Poem.

Rewriting the History of August 29th: A Prayer
Thank you for letting me understand
homelessness, living without power,
without television , without cool air in the heat.

Thank you for letting me understand
hunger, the pleasure of dry clean clothes and
the relief of place to sleep.
Thank you for letting me understand
the deep and overwhelming sadness
when forces, beyond our personal control,
take [...]

Cool Saturday sounds.

Terence Blanchard: “Funeral Dirge” (live)
From A Tale of God’s Will: A Requiem for Katrina

Rambling ranting & raving…

A sampling of the stuff that’s floating around my brain right now:
- There’s a huge amount of fuss and bother in the media right now about the upcoming swine flu pandemic that’s apparently going to destroy the universe or something, and I’m sure there’s good reason for concern.  Not panic, not even major worry, but [...]

Hate goes back to school.

You can tell it’s time for the kids to head back to school.  You can tell by the amount of stupid the parents are sending out there…

“Devil” shirts send kids home
GAINESVILLE, Fl (Gainesville.com) 26 August – More children from the Dove World Outreach Center arrived Tuesday at area public schools with shirts bearing the message [...]

This week on Planet Autism, 8/26/09.

CHICAGO (AP) 25 August – Kaleb Drew went to first grade on Tuesday tethered to his Labrador retriever, over the school’s objections, but his family is optimistic they’ll win a court battle to keep the dog in class.
Chewey the Lab, trained to help the autistic boy deal with his disabilities, did “just as he’s supposed [...]

What he said.

Poem.

Toward Moral Balance
The worm that travels through my compost pile
cares nothing for enduring life. His freedom
carves its pathways through the rotting leaves.
He is a boisterous, joyful child,
his anarchy oblivious to reason.
God merely smiles at such idolatry.
 
Demanding sturdy answers: why do birds
turn all as one and how do salmon find
their nests, my thinking becomes sparse. [...]

Cool Saturday sounds.

Bob Marley & The Wailers: “Get Up, Stand Up” (live)

“Nazi Medicine.”

I received the following the other day in an email sent to me from one of the finest educational organizations I know, the New Jersey Commission on Holocaust Education. It was originally an essay published on The Huffington Post. It’s a powerful piece of writing, and I wanted to share it with you. Feel free [...]

Playing at war.

Not sure what to think about this.  You tell me…
Military enthusiasts begin re-enacting the Vietnam War
BOALSBURG, Pa. (AP) 17 August – The dirt paths that lead to Alpha Company’s field headquarters are lined with overgrown grass and weeds. A canvas tent is protected by machine guns, sandbags and Army-green storage boxes.  And lurking somewhere outside [...]

Yes!

WASHINGTON (AP)  17 August – The  Supreme Court on Monday ordered a new hearing for death row inmate Troy Davis, whose supporters say is innocent and should be spared from execution for killing an off-duty police officer almost 20 years ago.
Davis has spent 18 years on death row for the 1989 slaying of [...]

No poem today.

No one is reading them anyway, apparently.

Peace-making 101:

From Daily Kos yesterday:
What would you do if you found yourself standing face to face with people bearing signs accusing you by name of killing babies and encouraging the shooting of American soldiers?  Might you lose your cool?  Might you get involved in an exchange that would ultimately lead to anger or descend into the [...]

Little victories, cont.

North Carolina activist can coax students away from military
RALEIGH, NC (AP) August 12 - A rural North Carolina school district with a proud military tradition is allowing a Quaker peace activist a chance to coax high school students away from careers in the armed forces, attorneys said Wednesday.
For years, Sally Ferrell had been asking permission [...]

“Registering for Peace.”

by Tobin Jacobrown
(YES!) August 6 - On Wednesday, the 29th of July, I filed a lawsuit against the federal government declaring that, because of my religious beliefs, I should not be required to register for the draft unless it could be officially recognized that I claim to object to all war. 
I grew up believing not only [...]

Point to ponder.

Earlier this summer, I told you about the experience I had reading and digesting the book Three Cups of Tea,which is about a lot of things but mainly about a man who had a life-changing experience and who went on to try and improve the lives of other people.  All summer long, the folks at [...]

News flash:

Today, President Barack Obama went for a morning walk in the White House Rose Garden, looked up, and commented that the sky was “really blue”…

Shortly thereafter, conservative commentator Glenn Beck railed that the concept of a “blue sky” was something that Obama learned “at the knee of Saul Alinsky,” and that “blue sky” had also been [...]

“Dance Party Erupts During Quaker Meeting for Worship.”

Probably NOT my Meeting this morning, but wev…

(H/t Stasa.)

Cool Saturday sounds.

Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush: “Don’t Give Up”
Things are tough out there.  Hang in.

Dear Glenn Beck:

Hi.  I know you’re probably having a little bit of a rough patch right now, but I just wanted to help you out a little bit with something that’s been bugging me for a while.
I actually listened to your radio train wreck show yesterday.  Don’t ask me why.  I was running errands and it was [...]