April 2013 - OE - lists.wedgeblade.net

fossil fuel di-vestment movement
by Ellie Stock 26 Apr '13

26 Apr '13

Dear Friends, Exciting news: today, we’re partnering with the City of Seattle and the Mayors Innovation Project to announce that eleven cities have committed to pursue fossil fuel divestment! Can you take a minute to click on the image below to share the news on social media? Click to share this image on Facebook Let’s be clear: our work in these cities isn’t over. We’ll need to follow-up with these Mayors to make sure that they really keep their city funds out of fossil fuel stocks and push the pensions that provide for their employees to also divest. But today is a big step forward. The cities committing to divestment today extend coast to coast. From tiny Bayfield, Wisconsin, which has just 530 residents, to international icons, like the City of San Francisco, where the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on Tuesday to push the city’s retirement fund to divest $583 million from the fossil fuel industry. In Richmond, CA, Mayor McLaughlin is committing to divestment because she’s sick of seeing the health and safety of her community put at risk by the giant Chevron refinery on the edge of the city. In Ithaca, NY, 26-year old Mayor Svante Myrick, one of the country’s youngest mayors and youngest African-American politicians, committed to divestment earlier this week after meeting with a group of high school students who asked him to protect their shared future. Click here to help spread the news. Today’s announcement sends a powerful message to the fossil fuel industry: if you’re going to try and take away our planet, we’re going to try and take away your money. We’re no longer just playing defense against dirty projects like the Keystone XL pipeline, we’re going on offense, too. It also sends an equally important message to other cities and institutions: if it’s wrong to wreck the planet, then it’s also wrong to profit from that wreckage. And with some of the most innovative cities in the country now firmly on board with this campaign, there should be no excuse for college trustees or other cities to keep dragging their feet on divestment. Together, we kicked off this divestment campaign last fall and have spread it across the nation to over 300 colleges and universities. Now, the effort is moving off campus: there are over 100 petitions up on the GoFossilFree.org website targeting cities, states, and religious institutions. If you haven’t already started or signed a petition, now is the time. Click here to find or start a fossil fuel divestment campaign in your community. If you’re already running a local divestment campaign, now’s a great time to use the excitement of today’s announcement to spread your petition far and wide. You can find the petition you created by clicking on the link above. When we started this effort, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his role in helping end apartheid in South Africa, told us this: “The divestment movement played a key role in helping liberate South Africa. The corporations understood the logics of money even when they weren’t swayed by the dictates of morality. Climate change is a deeply moral issue too, of course...Once again, we can join together as a world and put pressure where it counts.” With today’s announcement, that pressure is coming to bear in powerful ways. It’s still too early to tell if this new divestment movement will have the political impact necessary to weaken the stranglehold the fossil fuel industry has over our government, but thanks to your hard work, we’re off to an incredible start. If you haven’t already joined in this effort, visit gofossilfree.org to get started. Many, many thanks, Jay Carmona PS. If you’re a student divestment campaigner, don’t forget: we’re having a national strategy chat at 6:00 PDT/9:00 EDT tonight. Click here to join in. 350.org is building a global movement to solve the climate crisis. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter, and sign up for email alerts. You can help power our work by getting involved locally, sharing your story, and donating here. To stop receiving emails from 350.org, click here. Dear Friends, Exciting news: today, we’re partnering with the City of Seattle and the Mayors Innovation Project to announce that eleven cities have committed to pursue fossil fuel divestment! Can you take a minute to click on the image below to share the news on social media? Click to share this image on Facebook Let’s be clear: our work in these cities isn’t over. We’ll need to follow-up with these Mayors to make sure that they really keep their city funds out of fossil fuel stocks and push the pensions that provide for their employees to also divest. But today is a big step forward. The cities committing to divestment today extend coast to coast. From tiny Bayfield, Wisconsin, which has just 530 residents, to international icons, like the City of San Francisco, where the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously on Tuesday to push the city’s retirement fund to divest $583 million from the fossil fuel industry. In Richmond, CA, Mayor McLaughlin is committing to divestment because she’s sick of seeing the health and safety of her community put at risk by the giant Chevron refinery on the edge of the city. In Ithaca, NY, 26-year old Mayor Svante Myrick, one of the country’s youngest mayors and youngest African-American politicians, committed to divestment earlier this week after meeting with a group of high school students who asked him to protect their shared future. Click here to help spread the news. Today’s announcement sends a powerful message to the fossil fuel industry: if you’re going to try and take away our planet, we’re going to try and take away your money. We’re no longer just playing defense against dirty projects like the Keystone XL pipeline, we’re going on offense, too. It also sends an equally important message to other cities and institutions: if it’s wrong to wreck the planet, then it’s also wrong to profit from that wreckage. And with some of the most innovative cities in the country now firmly on board with this campaign, there should be no excuse for college trustees or other cities to keep dragging their feet on divestment. Together, we kicked off this divestment campaign last fall and have spread it across the nation to over 300 colleges and universities. Now, the effort is moving off campus: there are over 100 petitions up on the GoFossilFree.org website targeting cities, states, and religious institutions. If you haven’t already started or signed a petition, now is the time. Click here to find or start a fossil fuel divestment campaign in your community. If you’re already running a local divestment campaign, now’s a great time to use the excitement of today’s announcement to spread your petition far and wide. You can find the petition you created by clicking on the link above. When we started this effort, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his role in helping end apartheid in South Africa, told us this: “The divestment movement played a key role in helping liberate South Africa. The corporations understood the logics of money even when they weren’t swayed by the dictates of morality. Climate change is a deeply moral issue too, of course...Once again, we can join together as a world and put pressure where it counts.” With today’s announcement, that pressure is coming to bear in powerful ways. It’s still too early to tell if this new divestment movement will have the political impact necessary to weaken the stranglehold the fossil fuel industry has over our government, but thanks to your hard work, we’re off to an incredible start. If you haven’t already joined in this effort, visit gofossilfree.org to get started. Many, many thanks, Jay Carmona PS. If you’re a student divestment campaigner, don’t forget: we’re having a national strategy chat at 6:00 PDT/9:00 EDT tonight. Click here to join in. 350.org is building a global movement to solve the climate crisis. Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter, and sign up for email alerts. You can help power our work by getting involved locally, sharing your story, and donating here. To stop receiving emails from 350.org, click here.

