You may remember that I wrote about “Earth Day at 40″ a couple of weeks ago. Since then, my brother-in-law has put a video of my sister Amy Vedder‘s presentation online. It’s worth a look — with great photos and description of some of the innovative approaches Amy has developed over the last 30 years to successfully preserve animal species and their habitats.
Amy, who is now senior vice president of the Wilderness Society, offered three examples of her successful projects during this talk. The most dramatic was setting up the Mountain Gorilla Project in Rwanda in the late 1970s. What she and her husband Bill Weber discovered was that the Rwandan people had no connection with the gorillas in their land, to the point that they asked why these two Americans weren’t studying American gorillas. The Mountain Gorilla Project, described in Amy and Bill’s book In the Kingdom of Gorillas, established a win-win situation for the people and the animals in Rwanda, giving jobs to Rwandans who lived near the Virungas National Park, bringing hard currency into this 3rd poorest country in the world, and giving the people pride in the gorillas that lived only in their country and nearby. It was perhaps the first ecotourism project in the world.
Can you recall a time when American athletes have come out in solidarity to support a particular political viewpoint? Indeed, it’s rare when American politics becomes intertwined with sports, and when it does, those events are usually premeditated, oftentimes-brash actions by individuals. However, on May 5, the National Basketball Association’s Phoenix Suns banded together to protest Arizona’s new SB1070 bill in one of the most beautiful political statements in my recent memory, for it simultaneously spoke to immigrants’ rights, political news organizations who could care less about sports (and vice versa), and proponents of the idea of basketball as a “team game,” and perhaps, American government included in that idea.
I’ve been watching the nightmare of thousands of barrels of oil and gas pouring into the ocean and the spectacle of pundits and lawmakers trying to decide whom to blame for the mess. In the midst of that, I happened to pick up a book of poetry by Abraham Joshua Heschel, written before he was 26 years old in 1933. This particular poem, Forgiveness, struck me as one of the ways that I am different from many other people. I resonated with it strongly and I would guess that others, who think quite differently from me, would think it utterly absurd. Read on and let’s discuss it!
The New York Times ran an engrossing and very timely look back in February at the momentous yet curiously under-reported battles that have been waged for decades in the Lone Star State over the religious, scientific and political message of its school textbooks. The stakes are a lot higher than you might guess.
Charles Blow in today’s New York Times has most of the story right. According to Blow, each day brings “more news of unconscionable conservative tilts in the electorate.” The string of bad news compounds “an already palpable sense of loss and longing on the left, an enveloping fear of the inevitable: rejection…. By most accounts, Nov. 2 is going to be a blue day in blue America. That is in part because of a sizable enthusiasm gap that favors Republicans.” Nevertheless, Blow concludes, “the right may win the day, but the left will win the age. That’s because the right is running an intellectually bereft campaign of desperation and disenchantment, amplified by a recession. Great Recessions don’t last. Great ideas do.”
Bravo to Charles Blow. Everything in his article is correct, including his explanation for the Republicans’ enthusiasm. What he fails to do, however, is explain the sense of “loss and longing on the left.” The explanation is simple. After living through twelve years of Reagan and his Vice President, the first President Bush, then eight more disappointments from Bill Clinton, then eight nightmare-like years under the second President Bush, liberals, progressives and, if you will, leftists, hoped that the country would give its core liberal and progressive tradition a chance. And it had every reason to believe that with Obama as the nominee, it would have that chance since Obama positioned himself to the left of Hillary Clinton, as the anti-war candidate, as the candidate who had the most liberal voting record in the Congress, and as the candidate who was looking not just for a changed policy but a changed mindset.
Once he got the nomination, however, and especially since he became President, almost everything Obama has done has been aimed at sending the message that the difference between left and right, progressive and conservative, even Democrat and Republican, is an outmoded “partisan” or even “ideological” stance, and that what we need are people who will “solve problems,” not people who will “strike poses.”
The global Catholic Church is confronting an extraordinary crisis not faced since the Reformation, which began with sharp criticisms of the Church and ended with a schism out of which emerged the establishment of a separate Protestant Church.
Today, sexual abuse allegations against priests are surging in a startling array of nations: the United States and Canada, New Zealand, Australia, France, Italy, Austria, Germany, The Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland, Belgium, Bolivia, Mexico, Brazil and Chile. New abuse scandals erupt daily. The John Jay School of Criminal Justice estimates that, in the U.S. alone between 1950 and 2002 hundreds of thousands of children have been sexually abused by Catholic Clergy.
