This week’s outrage from Darfur, New Year’s Eve 2007 edition.

EL FASHER, Sudan (AP) Dec. 31 – The United Nations took partial control of the African Union’s peacekeeping mission in Darfur Monday in a move meant to stem violence that has killed 200,000 people and driven 2.5 million from their homes.
But the new mission lacks necessary equipment and is staffed far below its authorized level, [...]

Kiss the letter carrier.

The postperson brought me a nice belated Christmas gift yesterday:
My new teaching license.  I am now a fully licensed, newly-minted teacher of middle school social studies.
Yippy-ki-yay.

Kids say the darndest things.

I wasn’t going to post today, but after I read this over my nice, healthy, balanced breakfast, I wanted to share it.
Today, on the Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial page, there was a collection of letters responding to this:
Readers responded to this question: Violence has invaded our communities – our homes, workplaces and malls. Even our minds. [...]

Mini-review: “The Kite Runner.”

Went to the local “artsy” movie theater yesterday afternoon, with Mrs. Agitator, the Liberal-In-Training, and the Bionic Mother-In-Law.  Me, the wife, and the kid have all read the novel, and we all love it, so we went with some trepidation, because when Hollywood gets a hold of a book we all adore, sometimes… well, bad things [...]

This is bad.

Former Pakistani Prime Minister and opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assasinated today.  Twenty other people were also killed.
Bhutto seemed to know that her life was at risk when she returned home earlier this year, yet she went, in the face of the fact that she might be killed, either by the government of U.S. “ally” Pervez [...]

“Classics” for dummies?

This essay was entitled “Putting the classics on a diet.”  If you love books, don’t read this while you’re eating…
The last commandment in Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing (Morrow, $14.95) declares that an author should “try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.” The people at Phoenix Press think a number [...]

Killing in the name of…?

(International Herald Tribune) Dec. 26 – The U.S. death penalty bombshells this year – a de facto national moratorium, a state abolition and the smallest number of executions in more than a decade – have masked what may be the most significant and lasting development. For the first time in the modern history of the [...]

Coolest. Christmas. Story. Ever.

Okay, well, this year, anyway… 
WATERFORD, Wis. (AP) Dec. 24 – Some people get surprise birthday parties. Ilda Ruth Southey gets surprise weddings.
Twice in her life Southey was surprised with a wedding ceremony on  Christmas Eve, both times to Francis Southey.
Her future husband planned their original wedding for Christmas Eve 1942 while he was stationed [...]

Merry Christmas.

God bless us, everyone.
(Photograph of the famous “Christmas Truce” in No Man’s Land, Christmas, 1914.)

Rest in peace.

The great jazz pianist Oscar Peterson has died.  He was 82.

There are no words.

The next time someone tells you that “there really is no health care crisis in America,” that we have “the best health care system in the world,” that “people are dying to come here for health care,” that “the market can solve any trouble we might have with health care,” or that “Health care is not [...]

Cool (Solstice) Saturday sounds.

Jethro Tull: “Ring Out, Solstice Bells.”
Love this stuff.  Enjoy.
Here’s hoping your holiday is amazing and wonderful and warm and, above all, peaceful.

The trouble with the truth.

I’ve been thinking about this essay since the day it was published:
What’s a Teacher to Do?
No teacher wants to tell her students that their president is a liar and a criminal. And yet, our president is a liar and a criminal. As a teacher, should I tell children the truth, and act to uphold our [...]

The new “axis of evil”?

Look and see with whom we’re all in bed this time: 
UNITED NATIONS (AP) Dec. 19 – The General Assembly called yesterday for a moratorium on the death penalty with a view to abolishing executions, approving a resolution opposed by the United States, China and Iran.
The vote in the 192-member world body was 104-54 with [...]

“How many, if any, will follow New Jersey’s lead?”

A question worth asking. 
(Phila. Inquirer) Dec. 18 – More than 30 years after the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, capital punishment remains an integral part of the American criminal justice system – at least in theory.
Thirty-six states have laws allowing executions, but only a few states carry them out with much frequency. [...]

Now it’s the law.

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) Dec. 17 – Gov. Jon. S. Corzine signed into law Monday a measure that abolishes the death penalty, making New Jersey the first state in more than four decades to reject capital punishment.
The bill, approved last week by the state’s Assembly and Senate, replaces the death sentence with life in prison [...]

Sharing at Meeting.

Warning: The following post deals with an expression of personal faith. 
Just so you know.  You’ve been warned…

So I got to go to Meeting for Worship yesterday, for the first time in six weeks.  That’s the longest absence from Meeting that I’ve had since I started attending five years ago.  I was sick for all [...]

Meet the latest “worst humanitarian catastrophe” in Africa.

As if Darfur and Congo weren’t bad enough…
AFGOYE, Somalia (McClatchy News Service) Dec. 16 – A year after the U.S.-backed Ethiopian army toppled a hard-line Islamist regime in Somalia, the country has become Africa’s worst humanitarian catastrophe.
Some 200,000 refugees, mostly women and children, have fled from a pro-government offensive to makeshift camps along a [...]

VICTORY!

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) Dec. 13 – New Jersey will become the first state in four decades to abolish the death penalty under a measure lawmakers approved Thursday and the governor intends to sign within days.
Assembly members voted 44-36 to replace the death sentence with life in prison without parole. The state Senate approved the bill [...]

Bummer news of the day.

LONDON (Reuters) Dec. 13 – British fantasy and science fiction author Terry Pratchett, 59, has been diagnosed with a rare form of early onset Alzheimer’s disease, he said in a statement to his fans.
“I would have liked to keep this one quiet for a little while, but because of upcoming conventions and of course [...]