be a three-leg journey. If I were travelling from the island village of Port Lions, there would be in addition a flight by small plane to get to the hub town of Kodiak, making that a four-leg journey.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Eagles
Visiting the town dump is part of really getting to know a town. We had to take some stuff to the dump as part of cleaning up for the graduation. Yes, even this lovely town has its dump. It seems to be very well managed. Batteries and hazardous liquids are handled properly. Fridges are bled of their freon safely. What's left is densely composted and used to build a trash hill in a landfill.
The oddest thing is the eagles. There are lots of American bald eagles around Kodiak. A photo in the local paper that showed at least two dozen of them sitting on stacks of crab pots. Sometimes you see a half dozen or more flying near the seminary, and one Sunday as we were leaving church, I saw one perched atop the cross on Holy Resurrection Cathedral, the oldest Orthodox parish in North America.
But the biggest flock I've seen up close is at the dump. And they seem tame. Two of them sat on a fence as we drove by, not 15 feet away, and they didn't even seem to notice us, much less fly away. Further off, sitting on the growing mound of compacted waste, was a mixed flock of 40 or 50 large birds -- eagles along with what I took to be crows and ravens. They are there to scavenge bits of food in the waste, as the city garbage trucks dump their waste here as well. (Yes, Kodiak is a "city"; so too is nearby Port Lions, pop. ca. 250.)
We humans go to great lengths to prepare our food just so. In the animal world, you find an assortment of odd (to us) dietary preferences, ranging from the bottom feeders, to the chimps that imitate us in the way they consume bananas. To each, their preference is the perfect delicacy. There are species that will only eat one thing, like the giant pandas that require bamboo and never tire of it, while pigs and chickens will eat most anything. Mosquitos drink blood, cows eat grass, turtles devour jellyfish. Sharks, tigers, and eagles attack live prey, while some birds eat only seeds. The majestic eagles are not proud: they are happy to scavenge at a dump. All this confirms what we know, that God provides for each.
And while he grants us the gift of good food enjoyed in the company of friends, his saints, with their modest requirements, seem to take a lesson from the beasts: that we need not be picky or proud about what we eat.
The oddest thing is the eagles. There are lots of American bald eagles around Kodiak. A photo in the local paper that showed at least two dozen of them sitting on stacks of crab pots. Sometimes you see a half dozen or more flying near the seminary, and one Sunday as we were leaving church, I saw one perched atop the cross on Holy Resurrection Cathedral, the oldest Orthodox parish in North America.
But the biggest flock I've seen up close is at the dump. And they seem tame. Two of them sat on a fence as we drove by, not 15 feet away, and they didn't even seem to notice us, much less fly away. Further off, sitting on the growing mound of compacted waste, was a mixed flock of 40 or 50 large birds -- eagles along with what I took to be crows and ravens. They are there to scavenge bits of food in the waste, as the city garbage trucks dump their waste here as well. (Yes, Kodiak is a "city"; so too is nearby Port Lions, pop. ca. 250.)
We humans go to great lengths to prepare our food just so. In the animal world, you find an assortment of odd (to us) dietary preferences, ranging from the bottom feeders, to the chimps that imitate us in the way they consume bananas. To each, their preference is the perfect delicacy. There are species that will only eat one thing, like the giant pandas that require bamboo and never tire of it, while pigs and chickens will eat most anything. Mosquitos drink blood, cows eat grass, turtles devour jellyfish. Sharks, tigers, and eagles attack live prey, while some birds eat only seeds. The majestic eagles are not proud: they are happy to scavenge at a dump. All this confirms what we know, that God provides for each.
And while he grants us the gift of good food enjoyed in the company of friends, his saints, with their modest requirements, seem to take a lesson from the beasts: that we need not be picky or proud about what we eat.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Climate of Kodiak and points north
I have to confess that, growing up and living in the lower 48, I was pretty ignorant of Alaska. I thought of it mostly as a big, snowy icebox. Now that I live in Kodiak, I can see that perception was way off base, at least regarding Kodiak but also, to some extent, other areas as well.
