Culture

Listening to Palestinian Voices: The Fight for Education Tour

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This spring Jewish Voice for Peace (I am a founding member of the Seattle Chapter) is sponsoring a tour of young Palestinian activists to speak in over fifteen cities in the US to discuss the challenges facing Palestinian students who live under Israeli military occupation. I was fortunate to hear Mira Dabit and Hanna Qassis speak in Seattle, and I also got a chance to interview them about right to education issues in Palestine, their lives under occupation, and their hopes for a better future. Mira Dabit, 25, was born in Jerusalem to a refugee family originally from the 1948 city of Al Lod. She has been a youth activist and folkloric storyteller for many years. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Sociology from Birzeit University.

Christianity

Why the Defrocking of Fr. Roy Bourgeois Will Test the Spirituality and Sincerity of SOAW Protest

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If you are following the news, you might know that sometime this week, Fr. Roy Bourgeois is going to be expelled from the Maryknoll order after more than 40 years as one of its leading members. Later, the Vatican is undoubtedly going to defrock – the word is “laicize” — him as a Catholic priest. This rupture comes two years after Fr. Roy participated in an unapproved ordination of a Catholic woman as a priest.

Culture

Gratitude Rant, Scholarship, Attentive Repair

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The great French mystic scholar, Simone Weil, writes: “The poet produces the beautiful by fixing his attention on something real. It is the same with the act of love. To know that this man who is hungry and thirsty really exists as much as I do – that is enough, the rest follows of itself. The authentic and pure values, truth, beauty, and goodness, in the activity of a human being are the result of one and the same act, a certain application of the full attention to the object. Teaching should have no aim but to prepare, by training the attention, for the possibility of such an act” (Gravity and Grace, 173).

Education

Meet Mr. G: A Greedy, Grasping Schoolteacher

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Meet Mr. G. He’s been teaching high school in Santa Fe for twenty years. You might ask,”Is that a neck brace he’s wearing?” Now that you mentioned it, yes. Mr. G. is wearing a neck brace. This is the story of how, after an excruciating year of teaching, Mr. G. discovered he’d been standing at the blackboard with multiple neck fractures.

Culture

The Mathematics of Love and Forgiveness

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OK, so the actual article in the New Scientist is headlined “The mathematics of being nice” but I’m suspicious enough of what is, nonetheless, my favorite science mag to see that word “nice” as a slightly snide diminution of what the article actually says (as in a pandering to anti-religious sentiment, but, hey, they ran the article!). Here’s a quote from the interview with Martin Nowak, professor of mathematics and biology at Harvard University:
So how do you see religion? I see the teachings of world religions as an analysis of human life and an attempt to help. They intend to promote unselfish behaviour, love and forgiveness. When you look at mathematical models for the evolution of cooperation you also find that winning strategies must be generous, hopeful and forgiving.

Empathy

Facts, Controversies, and Change of Mind – Part 2

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This is a continuation of yesterday’s post. Can Facts Settle a Controversy? When emotionally charged controversies are at play, even when agreement on the facts is possible, it’s unlikely to lead to any settling of the real issues, because beyond the facts comes the meaning we assign to them. For example, I have been in an ongoing conversation with a colleague about the healthcare situation in the US. We have absolutely no disagreement about the basic facts of there being dozens of millions of people who have no or limited access to adequate healthcare.

Education

April 4th and 5th: Catch the Wisconsin Fire

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The fires of democracy continue to burn brightly in Wisconsin. Recall campaigns are racing along, and a recent community meeting in Milwaukee, usually a sleepy, ill-attended affair, boasted several hundred attendants. When their representative, Chris Larson, one of the “Wisconsin 14” showed up, they jumped to their feet in a standing ovation. Neighborhood listservs are boiling with activity. On Facebook and in a thousand union and church meetings, people solidify their connections with each other and their commitment to recover and strengthen our precious democracy.

Culture

Facts, Controversies, and Change of Mind – Part 1

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In response to my blog piece In Appreciation of Complexity, I received 6 comments on my own blog and 5 on this blog. I read them all with great curiosity and interest. I am grateful to everyone who wrote back. I have no capacity to explain to myself, let alone others, why one comment caught my eye enough to want to respond. Here’s the original comment from Susan B. posted on March 6th:
Well, no, actually, those arguing against the Goldstone report are not asking for recognition of millennia of suffering.

Culture

The Empires Strike Back

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Twitter! Facebook! Discussion boards! All of these wonderful social media tools now enable the voice of the individual to be heard, facilitate political organization, foster the people’s revolution, and fight the Power of the Man. Oh brave new world, that has such communication in it!

Non-Violent Communication (NVC)

After Japan…Scared yet?

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Do the horrific images from Japan – not to mention reports that safety records at the nuclear plant have been faked for years – make you a little frightened when you drive past your absolutely, completely, technologically guaranteed neighborhood nuclear reactor? Perhaps you are certain such a thing could never happen in the U.S. – where corporations and government inspection teams are known for their professionalism and moral responsibility. Then again, you might remember the BP oil spill, just last year, where a good deal of the problem was that BP had cut corners on some safety costs and the government inspection teams were both figuratively and literally in bed with BP staff. Alongside nuclear leaks and oil spills there’s the looming deficit, terrorism, and the rise in chronic childhood diseases (twenty-two out of 70 million U.S. children have chronic illnesses tied to some degree to environmental pollution). If the current state of the world doesn’t scare you, it’s probably just that you haven’t been paying attention.