Today is the Health Care Reform summit in D.C. It is scheduled to begin in a few minutes…. I have been thinking a lot about what most thought was an astonishing comment by Rush Limbaugh on January 16, 2009, before the inauguration of President Barack Obama. Limbaugh said it best, himself: “I hope he fails”. […]
Last night I made the wise decision to attend an informative talk and ensuing conversation entitled “Afghanistan, Pakistan – and India? The Curse of Bilateralism in American Foreign Policy. Afghanistan in Regional Perspective.” The speaker, William Davnie, had extensive experience in the U.S. State Department, some of which was in the South Asia area. He, […]
Janice, Director of Christian Life at my Church, Basilica of St. Mary, Minneapolis, is one of those many heroes and sheroes who inspire me when hope is gone. Her title belies her many roles in Peace and Justice at Basilica. She wrote the following column for our Church bulletin some months ago. I share it […]
Context and alignment are everything: Context determines how we think about things, how we see things and how we see each other. It is our unconscious reality – one we create for ourselves or is created for us through marketing and such. As a result, many, no, most if not all, of us go through […]
It’s Valentine’s Day 2010. Overnight came the new release of the 25th anniversary version of Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie’s We are the World. This years rendition, recorded after the earthquake, is dedicated to the people of Haiti (Ayiti). It is powerful. Do watch it. Back home, today’s Sunday paper had not a single word […]
I have been reading Howard Zinn’s A Power Governments Cannot Suppress. It is a collection of his essays on a variety of topics all of which portray the benefits of civil action to reign in the powerful. About half way through there is an essay on Nationalism. In it I was struck by the term […]
Thursday of this week we showed a few photos from what, in retrospect, were better times for Haiti kids at SOPUDEP School in Petion-ville in December, 2003. Our audience was about 100 2nd graders at an elementary school in a nearby twin cities suburb. Kids relate to kids everywhere, and this audience of young persons […]
However he’s looking in on we mere mortals, Howard Zinn is probably getting a kick out of all the attention he’s getting in death. Today, for instance, National Public Radio went to the trouble of admitting its obituary of Zinn was unfair. Zinn is likely smiling and would probably agree with the old variously attributed […]
December 8, 2003 – it was my second full day of my first trip to Haiti – we had spent a powerful and draining morning being briefed by ordinary Haitians, women and men, about the atrocities of the 1991-94 coup in Haiti. There were six of us. I had nothing to say. I was there […]
Two weeks ago today, 4:53 p.m. Haiti time, Port-au-Prince (Potoprens in Kreyol) and area were devastated by a massive earthquake. Today, two weeks later, coverage of the disaster is decreasing; finding fault or blame is increasing; and the attention of the world and U.S. body politic is shifting back to more mundane things, like the […]