In fact, the Catholic Church has a 2,000 year history of sex abuse. In their acclaimed book, Sex, Priests and Secret Codes (2006), Father Thomas Doyle, with former monks Richard Sipes and Patrick Wall, used its own documents to confirm the Church’s 2,000-year problem with clerical sex abuse.
Why has the Church been plagued by so much pedophilia – predominantly homosexual? And why has a scandal regarding this situation erupted only now?
Code Pink protests John Yoo at the Commonwealth Club. Photo: Steve Rhodes/flickr
The long line of UC law school graduates approached the protest with some hesitation.
Crossing from the opposite side of Gayley Avenue on the northern edge of UC’s campus, the professors in their colorful medieval robes were the first to see the photos, the orange suited inmate, the leaflets against torture. Then some 250 students followed in their black caps and gowns, streaming toward the Greek Theater for their graduation ceremonies.
They saw once again the unforgettable images of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. A color photograph of a naked young man with a black hood stretched to a metal bed frame, a man in an orange jumpsuit kneeling and in chains. And they filed past a dozen of us handing out pamphlets and orange ribbons to protest American torture policies.
These photos show war crimes. They show people seized without any process of law, held in arbitrary detention and subjected to agonizing suffering. For what? For the false confessions, inaccurate information and wild allegations that have become a staple during the “war on terror.” Some day, I’m convinced they will convict Bush administration officials, such as UC law professor John Yoo, of war crimes.
When I joined these protests four years ago, organized by the Bush impeachment group, the World Can’t Wait, we seemed pitifully few in number. Maybe six or eight of us gathered outside of Boalt Hall on the busy Bancroft Avenue. Few of the passers-by took the leaflets. We often addressed our arguments loudly and persuasively – to ourselves. It was easy to feel irrelevant and marginal. Behind us, with its imposing stone façade, Boalt Hall seemed an impressive, almost impregnable institution.
Since I started writing about empathy between liberals and conservatives, (April 5;April 10) I have been thinking about facilitating dialogues between the two groups. As a first step I wanted to meet people who identify as conservative. This past Monday I had the good fortune of meeting Peeter, who identifies as a “dye in the wool” conservative, and who is a sympathizer of the Tea Party movement. Whether or not this meeting will lead to the dialogue I am wishing to establish, I learned a lot, I was surprised, and my heart was touched. Out of care and respect, I showed Peeter this entry before posting it. I am heartened by what he wrote back: “The whole point of us living in this country and society of ours all together is that we accept the inherent differences in our humanity, and deal with them in a civilized manner.”
At last Pope Benedict XVI is moving the Catholic Church toward the truth: the victims need justice and the Church needs transformation. In this, he shows the human struggle for and against change — and the path of renewal ahead.
Last Easter, the Roman Catholic Church, my beloved church, seemed to retreat into a shell of institutional defensiveness. Some of the top clerics absurdly complained of an anti-Catholic backlash similar to “anti-Semitism” when, in fact, it was facing the cry for justice among the victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests for decades.
But when you love someone, or some community, you see the greatness that lies within the heart. Every parent knows what the faith of love is like. You weep with grief over the child’s destructive behavior, but you never think these actions are the final verdict of the child’s nature. With the eyes of love, you see that your child’s destructive actions are only mistaken aberrations and that his or her inner goodness always remains the truer self.
Pope Benedict XVI during his arrival in the Lisbon airport on May 11, 2010. Credit: M.Mazur/www.thepapalvisit.org.uk.
That’s why I castigated the Church for its self-pity — a dominant Euro-centric organization of 1 billion members is not a very convincing candidate for victimhood — but also explained why I have faith in the Catholic Church. Back in April I wrote:
It is precisely at the moment of moral challenge, whether from the suffering of the sexually abused or the victims of anti-Jewish genocide, that the Catholic Church has the opportunity to show its true self. It has the powerful spiritual tools of prayer and Gospel values for uncovering the roots of the errors of the past and making the necessary changes.
It is my faith and conviction that this will – and must – happen. This is why the sturm und drang of the moment does not disillusion me. The best in the Catholic tradition reflects a pilgrim Church on the journey of growth and change.
Now it is time to acknowledge, and celebrate, that the best in the Church is emerging, at least for the moment. It is taking responsibility for its own sins, recognizing the attacks from the world are justified and that the Church needs to change.
