Take Back the Flag! Okay Lefties, it’s time to take back the flag from the Right — why should only horrible righ-wingers fly the flag on holidays like the Fourth of July? What could be more patriotic than dissent — has anyone read the Declaration of Independence lately? So yesterday I went out and bought a big flag, and flew it from my porch. It looked swell, especially with the Tibetan Prayer Flags that always fly on the top of my porch. Festive, Patriotic. (While we’re at it, let’s take back “patriotic” too.)
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Go read this right now. Jeanne d’Arc at Body and Soul, as usual, says the thing the rest of us have been fuming about. As my friend Bill Campbell, former war photographer says “I’ve seen African coups run better than this.”
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Garden Update I have sprouts! Two of the five tomatoes have sprouted, and the thyme seems to be coming up as well. The grow lights are on and as always, I’m weirdly surprised that seeds actually sprout. While avoiding war coverage last night, I stumbled across a rerun of my new favorite show, Ground Force, on BBC America.The conceit of Ground Force is that loved ones write in requesting a surprise garden makeover for someone, the show gets the recipient out of town for a weekend, and makes over their garden. So imagine my surprise when flipping channels to discover…
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Faith, Peace, Pacificsm on other blogs I’m in the shallow end of pacifism here, folks, and my little blog entries are just the beginning of exploring these ideas. Here are some links to other people out there who have though about this stuff longer and harder than I have, and who have some interesting and related things to say. Le Pretre Noir has an interesting account of his trepidation at having to preach about war last Sunday, and some particularly interesting things to say about the divisive nature of evil. Eve and Jeanne have been asking good questions about whether…
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Being Peace In the peace movement there is a lot of anger, frustration, and misunderstanding. The peace movement can write very good protest letters, but they are not yet able to write a love letter. We need to learn to write a letter to the Congress or to the President of the United States that they will want to read, and not just throw away. The way you speak, the kind of understanding, the kind of language you use should not turn people off. The President is a person like any of us. Can the peace movement talk in loving…
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Of course I support the troops. Please folks. Of course I support the troops. My meditation on violence and killing aside, these are people who volunteered to do a dirty job, and who are out there in unimaginable conditions. May they all be safe. May they behave with honor. May they be a beacon of hope to those ordinaray Iraquis they encounter. I have enormous faith in ordinary Americans. It’s our regime I distrust. It’s the civilian command I distrust. All that aside, today is a day for gardening. I have raised beds to dig out and build. I have…
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… what Steinbeck is arguing in his writing is that we have to be responsible for what he terms the whole thing, known and unknowable, in a very deep way: that if you step into a tide pool, you have to realize that that step has changed the entire universe, and that will fit neatly into what Silko’s arguing in Ceremony, the whole sense of having to be careful, to walk in balance, to be responsible for knowing that every single act of humanity changes the world. Steinbeck was arguing that sixty years ago, before anybody in white America really…
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Turn off the TV! Warning — Rant ahead. Here’s the LivingSmall call to action — turn off your TVs. Don’t give them the ratings push they think they’re going to get. Don’t buy into the propaganda, the hysteria, the doublespeak of it all. There they were last night, all those “anchors” and reporters and just look at them! The excitement in their eyes. The thrill of it all. It’s started! It’s finally started and they get to go off and play with their new toys, get to watch things explode, get to stand on the deck of the aircraft carrier…
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My arborist agrees. My local arborist came by to give me a quote on taking out an overgrown juniper that is way too close to the foundation (and shades the porch too much), and we got talking about the war. He said he’s really frustrated because he feels like there’s nothing he can do now but pray. And pruning helps, he said. Doesn’t change anything but a body sure does feel better after a couple of hours of pruning. He said I did a pretty good job on the apple trees, too.
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What is there to say? Be prepared for the focus here to get smaller, small to the count of my fifty-by-one-forty foot lot. I am going into nearly full news blackout mode, because I just can’t even begin to formulate a way to deal with this madman president and his end-time cronies who actually seem to want a war. I really thought we’d avoid this — perhaps it’s my tendency toward optimism, but somehow I though that millions of people marching in the streets all across the globe might make some impact on this president. But I’m now convinced that…