"Women Are Being Beheaded for Taking Their Veil Off": Honor Killings On Rise in Iraq
I truly think capitalism is a very great evil. From a theological point of view it is rank idolatry - with profit taking the place of God.You've probably seen the headlines about record food prices, which have led to deadly violence and panic across the globe.
The U.N. Secretary-General said last week that the situation has "become a global crisis," and the World Food Programme is warning of a "silent tsunami" of hunger. Even here in the U.S., grocery stores are starting to ration sales of rice.
Sadly, this desperate situation is being worsened by our own government's policies. While we spend billions of dollars on food for the hungry overseas, Congress requires that all of it be purchased from farmers in the U.S. and shipped halfway around the world — wasting money and delaying the food's arrival.
As Congress finalizes the Farm Bill, tell them to fix this misguided policy and help feed more hungry people.It seems so obvious: When buying food for hungry people overseas, buy from farmers nearby — it's simpler, cheaper, and better for the local economy and environment.
But even as children are at risk of starving to death, Congress has shown more interest in increasing profits for big American agribusiness than in ensuring that we feed as many hungry people as possible.
These policies are decided as part of the Farm Bill, a mammoth but little-known piece of legislation that governs our nation's agricultural policies. So far, it's been shaped mostly by a narrow group of farm-state legislators and industry lobbyists — and it's become so laden with pork-barrel spending that President Bush is threatening a veto.
But our lawmakers have one last chance to get it right before the bill goes to the president's desk. One simple change could make a dramatic difference in addressing the global food crisis.
Click here to tell your senators and representatives to fix our food aid policies.
Thank you for raising your voice, as we seek to follow Christ in feeding the hungry multitude.
Excellent!Agenda-driven pundits will likely continue to hammer on the Reverend Wright soundbites in a deliberate effort to link Obama to his words. People like that do not seek "answers", they seek to prolong a swift-boating episode that, amazingly, has had some success. I say "amazingly" because when anyone takes the effort to listen to the full context of the Wright soundbites, their impact is diminished significantly. Unfortunately, the soundbite is what far, far too many, will remember.
What if pundits had given the same treatment to Lincoln after the Gettysburg address?
Lincoln Disowns Troop's Sacrifice!
".... we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow - this ground...."
(Rabid denunciations of Lincoln's comment are printed in newspaper editorials across the country.)
What will you do with your rebate check?
Spend it on needs - 20%
Spend it on wants - 12%
Deal with debt - 42%
Save it - 26%
The Tarantula Zone The beauty of the universe consoles me when I think about how we are ruining our earth.Explanation: The Tarantula Nebula is more than 1,000 light-years in diameter -- a giant star forming region within our neighboring galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). That cosmic arachnid lies at the upper left of this expansive mosiac covering a part of the LMC over 6,000 light-years across. Within the Tarantula (NGC 2070), intense radiation, stellar winds and supernova shocks from the central young cluster of massive stars, cataloged as R136, energize the nebular glow and shape the spidery filaments. Around the Tarantula are other violent star-forming regions with young star clusters, filaments and bubble-shaped clouds. The small but expanding remnant of supernova 1987a, the closest supernova in modern history, is located near the center of the view. The rich field is about as wide as four full moons on the sky, located in the southern constellation Dorado.
The real differences around the world today are not between Jews and Arabs; Protestants and Catholics; Muslims, Croats, and Serbs. The real differences are between those who embrace peace and those who would destroy it; between those who look to the future and those who cling to the past; between those who open their arms and those who are determined to clench their fists.
The Rev. Jeremiah WrightI urge you to watch the program. You can do so (or read the transcript) right here.As I type this, I am watching the Rev. Jeremiah Wright on Bill Moyers’ Journal on PBS here in the United States. It’s quite a revelation.
He is wonderful, wise, and brave. He’s speaking some harsh but necessary truths. The segments of his sermons knit together by the Clinton campaign and the likes of Fox News are a cynical attempt so sow hatred and discord, to win a political campaign by and through fear. If you have not seen this interview, you owe it to yourself and your country, if you are at all interested in justice, honesty, healing, and truth, to watch it all the way through.
He’s absolutely right about the fact that the United States of America was founded through injustice and ugly acts against Native Americans and African slaves. Why is this so hard to absorb? If a nation cannot face the truth about the past, it’s not likely to survive the challenges of the future.
