Memorial Day 2010

The Young Dead Soldiers Do Not Speak
  The young dead soldiers do not speak.
Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses:
who has not heard them?
They have a silence that speaks for them at night
and when the clock counts.
They say: We were young. We have died.
Remember us.
They say: We have done what we could
but until it is finished it is not done.
They say: We have given our lives but until it is finished
no one can know what our lives gave.
They say: Our deaths are not ours: they are yours,
they will mean what you make them.
They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for
peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say,
it is you who must say this.
We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.
We were young, they say. We have died; remember us.

Archibald MacLeish

Quote of the Day - May 27, 2010

“We are reciting a very powerful prayer to summon the Lord to help our country. Things are quiet now, but there is fear still within us because none of us know what can happen in the future.’’  
Sumitr Khorana, a Hindu community leader, as the chants of 1,000 Buddhist monks joined the voices of Muslim imams, Christian priests, and Hindu faithful in a prayer for peace in Bangkok. (Boston Globe)

For today's top news, see my Daily Digest.

Say it ain't so, Willie

Willie Nelson got a haircut - his  long pigtails are gone.  Makes me wonder if, like Samson, the power will go out of his music?

Quote of the day - May 26, 2010

“I thought that the elderly farmers would get their money and get to live a few happy days of their lives. They deserve the money before they leave God’s earth.”  
John W. Boyd Jr., president of the National Black Farmers Association, on the number of farmers who have died while Washington delays payment from a negotiated settlement to compensate black farmers who claimed that the Agriculture Department had discriminated against them in making loans. (New York Times)

For today's top news, see my Daily Digest,

Jesus at the Sea of Galilee

The disciples put down their nets, and there were no fish. 

Quote of the day - May 25, 2010

“Twitter has become the world’s water cooler. It’s a place where you can hear what millions are saying and feel, unbiased and in that moment.”  
Adam Ostrow, editor of the social media blog Mashable. (USA Today)

For today's top news, see my Daily Digest.

A matter of integrity

Richard  Blumenthal, Connecticut attorney general and Senate candidate, got himself into hot water last week when news accounts reported that he has been saying he served in Vietnam.  It turns out he was in the Marine Corps Reserve during Vietnam, but was not in Vietnam.  Two of the many responses that especially struck me were by Henry Allen and Larry Pressler.

Allen, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and editor with The Washington Post for 39 years, who served with the Marine Corps in Vietnam, wrote:

O, the stained souls, the small-hours doubts, the troubled manhood of so many American men who didn’t go to Vietnam when they could have — the strange guilt they seem to feel when they confront Vietnam veterans. … Vietnam veterans who don’t care whether somebody served have had to sit through plaintive confessions.

He recalls the many ways it was possible to legally avoid the Vietnam-era draft — student, medical, hardship, occupational deferments. With a good counselor, it was possible for most of those who didn’t want to serve to avoid it.  So why the guilt? What would lead men forty years later to say they served in Vietnam when they didn’t? Allen concludes:

The fact is that regardless of whether a war was moral, justified, won or meaningful, having served in one — particularly in combat — confers prestige. Harvard and Yale and social connections are nice, but at 3 o’clock in the morning you find yourself outranked by high school dropouts whose names are on the wall of the Vietnam Memorial. Not in the eyes of the world, but in your own eyes. What a withering stare it must be for some men, that they’ll shame themselves far worse than they were shamed before, by telling a lie.

Pressler, a former U.S. Senator, now an attorney, who served with the Army in Vietnam, suggested that the choices made then have a continuing effect:

The issues of integrity in business and politics that plague us today — the way elites are no longer trusted — are rooted in the dishonesty that surrounded the Vietnam-era draft.  …  Many of those who didn’t serve were helped by an inherently unfair draft. I don’t fault anyone for taking advantage of the law. Where I do find fault is among those who say they were avoiding the draft because they were idealistically opposed to the war — when, in fact, they mostly didn’t want to make the sacrifice.

