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I knew at once there was something different about this place when I arrived in Austin to go to college here. Having been raised in Dallas I was stunned to see the hippies and to hear people question what I had been taught as givens. It was here my mind began to awaken from cultural stupor and realize that just because people are different does not make them inferior. In my time here I have seen our city council stand up for a liveable wage, for fair treatment of immigrants, for workers’ rights, and for many other brave stands. This latest decision, however, puts them at odds with state law. The Defense of Marriage Act is the law of the land down here.

Dr King taught that just as we have a duty to obey just laws, we have a duty to disobey any law or custom that oppresses another. I am proud to live in a city that does not leave justice out of the equation of putting the law into practice.

“Council members said the endorsement will land them on the right side of history and compared gay marriage to women’s suffrage and civil rights. The unanimous vote was symbolic — Austin has no power to overturn Texas’ ban on gay marriage, and the council decision will not make the practice legal here — but Council Member Sheryl Cole said the endorsement carries weight, noting that on other polarizing social issues through the years, “one thing we have learned is that simple, symbolic acts matter -Austin American Statesman

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/27/austin-becomes-first-texas-city-to-endorse-marriage-equality/#.UGScmPpxQAN.facebook

“We are the world” became famous with a song some time back, but the actual phrase goes back much further and contains the essence of every true religion and every great revolution.

The theologian Paul Tillich expressed the insight this way: “The most intimate motions within the depths of our souls are not completely our own, for they belong also to our friends, to humankind, to the universe, and the Ground…… of all being, the aim of our life.”

Each wave of the ocean is an individual in one sense, but  is also a wave of something more basic. In the same way, every individual expresses something unique, and something universal. This is why the deeper we go inside ourselves, the more we discover a mysterious sense of otherness. The more we care about others, the more their happiness comes to enrich our own. Beneath our thoughts, is an animal. Beneath the animal is the web of interconnected life. Beneath that web is one planet, home to us all.

“We are the world” expresses the truth behind the Christian Pentecost, the Jewish “tikkun olam”, as well as the true thrust behind Marx’s socialism. The “red” of communism represented our one human blood. The failure of past revolutions and religions has been, in part, a failure to realize one of the most profound insights to which a human may aspire. Whether the problem is economic, political or religious, the solution to the basic disagreements of humankind begins with the insight, “We are the world.”

FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) is a site that seeks to provide aspects of news coverage that get left out in mainstream coverage. If the site has a bias it is to the left, but in their efforts to be fair they critique Democrats as well as Republicans. The following report is on Obama’s speech to the UN where the President went through the litany of myths about the Middle East believed by most people living in the US, but disbelieved by most people living anywhere else.

When the President speaks about US efforts to bring democracy to the Middle East, most of the world knows our history of doing just the opposite. For example, to prop up a dictatorship in Egypt for decades and then claim credit when a popular uprising deposes him is the stuff of global comedy, but you would not know that from US coverage of the President’s speech. To speak of “anti-American violence in the Muslim world” and not mention US violence against Muslims worldwide, which is many times greater, will only be taken seriously in our own insular nation willfully ignorant of anything happening our side our own boundaries and interests. As the article notes:

“The U.S. currently supports and arms autocratic and free-speech averse regimes in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.  Until recently, Tunisia and Egypt were U.S.-backed dictatorships. One might argue that the U.S. no longer overtly thwarts free speech and democracy in Tunisia, but that’s a harder case to make for Egypt, whose military the U.S. has continued to fund through decades of torture, detention and disappearances.”

http://www.fair.org/blog/#post-22252

Wikileaks and it’s founder Julian Assange have been deemed “enemies of the state” – just as Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, according to military documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

In the past, the term “enemy of the state” could be used of those who released classified information to those with which we were at war but, in an age of undeclared war and undefined enemies, it is hard to know what is meant by the term “enemy of the state.”

Glen Greenwald sees the designation as further evidence that “whistleblowing” in the manner of Daniel Ellsberg is not longer seen as nobel, or even as merely criminal, at this point it is considered treason, even when done by a non-American:

The real “enemies” of American “society” are not those who seek to inform the American people about the bad acts engaged in by their government in secret. As Democrats once recognized prior to the age of Obama – in the age of Daniel Ellsberg – people who do that are more aptly referred to as “heroes”. The actual “enemies” are those who abuse secrecy powers to conceal government actions and to threaten with life imprisonment or even execution those who blow the whistle on high-level wrongdoing.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/09/27

There were no black models on the set of Dolce & Gabbana’s Spring 2013 fashion show at Milan Fashion Week. But there were images of Aunt Jemima on the jewelry and images depicting black women living happily on slave plantations. The New York Times described the show as “imaginative.” The write up for the show said, “The imaginative elements came fast and furious — witty, ironic, funky — but always with a sense of proportion and style… The spirit of Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana is maxi — and the show was effusive in every way, from earrings that swung as giant raffia circles fancied up with pompoms, through prints of toy soldier puppets on silken sheaths.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Scott Brown held a rally where his staff and supporters mocked Elizabeth Warren’s claims of Cherokee heritage with war hoops and tomahawk chops. A chief of the Cherokee Nation has called the gestures “racist” and asked for an apology.

