I just returned from 11 days in Venezuela, my sixth trip there since 2005. Many people have asked me how they can understand what’s really happening in Venezuela based on information from public institutions such as the U.S. government and the mainstream media. Sources they have used include television ranging from Fox News to MSNBC and CNN; newspapers from the New York Times to more “progressive” publications; and radio from private ad-based to public listener-supported stations. In order to analyze information today and in the future, there are three key points that most people in the United States and in Venezuela can agree on. 1 – No war.
Healing Israel/Palestine
A Visit to a Settlement: A Catalyst for Righteous Anger
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Paul Von Blum reflects on his first and last visit to an Israeli settlement, activism, and how writing can be a powerful tool to channel political anger.
General News
Armistice-Veterans Day 2018
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As human beings, we are a carbon-based life form. We are close kin to the higher order apes. We are homo sapiens, a bit of earth that can think. We stand up straight; have an opposable thumb; have the capacity for rational thought; are able to use symbols to communicate abstract thoughts; we can use symbols to communicate about symbols; we can remember the past and plan for the future. The gospel according to Jamie Lannister of the television version of “Game of Thrones”: “Strange thing, first time you cut a man, you realize we’re nothing but sacs of meat, blood and some bone to keep is all standing.”
Politics & Society
Light Shines Down on Our Tree of Life
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Margee Burch responds to the Pittsburgh massacre: “The spark of life within each of us darkens with each tragedy, but also drives us toward one another.”
General News
Isolation Versus Community
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Last night after meeting with my LGBTQ book club and talking about social isolation, and what I had written but not yet posted about the massacre in Pennsylvania, I thought I should go ahead and post the piece here. Then, this morning, I woke up to another massacre, this one in a Southern California club. In the hopes that in the midst of so many of our hearts breaking over the news, wondering what in the world we can do to make a difference, I post this so that it might be food for thought and perhaps food for action and hope. Sitting in Michigan visiting with my family a headline crossed the TV screen about the mass shooting at a temple in a Pennsylvania synagogue. My cousin dove for the remote and switched to another channel so her young children wouldn’t see the breaking news in the middle of a family reunion.
General News
Voting, A Patriotic Duty
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I am a black woman in America. I am a woke black woman who has been woke before woke was cool. I also love America. I am an American patriot, an Angela Davis patriot. I heard Angela Davis explain to a television talk-show host that her activism did not come from a hatred of America, rather, it comes from her love for her country.
General News
An American Kaddish
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Daniel Stein Kokin writes an American kaddish that honors people killed in mass shootings.
General News
My Dinner with the Devil (a short story)
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He was a tall, dark, and handsome stranger standing in front of me in the grocery store line. He was “Oh my goodness fine.” But, I was cool, thumbing through a special edition of Rolling Stone about John Lennon. The man said something out loud, and I looked up. He seemed to be reciting his grocery list.
Immigration
An “exodus” rather than a “caravan”
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The Rev. Dr. Karen Bloomquist argues that we should refer to the thousands of mostly Hondurans fleeing oppression and violence as an “exodus” instead of a “caravan”; such a shift in language, she contends, might encourage people of faith to seek compassionate justice rather than perpetuate fear and violence.
General News
With A Perfect Hatred (part 2)
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I hate liars and lies with a perfect hatred. As it is written in the Psalms: “I hate and detest falsehood, But I love [God’s] law. (Psalm 119:163)
As I write this, the United States has been rocked by multiple acts of violence in the past few days. A Florida man has been accused of sending multiple pipe bombs to prominent Democrats. Thankfully, the bombs did not explode.
Environment
Report from the Climate Summit
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Ellie Lyla Lerner reports on the Global Climate Action Summit and the importance of young people’s involvement in creating a sustainable future.