...
I am very grateful that Bill Moyers, who represents the very best of American journalism, had the guts, gumption, and sense of responsibility to interview Rev. Wright and look at the story behind the story, to ask questions and examine contexts. That’s what sane, responsible, intelligent CITIZENS of a democracy are supposed to do: assume nothing; question authority; look beyond the spin and B.S. and ask “whose interests are being served by presenting history in a particular way?”
Believe it or not, there is one US politician acting out of principle and displaying the courage of his convictions. And it isn't Obama, Clinton or McCain. His name is Carter. Jimmy Carter. He recently ended several days of what used to be called Middle East shuttle diplomacy visiting Egypt, Jordan, Syria, the West Bank and Israel seeking to break the logjam that has blocked an agreement between Israel and Hamas.
Carter knew his mission would be unpopular, in fact reviled by the Bush administration, the American Jewish leadership and Israel. But he also understood something none of them do: that the current "freeze out" policy toward Hamas is a failure. You can't simply claim that a policy of inaction is a policy. So Carter decided to call everyone's bluff and create a policy where essentially none existed.
It was, as I said, a gutsy move, since almost no one was willing to give him the time of day. The Bushites called him naive and a dupe of terrorists; the Israel lobby called him anti-Israel; and the Israeli government, with one prominent exception, boycotted Carter entirely. It was an inauspicious way to conduct international diplomacy. But he did it anyway.
Carter understood that no matter how odious one might find Hamas, there simply is no alternative to dealing with them. And in negotiating with them, Carter was only doing what Israel and the US should be doing themselves. In fact, many experts in both countries predict that the US and Israel will eventually be doing this themselves despite all protestations to the contrary. It's important to note that Israel already is negotiating indirectly with Hamas under Egyptian auspices. The question is not "if" but "when".
Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.
-- Cesar Chavez
You can find it right here.Human beings are currently causing the greatest mass extinction of species since the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. If present trends continue one half of all species of life on earth will be extinct in less than 100 years, as a result of habitat destruction, pollution, invasive species, and climate change.
Of course, today we know that our predicament as a planet is much more dire than we realized when Mead said the words above. So let us take action. No action is too small. Likewise, no action is too big. The earth needs humans to commit to both as we are able.Not until World War II, when we explored the whole Earth, its deepest valleys and its highest mountains and looked everywhere for the people that were there, did we know for certain that all of us on this planet were one species, human beings. And then as we began to go into space for the first time, to leave this planet for the first time, we came to know that not only were we the only people on this Earth, and all one people, but also that Earth was the only inhabited planet in the solar system - that we were all alone here, all alone to be the custodians of life on this Earth.
We used to call it, you know, "the Earth." Now, we call it "Earth." And we didn't speak of a "planet" when I was a child. Sometimes we talked of the "globe." But then we referred to an artificial globe which human beings had made to represent this Earth for them.
So that only, in the last quarter of my life, have I, like all those here, come to know what it means to be the custodians of the future of Earth: To know that unless we take care, unless we check the rapacious exploitation of Earth, unless we protect our rivers and our lakes, our oceans and our skies, we are endangering the future of our children and our children's children.
We didn't know this, except in little pieces. People knew they had to take care of their own meadows, of their own forests or their own rivers. But it was not until we saw the picture of Earth from the moon that we realized how small and helpless this planet is, something that we must hold in our arms and care for.
Earth Day is to be the first completely international and universal holiday that the world has ever known. Every other holiday was tied to one place, or some political or special event. This Day is tied to Earth itself, and to the place of Earth in the whole solar system.
It's 1915, and Great Britain is at war. Aged only 17, writer Rudyard Kipling's son John "Jack," like most of his generation, is swept up in the enthusiasm to fight the Germans; a sentiment stoked vigorously by his father. However, Jack is cripplingly short sighted and the Army has rejected him twice, rendering him too myopic even for an Army suffering thousands of casualties a week and desperate for recruits. Yet Rudyard is determined that his son should go to the frontlines, like countless other sons, and fight for the values that he, Rudyard, espouses so publicly.
"Have you news of my boy Jack?"
Not this tide.
"When d'you think that he'll come back?"
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.
"Has any one else had word of him?"
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing and this tide.
"Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?"
None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he didn't shame his kind
Not even with that wind blowing and that tide.
Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every tide,
Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!