In private conversations with my classmates, I was told over and over that they didn’t want to serve in the military because it would hold up their careers. To the outside world, though, many would proclaim they weren’t going because they were opposed to the war and we should end all wars. Eventually they began to believe their “idealism” was superior to that of those who did serve. They said that it was courageous to resist the draft — something that would have been true if they had actually become conscientious objectors and gone to prison.

He concludes that the mentality of cloaking self-interest in idealism corrupts those of the Vietnam generation who are now in positions of power:

Many of these men who evaded service but claimed idealism lead our elite institutions. The concept of using legal technicalities to evade responsibility has been carried over to playing with derivatives, or to short-changing shareholders. … Too many members of my generation learned to believe that they could work within the law to evade basic responsibilities, cloaking their actions in idealism. It’s a way of thinking that scars us to this day.

I was a public draft resister during the Vietnam war, was arrested, tried, and given a probationary sentence. It’s a decision I’ve never regretted, although I don’t think I’d call it courageous as Pressler does — it was simply remaining true to my conscience. But I certainly feel no shame in not serving, as Allen suggests.

Young men of my generation had five basic choices: serve in the military, leave the country, resist the draft, do alternative service as a conscientious objector, or legally avoid the draft.  I have friends in all five categories: veteran friends who came back physically wounded or mentally wounded, still haunted by events four decades ago; friends who spent years in exile, unable to attend their parents’ funerals because FBI agents were waiting at the service to arrest them if they attended; friends who like me, resisted, but unlike me, spent years in prison; friends who served in alternative service as conscientious objectors — including some who did their service in Vietnam; and friends who avoided the draft with deferments and suffered no consequences.

While I don’t fault any of them — no 18-year-old should have to make that choice — I agree with Pressler that forty years later one should honestly acknowledge the choice he made.  In the end, it’s a matter of integrity.

Creation is dying

 

A young heron sits dying amid an oil-covered mangrove on an island in Barataria Bay, off Louisiana. The area is also home to brown pelicans, terns, gulls and roseate spoonbills.  

(Gerald Herbert/Associated Press)

Quote of the Day - May 24, 2010

“I’ve bled for my country, I’ve sweated for my country, I’ve cried myself to sleep for my country – which is a lot more than some people who are passing judgment on me have done. I would rather go sit in prison than go to Iraq.”  
Patrick Hart, U.S. Army sergeant with almost 10 years on active duty, who went to Canada rather than face a second deployment to Iraq. (USA Today)

For today's top news, see my Daily Digest.

How baseball resembles life

Tom Boswell writes on baseball, "Seasons evolve in sections. Nothing is written; all is created as we watch."

Quote of the day - May 21, 2010

“We were ecstatic when the cells booted up with all the watermarks in place. It’s a living species now, part of our planet’s inventory of life … This is an important step both scientifically and philosophically. It has certainly changed my views of definitions of life and how life works.”  
Dr. Craig Venter, pioneering U.S. geneticist, who with a research team has created the world’s first synthetic life form. (Guardian)

For today's top news, see my Daily Digest.

New sheriffs in town

While women don't run Wall Street, there are now three who are policing it - the new sheriffs of Wall Street.

Doping or therapy?

Is there an ethical difference between a healthy athlete using substances such as HGH (human growth hormone) to enhance performance and an injured one using it in order to heal faster?  If we continue to demand that athletes push the limits of human endurance by expecting them to play hurt, should we deny them remedies that can help heal?  Sally Jenkins thinks we need to think seriously about the ethical questions.  She's right.

Quote of the Day - May 20, 2010

“Unfortunately people are so wrapped up in this anti-government thing right now; I don’t know why … People neglect to recognize how government helps.”  
Phil Glover, Johnstown, PA, who cast his ballot in a special Congressional election against a ”tea party”-affiliated Republican, who was defeated. (Washington Post)

For today's top news, see my Daily Digest.

The good old days

Kentucky Republican Senatorial nominee and tea-partier Rand Paul celebrated his primary victory at a private country club and told an interviewer that he would have tried to change the provision in the 1964 Civil Rights Act that made it illegal for private businesses to discriminate on the basis of race.Sounds like he's just longing for the good old days when white, male, property owners ran the country and government knew its place.

