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U.S. Combat Drones – Immoral and Illegal

Authored by:
Leah Bolger

Leah Bolger is a former National Board President of Veterans For Peace and continues to serve on the VFP board. She is currently touring the U.S. to promote the work of VFP’s “Drones, Robots, and Future Weapons Working Group.” Leah has worked with Quakers on many common causes over the years, and she spoke with Western Friend by phone on January 25, 2013.

On War (January 2013)

Unorthodox Views

Authored by:
Elise Regan

Dear Editor,

On Power (March 2013)

Privelege, Interrupting

Authored by:
Dorene Cornwell

Some Western Friend readers may have already met RantWoman, an official Quaker holy terror known for telling too much of the Truth about all kinds of things, at rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com. Recently a call went out for Friends to write articles about the 14th White Privilege Conference, held near Seattle in April 2013. RantWoman was stirred to venture into print and even agreed to let the editor of Western Friend have a crack at making her slightly more presentable than she appears in her electronic journal.

On Superiority (July 2013)

Not Shakespeare

Authored by:
William H. Matchett

Dear Editor: Whoever wrote the passage boxed on page 10 of the last issue, I have no idea, but I do know that it was not Shakespeare. Not only is there no play into which that speech would fit, but the key words – patriotic, patriotism, and citizenry – are words he never used anywhere, as reference to a concordance makes quickly clear.

On Time (March 2014)

A Faith Frame on Climate Disruption

Authored by:
Jose Aguto

An interview with Jose Aguto

On Needs (May 2015)

“Amost Right” is Not “Right”

Dear Editor: I deeply appreciate your publishing my poem “On Garbage” in the Nov/Dec 2017 issue of Western Friend, but I was disappointed that a word was omitted from the penultimate line. It should have read:

On Captivity (January 2018)

Race and Quakerism

Authored by:
Kat Northrup

The first time I was confronted with my identity as a “Brown Woman” was my first trip to North Pacific Yearly Meeting (NPYM). I had never experienced such a direct external approach to my skin color before. My family celebrated my adoption day as a family holiday. We went back to India to see my heritage history, and I was raised with some Indian cultural education, but my racial background wasn’t ever the first characteristic that came to mind when examining my personal identity. The welcome I received because of my brown skin from the Quakers was both amazingly compassionate and entirely unsettling. At that time, I had only just begun to explore this part of my identity. As an extension of this experience, I began to pay more attention to race relations within the Quaker community, and the struggles of different races around the U.S.

On Expansion (May 2018)

Offensive

Authored by:
David Zarembka,
Mary Klein

Dear Editor: Since I first went to sub-Saharan African in 1964, I have often had to respond to negative and derogatory comments about Black Africa. For example, I have twice complained to Quaker publications where, in the captions for pictures, they gave the names of the White Americans but not of the Black Africans in the same picture. The greatest transgression is what I call African porn – using this definition of pornography: “the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction.” This is often extremely humiliating pictures of poor, starving Africans, frequently children.

On Mixture (November 2018)

Bullet Points

Authored by:
John Lindsay-Poland

On the “open wound” of border between Nogales, Arizona, U.S.A., and Nogales, Sonora, Mexico (actually one city, divided), a steel-tube fence stretches thirty feet high and miles to the east and west – beyond our seeing. Dozens of people entered a restricted zone beside that wall and enacted a die-in last November, to remember 123 migrants who died in the nearby desert during the previous twelve months, as a result of U.S. “preventive deterrence” border policies. The die-in also honored the lives of people killed or disappeared by U.S.-trained, U.S.-equipped, military and police forces in Latin America.

On Weapons (January 2019)

Non-Adversarial Communication

Mindful, non-adversarial communication is one of the best tools we have found for seeking Truth and for seeing “that of God” in ourselves and each other. For Quakers, the result of such seeking is a life lived according to the guidance of the Light, and a life that offers ministry to others, which includes vocal ministry. Historically, another important form of Quaker ministry has been for Friends to place themselves in conflict situations and engage in peaceful actions to heal harm.

On Mediation (January 2020)