Iowa. Illinois. Missouri. Wisconsin. In all of those states this week, men, women and children are racing against the clock, hoping that the levees will not surrender to the relentless tide of the powerful Mississippi. Some have been fortunate. In others, houses and walkways and convenience stores have been given over to the river, until the waters recede.

I've been pondering how the forces shaping the climate in the Midwest may affect how the rest of us eat in the United States, and in those places where folks depend on what we grow.

At a dinner tonight with three friends we were talking about Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma. Pollan, who is a naturalist, and a wonderful writer (my mother would have loved his writing), traces, the origins of various meals in a way that must be distressing to anyone who values both good food and their health.

Much of our diet in the United States depends on the many incarnations businesses have found for corn-many of them quite bad for us. So much of the processed foods we eat are full of high fructose corn syrup. The floods in the Midwest are terrible for farmers who depend on sales of this commodity to buy new equipmnt or seed for the coming season. Developing nations who need our wheat are grappling with difficult times, too.

But the jury is still way out on what losing the summer corn in Iowa will mean to us when we buy our vegetables and cookies. What it means to those who produce ethanol and those who advocate alternative energy.

Possibly buying locally, and living within geographical boundaires, will no longer be a lifestyle option-it could morph into a neccesity.

Angel Ye

A few nights ago, my son and I were lying on my bed in the dark. The storm that had brought trees and wires down in our town was heading east, leaving us without power. As sometimes happens when he is tired, on the verge of falling asleep, C rifled through his mental Rolodex, sharing ideas on topics as different as the NBA playoff games, what was going on in the final days of this school semester, and the challenge of being a kid in a planet where the climate is warming.

Our planet is in peril , and there's not a lot us kids can do, Mom, he said. We don't drive cars.

It's not solely children who feel helpless. A lot of adults don't feel like they can do much about global warming or the war in Iraq or poverty. But they can do more than they think.

Mr. Ye in Sichuan province, is a great example of what one man can do if he is tenacious.

A fiftyish guy with a bit of a middle-aged spread, Ye looks very ordinary.

Yet this former teacher is probably responsible for saving the lives of thousands of children in his school. Impelled by his desire to keep his students safe, he pestered the authorities for money to do the things that would make the walls and balconies more secure (see link). When the earthquake brought down many schools, killing thousands of students, his school survived. No one was lost.

It must have taken a lot of time and stubborness to wring money from the provincial bureaucrats. Such an ordinary thing-how tedious to write officials and fill out forms. Sometimes it is in these ways that heroes are created.

Apparently some students call the principal "angel Ye."

I must tell Mr C about him-a common man of uncommon valor.

Visiting offline

"A typical information worker who sits at a computer all day turns to his e-mail program more than 50 times and uses instant messaging 77 times, according to one measure by RescueTime, a company that analyzes computer habits. The company, which draws its data from 40,000 people who have tracking software on their computers, found that on average the worker also stops at 40 Web sites over the course of the day.

The fractured attention comes at a cost. In the United States, more than $650 billion a year in productivity is lost because of unnecessary interruptions, predominately mundane matters, according to Basex. The firm says that a big chunk of that cost comes from the time it takes people to recover from an interruption and get back to work."






So now the companies (see link) who helped create easy access to email, who helped create emails, for Pete's sake, are trying to help those of us who spend way too many minutes surfing the Internet break our addiction.

Not because it's an addiction, apparently. Because workers can be more productive when they focus on a task, instead of the task and the message and the email and the phone call...crazy busy isn't productively busy.



How do I know that? I found it out while avoiding writing my sermon.

Sunday afternoon our Internet and cable stopped working. As some of you know, it's hard to lose a connection to the virtual world-a world that seems so real.

At any rate, a Comcast fellow came out this morning and analyzed our problem. Turned out that a young man helping me with a weed-whacker in the garden cut the cable-something I suspected, but about which I could do nothing (except call for help).

Tomorrow I am going back to the Bennison trial, which is supposed to conclude with the bishop in the chair and then closing arguments.

At issue is whether Bennison hid his brother John' sexual abuse of a minor in the 1970s.

The trial doesn't put Bishop Bennison in a good light. But it's also an indictment of other Episcopal clergy-particularly bishops. They knew about John Bennison's abuse and reinstated him to the clergy. So many people high up in the church knew about John-common sense would have led them to ask how whether Charles knew.

It is tragic that the victim's family again and again tried to find closure and healing in a denomination where no one, as far as one can tell, had the courage to own their responsibility.

Yet I suspect that's not going to be the moral of the story. As much as I am no fan of the Bishop's behavior or his leadership, I still believe he represents one of many Episcopal clergy.

This is a sordid trial, not solely for Bishop Bennison, but for men of a certain generation who blushed, who was disgusted, but who did little or nothing to help the church move ahead.

Juan's right on

Take a look at this column by NPR and Fox's Juan Williams. I think he's right-Obama has to address his reasons for staying at Trinity Church for 20 years, and for his ties to Rev. Wright. It actually may help voters understand the Democratic candidate if he takes the risk of speaking in a more confessional voice.

A lot of white voters simply don't get the rhetoric of black power-and it frightens them. Right or not right-ignorant or informed. The Democrat who grew up biracial in a changing society still rent by racial divides has to discover a way to reach them, also.

The iron fist

It seems like the Senator from New York has finally gotten the message. Although she did take many of the big states, Obama has the delegates. On Saturday, she'll party-and she'll ponder her future. It won't include being elected President of the United States this year. This year, we'll elect either the oldest guy to be chosen President, or America's first black President.

Amazing, isn't it?

Now that it's almost au revoir, catch you on the Senate floor, Hillary, it's not so hard to see why she had such a tough time giving in. She has won a lot of primaries since Iowa. She was, in many ways, as she has said again and again, the candidate for the working and middle class women and men who are on the losing edge of the gap between rich and poor.

It's an understatement to say that this campaign didn't bring out the best in Bill and Hillary Clinton. Putting that behind him is going to be only one of the challenges Obama will confront as he gets ready to step back into the ring-this time, against a Republican....

Into the Fire

Bishop Bennison's trial is next week at a hotel in Philadelphia. He's being tried on charges he abetted his brother, then a priest, in covering up the brother' sexual abuse of a minor.

It's not something that occurs often-the trial of a bishop in the Episcopal Church. In fact, I don't recall the last time. Was it Walter Righter (more than ten years ago)? As it happens, I'm taking services for a friend this and next Sunday. I''ll probably need to explain the charges and the jury and their decision.

Of course, no one knows what the verdict is going to be. Right now, it's kind of like knowing that there is going to be an accident, but not knowing who is going to need to be in the hospital and who will need rehabilitation. Well, if Daniel and his friends walked through the fire....