Photo from http://howlingforjustice.wordpress.com/
I thought of titling this post “Howl if You Love Jesus,” although Cristina’s Eisenberg’s in depth survey of the effect of keystone predators on a wide variety of ecosystems, makes no mention of Jesus or of any religion.The Wolf’s Tooth: Keystone Predators, Trophic Cascades, and Biodiversity is all about food webs. And I found myself thinking of Jesus saying to his disciples: Take, eat this is my body. If you think of the earth as the body of Christ, then all its members are important: the predator, the prey, the trees, the grasses, the birds, insects, fish, the forests, the rivers, the seas, and all their myriad forms of life.
A scientist with a poet’s command of language, Cristina Eisenberg writes with precision and passion. Her own ongoing research focuses on wolves as keystone predators, what happens to various landscapes when wolves return in sufficient numbers to drive a trophic cascade. Wolves affect herbivores, for example elk, not only by limiting their numbers but also by causing them to be vigilant, thus changing their browsing patterns. When herbivores no longer over-browse, young trees can grow to maturity. When the forest and other plants are renewed, songbirds, butterflies, reptiles and amphibians return. Forested river banks hold their soil, preventing erosion and contributing to the health of rivers. The herbivore population also benefits, having a more reliable and renewable food source. Wolves are called keystone predators, because their presence or absence has a radical effect on a whole complex ecosystem. When a system is healthy, biodiversity flourishes.
All eyes are on big oil these days, and for good reason, with possibly the worst oil spill in history happening as we watch. But coal, the other fossil fuel, is by far a worse culprit in the long run. From mining to processing to transportation to burning to disposal, coal has more environmental impacts than any other energy source. And we’re burning it everywhere in the U.S. — often without pollution-control equipment — even on our college campuses.
Here in Wisconsin, a large percentage of our electricity has been produced with coal. That’s why I’ve been excited to see the University here in Madison shifting from coal to natural gas and biomass. After a successful lawsuit by the Sierra Club in 2007-2008, Governor Jim Doyle decided to convert the university’s power plant rather than simply installing scrubbers to reduce air pollution emissions. This was a part of Doyle’s Clean Energy Jobs Act (which unfortunately was not passed during this session of the legislature), aimed at producing 25 percent of the state’s energy from renewable sources by 2025.
Once the governor’s decision was made, UW scientists from the Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative and the College of Engineering jumped in head first, enthusiastic to create a model power plant for others to imitate. By investing $250 million to produce a cleaner and safer environment, the UW will become the first major research university in the country to completely eliminatethe use of coal for energy. Unfortunately, other UW administrators seem to be dragging their feet. According to the Sierra Club, coal-fired plants at campuses in Eau Claire, La Crosse, Stevens Point, and Stout are currently violating the Clean Air Act.
Many people have expressed their concern for Rabbi Lerner after the recent vandalism of his home and have wondered if there’s anything they can do to help. Tikkun has released a statement asking readers to contact the media and ask them to publicize this incident in meaningful and thoughtful ways.
Gosh, it has been nearly three years since you died and I really do miss you. So much of who I am is because of who you were. Here we are again, Mother’s Day, and I can’t send you any flowers, or call you on the phone, or surprise you with a visit… But I can think about who you were and do something you used to love to do… tell a few stories that will make people laugh.
As we struggle daily in weighty political analyses and the mundane toils of maintaining a voice for peace and social justice in a highly contested public space, it’s easy to neglect our capacity to be light-hearted, goofy, loving, and connected. This Mother’s Day video made us laugh, and what better connection to share as we honor and celebrate mothers. We’re sending it along in case you want to share it and connect similarly with all the mothers in your life (click on the picture below).
The first principle of our Spiritual Covenant with America calls for a society that promotes rather than undermines loving and caring relationships and families. Any occasion that legitimates the public expression of genuine love and gratitude deserves to be continuously re-created and made real in our lives. Love and generosity can and should be the foundation for all of our politics — that’s precisely what we have in mind when we talk about a New Bottom Line.
When Celeste Zappala’s son, Sherwood Baker, decided to join the Pennsylvania National Guard, he assured her that the most violent duty he would have to perform would probably be to confront his parents at a peace rally that got too rowdy. Zappala has always opposed violence and war. She taught these values to her son.
