Pope Benedict's African Adventure

His Holiness is creating firestorms everywhere he puts his red loafered feet in Africa and that was before his rant against witchcraft and sorcery in Angola and his plea to get Catholics to help convert those who practiced such nonsense. Memo to Pope Benedict XVI: you are urging people to convert from sorcery to believe in a Man that was born of a Virgin, turned fishes and loaves of bread into enough to feed the masses and rose from the dead to walk the Earth before ascending into Heaven. The condescending approach may not be the best introduction to Catholicism while leaving out the Church's participation in the Crusades and the Inquisition, but it confirms the suspicion that this pope seems zone and tone deaf. I think he was still stunned by President's Biya's wife with her Mount Kilimanjaro of curled hair greeting him at the airport.

On Tuesday, Benedict’s visit began in Cameroon, where, among other issues, he dealt with the church’s competition for souls with Islam. On Friday, he moved to oil-rich Angola, his second and last stop, where he immediately spoke out against corruption and the disregard of the poor by the wealthy.

On Saturday, at St. Paul’s, he addressed the accommodations of faith bysome Africans who mix their Christianity with animism living “in fear of spirits, of malign and threatening powers.”

The pope asked rhetorically: “Why not leave them in peace? They have their truth, and we have ours.” He then answered that there was no injustice in presenting the ways of Christ to others, granting “them the opportunity of finding their truest and most authentic selves” and offering them “this possibility of attaining eternal life.”

Human rights groups may well appreciate Benedict’s decision to raise the issue of sorcery. In parts of Angola, Congo and the Congo Republic, thousands of children are accused of witchcraft and are cast out of their homes, blinded or killed, according to advocates for the youngsters. (Photo of Baka Pygmies)

Well, the Pope certainly isn't winning every friend and influencing everybody on the continent as he lists what is wrong with Africa at each stop. In many cases, he is being greeted warmly and does have parts of his message that emphasize Christian charity that people are their brother's keepers. Eradicate corruption was the Holy See's message of the day for war weary Angola, formerly colonized by the Portuguese, on Friday. His exhortations to give to the poor while speaking to large enthusiastic crowds of the impoverished living on roughly $2 per day while remaining undereducated is a bit depressing.

Pope Benedict is an ultra conservative celibate guy who told other people not to practice safe sex with condoms in sub-Saharan countries where AIDS is decimating families. That pronouncement to the press, flies directly in the face of common sense and buttresses the worst leaders in Africa who continue to deny the extent of the problems caused by AIDS. The pope's remarks were so intemperate that the Curia back in Rome watched in horror some of the condom pronouncements while wringing their prayer beads about whether this will cripple his four year old papacy. It is kind of odd that the one thing President Bush got right was his approach to Africa and providing the funds to back up AIDS activists among others. Meanwhile, other papal mistakes continue to fester. (Photos courtesy of NYT/Joäo Silva)

The pope has admitted making mistakes over the lifting of the excommunication of a holocaust-denying bishop, saying the church will make much greater use of the Internet in the future to help avoid such controversies.

In a letter to church leaders, Pope Benedict XVI says the church should have been aware of the views of Bishop Richard Williamson.

"I have been told that consulting the information available on the Internet would have made it possible to perceive the problem early on.

Some sort of edict on using teh Google is in the offing at the Vatican.


Putting Aretha Franklin's Inauguration chapeau to shame, the next morning on his first stop in Cameroon, the president's wife decided to embellish her lady bountiful lacquered red gold curls with a jaunty little pink and white ode to Christianity top hat atop matching ensemble that put all the other hats in the vicinity to shame. The Pope needed his Mega Pontiff hat he uses for Mass at the Basilica to reign supreme over this confection. The president and the pope are wearing virtually the same official ceremonial outfits as the day before. The pope did get a gift from Baka Pygmies of a turtle that promptly got a seat in first class with the entourage before leaving Cameroon. Unfortunately, moments of humour came to an abrupt halt as the trip moved on to Angola.