Just finished living through my first winter here. My impression is that the temperature stayed in the 20s and 30s almost all winter long. It was milder than many a winter I've spent in PA or CT or OH or IL. Yet more than one person in Kodiak has told me this was the coldest winter in years. The water surrounding the island moderates the temperature and keeps it from dipping very low. Now and then I checked the temperature in interior and more northerly parts of AK (Anchorage, Fairbanks, Bethel, Nome, Barrow, Juneau) via Yahoo weather, and found it was often 20+ degrees colder in those places than here. And in the summer, it is very pleasantly cooler here than in the lower 48. I haven't spent a full summer here, but I know what's it's like to walk through the woods on Spruce Island on gently cool or warm days, or to go picnicking and salmonberry picking in nearby Fort Abercrombie Park.
Then there's the greenness of the place. They speak of Kodiak as "Alaska's emerald isle" and you might think it's boosterism, but I've seen the green hillsides and in summer they do shimmer. Here's this paean from an 1890s visitor: “I feel as if I wanted to go back, to Kodiak. Almost as if I could return there to live. So secluded, so remote, so peaceful; such a mingling of the domestic, the pastoral, the sylvan, with the wild and the rugged; such emerald heights, such flowery vales, such blue arms and recesses of the sea, and such a vast green solitude stretching away to the west, and to the north and to the south. Bewitching Kodiak! The spell of thy summer freshness and placidity is still upon me” (John Burroughs, Alaska: The Harriman Expedition, 1899.)
And I'm told that the largest cabbages anywhere have been grown in AK. How could that be? Ninety degree days with 18+ hours of sunlight. And that there are some fertile areas with many different vegetables farmed, and dairy cattle.
And along with it, the extremely cold and long winter in some areas, to be sure. But not in Kodiak, anyway.
These observations are admittedly from a newbie here. (Alaskan oldtimers who may read this, be patient!)
Just finished living through my first winter here. My impression is that the temperature stayed in the 20s and 30s almost all winter long. It was milder than many a winter I've spent in PA or CT or OH or IL. Yet more than one person in Kodiak has told me this was the coldest winter in years. The water surrounding the island moderates the temperature and keeps it from dipping very low. Now and then I checked the temperature in interior and more northerly parts of AK (Anchorage, Fairbanks, Bethel, Nome, Barrow, Juneau) via Yahoo weather, and found it was often 20+ degrees colder in those places than here. And in the summer, it is very pleasantly cooler here than in the lower 48. I haven't spent a full summer here, but I know what's it's like to walk through the woods on Spruce Island on gently cool or warm days, or to go picnicking and salmonberry picking in nearby Fort Abercrombie Park.
Then there's the greenness of the place. They speak of Kodiak as "Alaska's emerald isle" and you might think it's boosterism, but I've seen the green hillsides and in summer they do shimmer. Here's this paean from an 1890s visitor: “I feel as if I wanted to go back, to Kodiak. Almost as if I could return there to live. So secluded, so remote, so peaceful; such a mingling of the domestic, the pastoral, the sylvan, with the wild and the rugged; such emerald heights, such flowery vales, such blue arms and recesses of the sea, and such a vast green solitude stretching away to the west, and to the north and to the south. Bewitching Kodiak! The spell of thy summer freshness and placidity is still upon me” (John Burroughs, Alaska: The Harriman Expedition, 1899.)
And I'm told that the largest cabbages anywhere have been grown in AK. How could that be? Ninety degree days with 18+ hours of sunlight. And that there are some fertile areas with many different vegetables farmed, and dairy cattle.
And along with it, the extremely cold and long winter in some areas, to be sure. But not in Kodiak, anyway.
These observations are admittedly from a newbie here. (Alaskan oldtimers who may read this, be patient!)
Monday, April 13, 2009
Easter 2009
Dear all,
I hope you all had a good Easter. I'm sure you did. I had Palm Sunday this week, in snowy / sunny Port Lions, AK. It's a 12 minute plane ride from Kodiak, flying through the passes between the snowy mountains.
This time was by far the scariest flight yet. Usually when we get up in the air, the pilot looks to the west, and if he can see through the pass, he flies that way - otherwise we fly around Kodiak Island along the coast, a considerably longer route. This time, Jimmy, our young Yup'ik pilot from the Kuskokwim River area, headed the plane through the passes but we ran into a brief snow squall and as the plane twisted and turned around in the valleys, it seemed as though you could reach out and touch the pine trees on the snowy mountains -- which I was quite afraid we might hit. But I guess Jimmy knew what he was doing - these planes have GPS so the pilots have a map right in front of them showing where they are at all times. Probably we didn't get closer than 200 feet, or more, from the mountainsides. Suddenly we emerged from the squall and the mountains, with water below us, and we were flying across the Kizhuyak Bay.
I spent part of Saturday visiting parishioners in their homes. It's easy to do that in a village of 250 people. Port Lions is a very nice village, with great scenic views, but a number of empty houses, because the number of jobs in the town is limited. There are no stores, but there is a post office, a clinic, a library, two schools, a Native building, a firehouse, and a water treatment plant. (I asked, why would PL need a water treatment plant, doesn't it get pure mountain water? And I was told that "beavers pee in it, etc" and that there are certain diseases you could get if the water wasn't purified.)
As you walk around the streets, kids and adults sail past on quads or 4-wheel ATVs, all wearing helmets. It's a convenient way to get around town. Others drive pickup trucks or regular cars.
Port Lions came into being in 1964, when the village of Afognak, AK was wiped out by earthquake, and due to changes in the contour of the land at Afognak, it was deemed unwise to rebuild that town. (Afognak was on Afognak Island, a large island just north of Kodiak Island.) The people migrated to what is now Port Lions. About half the townspeople of PL are Native Americans (Aleuts) who seem to be culturally much the same as other Americans. In many cases I would not have guessed that a person was a Native American (or as they say up here, "Alaskan Native" or simply "Native"). The Alaskan Natives do not have reservations, but have about 85 Native Corporations which own significant amounts of land, engage in businesses, and are, by and large, very successful. A great many of those I have met have Swedish or Russian names. (Most Alaskan Natives have three given names: a "church name" that is the name of an Orthodox saint; an American name, and a Native name. This is hard to master, with so many children around. I try to learn the church name first. I love them the best. Here at the seminary we have a Methodius, a Perpetua, a Procopius -- nicknamed Koby, and an Ishmael).
I listened to some of the people who remembered Afognak talking about their childhood there - and how they played out of doors, amidst and around the trees and houses, and made their own games up - an experience they noted was very different from that of most kids today, who are glued to the internet. On Good Friday in 1964 most of them had just finished having supper and were getting ready to go see the movie "King of Kings" - a movie was a big thing in Afognak - when the earthquake struck - it was the most powerful earthquake in recent North American history and lasted 4 minutes.
Afognak Island sounds like it was (and remains) a paradaisical isle, largely unspoiled land, like Kodiak. Between Afognak Island and Kodiak Island is a water channel called whale passage, because whales use it a lot to get. There is an island called Whale Island right there. They tell me you can often see pods of whales right off Port Lions.
A number of parishioners make their living by hosting tourists who come for hunting, sportfishing, or nature viewing. One of the women was telling me how she loves going out on the boat with her husband when the waters are calm, and just watching the animal and marine life.
Unfortunately, because of the economy, a lot of these people aren't getting much business right now. Hopefully that will improve as the economy picks up.
This weekend I learned that in Alaska the largest cabbages anywhere have been grown. How is this possible? 90-degree summer days combined with 20-21 hours of sun. Carrots, potatoes, and corn are also grown here, and tomatoes are grown in greenhouses, and cattle are raised.
