Pages tagged "Policy"

Dear Editor: I was pleased to see Dan Clark’s article “A Friendly Approach to Partisanship” in the Jan/Feb issue. I couldn’t agree more that Friends have a great opportunity to work with all elected officials, regardless of political party. Clark writes, “. . . the Friendly approach in these ongoing debates is to appeal to the best and highest in both our chosen officials and our fellow citizens, speaking to each other with mutual respect and without rancor.”  

An interview with Ray Lyall

Dear Editor: 

“You end up with broken families. You end up with communities that are being plagued with more violence and more crime. And you end up with people not reaching their God-given potential.” This sort of remark about the impacts of mass incarceration on life in America is typical for liberal politicians and Friends. In this instance, however, the New York Times was quoting Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio (3/13/2014). Remarkably, a bipartisan coalition is developing to move public policy in the criminal justice arena in a way that respects that of God in all persons – including those in prison – and at the same time advances public safety.

Written by Sabrina Jones and Marc Mauer

Run for public office! It’s the best way a single person can influence the decisions that affect the citizens of your community. You and your opinions will be taken seriously. You will influence public opinion. If you win the election, your vote won’t be just one out of thousands. It will be one out of five-to-nine members on a governing board. More than being taken seriously, your ideas will be sought.

Given that Quakers don’t like to use violent words like “kill,” we use euphemisms instead.  So the current trend among Quakers to euthanize our Peace and Social Concerns Committees is one that I will call the “Shelver Movement.” We have spent countless hours in recent years trying to lay these committees down, but we end up “shelving” them instead.

Johnny has spent the last fifteen minutes telling me about the count of the sausages he had in the freezer. He can’t quite account for four of them, and he keeps going over and over the possibilities of the sausage disappearance. This conversation seems just about to end, when he realizes that he might be able to get more when they are on sale. After agonizing over the sausages, he considers his corn dogs. They got defrosted by accident. He could not find them in the freezer.

Dear Friends: The lifelong work for peace of Ted Neff, member of Davis Friends Meeting, has inspired us to write about our country’s decisions to conduct war.