Whenever I post stories like this, I usually receive responses saying that I am just being “politically correct.” I notice that, if the story is about women, the objection almost always comes from a man. If the story is about racism, the objection almost always comes from a white person.  To care about how one’s language might affect others can be tiresome and awkward for all of us.  And if someone comes from any of the dominant groups in our culture (white, male, heterosexual, Christian, etc.), he or she can feel such issues are trifling and silly, or even that they are claims to “special rights.”

That term “politically correct” is very subjective, but I have only heard it used against those who challenge prejudice. When the dominant group forces people to live or speak a certain way we don’t call it being “politically correct.” Then we call it “patriotism” or “reverence” or “being polite.”

I feel no shame when someone calls me “politically correct,” instead I am reminded of the courage it takes to step out of the cultural trance and speak a new language that does not empower or disempower any group over the rest. To me, those willing to go through the abuse are planting the seeds of a new solidarity. Because they are seeking to speak a language that includes us all, they are sharing the new Pentecost.

Links to the two stories mentioned above are here:

http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/09/dolce_gabbana_sends_racist_mammy_earrings_down_the_catwalk.html

http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/09/cherokee_nation_demands_scott_brown_apologize_for_downright_racist_behavior.html

Relative to their body length, hummingbirds fly faster than jets. Flying backwards is more efficent for the hummingbird than hovering. These and other wonderful discoveries about the hummingbird can be found by going to this BBC website, and following the links.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/19731176

Simon Kuznets invented the Gross National Product (GDP) in the 30’s as a way of measuring one aspect of the economy. He cautioned, “the welfare of a nation can . . . scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income.” It does not measure whether that income is being fairly distributed among the masses who work, or hoarded by the few who own. So we live at a time when productivity has exploded, profits have exploded, but wages have remained stagnant. But wage theft does not show up in the GDP. As on economist put it, “the economy is great, it’s just the people who are suffering.”

Steven Stoll has written an article for Orion Magazine called, “The Mismeasure of All Things.” It gives us a very different take on the GDP. To read the article, click here:

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/7008

It sounds insane. It sounds hysterical. Still, a new study sponsored by 20 nations claims that runaway carbon emissions could produce a nightmarish snap back. According to the study, it is possible that hunger, skin cancer, pollution, forest deterioration, loss of biodiversity and fish extinctions could unleash a global nightmare in a much shorter time than previously imagined.

While I am not a scientist, I will admit that such apocalyptic predictions seem unlikely in the short run predicted here; but it also seems likely that, at some future point of environmental degeneration, such disasters will be inevitable. The insanity of believing these predictions seems like nothing compared to the insanity of pretending we can keep going toward this cliff and change our minds and our trajectory at the last minute.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/09/26-1

Ralph Reed, one of the master minds of the religious right’s covert campaign to take over of school boards and bottom of the ticket offices some years back, has resurfaced using some of his best tricks. While it would be unseemly (not to mention contradictory) to call Obama a nazi and a communist, Reed can plant those seeds by sending out a questionnaire worded in such a way that the implication is clear. While openly endorsing a candidate would violate the strictures of a tax exemption, asking  churches to answer baited questions in a survey, and then reporting the results, would be hard to prosecute.

I’m glad for Reed that he avoided prison for his role in the Abramoff scandal, when he took payments from Abramoff to lobby against a competing casino behind the guise of a Christian anti-gambling theme. Still, I can’t decide whether his career has done more to set back justice in politics, or integrity in religion.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/ralph-reed-obama-mailer-nazi-communist

The phrase “Sarah Palin of the Islamic Republic” is Armin Azad’s. He’s sees Ahmadinejad as a publicity seeking celebrity whose star is falling. The president of Iran is often viewed as more ceremonial than substanitive. Azad believes Ahmadinejad can only get camera attention by making shocking statements like denying the holocaust or questioning the events on 9-11. Azad believes the president is slipping from power and is trying to draw attention to himself anyway he can. Azad believes that for the Western publicizing Ahmadinejad’s rantings prolongs the agony. Azad’s message in a nutshell:

“Dear Israel and America: Please don’t feed the Troll”

http://www.juancole.com/