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4/25/13, Spong: Making Sense of Violence and Terror in Boston
by Ellie Stock 25 Apr '13

25 Apr '13

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR Making Sense of Violence and Terror in Boston On Monday, April 15, Patriot’s Day in Boston, Massachusetts, the bomb blasts that occurred near the finish line of the Boston Marathon brought death, mutilation and injury to more than 200 innocent people. By Thursday, the perpetrators of this crime had been identified and the manhunt was on. By Friday, one of the two suspects had been killed in a shootout with police and the other was believed to be hiding in the small suburb adjacent to Boston called Watertown. The entire metropolitan area was under police lock-down for almost 48 hours and a house-to-house search was undertaken. On that same Friday, as fate or luck would have it, my wife and I were driving to Boston to give a series of lectures that weekend at an event organized jointly by Andover Newton Theological School and the Eliot United Church of Christ. The lectures were to be located in the facilities of the Eliot Church in Newton, Massachusetts, less than a mile from Watertown. The entire metropolitan area of Boston was totally caught up in the trauma of that event. Driving toward Boston, we kept the radio on wondering if we would be allowed into the area in general and into our hotel in particular. Thirty minutes before we arrived, the second suspect was captured, wounded but alive, hiding under the plastic cover inside a boat, parked on wheels in the backyard of a private house. So we were present to share in the corporate sense of relief in the community. The grief and the fear, which always come when terror removes the community’s sense of security and safety, were palpable. It was a tragedy in which the entire nation shared, indeed in which the entire world shared. Three stories out of this tragedy tore at my emotions and raised within me the same questions that gripped the people of the world. What is the sense and meaning of evil with which human life must cope and inside which human life is almost always lived? These three stories put a face on the presence of that evil. First, there was the story of a man named Bill Richard, who ran in the marathon. His wife, Denise, his eight year old son, Martin, and his five year old daughter, Jane, came to cheer their husband and father across the finish line. Bill, like most people his age, was not a championship runner. He crossed the finish line about two hours after the winner. He was, however, elated at his performance and his family, proud of him, wanted to share in his triumph. Before they could do that, however, there came, it seemed out of nowhere, an explosion. Eight-year old Martin was killed instantly, five-year old Jane was hurt so badly that one of her legs had to be amputated and Denise had received such a blow to the head from the projectiles loosed in the blast that she suffered brain damage, the full extent of which has not yet been determined. All of this tragedy was at the hands of two brothers, unknown to the Richard family, who were motivated by a cause in which the Richards were not involved. Yet in that insane moment, the life of this family was shattered, never to be fully repaired again. First, I tried to look at this tragedy through their eyes; it was enough to bring tears to mine. The second story came after the suspects had been identified as Tamerlan (age 26) and Dzhokhar (age 19) Tsarnaev, originally from Chechnya, but who had come to this country from Kyrgyzstan with their families about 11 years ago. When the names of the suspects were made known all links to this family were pursued by both the investigators and the press. It appeared that the suspects’ father had recently returned to Kyrgyzstan, leaving his brother, Rusian, as the ostensible head of the family. When this uncle of the suspects was located in Maryland, he agreed to an impromptu press conference on the sidewalk outside his home. It was for him a wrenching experience. Everything he had struggled to build up for himself and his family seemed to have blown up in this tragedy. He clearly was not in sympathy with his nephews’ new, radical religious stance. He referred to his oldest nephew as a “loser.” Almost at the point of tears, he began to speak, not to the press but to his nephews, “You have brought a shame on this family. You have brought a shame on all Chechnyans.” He knew life would never be the same and he and his family would be stained forever in the minds of all who knew them by this violent act, over which he had no control. So I tried to look at this tragedy through Russian’s eyes. The third story that gripped me was the narrative of the two primary perpetrators of this heinous crime, Timerlan and Dzhokhar. Sympathy was hard to muster at that moment, but questions cascaded forth. What motivated them? What cause was so all-consuming that it justified meticulous planning and the preparation of bombs made out of pressure cookers filled with nails and other metal projectiles that would become lethal weapons striking anyone near enough with maiming and killing fury? Why did they feel the need to destroy the lives of people they had never met? What demons possessed them that caused them to devalue human life so totally? What enabled them, when they thought they had escaped unseen, to return to their nearby home and to pal around with their friends during the evening after their deed had been done, as if life were still normal? What was it like for them when they recognized that their identities were known and that they needed to flee for their lives? In their frantic attempt to escape, they killed a 26-year old Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus policeman in cold blood and then carjacked a Suburban vehicle, forcing its driver to withdraw money from his ATM account to give them the cash they needed. Did they have a destination in mind or were they just fleeing blindly? What did they feel when they engaged in a gun fight with local police in which the older of these two brothers was killed, while the younger brother escaped in their stolen car by running over the body of his brother? What was going on inside this now lone fugitive when the man hunt finally ended with a massive police force surrounding the boat in which he was hiding in the backyard of a Watertown resident? While he was armed with an assault gun this nineteen year old, bleeding from his own wounds, surely knew that death or capture were the only options left to him. What was his state of mind? He was finally captured with no more loss of life and is today under heavy guard while a patient in a Boston hospital. All around him lives, including his own, were shattered. Human beings are capable of enormous evil. What is the cause? Is there some flaw in human nature, an inescapable “original sin” that causes some to victimize others mindlessly? Is there an alien or demonic power that takes over some of us from time to time, causing us to do things that, left to our own devices, we would presumably