He was a social worker. However, after Sherwood started to have some financial trouble, the National Guard seemed to be an opportunity to earn extra money. He could pay off his college loans and make a down payment on a house. He and his wife were starting a family. They had a young son. It was also an opportunity to serve in a branch of the nation’s armed forces whose primary mission was to help people in times of trouble. “The National Guard never goes to foreign war,” Zappala thought. “Nine-eleven changed everything.”
The irony of the Arizona law (pdf here) outlawing “immigrating-while-poor-and-brown” is that Arizona has 22 federally recognized native American tribes — people who suffered the onslaught of European colonists in successive waves. From the point of view of the First Nations United, Arizona’s law is based on power “established by an immigrant and illegal settler colonialist government, which has consistently relied on the genocide and mistreatment of the original peoples of this continent.”
As the first peoples of this continent, we pose this question to Governor Brewer, Senator Russell Pearce, and law enforcement in the state of Arizona, “Who are you to check for documents?”
Who indeed? If Arizonans start pointing a finger at the new arrivals, they have three fingers pointing back at themselves.
We now have an MP3 recording of Monday’s Tikkun Phone Forum discussion with Tony Klug available for you to listen to here. Tony Klug wrote the article in the new issue of Tikkun “Are Israeli Policies Entrenching Anti-Semitism Worldwide.” The discussion was between 2 and 3 AM in the night in England but he sounds extremely coherent. Jack Lampl, the volunteer who edited the recording, called it “A really excellent conversation!” So I think you will think so too.
Tony Klug’s is a wise, compassionate, well-informed voice in this conflict. I hope this recording will be widely heard. Find all our Phone Forum recordings here.
Dr. Klug is a veteran commentator on Middle East affairs. His Visions of the Endgame (Fabian Society, 2009–download the pdf here) outlines a strategy for Obama and the international community to bring the conflict swiftly to an end.
In an earlier pamphlet in 2007, How Peace broke out in the Middle East (pdf here), he described an imagined future sequence of events as if they had taken place in the past, to indicate how Israelis and Palestinians could bring about peace by themselves. As you will hear him say on this recording, Tony Klug now believes that events have moved beyond this latter possibility. He thinks that although both sides can still reach a settlement they would think viable (still a two state solution), they cannot now do it without being forced into it by the international community, which can only be led in this by the Obama administration. The alternative to an imposed two state solution, he says, is endless conflict.
"The iridescent colors reflected off an oil slick are like a twisted and distorted rainbow." Photo: Granny J at walkingprescott.blogspot.com
Come again? Isn’t Noah’s Ark a children’s story that only literalistic Christians think actually happened? And what relevance can that Jubilee story about making everyone equal every 50 years have to a modern economy? The Sabbath Year idea of not growing food one year in seven, and forgiving all debts: how would modern cities survive it?
I am gratified to share this announcement with all of you, sent by the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Community Relations Council, The Jewish Federation of the East Bay and the Northern California Board of Rabbis on May 4, 2010. We appreciate their swift condemnation of the attack on Rabbi Michael Lerner and Rabbi Debora Kohn Lerner’s home in Berkeley, California yesterday. Obviously, many people on all sides of the political spectrum are deeply affected by what happened.
“We unequivocally condemn criminal acts perpetrated against Rabbi Lerner’s home. Political disagreements must be resolved in a civil manner, and not by resorting to violence. Our communities are especially disturbed that this crime targeted Rabbi Lerner at his home, thereby conveying to him the message that he may not be safe there. We are encouraged by the responsiveness of the Berkeley Police Department to this incident, and we urge its officers to investigate this crime as thoroughly as possible. The entire community must send a message to the perpetrators that we reject violence and criminality as a means to express our political opinions.”
Just in case someone asks (in person, on the radio, or on some news program on TV) “Where are the Muslim voices condemning the attempted bombing in New York?” you can let them know that some of them are right here. First a video from CAIR and then a transcript from a statement by Naseem Mahdi, national vice president of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in the U.S.
I’ve been watching the nightmare of thousands of barrels of oil and gas pouring into the ocean and the spectacle of pundits and lawmakers trying to decide whom to blame for the mess. In the midst of that, I happened to pick up a book of poetry by Abraham Joshua Heschel, written before he was 26 years old in 1933. This particular poem, Forgiveness, struck me as one of the ways that I am different from many other people. I resonated with it strongly and I would guess that others, who think quite differently from me, would think it utterly absurd. Read on and let’s discuss it!
