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I Am A Patriot!

• Authored by:
• Nora Cooke

For the past five months, I have been living and working in Berlin, Germany. I went there to live with my cousins and their two young children and to work as a native-English-speaking intern at a Kinderladen called Humpty-Dumpty Berlin, a bilingual daycare which my cousins’ children attend. I also helped out around the house and with the kids at home. As always when I am abroad, I felt embarrassed many times a day by my nationality as a U.S. citizen. 

On Patriotism (January 2014)

Healing Our Nation’s Oldest Wounds

• Authored by:
• Paula Palmer

As I write this in late November 2013, Americans across the country are gathering together in their homes to give thanks. In southeastern Colorado, Cheyenne and Arapaho people are gathering together, too, but for a different reason. This week marks the 149th anniversary of the massacre at Sand Creek, where on November 29, 1864, the U.S. Cavalry murdered approximately 200 unarmed Cheyenne and Arapaho women, children, and elders who were supposed to be under their protection. After the massacre, volunteer soldiers paraded through the streets of Denver, waving body parts carved from the victims’ corpses. No one knows exactly how many people died at Sand Creek that day, because the survivors were prevented from returning to mourn and bury their dead. Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors would fight back for more than a decade, but eventually their peoples were banished from Colorado. Today, their descendants live on reservations in Montana, Wyoming, and Oklahoma. 

On Patriotism (January 2014)

White America’s Myth of the Black Male

• Authored by:
• David Zarembka

I received more reaction to my posting, The Iconification of Nelson Mandela and American Racism, than for any other of the 257 postings that I had done in almost seven years. Some of the responses were supportive, some critical, and some “yes, but.” Below is my original newsletter article, followed by a sampling of the responses.

On Patriotism (January 2014)

On Patriotism

• Authored by:
• Mary Klein

Dear Friends: Our First Amendment right to free expression is sometimes called the “crown jewel” of the Bill of Rights. That somewhat oxymoronic metaphor – a fundamental democratic principle sparkling like a diamond in the coffers of a monarch – reveals an uneasy tension between our democratic freedoms and the worldly powers that guard them. Yet even though any government must place some limits on individual freedom, the expectation is that those limits will benefit the common good. In the document that established Pennsylvania’s first legislature in 1682, William Penn wrote, “The glory of Almighty God and the good of mankind is the reason and end of government, and therefore government in itself is a venerable ordinance of God.”

On Patriotism (January 2014)

99 Tactics of Successful Tax Resistance Campaigns - Review

• Authored by:
• Elizabeth Boardman

99 Tactics of Successful Tax Resistance Campaigns by David Gross 

On Time (March 2014)

On Time

• Authored by:
• Mary Klein

If we’re lucky enough to live long enough, we get to watch the miracle of babies turning into adults. And with that luck, we pay the price of watching tangible people in our lives turning into memories. And we watch those memories taking on lives of their own.  A baby’s first word, a teen’s first love, anybody’s last wishes – these moments burst onto the scene, disappear, and then echo.

On Time (March 2014)

Waiting for Light to Come

• Authored by:
• Mary Klein

It’s no fun to feel sick – no fun to have an upset stomach or a stuffy nose. And getting hurt is no fun either. Burning your finger, banging your head, scraping your knee – not fun. You just want someone to take the bad feeling away. And nobody can do that. But if they see that you need help, they can try to help you.

On Time (March 2014)

Prison Profiteers: Who Makes Money from Mass Incarceration? - Review

• Authored by:
• Matt Lowen

Edited by Tara Herivel and Paul Wright

On Production (May 2014)

On Production

• Authored by:
• Mary Klein

After frolicking around The Garden all morning, Adam and Eve were starving. They filled their bellies with the fruit of The Tree, and it gave them such a headache! The knowledge of good and evil throbs in the ever-branching tangle of nerves that is the human brain. And the Tree of Good and Evil produces both kinds of fruit.

On Production (May 2014)

Woolman Students Inspire

• Authored by:
• Muriel Strand

Dear Friends: The recent Woolman Semester graduation events at Sierra Friends Center were truly inspiring. Two dozen students presented their capstone projects, and the topics ranged widely, from wildfires to baseball to addiction, and they all reflected the Woolman Semester focus on “peace, justice and sustainability.” The graduates’ valedictory talks were also diverse, with common threads of emotional growth, intellectual awakening, lifelong friendships, safe space, and personal responsibility weaving them together.

On Production (May 2014)