Special notes for tonight, 7/15: I will be on the road nearly all day. I am writing this up Saturday evening and Sunday morning. Other OND editors may add more stories.
jlms qkw's section:
How the Mormons Make Money
It’s perhaps unsurprising that Mormonism, an indigenous American religion, would also adopt the country’s secular faith in money. What is remarkable is how varied the church’s business interests are and that so little is known about its financial interests. Although a former Mormon bishop is about to receive the Republican Party’s presidential nomination, and despite a recent public-relations campaign aimed at combating the perception that it is “secretive,” the LDS Church remains tight-lipped about its holdings. It offers little financial transparency even to its members, who are required to tithe 10 percent of their income to gain access to Mormon temples.
The Mormon Church is hardly the only religious institution to be less than forthcoming about its wealth; the Catholic Church has been equally opaque throughout history. On the other hand, says historian D. Michael Quinn, who is working on a book about the LDS Church’s finances and businesses, “The Mormon Church is very different than any other church. … Traditional Christianity and Judaism make a clear distinction between what is spiritual and what is temporal, while Mormon theology specifically denies that there is such a distinction.” To Latter-day Saints, opening megamalls, operating a billion-dollar media and insurance conglomerate, and running a Polynesian theme park are all part of doing God’s work. Says Quinn: “In the Mormon [leadership’s] worldview, it’s as spiritual to give alms to the poor, as the old phrase goes in the Biblical sense, as it is to make a million dollars.”
I only read the first two pages, and it's long. So far, very thorough and close-on. One of the local stations came up with this, and I lol'd. I have been a Thrivent member since shortly after I was born, and Lutherans don't own vast quantities of real state, media outlets, or shopping malls. Also no ranches or ag ops.
Controversial cover questions LDS business practices
FOX 13 couldn’t find an example of another mainstream religion that is as invested in business as the LDS church. Thrivent Financial, a faith-based organization for Lutherans, operates as an investment organization and is listed as one of the Fortune 500 biggest corporations in the country.
Pakistani Islamists march against NATO, US
About 5,000 Pakistani Islamists who oppose the anti-terrorism alliance with Washington began a march to the border Saturday in protest over the reopening of NATO supply routes into Afghanistan.
The protesters joined a convoy of buses, trucks and cars, many carrying the black-and-white striped flags of their Defence of Pakistan coalition movement.
They will make stop-overs in various cities and towns on the 120-kilometre (74-mile) highway from the southwestern city of Quetta to the town of Chaman, on the border with Afghanistan, where they will arrive on Sunday.
Pakistan reopened overland routes to NATO convoys crossing into neighbouring Afghanistan on July 3 after closing them in protest at a US air raid that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November.
Man lost in Utah desert for weeks was answering desert’s call
Oldfield said the lost man was starving not only for food but for human contact.
As he chowed down on some granola bars, drank a bottle of water and ate some ready-made meals the UHP keeps in its copter for emergencies, LaFever’s tale of survival spilled out.
In early June, LaFever, accompanied by his dog and carrying a few suitcases, reportedly paid some college kids $600 to drive him to Utah and drop him at the Boulder Mountain Lodge in Boulder. Someone in the parking lot gave him a lighter, which he later used to start fires during his desert journey.
Everett Ruess was never found.
Aaron Ralston saved most of himself a bit north of where this happened. I love the SW desert too, but there are ways to enjoy it without nearly dying.
Olympics 2012: Taunt to Taleban unveiled
It takes courage to dedicate one's life to one's sport. But at this month's Olympics, one young woman will have leaped more fearsome hurdles than most to compete for her nation. Reports and pictures by Lalage Snow in Kabul.
As Tahmina Khoistani fixes her starting block, a group of young men slow their training runs to look, whisper and nudge each other.
"Some of the boys here find it hard to believe that I can run and are always shouting abuse at me," shrugs the 22-year-old.
Tahmina is to compete in the 100m sprint at the London Olympics this month. She is Afghanistan's only female Olympian.
Hey Saudi Arabia! Hey you! Even Afghanistan has a female Olympic team member!