Saturday's horror was the stampede that left two people dead right before his Angola address as 30,000 people slammed against the closed gates trying to get into the Luanda stadium in a stifling heatwave. Sunday, a Papal Mass for a half million was prayed for a population that is regarded as almost 60% Catholic. The pope, distressed by the deaths, offered his prayers for the perished and his warm wishes for those recovering. He also mentioned the "clouds of evil" that hung over Africa. Angola, was the final stop in Africa before he and the popemobile head back to Rome where a discussion of how the trip went will be the topic as a trip is set for the Middle East in May. (AFP photo)



Personal testimonies are the means to reach the human heart. Included in this seminal book, 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa from Stephanie Nolen are the origins and pathology of the African AIDS epidemic and who is claimed by the disease that seems without end or mercy.

Teachers In Space

Wednesday is launch day, actually night 6:20 pm PDT, for space shuttle Discovery to photogenically blast into the heavens to park at the International Space Station (ISS) with parts for recycling pee into the clean drinkable water machine, a $300 million USD 31,000 pound truss segment to support the additions to the ISS, more items for the solar arrays and two teachers. Discovery's crew has to vacate and finish their spacewalking and scientific chores by March 26 because the Russians booked the penthouse suite with the Soyuz capsule making a grand entrance and bringing a new ISS crew. One space visiting team at a time and there is no place to fill up with rocket fuel in space yet.

More solar equipment means more power to tun the increasingly sophisticated apparatus at the ISS. Recycling urine is important because May heralds doubling the size of the crew from 3 to 6. The US space shuttle program is due to end in 2010. Up to this point there have been a multitude of spectacular successes and tragic failures accompanied by loss of life. Honoring the pioneer of teacher in space, NASA reopened its program for teachers after the 2003 mission failure and two teachers are now fully fledged astronauts hurtling out in maximum G's on STS-119. Those two teachers, Joe Acaba and Richard Arnold, are actually each going to don a spacesuit and go out for a spacewalk. (Discovery photos courtesy Reuters)

Richard Arnold started by teaching college preparatory courses in Morocco, then moved on to schools in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Romania. Joe Acaba, an ex-Marine, found his calling in the classroom after a tour in the Dominican Republic with the Peace Corps.

“As an educator,” Arnold said, “you presumably believe in the notion that education can take you anywhere. Here we are. We’re knocking on the door. We’re about to go to space.”

Selected for the space agency’s educator-astronaut initiative, Acaba, 45, began training in 2004 with nine others. 41, and ArnoldNow, NASA has put them on the same shuttle flight.

“We were both surprised when we were assigned,” Arnold said. “I was really happy to be flying with a classmate, and I was really happy it was Joe.”

Watching such a vivid night launch via NASA webcast is going to be fun. The weather forecast looks great barring any equipment failures like the one that scuttled the February 12th launch. Right now the crew aboard the ISS is doing some routine maintenace and spacewalking chores before Discovery arrives on Friday. The space station is nearing completion with all of the cool gadgets like Canada's robotic Mr. Dexter, Japan's Kibo Room (and a Japanese astronaut is on board this flight) and the view of Earth from the ISS space "porch" is said to be unparralelled. What a great teachable moment in science.

Just because I love his books and his whole attitude about science, I will tout Neil deGrasse Tyson's latest wonderful snarkfest in book form, The Pluto Files. It would be the perfect book to take into space when you have some downtime at the International Space Station.


Oh well, the space shuttle seems like its not going anywhere today due to a gas leak. (3/10)

A Presidential Inauguration For the Ages Begins

 And so, World History begins Anew...

History books will record this day as a watershed filled with tears and a mighty river of emotion that flows

around the world. In these modern times, so will Tivo, DVDs, digital cameras, the internet, social networks and those who have the spirit of the young at heart.  For me, it is seriously o'dark thirty and my oatmeal will be nice and hot as Barack Hussein Obama Jr raises his right hand and swears upon the 16th president's store bought Bible to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America.  Pennsylvania Avenue will see 13,000 people march by the Obama First Family including the Tuskegee Airmen who will also have places of honor at the Capitol, marching bands from the Aloha State. 

A friend rang me from the Adams Morgan area yesterday thrilled with the crowds and the genuine caring for their fellow citizen as they stream to all historic points in the nations capitol.  Another made me laugh as the weather has been in the eighties and nineties here in Southern California lately and her family is braving below freezing temps to be witnesses to History. The president-elects license plates will be of specific interest and whether as president will the No taxation without representation make a strong comeback.  The citizen's of the District are eager ti participate as well.

From November 4, 2008 Election Night Reaction As U2 Sings - 

It IS A Beautiful Day!

