Tikkun (https://www.tikkun.org/category/other_voices/editorials__actions/page/38/)
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) – Climate change is happening, it’s almost entirely man’s fault and limiting its impacts may require reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero this century, the U.N.’s panel on climate science said Sunday. The fourth and final volume of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s giant climate assessment didn’t offer any surprises, nor was it expected to since it combined the findings of three earlier reports released in the past 13 months.
Chana Bloch. Photo by Peg Skorpinski
Potato Eaters
Chana Bloch
My grandmother never did learn to write. “Making love” was not in her lexicon;
I wonder if she ever took off her clothes
when her husband performed his conjugal duties. She said God was watching,
reciting Psalms was dependable medicine,
a woman in pants an abomination. In their hut on the Dniester
six children scraped the daily potatoes from a single plate;
each one held a bare spoon. Five years from the shtetl her daughters
disguise themselves
in lisle stockings and flapper dresses.
Terrorism, Terrorism, Terrorism: The Word That Fuels Endless War
Journalist Glenn Greenwald explains the importance of challenging how this powerful word is used by those who always say only describes the violence of others and never their own. by Jon Queally, staff writer [ http://www.commondreams.org/author/jon-queally-staff-writer ]
IMAGE [ http://www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files/styles/cd_large/public/headlines/war_terrorism.jpg ]
“I’ve been writing about torture, [mass] surveillance, and putting people in prison with no charges and drones and warfare,” explained Greenwald, “and every time any of those policies are raised, the government has a one word answer for all of it: terrorism.” (Image: Public domain)
Journalist and columnist Glenn Greenwald appeared [ http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/terrorism-or-act-of-war-in-ottawa–349263939798 ] on MSNBC’s Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on Tuesday night to address recent violence that took place in Canada, in which soldiers of that nation’s armed forces were targeted, andreiterated his position [ https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/10/22/canada-proclaiming-war-12-years-shocked-someone-attacked-soldiers/ ] that understanding and challenging the way the word “terrorism” is employed in such cases is critically important in the context of the ongoing and so-called “War on Terror” that has kept western armies at war in the Middle East and Central Asia for well over a decade. The consistent problem, argued Greenwald, is that both U.S. and Canadian officials, in addition western media outlets and the public at large, repeatedly characterize “terrorism” as something “only non-government groups can do” and that this “conveniently excludes ourselves and our allies… from the definition.
America’s New Spiritual Pioneers
An Unfolding Political Story About Emotions Lost and Found
Thandeka
We are at the dawn of a new era in progressive faith and politics in America. This new era has not yet emerged because most of its members – millions strong – are spiritually leaderless and do not have a shared identity. Moreover, they lack the institutional gravitas of sanctuaries networked together to create a force field in American politics. Presently, these folk simply get tallied in religion surveys and in the media as a subset of the “Nones,” namely, as the 17 million self-identified spiritual folk among the 46 million Americans without religious affiliation. But they are more than this.
Editor’s note: The following is a note from the radio and tv show Democracy Now
As voters in Oregon and Colorado head to the polls next week to decide if they support labeling laws for genetically modified organisms, on Tuesday we will be joined by Sheldon Krimsky to discuss his new book, The GMO Deception: What You Need to Know about the Food, Corporations, and Government Agencies Putting Our Families and Our Environment at Risk. The book has a forward by Ralph Nader and is a compilation of thought-provoking essays by leading scientists, science writers and public health advocates who, in their writing, explore the social, environmental and moral consequences of GMOs. You can read the introduction below. Sheldon Krimsky is professor of urban and environmental policy and planning at Tufts University as well as an adjunct professor in the Department of Public Health and Family Medicine at the Tufts School of Medicine. Krimsky is also a board member of the Council for Responsible Genetics.
Dear Friend or Ally of Tikkun or random scanner through this website,
I understand if you feel deeply troubled by what has been happening in the United States and around the world this past year. I know I do. But I also have a lot to be grateful for in my personal life—my son finished writing his first book (on a phenomenology of hope with a special focus on Martin Buber) and my grandchildren are flourishing into wonderful pre-adolescents. And I’m very proud to tell you that four weeks ago Tikkun magazine received the “Magazine of the Year Award” from the Religion Newswriters Association, reminding the public at large of the high quality of our magazine. And I’m proud that we were among the cosponsors of the Great Climate March in New York City.
The following article is from ha’aretz newspaper in Tel Aviv:
Why an American-Israeli Jew like me saw ‘Klinghoffer’
Raw, uneasy, complicated and messy: Despite its faults, the Met Opera’s ‘Death of Klinghoffer’ is simply not the anti-Semitic bogeyman the protesters make it out to be. By Brian Schaefer |
Demonstrators protest outside Lincoln Center in New York on October 20, 2014 against The Metropolitan Opera’s planned performances of ‘The Death of Klinghoffer.’ Photo by AFP
RELATED TAGS
Jewish Diaspora
Jewish World
Opinion
A protester holds up a sign ahead of the Metropolitan Opera’s planned performances of ‘The Death of Klinghoffer.’ Photo by Brian Shaefer
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Protesters disrupt ‘The Death of Klinghoffer’ at Met Opera house
By Debra Nussbaum Cohen | Oct. 21, 2014 | 6:46 AM | 3
Ex-N.Y. Mayor Giuliani outlines objections to Met’s ‘Klinghoffer’ opera
By Haaretz | Oct. 21, 2014 | 8:57 PM
No opera should legitimize the senseless murder of an American Jew
By Seth Lipsky | Sep. 22, 2014 | 12:41 PM | 5
Is modern opera The Death of Klinghoffer anti-Semitic?
