i L i n d . n e t

I was up earlier to read about the latest in the global financial carnage. It all made it difficult to get back to sleep.

From Marketwatch at 10:25 a.m. EDT:

“The financial markets are as close to collapse as I’ve seen in my career,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi.

If you need more background on what’s dragged us into this mess, check out the Mortgage Lender Implode-o-Meter or my friend Chuck Smith’s Of Two Minds blog. But its too early in the day for a stiff drink, so perhaps you should leave that for later.

And from the Financial Times, Alan Greenspan’s latest explanation of why the Federal Reserve under his leadership failed to see what was coming.

Hmmmm…what did happened in Hawaii during the Depression?

Do the members of the House Finance and Senate Ways and Means committees have trouble sleeping with this huge economic upheaval in the background as deadlines rapidly approach for their decision making?

And now for something completely different.

This was the pre-dawn sky on Sunday morning.

It was one of those days when the colors bloomed quickly and faded in just a few minutes. By the time the sun actually made its appearance, there wasn’t much color at all left anywhere in the sky.

The Big Island Press Club announced the winners of its Lava Tube award yesterday. The award is given out for the worst example of openness and this year went to Hawaii County Mayor Harry Kim and the Hawaii County Council in recognition of their “meeting in August to discuss a potentially dangerous new lava flow without notifying the public about the meeting.”

Read more about the award, and the Torch of Light awards recognizing friends of openness, in the Press Club’s release.

An email from Jim Albertini describes how he and a few others spent their Palm Sunday bringing a message of peace to a few Big Island churches. It’s interesting to see how contemporary churches respond to such fundamental Christian appeals, which in this case seemed to revolve around threats of arrest.

A small group of 9 people vigiled and handed out leaflets at 6 Hilo Christian churches on Palm Sunday, March 16, 2008.

The peace group issued a call to action: to end the USA led war and occupation of Iraq. It called on the churches to break their silence, and invited church members to dialogue on the issues and join in upcoming protests on March 19th –the 5th anniversary of the war, to join the weekly Friday peace vigils now in the 340th week and to call Congressional members to cut off the war funds ($3 billion per week).

Signs held included” “War is Sin”, “Repent”, “Stop the War”, “Blessed are the Peacemakers”. “Peace Takes Courage”, “Speak out”, “Pro-life = Anti-war”, “Stand Up” “How long will you look away?” “Break the Silence,” and an 8 foot cross with an oil can on top and the photo of a 12 year old Iraqi boy, Ali, on the cross with the words “Iraq crucified.” Ali was 12 years old during the initial “shock and awe” US bombing of March 19, 2003. He lost both arms in the bombing and was burned over a large portion of his body. 13 of his 15 relatives, including his mother and dad, were killed in that bombing as well.

The six churches were: New Hope on Kupulau Rd., New Hope at the Crossroads on Hualalai St., Church of the Holy Cross on Lanikaula St., United Methodist on Waianuenue Ave., Haili Church of Haili St. and St. Joseph’s Catholic Church on Haili St.

The responses were mixed. At New Hope at the Crossroads, several irate church goers engaged in name calling and the pastor called the police to try and have us removed from the public sidewalk fronting the church. The 4 police officers (all very young) who responded had no appreciation of free speech rights and talked about citing us for causing inattentiveness to drivers and blocking the sidewalk though it was very clear we were not blocking the sidewalk. When the police were asked if they were going to cite all those running for political office who hold signs they were silent. The police tried to make us move down the street. By then it was time to move on to the next church so the issue became moot but it was clear they may have been arrests had we stayed. A complaint will be filed over the conduct of the police.

The pastor who was not pleased with our challenge said, “We are neutral on the war. Please move down the road.” One of the vigil participants said it brought to mind the following quote: “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of moral conflict remain neutral.”– Dante Alighieri

At the main New Hope Church on Kupulau Rd. which is set back from the road by several hundred yards, two peace group members stood quietly on the entryway walkways outside the church and politely offered Palm Sunday peace flyers (see below) to parishoners entering and leaving the church. The parking lot was packed with hundreds of cars. After a few minutes a man who identified himself as “Pastor Steve” accompanied by a plain clothes police officer ( Henry Tavares) wearing a large cross asked the two handing out leaflets to stop handing out the leaflets and to leave. Pastor Steve said he determined what message the people received.

At UCC Church of the Holy Cross the reception was warmer. Pastor Tom Olcott came out to greet us and gave us a copy of a national UCC statement but he declined to allow us to offer peace leaflets to church goers at the entrance to the church. One church member, a retired history teaher from Hilo High School, came out and joined our vigil. We were also honored to be joined by 93 year old retired methodist minister Don Swerdfegger.

At the United Methodist Church, people were generally friendly and several went out of their way to accept leaflets. The numbers attending services at Holy Cross and the Methodist were were quite small in comparrison to the main New Hope church.
At Haili church the numbers were extremely small and the the people attending were elderly. St. Joe’s had larger numbers and the response was mixed. Some very friendly and supportive. Other refused to take flyers and were even hostile.

All in all, we were not stoned or crucified, but we were threatened with arrest, kicked off some church grounds and forbidden to offer the leaflet below to fellow christians on church grounds. The silence and inaction of Hilo churches against this war now about to enter its 6th year is still deafening. We will see if any fruits come forth in the coming days.

To those who welcomed us and were gracious we are thankful; they have the light of aloha and true Christianity shining in their hearts.

If you missed it yesterday, check out Advertiser editor Mark Platte’s description of their web site redesign, scheduled for official unveiling later this month. The emphasis is on interactive features and reader involvement.

Finally, I spent hours yesterday preparing for and then proceeding to upgrade my computer to the latest Mac operating system. That meant a full backup first, “just in case”, then the initial upgrade, followed by the final tweak with the latest fixes. All seems to have gone well, and I haven’t yet run into a program that doesn’t run properly under this version, known in Apple-speak as Leopard.