A Day for Kings, Presidents & People

Usually MLK Day has the media short changing the day into soundbitsy clips of the I Have A Dream speech to fit between commercials to do their duty and pay a quick homage. But now all is different. Twelve hours after the strike of midnight on the National Day of Service, a reparation or down payment on his Dream and last expressed wish about the Promised Land when Barack Obama puts his hand on Lincoln's smallish gilt edged Bible and swears an oath to serve as president. What makes the American heart beat remains filled with vast hopes and vital concerns to the rest of the world who will watch and hear a call to serve. Slavery's stains muted America's large bouncing check to reaching that More Perfect Union part of the program, until the morrow and the world will take note.

Odd that the Letter from a Birmingham Jail was a public oped crafted in a cell as a rebuttal against shortsighted black preachers meaning to lower the lofty aims of MLK and by extension the Civil Rights movement. Coverage of MLK Day with grainy images of the mall filled with 250,000 bus riding and marching folks from all over the nation will compare to the almost 1,000,000 who showed up for the We Are One event for the first bi-racial president. An eloquent letter of legacy, published in June of 1963, before the Dream speech that speaks across the decades to another movement filled with youthful vigor on matters of Life & death issues that shall not wait patiently. The glue that binds is based on character and courage. Maya Angelou often states without Courage none of the other Virtues can be practiced.

Martin Luther King Jr responded to a need to serve a seamstress thrown in jail for staying seated on a bus in 1955. Rosa Parks spent her spare time volunteering and serving as secretary for the Montgomery Alabama NAACP. The 21st century is in a deficit in the serving with a dearth of business leaders lapsing into lawless looting from the public funds and private market square. Now people must bridge the yawning gap, with not very many survival skills, to reach the other side except character built by service. Now another person of color with slaveholders in his past stood before Lincoln on the steps urging a call to action to serve with Courage and Characters.

Reverend King served from jail many times in the pursuit of Justice as promisedby the Founding documents and the Amendments arising out of the Emancipation Proclamation. Nonviolent with Civil Right's moral compass set on true north. The struggle for equality in the land of the free and home of the brave came via words accompanied by synchronized actions of service to the attention of those who bestow the honor of a Nobel peace prize.

In Oslo, Norway King's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech (won through the blood and tears of a 35 year old) acts as another beacon on the scope of international heft focused on USA stated policies and oblivious practices. In the thousand year old Westminster Abbey, atop the Great West Door resides a robed figure carved in King's likeness from marble enshrined in a pantheon of ten Christians dedicated to Martyr's of the world from the 20th century.



In Occupied Europe, a group of flying guardian Angels, literally, had the crappiest planes they fixed themselves, yet the most distinguished of flying records by winging it on faith and serving with courage to honor the sacrifices in the 1940's. They are known as the Tuskegee Airmen of the 332nd Regiment

Seated near the back of Mount Zion's airy sanctuary, 85-year-old William Booker of Kirkland, a surviving Tuskegee Airman, leaned on his cane and marveled. His grandchildren, Marcus and Brandon, were singing in the children's choir. A few weeks earlier, the president-elect had sent a letter inviting him to the inauguration.

It was a far cry from the years of humiliation Booker and his unit had suffered during and after World War II, demeaned by their own country as inept and too intellectually inferior to be fighter pilots.

The airmen's success in combat in fact contributed to desegregating the military, bolstering a fledgling civil rights movement and broadened acceptance of blacks as leaders.

Last month, Obama wrote to Booker that he had reserved space near the front of the inaugural crowd for the retired Boeing Co. engineer because "he said he was standing on the shoulders of the Tuskegee Airmen," said Booker, whispering hoarsely.

MLK was a young man who was fired up and ready to go. The establishment was doing incremental ism and decided to upbraid the upstart, not for the last time, on what really mattered - patience. King responded with a book on Why We Can't Wait. barack Obama picked up King's message on the fierce urgency of now and the moral arc of the universe is long but it bends towards justice.

Stevie Wonder put forth his patriot's soul, treasure and time and determination towards finally getting a King holiday in 1986 eighteen years after King's assassination. It is fitting that the bridge is music from Stevie that thrilled a campaign at a Jefferson Jackson dinner in Iowa six weeks before a fateful caucus at the end of an astounding speech from Barack Obama. Signed, Sealed, Delivered, he's Ours now as a president in less than 36 hours and all he is seeking to have all serve equally.