Happy Easter to all
Peace, love, and joy
I hope you all had a good Easter. I'm sure you did. I had Palm Sunday this week, in snowy / sunny Port Lions, AK. It's a 12 minute plane ride from Kodiak, flying through the passes between the snowy mountains.
This time was by far the scariest flight yet. Usually when we get up in the air, the pilot looks to the west, and if he can see through the pass, he flies that way - otherwise we fly around Kodiak Island along the coast, a considerably longer route. This time, Jimmy, our young Yup'ik pilot from the Kuskokwim River area, headed the plane through the passes but we ran into a brief snow squall and as the plane twisted and turned around in the valleys, it seemed as though you could reach out and touch the pine trees on the snowy mountains -- which I was quite afraid we might hit. But I guess Jimmy knew what he was doing - these planes have GPS so the pilots have a map right in front of them showing where they are at all times. Probably we didn't get closer than 200 feet, or more, from the mountainsides. Suddenly we emerged from the squall and the mountains, with water below us, and we were flying across the Kizhuyak Bay.
I spent part of Saturday visiting parishioners in their homes. It's easy to do that in a village of 250 people. Port Lions is a very nice village, with great scenic views, but a number of empty houses, because the number of jobs in the town is limited. There are no stores, but there is a post office, a clinic, a library, two schools, a Native building, a firehouse, and a water treatment plant. (I asked, why would PL need a water treatment plant, doesn't it get pure mountain water? And I was told that "beavers pee in it, etc" and that there are certain diseases you could get if the water wasn't purified.)
As you walk around the streets, kids and adults sail past on quads or 4-wheel ATVs, all wearing helmets. It's a convenient way to get around town. Others drive pickup trucks or regular cars.
Port Lions came into being in 1964, when the village of Afognak, AK was wiped out by earthquake, and due to changes in the contour of the land at Afognak, it was deemed unwise to rebuild that town. (Afognak was on Afognak Island, a large island just north of Kodiak Island.) The people migrated to what is now Port Lions. About half the townspeople of PL are Native Americans (Aleuts) who seem to be culturally much the same as other Americans. In many cases I would not have guessed that a person was a Native American (or as they say up here, "Alaskan Native" or simply "Native"). The Alaskan Natives do not have reservations, but have about 85 Native Corporations which own significant amounts of land, engage in businesses, and are, by and large, very successful. A great many of those I have met have Swedish or Russian names. (Most Alaskan Natives have three given names: a "church name" that is the name of an Orthodox saint; an American name, and a Native name. This is hard to master, with so many children around. I try to learn the church name first. I love them the best. Here at the seminary we have a Methodius, a Perpetua, a Procopius -- nicknamed Koby, and an Ishmael).
I listened to some of the people who remembered Afognak talking about their childhood there - and how they played out of doors, amidst and around the trees and houses, and made their own games up - an experience they noted was very different from that of most kids today, who are glued to the internet. On Good Friday in 1964 most of them had just finished having supper and were getting ready to go see the movie "King of Kings" - a movie was a big thing in Afognak - when the earthquake struck - it was the most powerful earthquake in recent North American history and lasted 4 minutes.
Afognak Island sounds like it was (and remains) a paradaisical isle, largely unspoiled land, like Kodiak. Between Afognak Island and Kodiak Island is a water channel called whale passage, because whales use it a lot to get. There is an island called Whale Island right there. They tell me you can often see pods of whales right off Port Lions.
A number of parishioners make their living by hosting tourists who come for hunting, sportfishing, or nature viewing. One of the women was telling me how she loves going out on the boat with her husband when the waters are calm, and just watching the animal and marine life.
Unfortunately, because of the economy, a lot of these people aren't getting much business right now. Hopefully that will improve as the economy picks up.
This weekend I learned that in Alaska the largest cabbages anywhere have been grown. How is this possible? 90-degree summer days combined with 20-21 hours of sun. Carrots, potatoes, and corn are also grown here, and tomatoes are grown in greenhouses, and cattle are raised.
Happy Easter to all
Peace, love, and joy
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