Vincent & Kateri, photo by Irene Likoudis

see more photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kateriphoto/5295195399/in/set-72157625555430859/

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Photo of the day

Orthodox Religious Complex of Vyajischsky Monastery, Russia

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One of the most beautiful churches in Buffalo

 

 

 

Rorate Mass at St. Ann’s, Buffalo, New York

by Shawn Tribe

 

One of our readers sent in the following report of a recent Rorate Mass held in Buffalo, New York. I was intrigued to read the commentary about some national customs. If anyone wishes to comment or add to this in the comments, please do so.

Saturday, December 18th, feast of the Expectation of Mary saw the return of the Rorate Mass to the Diocese and city of Buffalo, New York after decades of absence. The Rorate Mass (Roratemesse in German, Msza Roratnia or Roraty in Polish) was celebrated at St. Ann’s Church and Shrine, an ethnically German parish that later welcomed many Polish immigrants and their families, and is now a predominantly Black parish in the inner-city.

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News from the Holy Land

Photostory: Volvo equipment used in house demolitions (part 2)
Adri Nieuwhof

December 29, 2010 – Israeli forces are using Volvo construction equipment and trucks in the destruction of Palestinian property. The Electronic Intifada has previously documented the use of Volvo equipment by the Israeli government in its destruction of Palestinian property. Volvo construction equipment and trucks were seen in action on the construction site of Israel’s wall near al-Walaja village in the occupied West Bank. The wall will surround al-Walaja from all sides, completely isolating the villagers from their land, near East Jerusalem and on land of the original part of the village which was occupied and destroyed by Zionist forces in 1948, and which is now annexed to parts of Gilo settlement…   continua / continued    [73403] [ 30-dec-2010 15:44 ECT ]

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Is the Gulf of Mexico “Dead”?

Soon after last year’s BP oil “spill” in the Gulf of Mexico, alarmists said if could kill the Gulf Stream, and wreak climate havoc in England and Northern Europe, bringing the coldest weather in centuries. Were they right or wrong?

 

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America’s Gulf: New Report Says It’s Dying by Stephen Lendman December 30, 2010 – Concerned Citizens of Florida.com (CCF) believe efforts must be made now “to address what may very well be the greatest environmental catastrophe of North America in modern history….government (and media) cannot be relied on” for truthful information. As a result, its site is a platform for truth and accuracy on a disaster of such magnitude. On December 1, CCF published a special Dr. Tom Termotto Gulf disaster report, titled “The Gulf of Mexico is Dying.” He’s National Coordinator for the Tallahassee, FL-based Gulf Oil Spill Remediation Conference (International Citizens’ Initiative). Its disturbing findings are discussed below. He published them so “the world community will come together to further contemplate this dire and demanding predicament.” Future generations depend on it…   continua / continued    [73425] [ 30-dec-2010 19:09 ECT ]

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The Morality of Weapons Systems

Before the US invasion of Iraq, I did a story for The Wanderer on the Morality of Weapons Systems, which questioned the use of depleted uranium and described its risks to the DNA of both US troops and their “enemies.” Research showed a high risk of birth defects to the native population. Now, more than ever, that risk is confirmed. Can anyone say, “war crimes”?

From today’s Guardian”

Research links rise in Falluja birth defects and cancers to US assault

• Defects in newborns 11 times higher than normal
• ‘War contaminants’ from 2004 attack could be cause

Martin Chulov

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 30 December 2010 21.34 GMT

Article history

White phosphorous smoke screens are fired by the US army as part of an early morning patrol in November 2004 on the outskirts of Falluja, Iraq, in preparation for an offensive against insurgents. Photograph: Scott Nelson/Getty ImagesA study examining the causes of a dramatic spike in birth defects in the Iraqi city of Falluja has for the first time concluded that genetic damage could have been caused by weaponry used in US assaults that took place six years ago.