never do? Is there something about human life that we do not yet understand? All of these possible explanations have been offered in human history, but none of them seems adequate. Perhaps we are simply less civilized than we like to imagine. Perhaps the elemental laws of the herd are still part of our biological life and, from time to time, they must be served. A study of all living things reveals that survival is a driving force in biology. Every plant, every tree and every vine is programmed by life itself to maximize its chances of survival. That is the nature, the reality of living things. It is thus also true of every insect, every creature of the sea, every reptile, bird and mammal. Below the level of human freedom, nature drives all living things to seek survival. It is instinctual behavior. Human beings, however, are self-conscious decision makers. We can choose between love and hate, war and peace, cooperation and violence. What drives us to choose hate, war and violence? Is it not still survival? When life feels threatened, will human beings not act in such a way as to maximize their own survival? The Tsarnaev family has a history of doing just that. When life in Chechnya became so dangerous, they fled to Kyrgyzstan. When Kyrgyzstan became equally dangerous, they became political refugees in America. When they did not fit in, anger grew. When the United States was seen as hostile to Muslim nations in the Middle East, their fears were heightened. Inside Islam they sought protection and meaning in what appeared to them to be a rejecting world. Religion often functions that way. Radicalized religion is always a cover for justifying killing behavior and frequently religion becomes an acceptable channel through which rage finds an outlet. When the rage of being victimized is attached to religion, all manner of destructive behavior can be viewed by believers as acceptable. Islam is not the only religion to be used this way. Look at what the Christians did to the Jews from the days of the New Testament to the days of the Holocaust. Look at the innocent people burned at the stake as heretics by Christians. Look at the women hanged as witches in Salem, Massachusetts. Look at the religious torture employed by Christian believers against non-believers. Look at the Crusades, organized by the Vatican, which made a virtue out of killing Moslems in the Middle East because their very existence was thought be an affront to Christian sensitivities. None of this religiously sanctioned activity justifies violent and murderous behavior. What it does do, however, is to free us to see that our survival fears will always find expression in ruthless acts of killing another before those “others” can kill us and that through the ages religion has served to sanitize and perfume this killing behavior. If Christianity, Islam, Judaism or any other religion is to have continued life then its focus must be on enhancing life, building community and expanding the sense of what it means to be human. Religious devotees must also put an end to demonizing any child of God on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, nationality or religion. Our world is a long way from that goal and organized religion still seems to be part of the problem, not part of the cure. Terror reminds us very painfully of just how shallow are the layers of civilization around us and just how empty is the piety of many of our religious words. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Rick Portillo, via the Internet, writes: Question: I would like to know if you believe the Bible is a book that should be used to guide one's life. I do not agree or disagree; I just want to know what you think personally. I am an Agnostic and I recently saw a video of you being interviewed. Answer: Dear Rick, I am not sure what you mean by your question. The Bible is a library of books written over a period of time between about 1000 BCE and 135 CE by a wide variety of authors, living in a wide variety of different circumstances. These authors also reflect a wide variation in what I would call spiritual sensitivity. For example, I would not choose to pattern my life after that of Elijah, who slew 400 priests of Baal with his sword after a showdown on Mount Carmel, or that of Samson, who slew hundreds of Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. I would, however, be willing to install as life values such biblical admonitions as: Jesus’ call to “love your enemies;” Hosea’s definition of God as “love;” Amos’ definition of God as “justice,” and Malachi’s definition of God as “universal.” I would also want to listen to Jonah’s story against prejudice and Jesus’ definition of who is my neighbor. So I would be more discerning and less blanketed in my response to you than your question seems to allow. Perhaps as a self-confirmed agnostic, you have simply not encountered the Bible on anything other than the shallowest of levels. I see three great principles that underlie the entire biblical story. The first is that all life and all people are holy. This is the great insight of the Hebrew Scriptures and is the essential meaning of the story of the creation. That is also why I refer to God as “father.” It is a sexist reference, but when this nomenclature was adopted “Father” meant the source of all life. The second great biblical principle is that all life and all people are loved. That is the essence of the Jesus story, which comes through the gospels and that is what we Christians are trying to communicate when we refer to Jesus as “the son.” The third is that the purpose of life is to discover the courage to be all that each of us can be within the unique circumstances of our humanity. That is what it means to me to believe in the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is always defined in the Bible as “The Lord and Giver of Life.” There are many parts of the Bible that reflect primitive, tribal and destructive emotions toward those who are regarded as enemies. I am not impressed with the God who hates Egyptians as portrayed in the book of Exodus, the God who stops the sun in the sky in order to have more daylight to kill more Amorites as described in the book of Joshua, or the God who orders genocide against the Amalekites as recorded in the book of Samuel. The great tragedy of the church has been that by clinging to biblical literalism to the point of profound ignorance, we have made it possible for people like you to frame the question you have posed, which assumes that there is a single biblical point of view. There isn’t. Thanks for asking. John Shelby Spong Announcements Pluralism Sunday is being celebrated on May 5th all around the world. Click here for more information! Any questions or concerns, please contact us at support(a)johnshelbyspong.com or 503-236-3545. Copyright © 2013 ProgressiveChristianity.org, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you have a membership at our website. Our mailing address is: ProgressiveChristianity.org 3530 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Unit 1 Portland, OR 97214 Add us to your address book