Palestinians torn over contact with Israelis: Univearsity’s exclusion of journalist Amira Hass raises questions about boycott policy
Date: October 20, 2014
Subject: ***Palestinians torn over contact with Israelis: Univearsity’s exclusion of journalist Amira Hass raises questions about boycott policy Amira Hass banned from Bir Zeit university <http://www.jonathan-cook.net/2014-10-12/palestinians-torn-over-contact-with -israelis/>
Jonathan Cook, Middle East Eye blog October 12, 2014
A Palestinian university’s decision to bar from its campus an Israeli
journalist and outspoken critic of the occupation has exposed a growing rift
among Palestinian activists about the merits of contact with Jewish
Israelis. Staff at Bir Zeit University, near Ramallah in the West Bank, ordered Amira
Hass, a reporter for the Israeli daily Haaretz newspaper, to leave a public
conference late last month. She was told it was for her own “safety” in case
students protested against her presence. Hass, who has lived among Palestinians in the occupied territories for many
years, is a rare critical voice against the occupation in the Israeli media. Her articles translated in Haaretz’s English edition are widely read outside
Israel.
Tired of fake organic food and phony eco-forestry lumber? Get ready for recreational marijuana –
brought to you by Monsanto Corporation!
By Paul Cienfuegos, published October 20, 2014
I am really worried that the social movement to legalize recreational marijuana is going to end up being taken over by giant agricultural corporations, like monsanto, if the folks who are leading these legalization efforts don’t start paying a lot more attention – and soon – to the problem of constitutional so-called “rights” for corporations. In fact I think it’s inevitable. At this point, there is nothing to stop corporations like monsanto from growing and selling genetically modified marijuana, because the folks who are writing our marijuana legalization laws are not paying attention to the very real difference between actual human persons and corporate persons, and who gets to play.
Long before Judaism and Christianity entered the world, ancient peoples celebrated the waning of the sun as winter deepened by creating celebrations of light and ceremonies to encourage the sun to return. Jews and Christians took this spirit of hopefulness and applied it to social, economic, and political contexts. Chanukah originated to celebrate the victory of a small group of people in Judea who rose up to overthrow the power of the Seleucid empire (one of the remnants of Alexander the Great’s Greek empire). Christmas originated to celebrate the vision of a small infant born in the most modest and powerless of circumstances—an infant who was to bring tidings of peace and the triumph of the powerless, who were suffering under the rule of the arrogant Roman empire that dominated Judea at that time. Sadly for humanity, the revolutionary visions behind these two holidays did not translate into a lasting victory over suffering and domination: the Hasmonean dynasty that took root in Judea after the Maccabean victory over the Seleucids became yet another corrupt ruling force, and those who inherited the Christian message twisted it to justify Western imperialism, the oppression of Jews, and the burning alive of women deemed too powerful and outspoken (alleged “witches”).
I’d start The Big Picture with a frame showing the earth: from every spot on it zillions of people reach their hands toward what they imagine heaven to be and shout to the God they believe in: “Please God, please universe, give us a world in which love, kindness, generosity, caring for each other, and caring for the earth have replaced violence, wars, economic and social injustice, and environmental destructiveness.”
After that prayer, someone says, “What has God done for me lately? To hell with God. Why should I believe in a God that doesn’t deliver for me?” And suddenly the zillions of people fall silent, withdrawing into their own private isolation, despairing that their prayers and actions could ever make a difference. The film thus opens into the planet-destroying phase of human history in which people actually know that they are collectively destroying the life-support system of the earth but feel there’s no point in doing anything but maximizing their own advantage because they cannot believe that others will ever act from anything more than selfish motives. How did we get here?
A new, comprehensive study of the world’s wildlife population has drastically reduced its 2012 estimate. Why? WSJ’s Jason Bellini has #TheShortAnswer. Earth lost half its wildlife in the past four decades, according to the most comprehensive study of animal populations to date, a far larger decline than previously reported. The new study was conducted by scientists at the wildlife group WWF, the Zoological Society of London and other organizations.
Rabbi Lerner’s note: I have no way of assessing the accuracy of this article by Sheila Parks. But on the off chance that it is accurate, it seems important enough for the well-being of our community of caring people for me to risk putting up on my web site something that might turn out to be wildly exaggerated. It deserves scientific attention, and it won’t get that from the food industry which tends to place much higher focus on profit than on health. Fukushima, Miso Soup and Me by Sheila Parks
BACKSTORY
We can never be too careful when it comes to feeding ourselves and our families. There are no safe foods any longer.
Uri Avnery
October 11, 2014
Crusaders and Zionists
LATELY, THE words “Crusaders” and “Zionists” have been appearing more and more often as twins. In a documentary about ISIS I just saw, they appeared together in almost every sentence uttered by the Islamist fighters, including teenagers. Some sixty years ago I wrote an article whose title was just that: “Crusaders and Zionists”. Perhaps it was the first on that subject. It raised a lot of opposition.
Are We Creating A “Palestinian Exception” To Free Speech and Academic Freedom? by ALLAN C. Brownfeld
Freedom of speech and academic freedom are long established and respected pillars of our free society. At the present time, however, we seem to be in the process of creating a “Palestinian exception.” If you express views which are critical of the Israeli government and its policies, or are sympathetic to Palestinians and their efforts to achieve a state of their own, your views seem to be outside of the zone of protected free speech. Such views, it seems, are not wanted at our universities, and are certainly unwelcome within the Jewish community, where dissenting voices have been banned from Hillel Foundations and other Jewish venues.