Monday, March 03, 2014

JANUS
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Mr. Fischler directs the Editorial attention hither.  Seems that a bunch of United Church of the Zeitgeist guys recently decided, amazingly enough, to thank God that they are not as other men are:

The governing body of United Church of Christ congregations in the Mid-Atlantic is proposing that its members boycott Washington Redskins games and shun products bearing the team’s logo until the team changes its name and mascot.

In a meeting Saturday in Catonsville, the 25-member board of directors of the Central Atlantic Conference of the UCC unanimously passed the boycott resolution, pointedly avoiding use of the word Redskins. The board, mostly laypeople, proposed that the 22,000 members of the liberal denomination “join a boycott of games played by the Washington National League Football team and not wear, display or purchase any items with the Washington National League Football team logo until the name changes.”

The Episcopalians recently passed a similar motion.  But two things.  I doubt that many UCZ guys own any Redskins gear at all so the team won’t take anything close to a financial hit.  And I might be much more impressed by resolutions like these if the Left’s true attitude toward indigenous Americans didn’t occasionally force its way to the surface.

In one of Alaska’s most remote outposts, where a thousand hardy souls make their homes, the Obama administration has put the fate of birds and bears above the lives of people, blocking construction of an 11-mile gravel trail connecting a tiny fishing hamlet to a life-saving airport. 
For more than three decades the predominantly Aleut fishing community of King Cove has been fighting to build a one-lane,gravel track connecting the Cove to the nearby hamlet of Cold Bay. What they have gotten is 30 years of flat-out federal refusals or stall tactics. 

Cove residents say a road is necessary so they can reach an all-weather airport in Cold Bay that will transport them to Anchorage, about 625 miles away, for medical treatment. They say that in emergency situations, it’s a matter of life and death. 

Late last year, though, the Department of Interior announced it was rejecting plans for a proposed land swap that would allow the road to be built. The Dec. 23 decision cited the negative environmental impact on grizzly bears, caribou and water fowl like the Pacific black brant.

“(Interior Secretary Sally Jewell’s) decision on King Cove was heartless and wrong, and her message to me ever since has been that I need to ‘just get over it and move on,’” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, told FoxNews.com. “She thinks it’s over because she’s made her decision. But it’s not done. And it is not going to be done until those people have access to safety.”

According to local Aleutian elders, 19 people have died since 1980 as a result of the impossible-to-navigate weather conditions during emergency evacuations.

During an August visit to Alaska, Jewell was told that building a road that connects King Cove and Cold Bay was vital. But in December, Jewell rejected the road saying it would jeopardize waterfowl in the refuge.

“She stood up in the gymnasium and told those kids, ‘I’ve listened to your stories, now I have to listen to the animals,” Democratic state Rep. Bob Herron told a local television station. “You could have heard a pin drop in that gymnasium.”

The land required for the road is less than 1 percent of the total refuge.

The land exchange that was proposed – and denied – would take 206 acres from the Izembek refuge for the road and 1,600 acres from the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. In exchange, the refuge would receive 43,093 acres of state land and 13,300 acres of land owned by the King Cove Native Corp., which comes out to be 56,393 acres in exchange for 1,806 acres.
The Interior Department, though, argued that giving up refuge land would set a bad precedent. 

So forgive me if I don’t get bent out of shape about an Eastern sports team called Redskins.  “Eff off and die but we promise we won’t insult you if you do,” doesn’t seem like a particularly Christian attitude to me.

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