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Re: [Oe List ...] PLEASE READ
by Lee Early 24 Apr '13

24 Apr '13

> Winds of Change.... > > Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward > > this email to a minimum of twenty people on their > > address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise. > > In three days, most people in The United States of America will have this message. > > This is one idea that really should be passed around > > *Congressional Reform Act of 2013 > > > 1. No Tenure / No Pension. > > A Congressman/woman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they're out of office. > > 2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. > > All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose. > > 3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do. > > 4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%. > > 5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people. > > 6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people. > > 7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void effective 12/31/13. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen/women. > > Congressmen/women made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work. > > If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive the message. Don't you think it's time? > > THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS! > > If you agree with the above, pass it on. If not, just delete. > You are one of my 20+ - Please keep it going, and thanks. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

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Re: [Oe List ...] Dick West's Book Recommendation
by David Walters 24 Apr '13

24 Apr '13

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Re: [Oe List ...] Dick West's Book Recommendation
by David Walters 24 Apr '13

24 Apr '13

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Dick West's Book Recommendation
by George Holcombe 24 Apr '13

24 Apr '13

Thanks Dick for recommending Houle's The Shift Age (http://www.theshiftage.com) It is tremendous and I hope we all read it. It's in the lineage of Toffler and Naisbitt and strikes me as being on target. I'm reminded of some of the things we spoke of back in the 60's and 70's as being Global Citizens and the morphing of institutions, nations and social structures. It would be fun and insightful to track it through the Soc. Proc. triangles, if someone has not already done that for us. George Holcombe 14900 Yellowleaf Tr. Austin TX 78728 Mobile 512/252-2756 grholcombe(a)gmail.com "Whatever the problem, community is the answer. There is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about." Margaret Wheatley

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Fwd: Monday OpEd from Jaime
by Jaime R Vergara 20 Apr '13