Quote of the Day - May 19, 2010

“The 8 p.m. hour in cable news world is currently driven by the indomitable Bill O’Reilly, Nancy Grace, and Keith Olbermann. Shedding my own journalistic skin to try to inhabit the kind of persona that might co-exist in that line up is simply impossible for me. It is not who I am or who I want to be.”  
Prime-time anchor Campbell Brown explaining why she’s leaving CNN. (New York Times media blog)

For today's top news, see my Daily Digest.

Quote of the Day - May 18, 2010

“I’m trying to find out what human nature is all about … It’s a fascinating psychological question. There’s no pressure on anyone to leave anything. But if no one left anything, we wouldn’t be open long.” 
Ron Shaich, former CEO of Panera Bread, has founded a Panera Cares Café with a donation system that lets customers pay what they choose. Some of the money is used to train at-risk youths or to feed people lacking funds to feed themselves. (USA Today)

For today's top news stories, see my Daily Digest.

Quote of the Day - May 17, 2010

“Who’s tired of the bloodshed? Who’s going to get out in the streets and make a difference in the lives of young people? … We’ve got to stand together. Bottom line is, police need to do their part. Preachers need to do their part. Politicians need to do their part. Parents, schools, everybody needs to do their part.’’   
Rev. William E. Dickerson II in a fiery sermon yesterday morning at Greater Love Tabernacle in Dorchester, on a new outbreak of youth violence in Boston. (Boston Globe)

For today's top news, see my Daily Digest.

Books I'd like to read

The Sunday New York Times Book Review always reminds me of the slogan "So many books, so little time."  Today's should read is The Death and Life of the Great American School System, by Diane Ravitch.  An assistant secretary of education under the first George Bush, she was an advocate of school choice - vouchers for private schools and public funding for charter schools.  After twenty years of studying the results, she has now concluded (in the words of reviewer Alan Wolfe),

With so little effort devoted to the promotion of a sound curriculum, voucher schools, like those established in Milwaukee, turned out to offer few if any gains for those who attended them. As for charter schools, they have skimmed off the most motivated students without producing consistently better results than traditional public schools. ... Given that result, we should be working harder to preserve the benefits of community and continuity that neighborhood schools offer.

Is Congress your friend?

Congress launched its Facebook page this week.  It says it will "highlight innovative uses of Facebook by members of Congress, list members' official pages and communicate news and information about Facebook and Congress."  I'm not sure I want to friend Congress, it hasn't been treating us very well lately.

Who are you to check for documents?

An important word from the First Nations

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?" We remind them that the power they have taken to legislate was 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.

Quote of the Day - May 13, 2010

“When you begin to hear people’s stories, learn their names, find out where they’re from, and what led them into this situation, it’s really hard to not get involved in helping.”  
Kerry Morrison, manager of two Hollywood business-improvement districts, on a survey being conducted on Los Angeles streets to find homeless people and get them into permanent housing with support services. (Los Angeles Times)

For today's top news, see my Daily Digest.

The difference a border makes

 History and politics can divide neighboring states.  In one, anti-immigrant legislation passed in the state legislature.  Across the border, the other passed a resolution recognizing the benefits to the economy of undocumented workers.  It’s why we need national comprehensive immigration reform.

Quote of the Day - May 12, 2010

“It was kind of an epiphany. We were giving them nice land to live on when what they were doing – and what they needed – was an underground railway.” Alan Rabinowitz, zoologist, and president of Panthera, an organization that studies and promotes conservation of large cats, on the development of corridors to serve as migration routes between wildlife sanctuaries. (New York Times)

For all of today’s top news, see my Daily Digest.

The bullet not fired

Two recent news reports on the war in Afghanistan present a more complete story together.

One reported that civilian deaths are rapidly rising in Afghanistan, after a period in which they had been steeply declining.  And the rise is largely due to shootings at checkpoints

Shootings of Afghan civilians by American and NATO convoys and at military checkpoints have spiked sharply this year, becoming the leading cause of combined civilian deaths and injuries at the hands of Western forces.

