\”The Jesuits recognized that the existing chapel was becoming inadequate to the growing liturgical needs and desires of the community,\” artist Joel Pidel, who re-designed the chapel, told CNA Feb. 13.

Pidel noted \”that greater devotion would be fostered\” by transforming the space \”into a place that more fully or evidentially manifested God\’s beauty.\”

\”Beauty increases devotion,\” he added, \”beauty is the \’natural\’ analog of grace, a continual reminder that everything is gift, and that our every response should be one of gratitude.\”

My senior dog, Pepper, had wandered away in the early hours of Monday, February 4, as

I was fixing her outside chain. She has a leg problem plus the temperature was below freezing. I spent hours looking for her.

Due to the kindness of Mr. Johnson, Pepper was returned to me. It was the best birthday gift I received. Mr. Johnson renewed my faith in the goodness of people.

Please accept my heartfelt gratitude.

Jeff Kramer, Gloucester City

(Gloucester City News February 14, 2013)

While Washington is ringing its hands about the automatic across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is digging taxpayers even deeper into debt by pushing a smorgasbord of wasteful dinosaur projects.
 
Exhibit A: Instead of prioritizing funding on the most economically justified and critically important projects, the Corps is reviving ancient duds like the New Madrid Floodway/St. John’s Bayou project. The New Madrid floodway is an old Mississippi river channel in Missouri’s boot heel. Levees surround the floodway, except for a small gap at the downstream end (near New Madrid, Missouri). When river levels get high enough to threaten flooding in Cairo, Illinois and other cities upstream the Corps \”operates\” the floodway by blowing up parts of the levee, sending millions of gallons of floodwaters across the sparsely populated farm land in the floodway—preventing flooding in Cairo. The water returns back to the river through the gap.