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 [...]

“Learning from Harry Patch.”

by Belinda Webb
(Guardian/UK) August 6 – Today is the day that Harry Patch, having lived 111 years on the earth to become last surviving “Tommy” of the first world war, is laid to rest in Wells, Somerset.
Like Henry Allingham, who died aged 113 just weeks ago, Harry kept silent for over eight decades about the [...]

This isn’t a baseball blog, but…

Hmmmm…
Can an asterisk save baseball’s Hall of Fame?
COOPERSTOWN, N.Y (USA Today) July 27 – Reggie Jackson and other Baseball Hall of Famers were elated with Hank Aaron’s pronouncement that he would accept players linked to performance-enhancing drugs into the Hall of Fame only if there is an asterisk on their plaque.
“I’m thrilled that Henry spoke,” [...]

Missing the wonder.

Today is the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
Geez, FORTY YEARS?  Earlier this summer, I was just feeling middled-aged.  Now I just feel old.
If you’re around my age or older, you remember this moment.  It’s one of the defining historical moments of our generation.  It’s one of those “I remember where I was [...]

Poem.

From An Astronaut’s Spouse
I could have sought by wit or wile
Your bright dream to dim. And yet
If I’d swayed you with a smile
My reward would be regret.
So, for once, you shall not hear
Of the tears, unbidden, welling;
Or the nighttime stabs of fear.
These, this time, are not for telling.
Take my silence, though intended;
Fill it with the [...]

Dear Pat Buchanan:

The other night on The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, you went off on yet another long-winded rant about affirmative action and  Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court and the death of white male privilege in America.
As part of that rant, you mentioned the idea that “white people [mainly white MEN] built this [...]

Thanks, Dad.

Richard Manning Austin, USN.

Happy (human rights hero) birthday.

Happy birthday to Pete Seeger, who turns 90 today.
UPDATE: An essay on why Pete deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.

Happy (human rights hero) birthday.

Dolores Huerta turns 79 today.
“Si se puete!”

Happy (human rights hero) birthday.

Happy birthday to Cesar Chavez, born March 31, 1927.
Si se puede!
Sign the petition to support the National Cesar Chavez holiday HERE.

Be(ing) a citizen of the world.

I hope this will make sense.  A whole lot of things are running through my enfeebled brain at the moment, so I hope I can pull it all together.
I recently received my March issue of my favorite Friendly publication, Friends Journal, which I dove into with gusto, as is my habit.
As usual, the first thing [...]

Death of a hero.

NEW YORK (AP) February 13 – Alison Des Forges, who was among the first human rights activists to highlight the ethnic tensions that exploded into the 1994 Rwanda genocide, died in the fiery commuter plane crash outside Buffalo, N.Y. She was 66.
Des Forges, a senior adviser for the Africa division of Human Rights Watch for [...]

Rest in peace, Friend.

An amazing Quaker activist and local hero, Lillian Willoughby, has died.
Philadelphia, PA (Daily News) January 26 – Lillian Willoughby had a vision of a world at peace.

She and her husband, George, dedicated Quakers, chased this impossible dream all over the world, conducting nonviolent protests against war and preparations for war for nearly 70 years.
They [...]

Cool (& inspiring) Saturday sounds.

Pete Seeger & Friends: “This Land Is Your Land.”
If you’re a Pete Seeger fan, you might want to read this.

“Obama would do well to learn from WWII.”

Tuskegee Airmen witnessed Allies’ moral failure
by Rafael Medoff, director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies
The invitation to tomorrow’s inauguration sent to members of the Tuskegee Airmen, the all-black units of World War II pilots, is an important reminder of the long road America has traveled from the era of segregation to the election [...]

What SHOULD have been said tomorrow.

Yes, bad syntax, that, but whatever.
The invocation for yesterday’s festivites in Washington, DC.
A Prayer for the Nation and Our Next President, Barack Obama

By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire
Opening Inaugural Event
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC
January 18, 2009
Welcome to Washington!  The fun is about to begin, but first, please join [...]

Revising and extending my remarks…

… from Meeting for Worship yesterday. 
Really extending.
[Today] my students and colleagues and I all get a day off from school to celebrate the commemoration of the anniversary of the birth of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  On Tuesday, by administrative edict, all school work will come to a close at around 11:30 am [...]

Puttin’ on Ayers.

Sixties Radicals Are Back. But Why?
by Johann Hari
(The Independent/UK) November 17 – Their story seems strange even after all this time. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, small posses emerged from among the most privileged young people in Europe and America and took up arms against the society their parents had built. They bombed [...]

Support your local COs.

Yesterday was Veteran’s Day.
I also recently found out that May 15th is International Conscientious Objectors Day.  But I don’t feel like waiting that long.
Iraq Vet Says He Won’t Return
(Corvalis Gazette-Times) November 11 – When Benjamin Lewis was 17, he joined the Marine Corps’ delayed entry program, looking for a new direction in his life. He [...]