Double Pulitzer Prize winner for biographical portrayals of Martin Luther King Jr., Taylor Branch has written the trilogy for eternal reverence and reference.

Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963 Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963 - 1965 At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-1968

Golden Globes 2009 Fashion & Follies

Number 66 for the Golden Globes highlighted fashion forays into the désert and for silver screens big and small. The designer eats on behalf of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association were great while the show drifted along as apéritifs increased in alcohol content.

De Apertif at GG 2009, Ze Entrée at GG 2009, Le Dessert at GG

Best dressed of the evening goes to a soigné Salma Hayek

Botega Venetta creation

The corset bustier look with wild draping was the theme of the night. Hair seemed to be created by Charlie the Truly Evil hairstylist for Drew Barrymore wearing Galliano and two tones of boring blonde by Cameron Diaz in a Chanel engineered frock.

Evan Rachel Wood of The Wrestler has a wedding cake tiered fairy princess gone lacy black look from Elie Saab(AP). Dexter's Julie Benz is cinched at the waist in the scads of material blah blah iridescent blue dress. The most useless accessory of the night - a belt. Seems to be a rather common styling 2009 preference. (AFP) And nope, it does not work for everybody.

Last year Olivia rocked a dress at the Emmy's - tonight, not so much. A belt with bustier in purple with red hair to pass out the now sturdier GG awards. It's lilac run amok with a belt. Even Demi's and Bruce's daughter had to do the belt thing and a sneaking suspicion its Christina Appelgate's dress in a different color - Mom was elegant.

Debra Messing gets it right after a couple of off years - classic, one color with the frou frou involved in the Vera Wang dress that has a waist sash built in.

Critic's Choice Award winner for Rachel Got married, Anne Hathaway had a Armani Privé dress and a gem of a stylist for the occasion. Hayden Panettiere is now getting the styling thing with a beautiful Gianfranco Ferre plum purple with a tad of glitter above the waist detail.


Eva Longoria Parker one of the few wearing bright and bold from Reem Acra, but still bustiered and skintight....

Guys: Aaron Eckhart form the widely acclaimed Dark Knight isn't going to be mistaken for the chauffeur. (LAT) - Tiki Barber's tie is interesting, but the elegant suit looks well done. the pair, Freida Pinto and Dev Patel from Slum dog looks good. The drapery and tiers this year are a bit overwhelming. Button actor Alexandre Desplat layered the black and light black in a matte finish. Simon Baker looks Bond like. (wire image)

Last year's winner of the glitter ball on Dancing with the Stars is a Grecian draped svelte Brooke Burke. Hint - that much draping can leave the florals on another dress. It's gilding the lily. Pssst, the hanging lock of hair a no-no. Eva Mendes is wearing Dior with a giant hip acessory. J Lo went Marchesa backless and light in front.


Purple with frills at the neck and the fitted waist is the outfit for just looking at the food for Maria Menounos.

And bringing the straight up ugly is Maggie Gyllenhaal. (G) A Belt - and florals make it stop... I'm begging.

What were the stylists thinking this year, J. Mendel's shirred and patterns again in black with spots of color for Taraji Henson from the Button movie. Heidi Klum joined her in the I was blinded by sunlight when choosing my dress after coming out of a fashion coma. Killer shoes though.... (G)

Thank you Kate Winslet with a chic belt on an all black dress.

Christina Appelgate also does better in a golden champaign bustier by Roberto Cavalli for the evening. Miley Cyrus, while irreverent gets the Marchesa glam styling thing right. Marisa Tormei has the look of a regal Spanish bullfighter with princess touches. I like it and the belt is unusual in this case. (WI)

Woman of a certain era - they dressed faster than an egg boils collection...

Love ya Glenn C and Armani, but my goodness it's like Mother of the Bride meets Mrs. Cleaver. Susan Sarandon decided on the velvet man tux cut for a for woman. And Sigourney Weaver is doing the human female alien. Beyoncé strikes a pose in what seems an ill fitting Elie Saab gown or she's turned into a pear.

Let's just have a moment of silence for America. Seriously - a long oh whoa silence for Oscar de la Renta. (You don't even want to know about the Carolina Herrera that Renne Zellweger wore.)

Irony is not dead in Hollywood. the rehabbed sexual guy, David Duchovony, shows up after his part in Californication to present at the 66th annual show after last years non-show. (wire image)