The Reformed Pastor

The Guardian of the U.K. has a photo set up at its “Observer” section that is truly stunning. It consists of sixteen photos of Detroit by Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre that present an incredibel picture of a city laid waste. Three of them are especially striking, at least to me:

This is what remains of the Woodward Avenue Presbyterian Church, a English Gothic-style church built in 1911. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

This is East Grand Boulevard Church. It was built in 1908. These are just two among many abandoned churches in Detroit.

This is the obviously closed East Side Public Library. I can understand closing a library. I can’t understand simply leaving the books there to rot.

In some ways, the most amazing thing about the photo set is that it illustrates just how unwilling Detroit has been to deal with its own decline. Some of the buildings in the photos have been abandoned for decades, yet they still stand, blights on the landscape, and reminders of better days that are now dead and gone. Detroit is by no means alone in this regard, but I will say that when I went there a couple of years ago, I was genuinely amazed at how many abandoned buildings there were even within sight of Comerica Park, which is less than ten years old and was no doubt supposed to help revitalize that part of the city.

Though written about 9/11 in New York, this could have been written about Detroit:

(Via Mark Shea.)

The PCUSA’s Israel Palestine Mission Network continues to get its support and links from strange sources. This one, linked on their Facebook page, is from Counterpunch, a far left rag that has been printing the screeds of a variety of anti-Semites and dictatorship-supporting loonies for years, and today offers the perspective of….well, let’s say it’s straight from the horse’s mouth:

The Arab world possesses the largest number of satellite TV stations in the world, in proportion to  population. Alas,  the number of satellite stations does not mean the existence of any effort to present Arab causes on both  the local and global level in a useful manner.

Take the second anniversary of the brutal Israeli aggression on Gaza. Arab media outlets have neither concerned themselves with the anniversary nor do they  expose continuing Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people in Gaza, Hebron, Negev, Lod and Nablus; this  despite the growing support of people of  conscience in  Turkey, Europe, Asia, South America trying to break the racist blockade.

In this framework, the return of the Mavi Marmara ship at Sultanahmet harbor in Istanbul on December 26, 2010, constituted a Palestinian event par excellence.  The people of Istanbul rushed to meet the ship which had carried the martyrs of freedom, while Palestinian flags were waved everywhere.  The exiled Archbishop of Jerusalem, Hilarion Capucchi, made a moving speech, particularly when he asserted his determination to see Jerusalem in his lifetime and when people repeated Allhu Akbar after him in a scene in which all religious differences disappeared for the sake of gaining freedom and dignity for the Palestinian people.  This episode was not broadcast on a single Arab satellite station despite the fact that it represented the spirit of  Christian – Muslim brotherhood and constitutes a model for joint action between religions against occupation and injustice.

The source for this “media analysis” is…wait for it…a spinmeister for Syrian president Bashir al-Assad! Bouthaina Shaaban complains, and the IPMN apparently agrees, that the various Arab satellite TV networks aren’t doing their proper jobs as outlets for anti-Israel propaganda. She and IPMN would rather that they were showing educational and informative stuff like this from Al-Aqsa TV:

By the way, the Hilarion Capucchi mentioned in Shaaban’s article is an interesting character. His Wikipedia article says of him:

Hilarion Capucci (born 2 March 1922, Aleppo, northern Syria) is the retired titular archbishop of Caesarea for the Melkite Greek Catholic Church.

On August 18, 1974 he was arrested by Israeli police for smuggling weapons into the West Bank in a Mercedes sedan. He was subsesquently convicted by an Israeli court of using his diplomatic status to smuggle arms to the Palestine Liberation Army and sentenced to 12 years in prison. Capucci was among the prisoners whose release was demanded by the Palestinian hijackers of Air France Flight 139 in 1976. He was released two years later due to intervention by the Vatican. The governments of Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria have honored Capucci with postage stamps.

Maximos V, the patriarch of the Melkite Church, was a vocal critic of Capucci’s imprisonment. He was quoted as saying, “Is this Bishop reprehensible if he thought it was his duty to bear arms? If we go back in history we find other bishops who smuggled weapons, gave their lives and committed other illegal actions to save Jews from Nazi occupation. I do not see why a man who is ready to save Arabs should be condemned.” He also noted that Israel had entered East Jerusalem illegally and against United Nations resolutions.

Yep, he’s exactly the kind of “archbishop” I’d expect to chant “Allahu Akbar” on this occasion.

Dave Barry’s year-end review is out at the Washington Post, and if you haven’t read it, you’re missing one of the highlights of the new year. The whole thing is funny, of course, but the best line, in my humble opinion, is this combination under September and October:

Adding zest to the Republican stew is the presence of many Tea Party candidates, including Delaware Senate hopeful Christine O’Donnell, who at one point in her campaign releases a TV commercial that begins with her stating, in a calm and reassuring tone, that she is not a witch.

Polls show that the voters are in a very cranky mood, which tends to favor outsiders such as the Tea Party candidates, although [Christine] O’Donnell definitely hurts her chances in Delaware when, during a televised debate, she turns her opponent into a toad.

Read it all.

PS–I have to admit, at least part of the reason I thought this so funny was because I was remembering this: