Culture

Yes Mitt. People do die because they have no health insurance.

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On Wednesday October 10th, in a conversation with the editorial board of the Columbus Dispatch, Mitt Romney said “We don’t have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don’t have insurance.” Sit with that quote a minute and think. Really? Beyond knowing in your gut that we do, in fact, have people who die in their apartments, homes, backyards, on the streets, in shelters, at soup kitchens, and in all sorts of places, in part, because they don’t have access to adequate health care, Mitt Romney is missing other parts of the nightmare that is, for 50 million Americans, the reality of not having health insurance. I’ve written about my friend Anna before, and I will keep writing about her, until and maybe even after we get health care in this country right.

Culture

Conversations Across America: Flagstaff Arizona

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Our friend Julie McDonald is traveling across the country by Greyhound bus to talk to real people about their lives and how their life experiences and current situations are impacting how they feel about the upcoming election. She had conversations across America by scooter in 2008 and her storytelling from those conversations touched thousands of lives. Yesterday, Julie watched as mothers put their children onto buses heading to Nogales and then had a conversation about immigration policy with an amazing woman who works at that station every day. Here’s a link to that story, which includes an amazing audio interview. I hope once you hear this first interview you’ll decide to follow Julie as she continues her trek across the county, to bring us more stories.

Culture

Talking about Money and Privilege

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Some time ago I was sitting with a group of Nonviolent Communication enthusiasts on a cold winter night, watching the fireplace crackle, eating, laughing, and talking. The group invited me to support their development as a leadership group of their community. A few years before they had gotten together to make NVC known and visible in their town. When I was visiting, they were celebrating their success, as more and more people in their town came to know about NVC through their efforts and have come to trainings they organize. Now they wanted to take their work to a new level, to break free of the social homogeneity of their group and its members, to reach into communities and populations they had not yet connected with.

art

Movie Depicts Sweetness of Simple Faith

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It’s Sukkot, the seven or eight-day autumn holiday (depending upon how you classify Simchat Torah) in which religious people eat their meals in a loosely constructed booth (a sukkah) gaily decorated with plant materials. “Ushpizin” is a charming seriocomic Israeli drama, made in 2004, depicting a particularly tempestuous Sukkot in the lives of a Hasidic couple in modern-day Jerusalem. Liberal Jews have strong feelings about the limited cultural vistas and the unhealthy political influences that we see on Israeli policies from this quarter–more perhaps in the intrusion of religion into the affairs of state and civil life than on attitudes toward peace-making, where the Haredim (ultra-Orthodox) are often confused with the national-religious camp. But this film reminds us of the positive spiritual dimension to the Haredi lifestyle. Dramatic changes of fortune are seen as divine intervention, an answer to their devotion and a part of their ongoing dialogue with God.

Culture

Soulful Citizenship – A Musing by Jim Burklo

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As I was sitting here in our shop, stocking the shelves while Debate Bingo cards print in the background (yes – we’re going to play debate bingo tonight), I spotted a new email from Rev. Jim Burklo, his latest musing. This is one I simply had to share. He starts with the question “How can we put faith into how we vote?” Read on for his answer. Musings by Jim Burklo
www.tcpc.blogs.com/musingsfor current and previous articles
10-3-12
(This “musing” is excerpted from a speech I gave this past Sunday at First Congregational UCC Church of Palo Alto, CA.You can hear an audio recording of my talkhere.)
 
SOULFUL CITIZENSHIP

How can we put faith into the way we vote?

art

The Tree Hugger

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This is a poem for Oakland, for the fallen brothers, for the fallen trees —
and for the good men in my life. The Tree Hugger
his skin is brown
limbs long, he is lanky like me
but still: strong arms, thick spine
he is an oak
tree rooted in the Town
find him from Lower Bottoms
to top of the hills
from Berkeley border to Deep East
he is a tree and we
have never spoke,
clapped hands, dapped it up
i barely look him in the eye
* * *
i remember the first time
someone asked me to hug a tree
DC, 10th grade
field trip for all the city kids, all boys,
took us all the way past the suburbs
to the mystical land of West Virginia
Appalachia:
land of miners and mountains
union bumperstickers and a Confederate flag
sharing the same Chevy in front of our bus
poor white folks and the richest forests
my greedy eyes had ever seen
i loved climbing trees
used to race my brother to the top
like we were running from the cops
which he was,
sometimes,
but no sirens singing out here in coal country
just pines and firs and miles and miles of
oaks: thick, brown, and beautiful
with green goatees and high-top fades
like Will Smith from the ’80s
hiking through the woods
in our oversized Timberlands
that actually made sense for once,
we reach a green meadow
and in the middle:
a single, giant oak. Mr. Jeffries, biology teacher
in khakis and a comb-over, says
“Alright, boys. One by one,
I want everyone to go hug that tree.” What?

Culture

Video Critique of UC Report on Anti-Semitism

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Students and community member express their deep concerns with HR35, a resolution passed by the California State Assembly that targets groups like Students for Justice in Palestine and the Boycott and Divestment Sanctions movement, framing them as the main perpetrators of anti-Semitism.

Culture

Common Sense: A Musing by Jim Burklo

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Mitt Romney’s 47% comments have really been on my mind the last few days. Two things prompted me to post something here today. One, I had a long conversation with a homeless man who came by our shop on Friday. Two, Rev. Jim Burklo shared a new “musing” somewhat inspired by Gov. Romney’s secretly videotaped musings. I’ll share a bit about my Friday conversation, share all of Jim’s musing, and then close with a bit about how it all fits together.