20 Apr '13

The usual caveat: interested, welcome; not, see you at the bend. j'aime la vie Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate! -----Original Message----- From: Jaime R Vergara <jrvergarajr2031(a)aol.com> To: jayvee_vallejera <jayvee_vallejera(a)saipantribune.com>; mark_rabago <mark_rabago(a)saipantribune.com>; editor <editor(a)saipantribune.com> Sent: Sat, Apr 20, 2013 9:12 pm Subject: Monday OpEd from Jaime Temarlan & Dzhokhar Tsarnaev With the reporteddeath of 26-year old suspect number 1 and the capture of 19-year old suspectnumber 2 of the recent Boston bombing blasts, the speculative field is ripewith both blooming spring flowers and wilted winter leftovers. Our interest is anarrow one, purely etymological in the attributive sense. 14th century “Timur” to the Wiki crowd, “Temarlane”is the Mongolian scourge of Central Asia, known in China as “Timudgin”. History is replete with his influence, atonce, artistic and destructive, from the Urals to the Himalayas, the Caucasusto the Khinggan Range of Heilongjiang. ChechnyanMoslems, forced to move to Kyrgystan when Stalin still cast his shadow on Moscow’scobblestones, named their offsprings in honor of the Mongol leader of mixed Turkicethnicity. Such was the case of suspectnumber 1, named Temarlan, reportedly a 2nd year Med student married to a Rhode Island girl, and father to a3-year old daughter. A media outletcould not help but blare a headline that Temarlan’s wife was from NK. Given the prominence of North Korea in recentnews, it immediately caught our attention. NK turned out to be North Kingstown in RI south of Boston. On his namesake forthe history buffs: Timur wanted to restore Genghis Khan’s Mongol empire. A devout Muslim, he called himself theSword of Islam. He wasgenerous in sharing war booty to members of his multi-ethnic armies. He became themost powerful ruler in the Muslim world, defeating rulers of Egypt and Syria, the Ottomans, and aDelhi Sultanate. He defeated Christianknights at Smyrna, and attempted to restore the Yuan dynasty inChina. Known for leading the GoldenHorde against the Cossacks, he is dubbed a “terrorist” in western history books. Younger brother suspect number 2was caught hiding and bleeding on a backyard parked boat in Watertown, MA,where the town literally had to shut down and stay indoors to accomplish thetask. He was named “Dzhokhar” at birth, presumablyafter the first President of independent Chechnya, himself meeting a violentdeath by laser-guided satellite missile in a 1996 assassination while he was onhis cell phone. Checknya’s desire to separatefrom the Russian Federation of States after the dissolution of the Soviet Unionmet with the strong-willed objection of Vladimir Putin who headed the KGB atthe time. Putin now presides overRussia. Other than setting a bad exampleto other States who might be inclined to seek secession from the Federation,Chechnya was also a hub for the Russian oil industry, an asset Russia couldhardly give up. It was also caught inbetween the definition of Georgia-Russian relations, and in an oil rich region,it can hardly avoid the violence that now mars north and south of the Caucasus mountainrange between the Black and Caspian Seas. The brothers’ family name is Tsarnaev. “Tsar” of the first syllable is to theByzantine what “Ceasar “was to the Romans, and “Kaiser” to the Germans. If one has not gotten the picture yet thatthe brothers might carry highly “political” consciousness just by their names,we’ve missed the billboard for the weeds. Of course, just because one isnamed Mohammed or Abdullah does not automatically stereotype one to a definite corner. Is our musing pertinent to figuring out the“why” of the Boston bombing? Nope. But the Press coverage, henceforth, willcover a lot of historical terrain unfamiliar to the regular reader. Four analytical results havealready emerged. There is the jihadist foreignintervention strain, the brothers being of the moralistic bent now ragingacross Arab Spring, beyond and distinct from the traditional division of theSunnis and the Shiites. Then there is the rightist/leftistdichotomy, irrelevant from our view, but dear to diehard ideologues. Given the suspects’ names, this is a difficultminefield to traverse, but there will be those who will find a way to mark thevarious blasts. We have the emotional stabilitycrowd that will armchair us to endless psychoanalysis till kingdom come. Culturally integrated and acculturated guys onregular baseball caps and backpacks have to be extremely schizophrenic to meritthe psychoanalyst’s attention. The fourth is the fraud claim,already aired by an aunt who testifies to the innocence of her nephews, andstudents at Dzhokhar’s school who swear that the Chechnyan was in school whenthe blasts went off. News that the White House isdeporting a Saudi Arabian is allegedly being espoused by no less than GlennBeck. The finger pointing, the smear onthe foggy mirror, is multi-directional and the media field day has alreadybegun. I’ve lit candles for theconfirmed dead: 8-yr old Martin Richard, 29-yr old Krystelle Campbell, and theBoston U graduate student Lu Lingzi of Shenyang. Their innocence reminds us ofthe global complicity of victimhood in our time. A fourth big candle goes to theWaco, Texas fertilizer plant explosion victims. A fifth is for those affected this week by the tremor that revisited thesame Sichuan area quaked in 2008. The tail end of winter is stillwith us. Our heart keeps company withthe cold. j'aime la vie Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate!

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4/18/13, Spong: What the Gun Debate Reveals about the Republican Party and Political Leadership
by Ellie Stock 19 Apr '13