It is one of the paradoxes of counter-insurgency war.  Any hope for a military outcome rests on success in winning the local population, yet insurgents are often indistinguishable from the people.  Soldiers at checkpoints are “faced with a different challenge of snap decisions” by troops “much closer to not only the people but the enemy,” said Gen. David Rodriguez, the operational commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan.  A soldier often has a split second to decide whether the car approaching the checkpoint contains women and children or a car bomb that could take his life.  And so if the vehicle doesn’t stop when ordered, the normal response is to fire.

The other story reported that the military is considering a new “courageous restraint” award for troops who avoid using force when it could endanger civilians.  A statement on the NATO website said that, while troops are usually rewarded for effectiveness in combat, in a counter-insurgency campaign

…it is critical to also recognize that sometimes the most effective bullet is the bullet not fired. There should be an opportunity to recognize and celebrate the troops who exhibit extraordinary courage and self-control by not using their weapons, but instead taking personal risk to de-escalate tense and potentially disastrous situations.

At first this might seem self-evident – one would hope soldiers are trained to be certain of who they’re shooting at.  But if positive reinforcement encourages more caution, it’s probably good.  In the final analysis, however, it’s another example of why non-military strategies in Afghanistan have a far better chance of succeeding than continuing the war. Aid and development will win the people, not counter-insurgency war.

Quote of the Day - May 11, 2010

“It is reckless. Information is powerful, but misunderstood information can be powerfully bad.”  

Hank Greely, director of Stanford University’s Center for Law and the Biosciences, on a new do-it-yourself genetic test to scan for various illness. The test will soon be available at retail drugstores. (Washington Post)

For all of today’s top news, see my Daily Digest.

Congrats to MWR

At the just concluded Associated Church Press convention, Mennonite Weekly Review was awarded the second-place Award of Merit in the Best in Class competition for national or international newspapers. The paper also won awards for its coverage of the MCUSA convention in Columbus OH last summer and the MDS rebuilding projects in the Gulf region following Hurricane Katrina. Congratulations to Paul, Celeste and the entire MWR staff.

Quote of the Day - May 10, 2010

“There’s a million people living out of tents, and, my God, if you saw it and I was to tell you how many NGOs (non-governmental organizations) are in Haiti, you’d be saying, ‘How come nobody got them out of those tents?’”  
Musician Wyclef Jean, whose Yéle Haiti organization has spent $1,327,764 on earthquake relief. (USA Today)

For all of today’s top news, see my Daily Digest.

White Who Fought Apartheid

I’m intrigued by the headlines on obituaries. If I died tomorrow, what one short phrase would I want to sum up my life? There was one today that’s worth noting

Sheena Duncan, White Who Fought Apartheid, Dies at 77

Sheena Duncan, who led the Black Sash, a group of middle-class white women in South Africa who protested against apartheid and counseled blacks victimized by the racist laws of that era, died Tuesday at her home in Johannesburg.

Welcome to the journey

After several years of talking about it, I’ve finally decided to start a blog that will reflect on my eclectic interests. I suppose the common thread is that I’m just another pilgrim on a journey through the fascinating time we call life.

I’ve been an activist as an organizer and administrator in the movement for peace and overcoming poverty for 40 years, beginning as a draft resister and antiwar organizer during the Vietnam war. I’ve worked as a community organizer in the rural South, in interfaith coalitions, in the nuclear weapons freeze and Central America solidarity movements of the 1980s, in an ecumenical anti-poverty  network, and for the magazine/organization Sojourners.

My vocation is the intersection of faith and politics. My passions are baseball (Washington Nationals), blues (Buddy Guy and Stevie Ray Vaughan) and bluegrass music (Ralph Stanley), and barbecue. You’ll be reading about all of them.

I’m an Anabaptist/Mennonite, and currently am a member and serve on the worship leadership team of the Community of Christ ecumenical congregation in the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

My views on faith and politics have been shaped by (among others), John Howard Yoder, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Oscar Romero. You’ll also be hearing about that.

Welcome to the journey.

Thanks to Dr. Ralph for the song 

Though narrow's the way, 
thank God I can say, 
I’m traveling the highway home

And thanks to my friend Wes, for the lovely photo.