Go, girl.

WASHINGTON, DC (Courier Post) July 9 – Physically and emotionally bullied as a fourth-grader, Jackie Andrews is fighting back.
She’s doing so not with taunts or fists but with an anti-bullying campaign the 16-year-old high school junior is developing with her sister Josie, 14, that might soon get a national audience.
Wednesday, the Andrews sisters, from Haddon [...]

What we’re (still) up against.

Prepare to be angry.
Montco swim club accused of racial discrimination
PHILADELPHIA, Pa (Philadelphia Inquirer) July 9 - Days before a Northeast Philadelphia day camp’s membership at a private suburban swim club was rescinded, several of the campers said they had heard racial remarks about themselves at the pool.
Parents and staff members of Creative Steps Inc. day camp [...]

Adding up the costs of war.

First, there’s this, by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda J. Blimes:
MADISON, WI (The Capital Times) July 8 - Last week the U.S. “stood down” in Iraq, finalizing the pullout of 140,000 troops from Iraqi cities and towns — the first step on the long path home. After more than six years, most Americans are war-weary, even though [...]

In memoriam.

Allow me to vent.
They’re burying Michael Jackson today, and they’re throwing him a big send-off in Los Angeles, and that “service” is being paid for with taxpayers’ money and that bugs me.  That’s millions in taxpayers’ money that the state of California apparently did not have when it shut down schools and laid off thousands [...]

Sick sad world, v. 1.

I give up.
Gun-loving pastor to his flock: Piece be with you
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) June 4 – A Kentucky pastor is inviting his flock to bring guns to church to celebrate the Fourth of July and the Second Amendment.
New Bethel Church is welcoming “responsible handgun owners” to wear their firearms inside the church June 27, a [...]

Well done, New Hampshire.

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) June 3 – New Hampshire legislators approved a measure Wednesday that would make the state the sixth to allow gay marriage, and Gov. John Lynch said he would sign it later in the afternoon.
He had promised a veto if the law didn’t clearly spell out that churches and religious groups would not [...]

“War is sin.”

by Chris Hedges
(TruthDig) June 1 – The crisis faced by combat veterans returning from war is not simply a profound struggle with trauma and alienation. It is often, for those who can slice through the suffering to self-awareness, an existential crisis. War exposes the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves. It rips open the hypocrisy [...]

“A call-up gone too soon.”

by Frank Fitzpatrick
(Philadelphia Inquirer) May 28 - Memorial Day always makes me think of Harry O’Neill.
A major-league ballplayer, a World War II hero . . . O’Neill’s story, I’ve often thought, might make a nice newspaper takeout, perhaps even a book or screenplay.
His short life was as sweet as any imaginable. And as bitter.
“Porky” O’Neill reached [...]

Riddle me this:

What are we supposed to do now?
U.N. Security Council condemns North Korea nuke test
NEW YORK (AP) May 25 - The U.N. Security Council swiftly condemned North Korea’s nuclear test on Monday as “a clear violation” of a 2006 resolution banning them and said it will start work immediately on a new one that could result in [...]

Read this.

Giving parents’ loss a name
by Karla FC Holloway
(Philadelphia Inquirer) May 24 – In a National Public Radio essay nearly three years ago, I pondered the lack of a word for parents whose child has died. I remember I said it must be a quiet word, like our grief, but clear in its claim.
I recalled the [...]

Here we go again. Again.

Sheriff: La. 8th grader planned school shooting
LAROSE, La. (AP) May 18 – A Louisiana middle school student who stormed into a classroom Monday and fired a gunshot over a teacher’s head, then shot himself in a bathroom had detailed plans for a rampage in a journal and suicide note, authorities said.
The 15-year-old student, whose name [...]

Proof that fear is bad for your brain.

It stops you from thinking clearly, for one thing.  It also makes you jump to really offensive conclusions…
Utah school forces student to change out of kilt
WEST HAVEN, Utah (AP) May 17 – The principal of a Utah middle school has been asked to apologize for forcing a kilt-wearing student to change his clothes.
Weber School [...]

Just. plain. wrong.

A Different Kind of Boy Scout: Armed and Fighting “Terrorism”*
IMPERIAL, Calif. (The New York Times) May 14 – Ten minutes into arrant mayhem in this town near the Mexican border, and the gunman, a disgruntled Iraq war veteran, has already taken out two people, one slumped in his desk, the other covered in blood on [...]

“The new case against the death penalty.”

by Corianna Barrett Lain
Richmond, Va. (Christian Science Monitor) May 11 - This year, state budgetary crises have given death penalty opponents their most successful argument yet – money.
Just two states have abolished the death penalty in the past 40 years, New Jersey in 2007 and New Mexico in March. The cost of capital punishment played [...]

Duh.

You can always tell it’s prom season: the adults are being dopey again.
Pennsylvania high school orders shot glasses as prom favors
LITITZ, Pa. (AP) May 9 – A Pennsylvania high school ordered more than 450 shot glasses for its prom, a move the assistant principal now says sent the wrong message.  [Ya think?]
As the Warwick High [...]

We have become what it is we claim to fear.

The United States is a terrorist nation.  We have now become by our own definition a rogue state.
Any claims to the contrary are simply empty rhetoric and basically lies or expressions of delusional thinking.
If we torture them, we are no better than them.  And if we do this, then we are the same as they are:
White [...]

Way to go, Maine.

Actually, it’s the rest of the country that has a way to go.
Maine becomes 5th state to allow same-sex marriage
AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) May 6 – Maine’s governor signed a freshly passed bill Wednesday approving gay marriage, making it the fifth state to approve the practice and moving New England closer to allowing it throughout the [...]

On silence.

I’m for it, by the way. 
Mostly.
Silence, Prayer, and Other Activities by Christopher Brauchli
(CommonDreams) May 2 -

“All I want out of you is silence, and damn little of that.”
— A Whaler’s captain addressing a crew member. Zephaniah W. Pease, The History of New Bedford
It is time for an update on silence. It’s back. A quiet [...]

Why they hate us.

U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan Told to “Hunt People For Jesus… So We Can Get Them Into The Kingdom.”
(RebelReports) May 4  – New video evidence has surfaced showing that US military forces in Afghanistan have been instructed by the military’s top chaplain in the country to “hunt people for Jesus” as they spread Christianity to [...]

More on “The Army Experience.”

Seven Arrested at Philadelphia Mall Over Military Recruiting Practices

PHILADELPHIA, Pa (CommonDreams) May 2 - Several hundred demonstrators from a coalition of 30 national and regional veteran, youth and peace groups, including the Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace, BuxMont Coalition for Peace Action, Student Peace Action Network, protested what they claimed were unethical military [...]