19 Apr '13

HOMEPAGE MY PROFILE ESSAY ARCHIVE MESSAGE BOARDS CALENDAR +A message to my readers: After the deadline for the publication of this column the terrorist bombing at the end of the Boston marathon occurred, leaving many of us enraged, saddened and despairing about the levels of violence that apparently engulf the world. It also put the content of this column into a new perspective. Our prayers go out to the victims and our thanks go to the first responders, but our hopes to build a better world remain in tact. When all the facts become clear we will look again at what this new terror episode means to our churning understanding of what it means to be human. ~John Shelby Spong What the Gun Debate Reveals about the Republican Party and Political Leadership Something seems to be missing from the equation or perhaps I am just not smart enough to understand the dynamics. The fact is I don’t get it! Perhaps there is something subliminal going on that will in time be revealed. For the life of me, however, I find it difficult to understand why the intelligent people, elected to the Congress, are having such a hard time deciding whether or not to vote for universal background checks as a prerequisite for buying a gun. I do not understand why there is a debate on whether to limit a magazine clip to ten bullets on a gun sold to a civilian. Are ten bullets without reloading not sufficient for anyone’s personal use? I do not understand why any private citizen needs to own an assault weapon? While I was trying to make sense out of these questions and the behavior of our elected officials, I watched as a group of Republican senators sought to block the Senate from even being able to debate, much less pass any gun reform legislation. Led first by four of the regular right-wing grandstanders in the Senate, who were enhancing their image with the Tea Party types, they were soon joined by 11 others including the Senate Republican minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. It then became the position of the majority of the Republican senators, when 31 of the 45 of them voted in an attempt to prevent this bill from even being considered by the legislative wing of our government. Are there that many senators who are that out of touch with the people of this country? Is this now the official position of the Republican Party? With every poll of our citizens showing majorities ranging from 91% to 56% in support of the various provisions of this gun reform law, I am driven to the conclusion that something irrational has become the point of view of one of the major political parties in this nation, which means that something dreadful is going on in my country! I try to listen to these people’s arguments, seeking to discover some semblance of rationality, but it eludes me. In this legislation I see no attempt to revoke the second amendment’s guarantee of a citizen’s right to bear arms. I see only an effort to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of mentally sick and clearly distorted members of our society by requiring universal background checks before a gun can be purchased. People getting drivers’ licenses at least have their criminal records checked. I see no effort to take guns away from hunters or gun club members. I have never been convinced, however, that hunters or gun club members need assault weapons or unlimited magazine capacities to carry out their activities. These might be essential to an army confronting an enemy seeking to destroy this nation, but does any private citizen need a howitzer, a bazooka, a machine gun or a missile launcher. I understand why people who live in non-urban areas, separated by distances from police protection or even from their nearest neighbors, might need to arm themselves against possible intruders, but action-activated spot lights, alarm systems and well placed cameras can provide far more effective security and at a much cheaper price and if that security system were supported by a shotgun, a rifle or even a six shooter, sufficient protection to alleviate all fear would be accomplished. More than that seems to me to reflect rampant paranoia. I listen to gun lobbyists suggest that only a society armed to the teeth will ever be a safe society and I find no facts that bear out this claim. America has more guns per person in our population than any other developed nation in the world. If guns make us safer then why does this nation also have the highest murder rate of any developed nation? Among regular gun victims are our children. What kind of nation is it that does nothing when school children are regularly lost to gun-carrying killers? No place appears to be safe from violence. University students at Virginia Tech, a campus with its own security forces, who are in fact well-armed, were murdered in their classrooms by a mentally-disturbed former student, who had access to a high magazine attack weapon. A member of congress, Representative Gabby Gifford, addressing her constituents in her home state of Arizona, was shot as were others meeting with her, including children, who came to “meet the congresswoman,” were killed. Members of a Sikh Temple in Chicago were murdered by an armed psychopath while gathering for worship. Children at school in Columbine, Colorado, were slaughtered by armed disgruntled students, and children, six and seven years old, in Newtown, Connecticut, were senselessly murdered by a young man with an attack weapon, who had just killed his mother. Innocent, unnamed, urban teenagers are regularly caught in the crossfire and killed in some of our crime-ridden, drug infested cities. How many must die before our elected leaders develop an effective response? Political and transformative figures have also been victims of our violent society. One thinks of such leaders as John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, George Wallace, Robert F. Kennedy, Malcolm X and Ronald Reagan who have been hunted down and shot by a wide variety of potential killers. How is it possible that some of our political officials think that limiting access to killing weapons compromises civil liberties more than protecting the potential victims of gun violence? Are not murdered people rendered devoid of every civil liberty? Are our elected leaders so afraid that if they had to cast a vote on this bill they would either lose their seat in the Senate or close off from themselves forever the lucrative support of the gun lobby? Is that fear more compelling than protecting the innocent from gun violence? Is there no issue worth risking one’s Senate seat? Then why did these people seek election in the first place: Since all but two of those who threatened to block any vote on these issues were Republicans, we must ask whether there is anyone in the Republican Party willing to speak out against this vote-dodging behavior of their leaders in congress? Has Kentucky Republican Senator Mitch McConnell, by embracing that attempt to prohibit even a vote on these issues, not sacrificed any leadership potential that he ever possessed? This is the same national leader who stated some four years ago that his top priority was not to help lead the country through the worst economic crisis since the depression or to help bring an end to two wars that were instrumental in bringing the economy to the edge of bankruptcy, but it was rather to limit his political opponent to being a “one-term president.” Does that statement not border on irresponsibility, if not treason? What does leadership mean? That is not the only bizarre act that now plagues this party. During the last presidential election in states where the Republicans controlled the governor’s