May snippets

Barack Obama's campaign for the US presidency has suffered yet another, perhaps irreversible, setback: McGovern, former Clinton backer, endorses Obama. And so soon after the controversies over his pastor.

And from Moscow: Russia's Medvedev takes power, pledges freedom. But not freedom from Vladimir Putin, one assumes.

The chances of this happening are rather remote: Turkey told to return ancient church. It will likely meet with as much success as the campaign to return Aghia Sophia to the Ecumenical Patriarch — oops, I mean the Fener Patriarch.

This may come as unexpected news to Catholics and Anglicans alike: Vatican lends hand to Williams in battle to shore up Anglican unity. Odd that the Vatican news agency Zenit doesn't mention this in its report of the meeting.

Fr. Alphonse de Valk, editor of Catholic Insight, weighs in on the recent OHRC decision concerning Christian Horizons: Ontario Panel Accused of Attacking Religious Rights. Here's Pope Benedict XVI on the subject: "human rights must include the right to religious freedom, understood at once (as) individual and communitarian. . . ."

Wheaton College, near Chicago, has been the centre of controversy recently over the departure of a divorced member of the faculty. Timothy Larsen defends the college: Wheaton prof explains divorce policy.

During a recent trip to Grand Rapids, Michigan, I made the unexpected discovery that cacti are native to the dunes of Michigan and Indiana. I would have been less surprised to learn that there are palm trees in Iqaluit.