The Fix Gambling in Football Around the World
With the possible exception of their most fervent supporters, few people would have expected the match between Unione Sportiva Cremonese and Pagenese to be anything special. It was just another routine league tie between two unglamorous Italian third division sides.
But when the teams took to the field at Cremonese’s home ground one Saturday afternoon in November 2010, it set off a sequence of events that would resonate across the world of professional football.
Ivan Ghigi, a sports journalist on the local Cremona newspaper La Provincia, was among the first to realise that something was wrong. Although Cremonese had played well enough to put two unanswered goals past their opponents (not that surprising as Paganese were already struggling in the league and were later relegated), Ghigi noticed that during the second half of the game some of the Cremonese players seemed lethargic.
“I had the impression that the player's reflexes were slowed down,” he said later. “So much so that in the evening we called the Cremonese team doctor, asking what was going on. We then published a few lines in the paper saying that a mysterious illness that had struck some of the players.”
11 Women Executed by Taliban in Parwan This Year: Official
As many as 11 women have been executed by the Taliban in the Shinwari district of northern Parwan province since the start of the year, provincial Women Affairs director Shah Jan Yazdan Parast said Saturday.
As scores of women marched against violence in the provincial capital Charikar on Saturday, Yazdan Parast pointed out that the amateur video of a woman being shot to death in Parwan about a fortnight ago was not an isolated incident with at least 11 others similarly executed this year.
"Since the start of this year, we've recorded more than 70 cases of violence against women, including eleven women being executed by gunmen in the Hiro valley of Shinwari district," Yazdan Parast said. "The media only released the execution of one woman."
Read carefully. Not 11 women in this province. Not 11 women in a district of this province. 11 women executed in ONE valley in ONE district of one province.
Is Australian history boring?
CHRIS Rice pulled no punches. ''Australian history is boring and dull and largely irrelevant to the trajectory of the future of the world,'' he posted on The Age's website this week. Australians were global citizens who took their cultural cues from America, Asia and Europe. Students should be learning about these countries rather than ''some drunk bogans with beards (the Kelly gang) wandering around boring dusty towns drinking whiskey. Who cares?''
Rice studied modern history for his HSC, focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which seemed of far more consequence than Australian history. ''I don't have anything against Ned Kelly, but if that is one of the major points in our history, it shows something is a little bit lacking. The big questions, the genocides, the conquests, the revolutions, the things shaping the world aren't happening in Australia.''
Rice's opinion was shared by many. ''Who gives a rat's that Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson crossed the Blue Mountains?'' posted Lindsay ''Stitchy'' Mitchell, 58, from Yallambie. ''I am a lover of history, but find Australian history totally boring,'' he later says. ''Australian history always seemed to be about which white man got where first, which Englishman was sent here to represent the English Crown, who invented the stump-jump plough, and convicts. Lots and lots of convicts.''
The Lesser Tigers
Vidarbha, with its three tiger reserves, 9 wildlife sanctuaries and national parks, dominates the Central India landscape and is unique with forests lying outside the boundaries of the protected areas, providing habitats for a large population of tigers. It is spread over several thousand square kms extending from the northern border with Chhattisgarh and MP to the southern hems of Chandrapur and Gadchiroli along the Pranhita and Godavari rivers in Andhra Pradesh.
During 2005 to 2011 in Chandrapur district alone, there were 103 cases of tiger attacks, including 65 human deaths. A high number of tigers were suspected to be killed by poachers using traps, poisoning or electrocution. A common fact running through all these episodes is that almost all these incidences were outside the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR).
It would be a daunting task to protect these tigers given the environment in which they have managed to survive. Apart from the immediate contiguous forests of Tadoba as it is popularly known as, these tigers are living in fragmented corridors and human dominated landscapes. But the fact that tigers are still breeding is a clear indication that to a significant extent these forests still retain their ecological identity.
Tonight's Link:
EmptyWheel.net 'cause you-all should read Marcy all the time anyway.
Okay, I'm done, and anything else in this diary was added by someone different. ;-)