The research, which will be published next week, confirms earlier estimates revealed by the Guardian of a major, unexplained rise in cancers and chronic neural-tube, cardiac and skeletal defects in newborns. The authors found that malformations are close to 11 times higher than normal rates, and rose to unprecedented levels in the first half of this year – a period that had not been surveyed in earlier reports……

Read the rest of the story, here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/30/faulluja-birth-defects-iraq

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The Christmas Truce of World War I

One of the mythic events of World War I, the 1914 Christmas Truce began on Christmas Eve along the British and German lines around Ypres, Belgium. While it took hold in some areas manned by the French and Belgians, it was not as widespread as these nations viewed the Germans as invaders. Along the 27 miles of front manned by the British Expeditionary Force, Christmas Eve 1914 began as a normal day with firing on both sides. While in some areas firing began to slacken through the afternoon, in others it continued at its regular pace.

This impulse to celebrate the holiday season amid the landscape of war has been traced to several theories. Among these was the fact that the war was only four months old and the level of animosity between the ranks was not as high as it would be later in the war. This was complimented by sense of shared discomfort as the early trenches lacked amenities and were prone to flooding. Also, the landscape, aside from the newly dug trenches, still appeared relatively normal, with fields and intact villages all of which contributed to introducing a degree of civilization to the proceedings.

Private Mullard of the London Rifle Brigade wrote home, “we heard a band in the German trenches, but our artillery spoilt the effect by dropping a couple of shells right in the centre of them.” Despite this, Mullard was surprised at sunset to see, “trees stuck on top of the [German] trenches, lit up with candles, and all of the men sitting on top of the trenches. So of course we got out of ours and passed a few remarks, inviting each other to come over and have a drink and a smoke, but we did not like to trust each other at first (Weintraub, 76).”

The initial force behind the Christmas Truce came from the Germans. In most cases, this began with the singing of carols and the appearance of Christmas trees along the trenches. Curious, Allied troops, who had been inundated with propaganda depicting the Germans as barbarians, began to join in the singing which led to both sides reaching out to communicate. From these first hesitant contacts informal ceasefires were arranged between units. As the lines in many places were only 30-70 yards apart, some fraternization between individuals had taken place prior to Christmas, but never on a large scale.

For the most part, both sides returned to their trenches later on Christmas Eve. The following morning, Christmas was celebrated in full, with men visiting across the lines and gifts of food and tobacco being exchanged. In several places, games of soccer were organized, though these tended to be mass “kick abouts” rather than formal matches. Private Ernie Williams of the 6th Cheshires reported, “I should think there were about a couple of hundred taking part…There was no sort of ill-will between us (Weintraub, 81).” Amid the music and sports, both sides frequently joined together for large Christmas dinners.

Read more here: http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/worldwari/p/xmastruce.htm

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Christmas in Gaza

 

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Gaza: UPDATED URGENT APPEAL – Children of the Gravel Defence for Children International – Palestine Section December 19, 2010 – Appeal to stop the targeting of unarmed children working near the border in Gaza – 19 cases documented. Between 26 March and 10 December 2010, DCI-Palestine documented 19 cases of children shot whilst collecting building gravel near the border fence between the Gaza Strip and Israel. Due to a severe lack of job opportunities and a shortage of construction material entering Gaza from Israel, hundreds of men and boys scavenge for building gravel and other items amongst the destroyed buildings close to the border fence. The gravel is collected into sacks, loaded onto donkey drawn carts and sold to builders for use in concrete   continua / continued    [73083] [ 20-dec-2010 16:24 ECT ]

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Hilaire Belloc’s “A Remaining Christmas”

A.N. Wilson, biographer of Hilaire Belloc, writes of his subject’s yearly traditions:

Belloc’s great essay on “A Remaining Christmas”, which describes how they decked the hall with holly and laurel from the nearby farm; then put up the tree and adorn it with candles; then invite in all the nearby children to be fed, and to revere the crib which had been set up beside the great fire in the hearth.

Those who were staying in the house would then have dinner and troop upstairs to squeeze into the chapel. “And there the three night Masses are said, one after the other, and those of the household take their Communion.”

Then everyone slept in late, and ate a turkey dinner. (Elodie was American, and perhaps they were among the earliest to eat this American bird as their Christmas dinner rather than the more traditionally English beef or goose.)

