Culture

Why and When Conservatives Conserve the Progress Progressives Make

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I had a curious conversation with a conservative lately in which he claimed the US Constitution as a conservative document, while I objected that in the 1780s conservatives opposed it, since conservatives then were believers in monarchy and tradition. Yes, he conceded, but today it’s a conservative document. I suggested that this is what happens time and again, that the gains made by progressives of one era against the vehement opposition of conservatives, become the core items that conservatives defend in a later era. So perhaps it would behoove him as a conservative to get ahead of the curve by helping the progressives today! He wasn’t buying it, of course.

Non-Violent Communication (NVC)

The Power of Collaboration

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Everything that at some point is in the future eventually becomes the present and then the past. I know this is not major news for anyone, and yet the experience of it continues to amaze me each time. For some months now I had been inviting people to come to the Making Collaboration Real conference that took place this past weekend. Now that this conference is in the past, I want to share some of my highlights and what comes next. Collaboration has become more and more of a stated goal or practice in many places.

art

The Right of Return for New Orleanians and Palestinians: An Interview with Jordan Flaherty

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When I first picked up Floodlines on assignment to write a review for Bitch magazine, I thought I knew something about what went down in New Orleans after Katrina, but after reading this firsthand account of surviving the storm, I realized I didn’t know much at all. It reminded me of the first time I read a leftist account of the history of Zionism. Only then did I realize how much the US mainstream media had framed my perception of Palestine by focusing on individual acts of violence by Palestinians taken out of context from the larger frame of Israeli state violence. Similarly, while reading Floodlines, I was forced to confront how my understanding of New Orleans has been shaped by mainstream media reports that focused obsessively on individual acts of violence while ignoring the large-scale state violence imposed on mostly poor communities of color. I was moved by how Flaherty, a white journalist and organizer based in New Orleans, manages to tell a story that encompasses both the staggering injustice of structural racism and the inspiring grassroots activism of New Orleanians.

Culture

Red State Divorce Rates and the Misplaced Alarmism of CWA

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The Christan Right organization Concerned Women for America finally posted a new article on its website this week — “Marriage Doesn’t Count; Feds Tabulate Same-Sex Behavior.” While the title might sound alarming to some, to me it seems to be another example of trying to make a controversy out of nothing. Apparently, Crouse is upset that the Center for Disease Control (CDC) is no longer tracking marriage and divorce rates — “information on age of bride and groom, rates of marriage by previous marital status, remarriage, etc.” Instead, the CDC is researching sexual behavior, sexual attraction, and sexual identity. For those who are interested, here is how the CDC report summarizes the latest findings of their National Survey of Family Growth:
Sexual behaviors among males and females 15-44 years of age, based on the 2006-2008 NSFG, were generally similar to those reported based on the 2002 NSFG.

Culture

All the Heart Can Hold

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An excerpt from a wise and compassionate piece by my friend and teacher Oriah on the crisis in Japan, and how one might choose to respond to it. …Here is where we get to practise what is needed and discover something truly amazing about how we are made. We are built for compassion. Yes, I know we are capable of insensitivity, cruelty and greed, susceptible to fear and bad choices. But we are built for compassion in a way that the mind barely grasps.

Culture

Talking about Bullying

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When I said “yes” to giving a keynote speech about bullying at a community conference put together by the Albany Unified School District in CA, I knew I could count on a global network of Nonviolent Communication trainers to help me. The biggest support I received was a deeply moving story about Zeke, a 16-year-old boy, member of the KKK, who was met with such empathy that he could recognize that his membership was an attempt to have connection with his father. Being understood as deeply as he was by my colleague Catherine Cadden was a new experience for Zeke. He came up to her after the event and said: “You know, that was the first time I felt fear begin to leave my body. I’m actually relieved.”

Culture

Spiritual Wisdom of the Week

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This week’s spiritual wisdom comes from Jonathan Granoff, a nuclear weapons activist, attorney, and Tikkun author. Granoff writes about the danger of pursuing profit maximization while disregarding its impact on our natural world. The piece below was published on the Worldshift Council’s website last October. Our Choice: Creativity or Destruction
by Jonathan Granoff
The natural world has value independent of the markets of man and we ignore this fact at our peril. Corporations and states can no longer operate as if they are independent of the natural world.

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C.K. Williams To Be Honored March 14 at Our 25th Anniversary Celebration

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The last time the Tikkun Award went to a poet, it was Allen Ginsberg who received it in person at a ceremony at Columbia University in New York City. He joined a list of significant figures who had previously received the award including Grace Paley, Irving Howe, Alfred Kazin, U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone, and Abba Eban. Tikkun’s poetry editor Joshua Weiner provides some context on why it is going this year to C.K. Williams.
What is the role of the poet in Tikkun’s core vision, of commitment to peace, social justice, ecological sanity? What is the role of the poet in a movement that aims to foster solidarity, generosity, kindness, and radical amazement? What is the role of the poet when it comes to social change and individual inner change?

Culture

The Sacredness and Beauty of Home Funerals

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By Elizabeth Clerico
Our society is in denial. Denial of death, which ultimately is a denial of life. When we refuse to embrace death, when we run away from it, we lose a most sacred and precious opportunity to feel life, to appreciate the life we have on this earth. I, like most people, was in that state of denial when my father was dying of cancer. I held onto hope when I knew in my gut there was none.