office and both houses of the state legislatures, which included states from Pennsylvania to Florida and from Ohio to South Carolina, efforts were made by a variety of barely legal means, to suppress minority voting. Is that the way democracy works? Are they willing to subvert this democracy in order to gain political power? Why were they not worried about the civil liberties of minority voters? Is this the party of Abraham Lincoln who, for his efforts to end slavery lost his life, and as a result once had the fierce loyalty of the great majority of America’s black voters? Is this the party of Theodore Roosevelt? Is it even the party of Ronald Reagan? This is, however, the same Republican Party that wants to limit the health care options available to women in the workplace, to mandate invasive ultra-sound procedures for women seeking a legal abortion, whose representatives denied that a woman could get pregnant from “legitimate” rape, all in order to force women to conform to the narrow religious agenda of these spokespersons. Was it not the presidential candidate of this party who wanted to “self deport” illegal immigrants by seeing to it that they received no support, no jobs, no education and no health care? Do they really believe that in the last presidential election they lost by huge majorities, the votes of women, young people, African-Americans and Latinos only because they did not communicate their policies well? Or do they think no one was listening? I suggest they communicated quite well and that these voters did not like their message! I wonder whether or not this party has, out of its fear of losing power, become suicidal, or does it simply suffer from a death wish? Is this party destined to go the way of the “Whigs?” Does it not recognize that a two-party system vying for the support of the majority is what makes this country work? The gun vote in congress is a matter of life and death to many people. It is a vote both about public safety and about what kind of a nation we are becoming and what kind of nation we want to be. When leaders get so far out of touch with the people they were elected to serve and when the people begin to feel that they cannot make these leaders hear their voices the seeds of revolution are at that moment being sown. If Senator McConnell, along with Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz, just to name the most vocal of those who tried stop even a vote on the gun bill, are in fact the face of the modern-day Republican Party in the United States, then this party has no future. I urge other Republicans in the Senate, in the House and Republican governors around the country to separate themselves from their current congressional leadership and to call their party back to their constitutional role of responsible opposition. That is the only way Republicans will have a chance to share in tomorrow’s leadership in America. ~John Shelby Spong Read the essay online here. Question & Answer Nicole Armitstead from Australia writes: Question: I read your title Liberating the Gospels some time ago which I found "liberating." I wonder, when all the layers are peeled from the gospels, I'm not sure I fully understand what is left in the Christian story to grasp. When we strip everything away is there an eternal truth left to motivate us? When you deconstruct a story so totally, what remains? Look forward to your words which will, no doubt, be wise. Answer: Dear Nicki, Yours is a good question, but I believe the wrong question. If what we have in the gospels is an interpretation of Jesus, written from a time two to three generations after his death and in a language Jesus never spoke, as I am certain was the case, then the question we need to ask is what gave that writing its power? If the story was not literal history to begin with is anything lost when we discover that it was not literal history? That is the situation we are in today. Since the early fourth century, out of both ignorance and prejudice, we have pretended that the gospels were biographies of the things Jesus said and did. Now we know they are highly interpretive works of some Jewish artists who mined the Hebrew Scriptures for stories about Moses, Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, Solomon, Isaiah and many other parts of what we call the Old Testament in order to wrap these stories around Jesus of Nazareth. It would take far more space than this question and answer format would allow to document this conclusion with adequate data. That is what I did in some 300 pages in the book to which you have referred: Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible with Jewish Eyes. That is still my favorite book of all that I have written and it was the book in which my study of the gospels was broken open to new levels of understanding. It is not what is left that should be our concern, but why were these gospels written in this way at the beginning? That is the question that drives us to look behind the gospels and try to discover the experience that they had with Jesus, which required the interpretation these early writers put upon that experience. What was the source of that life-changing power that they believed they found in him? In that experience, life was expanded to new dimensions. When they tried to explain that experience, all they could finally say was somehow, through some means in that special life, they had met, encountered and known the meaning of God. The job of the church is to keep that experience alive by watching it lower barriers and expand life today. I do not throw away or abandon a great piece of art because it does not literally portray the meaning of its subject. I move deeply into that piece of art to discover the power to which the artist is seeking to bear witness. That is also how the Bible is to be read. Its value grows rather than diminishes when it is approached this way. It is institutional Christianity that has for so long defended a literal Bible that feels bereft. It is not the lives of those who can now respond to a non-literal view of the Bible. My best, John Shelby Spong Announcements Join us as we celebrate religious diversity on Pluralism Sunday! This year, May 5, 2012 (or other times during the year) – churches dedicate their worship to a celebration of our interfaith world. Progressive Christians thank God for religious diversity! We don’t claim that our religion is superior to all others. We recognize that other religions can be as good for others as ours is for us. We can grow closer to God and deeper in compassion—and we can understand our own traditions better—through a more intimate awareness of the world’s religions. On PLURALISM SUNDAY, churches celebrate elements of other world faiths in their sermons, litanies, and music; many feature speakers and singers from other faith traditions. Some congregations have exchanges with other faith communities, going to each other’s houses of worship. SIGN UP your congregation to be listed as a participating church for 2012 – by emailing Rev. Jim Burklo, Pluralism Sunday Coordinator for ProgressiveChristianity.org. (Churches can celebrate the event on other dates and still be listed as participants – indicate your plans for the event to Jim so these details can be listed on our site.) Any questions or concerns, please contact us at support(a)johnshelbyspong.com or 503-236-3545. Copyright © 2013 ProgressiveChristianity.org, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you have a membership at our website. Our mailing address is: ProgressiveChristianity.org 3530 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Unit 1 Portland, OR 97214 Add us to your address book

