I love this story. Hundreds of Catholics, Quakers, Mennonites, Jews, Pagans and Atheists are wearing the headscarf to show solidarity with the Iraqi woman killed recently in her home. The campaign is called “One Million Hijabs for Shaima Alawaldi.” This is how we do it. If everyone steps forward, it keeps anyone from being a target.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Not that I agree with Romney about much, but I think he could at least pass a mental health exam. To read L.A. Times article,

click here.

“[I]f you had free reign over classified networks for long periods of time, and you saw incredible things, awful things… things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC… what would you do? ” -Bradley Manning

Daniel Ellsberg is a celebrated hero in most liberal circles. He is remembered and honored as a brave soul who revealed the lies of a Republican administration about atrocities committed during the Viet Nam War. It can be argued that Bradley Manning performed a similar service to his nation, but he committed his acts under a Democratic administration, so the same voices calling for an investigation of torture and civilian deaths during the Bush years, have become apologists for those same crimes under Obama. If being ethical means using the same scale for one’s friends and enemies, it is hard to find many these days who qualify.

The following article asks the uncomfortable question: are liberals still concerned about civil liberties when a Democrat is in office?

I was so glad to hear Rachel Maddow was tackling a subject that has bewildered me for years: why doesn’t anyone seem to notice that our constitution prohibits large armies in times of peace? Think of all the leaders who carry the constitution in their pockets, and who preach to us regularly on the constitution as an almost sacred document, but who cannot see the part about “no standing army.”

I did not know that Rachel Maddow has a doctorate in politics from Oxford, but I’m not surprised. She is clearly brilliant. What follows is a review of her new book “Drift” on the history of how our nation lost this founding principle.

To read article, click here.

Shahzad Akbar, an attorney for civilian victims of U.S. drone attacks was invited to speak on the subject over a year ago. Thus far the U.S. has not granted him a visa.

“Denying a visa to people like me is denying Americans their right to know what the U.S. government and its intelligence community are doing to children, women and other civilians in this part of the world,” Akbar said. “The CIA, which operates the drones in Pakistan, does not want anyone challenging their killing spree. But the American people should have the right to know.”

What follows is a press release from the Center for Constitutional Rights:

I love Texas. I’ve lived here my whole life. I’ll be buried here. But I also know that ignorance has built a very large nest in the state I love. The headquarters for all things stupid in this state is the Texas Legislature. I have great friends in the on both sides of the house, but sitting through debates can be painful and embarrassing to anyone with a knowledge of basic science. While claiming Godlike wisdom when it comes to questions of when life begins, our mighty Texas Legislature also rejects science at almost every opportunity. This article describes cuts to education by our legislature and what they will mean to real children.

(Thanks to August Plock for link)
To read, click here.

Here is a new possiblity for climate change deniers. A U.S. Geological Survey team has found an increase in U.S. earthquakes seems to be connected to hydraulic fracturing or “fracking.”

To read article, click here

Bill Moyers has put together a nice list of ten social justice documentaries. It might be a good way to scan and see what which you might be interested in. Each documentary has a short preview.

To view, click here.

• Easter sermons are always the hardest of the year for me.  All year long we, at St. Andrew’s try to look at religion in a way that does not violate what we have learned from scientists like Einstein and Darwin. Then, on Easter, we have an infusion of visitors who have not been a part of that conversation and who walk church expecting  typical Easter sermon that will assure them of an eternal shelter from life’s storms.The problem is obvious. Darwin has shown us that the world is evolving, so immortals would become relics as nature changed. Einstein has shown us that space and time are only understood in relation to one another so the idea of a permanent place also violates our basic knowledge of the world.

  Martin Luther’s famous hymn “A Mighty Fortress is our God” is based on Psalm 46. The psalm does not describe a static world, but instead a world of earthquakes and crumbling empires.  In other words, it is describing the world of shifting foundations that resembles our modern scientific view of the world. Then it says in an almost Taoist way, “a river runs through it.”

  Likewise, the parables of Jesus do not call us to dwell on some other invisible world, nor other invisible supernatural beings. The purpose of a parable is to use startling images to illumine our own experience more deeply. So when Jesus tells us to consider the lilies which are here to day and gone tomorrow, he is not promising that we can obtain a permanent form, but that there is something we can trust in the midst of change.

  Considering the lilies, we notice several strange things. First, death and life are not really separate. What is living grows out of what is dead. We also realize that we are part of a larger life. The roots of a plant merge into the earth, the leaves open to the sun. What we think of as a flower is a bridge, a“flowering” between heaven and earth. Then third, we realize that life is wiser than we. DNA has a plan of its own that has nothing to do with the drama we imagine to be our life.

  So, while there isn’t really a shelter from life’s storms, there is a shelter in the storm. The foundations shake, empires crumble, but a river runs through it all.

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are (people) who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle.” 

-Frederick Douglass

Those are beautiful and powerful words. What follows is a story from Frederick Douglas Academy who were expelled for following them.

Detroit students suspended for protest