Wilson, invited by Belloc’s grandson to make a documentary of Belloc’s life and to include his home in the film, recounts the experience:

There are few houses in England, certainly few writers’ houses, which have a more potent atmosphere than King’s Land, with its chapel on the first floor, where he so often prayed, and where the Mass was so often said. The wall is papered with those little cards given out at Requiems, asking for prayers for the repose of the departed. And central to the chapel is the old piece of black-rimmed writing paper on which Belloc has inscribed his wife’s name. It is grimy with his frequent fingering, for he touched and kissed it as often as he prayed here.
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The camera crew came into the house. I felt awkward about their going anywhere near the chapel, but Julian, who felt in some degree oppressed by his grandfather, as by the Catholic faith, was all the more eager to bring to that hallowed place the glare of artificial light and the intrusion of a microphone. However often they tried to make their electrical equipment in the chapel at King’s Land work, it failed. Either the lights popped, or the sound failed, usually both. The electricity of HB and of Elodie was much stronger than the electricity of the BBC. I felt, too, not merely the Bellocs, but the old Catholic Thing fighting back against the intrusion of the modern.

Belloc died on the Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, 1953, and is buried in the churchyard of the Shrine Church of Our Lady of Consolation near his wife, who predeceased him by forty years; his sons predeceased him by, respectively, thirty-five and twelve years, each dying in a World War.

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The First Afghan War:
The British colonies in India in the early 19th Century were held by the Honourable East India Company, a powerful trading corporation based in London, answerable to its shareholders and to the British Parliament.

In the first half of the century France as the British bogeyman gave way to Russia, leading finally to the Crimean War in 1854. In 1839 the obsession in British India was that the Russians, extending the Tsar’s empire east into Asia, would invade India through Afghanistan.

This widely held obsession led Lord Auckland, the British governor general in India, to enter into the First Afghan War, one of Britain’s most ill-advised and disastrous wars.

Until the First Afghan War the Sirkar (the Indian colloquial name for the East India Company) had an overwhelming reputation for efficiency and good luck. The British were considered to be unconquerable and omnipotent. The Afghan War severely undermined this view. The retreat from Kabul in January 1842 and the annihilation of Elphinstone’s Kabul garrison dealt a mortal blow to British prestige in the East only rivaled by the fall of Singapore 100 years later.

The causes of the disaster are easily stated: the difficulties of campaigning in Afghanistan’s inhospitable mountainous terrain with its extremes of weather, the turbulent politics of the country and its armed and refractory population and finally the failure of the British authorities to appoint senior officers capable of conducting the campaign competently and decisively.

The substantially Hindu East India Company army crossed the Indus with trepidation, fearing to lose caste by leaving Hindustan and appalled by the country they were entering. The troops died of heat, disease and lack of supplies on the desolate route to Kandahar, subject, in the mountain passes, to constant attack by the Afghan tribes. Once in Kabul the army was reduced to a perilously small force and left in the command of incompetents. As Sita Ram in his memoirs complained: “If only the army had been commanded by the memsahibs all might have been well.”

The disaster of the First Afghan War was a substantial contributing factor to the outbreak of the Great Mutiny in the Bengal Army in 1857.

The successful defence of Jellalabad and the progress of the Army of Retribution in 1842 could do only a little in retrieving the loss of the East India Company’s reputation.

Account:
Following the British capture of Kandahar and Ghuznee Dost Mohammed, whose replacement on the throne in Kabul by Shah Shujah was the purpose of the British expedition into Afghanistan, despairing of the support of his army fled to the hills. On 7th August 1839 Shah Shujah and the British and Indian Army entered Kabul.

The British official controlling the expedition was Sir William Macnaghten, the Viceroy’s Envoy, acting with his staff of political officers.

At first all went well. British money and the powerful Anglo-Indian Army kept the Afghan tribes in controllable bounds, pacifying the Ameers with bribes and forays into the surrounding districts.

Afghan tribesmen waiting to attack the Kabul Brigade during the agonising retreat to India

In November 1840 during a raid into Kohistan two squadrons of Bengal cavalry failed to follow their officers in a charge against a small force of Afghans led by Dost Mohammed himself. Soon afterwards, despairing of his life in the mountains, Dost Mohammed surrendered to Macnaghten and went into exile in India, escorted by a division of British and Indian troops no longer required in Afghanistan and accompanied by the commander in chief Sir Willoughby Cotton.

In December 1840 Shah Shujah and Macnaghten withdrew to Jellalabad for the ferocious Afghan winter, returning to Kabul in the spring of 1841. Read more, here:

http://www.britishbattles.com/first-afghan-war/kabul-gandamak.htm

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