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Re: [Oe List ...] Tucking In Children and Grandchildren Post-RS-1
by Don Cramer 18 Apr '13

18 Apr '13

On Feb 28, 2012, at 4:05 PM, Dharmalingam Vinasithamby wrote: > Lovely book, Michael. > > regards, > Dharma > > From: Michael May <michael(a)storywarrior.net> > To: OE Listserve <oe(a)wedgeblade.net> > Sent: Wednesday, February 29, 2012 12:40 AM > Subject: [Oe List ...] Tucking In Children and Grandchildren Post-RS-1 > > Grandparents and Great Grandparent of the Children of the 21st Century, > > If you are wondering how to tuck in your children or grandchildren in the new millennium, check out this link: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/3019463 > > On the journey…... > > Michael > > Michael D. May > Interior Mythos Journeys > Nurturing the Infinite Addiction > www.storywarrior.net > 210 East Gilbert Drive > Bloomington, IN 47408 > (812)606-7152 cell > michael(a)storywarrior.net > > > _______________________________________________ > OE mailing list > OE(a)wedgeblade.net > http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/oe_wedgeblade.net > > Don Cramer doncramer86(a)gmail.com

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Fwd: OpEd Thursday
by Jaime R Vergara 16 Apr '13

16 Apr '13

If curious, welcome; not, see you at the bend! j'aime la vie Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate! -----Original Message----- From: Jaime R Vergara <jrvergarajr2031(a)aol.com> To: jayvee_vallejera <jayvee_vallejera(a)saipantribune.com>; mark_rabago <mark_rabago(a)saipantribune.com>; editor <editor(a)saipantribune.com> Sent: Tue, Apr 16, 2013 9:06 pm Subject: OpEd Thursday The blasts heard around the world It was acommemorative Monday in one of the world’s famous city marathons. Held on Patriots’ Day, a Massachusetts’holiday, it remembers events of 1775 in Concord and Lexington when the AmericanRevolution broke out. The Boston Marathon is the world’s oldest marathon event,first ran in 1897 with 18 entries. Itregistered 27,000 runners this year. It alsoremembered the 26 victims in the Newtown, Connecticut Sandy Hook Schoolshooting massacre as the run measures 26.2 miles and a set marker on the 26thmile was made to remind the participants of the tragedy not too long ago in aneighboring State. Mostparticipants are recreational runners, in the race for the challenge of makingit to the end of the line while friends and love ones cheer on, and basking onpersonal accomplishments. Whileathleticism is on display, and the Boston marathon requires qualifying timesalong with experience in another run within a year-and-a-half, the sheer fun ofparticipation is also wildly evident. Recallingprevious Aloha runs in Oahu, the levity of such run fests is contagious! Two hours intothe first crossing at the finish line, when many of the participants werefinally making it, was when two blasts occurred 10 seconds apart. Three were pronounced dead including aneight-year old child who was cheering on Daddy to the finish line. Barricades andyellow tapes sprouted quickly as security officials reacted in the manner theywere trained. The knowledgeable grabbedtourniquets as amputations suddenly became the medical order of the day! The soul of anation is laid bare, and already, the accusation of the hideous act ofterrorism, domestic or foreign, is echoed in legislative chambers even withoutsolid evidence of any kind. AP reachedthe Taliban in Pakistan and the group immediately disowned any association withthe incident. Another incidentthat may or may not be related was a blast at the JFK library. Two other bombs at the marathon were foundand diffused. No group so fare has laidclaim to the perpetuation of the deadly assault on an erstwhile peaceful andfun-filled celebration. We write fromoutside the sovereign territories of the United States, and though we haveaccess to the wire services of western media, we also scour the response oflocal news sources. China Dailyreports a female student at Boston U in a coma at a hospital as one of the 140casualties. Seventeen females out ofeighty-seven Chinese runners between 20 to 65-yr old were registered accordingto organizers. There are no promarathoners. The paper’s reportingfocused on the objective facts, in the same vein as it informed its readingaudience the recent devastating tremors in Iran and Iraq at more than 7 points inthe Richter scale; another of lesser intensity was around New Delhi in India. Other colleagues,while lamenting the seeming senselessness of the Boston blasts, point out also withoutheavy-handed weight of judgment and condemnation, the numerous effects oninnocent lives of our unending use of drones in our military engagements inSouth Central Asia, North Africa and the Middle East. The recentincessant demonization of the DPRK and a possible nuclear strike on US forces,including those in the Marianas, based on regular Pyongyang bellicosity, nowmakes sense as SoKor recently announced a financial stimulus package to helpboost the Won against the weakening ¥en and the indeterminate ¥uan. I bet on increased defense spending. To the Obamaadministration’s credit, when the news media carried the allegation from adefense intelligence agency’s accusation that DPRK “possibly” has nuclearcapabilities, the Pentagon quickly disowned the report and claimed that anysuch judgment, on the basis of evidence, is “inaccurate”. Which brings usback to Boston. Obama has not been afavorite of patriotic elements in the country, often accused of being aforeigner and Moslem out to sell the nation’s security down the drain. The nation’s debate on gun controllegislation after the gut-wrenching effect of Sandy Hook and other tragedieswas very revealing of the level of vitriol leveled against the White House. Knowing of thecritical impact of symbolic gestures, the patriotic focus of Patriots’ Day isnot lost on those of us who have distance enough to see how something likeSeptember 11, and the 911 as an emergency call signal, was laid on a nationtaking advantage of the exploitation of other people’s resources. Dick Cheney’s drool on Iraqi oil is nowconfirmed by one of his own former aides. We might saythat the Boston blasts is a cruel demonstration of certain elements in oursociety out to show that Boston and Massachusetts cannot prevail as thedominant ethos of a country attempting to leave its signature as a liberal and progressive “beacon on ahill” to the rest of the world. Over photos senton the Net of two men assisting each other to save a sheep in a raging riveronly to be followed by lamb chops being barbecued on the grill, we said, “it isa character of our times to mistake skepticism and cynicism as witty.” There is nothingwitty about the Boston blasts, and if attempts are made to symbolize it aspatriotic, we have turned into cruel folks, indeed. j'aime la vie Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate!

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