April 2006

The Immigrant Day Rally will be May 1, 4-6pm, at Worcester City Hall.

The site was chosen because of the statue of George Frisbie Hoar, a Republican Senator and Worcester resident who fought for the rights of African-Americans, Indians, and women, and opposed American imperialism.

From tonight’s planning meeting, it sounds like the immigrant community is divided about plans for a strike/boycott.

Much more info will be forthcoming at Indymedia.

Also at Pie and Coffee: Oklahoma City Catholic Worker statement on proposed immigration laws.

Ah, another Spring day in Worcester. The kids are out of school this week. Yesterday morning a bunch of men and little kids were playing baseball in Austin Street, pausing the game when a car approached.

Last week was the seventeenth anniversary of the death of Worcester native Abbie Hoffman.

Anecdote:

When he appeared before the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities — after his red, white and blue American flag shirt had been ripped from his back — Hoffman remarked: “I regret I have but one shirt to give for my country.”

WFMU: Abbie Hoffman Makes Gefilte Fish.

This weekend I got a letter from one of my elected officials with an interesting bit of information that I was asked to keep confidential. A similar thing happened last month, when someone I don’t know wrote an e-mail about an interesting project that I was asked to keep secret.

I love to be in the loop. I love to know secrets. But I think it’s best to check with the person first, to call or e-mail and say, “If I tell you something, could you keep it secret?” Otherwise, you’re coercing the other person.
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BBC News reports today that Professor Leighton Vaughan Williams, director of the Betting Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University, said:

I’m not a sociologist, I’m not a psychologist, I’m not a moralist, I don’t come from that more philosophy [sic] background. I’m an economist, and what I’m saying is that this has been massively good for the economy in terms of productivity, and it’ll create a lot of jobs as the casinos come through and it’ll create a massive amount of inward investment.

At the risk of being accused of not being intellectually rigorous, I daresay that if a certain definition of “productivity” affords the anomalous result that an increase in gambling boosts “productivity”, then – as intuition and common sense would direct – the definition is likely to be useless and needs to be challenged and revised.

Written by James K. Baxter, 1958.

When His tears ran down like blood
I was sleeping in my clothes

When they struck Him with a reed
I cracked a very clever joke

When they gave Him a shirt of blood
I praised the colour of her dress

All the way up the hill
We were laughing fit to kill

When they were driving in the nails
I listened to the steel guitar

When they gave Him gall to drink
We were sipping the same glass

When He cried aloud in pain
We were playing Judases

When the ground began to shake
We pulled up the coverlet

Clean confessed and comforted
To the midnight mass I come

You who died in pain alone
Break my heart break my heart
Deus sine termino.

This afternoon seventeen of my friends and I observed the Stations of the Cross, walking around downtown Worcester, praying and visiting landmarks that remind us of the suffering we impose on others.

As we walked between some of the stations, we chanted in Latin: Ubi caritas et amor, ubi caritas Deus ibi est.

We crossed paths with Father John Madden and some St. John’s parishioners. Last year, we ran into them while both groups were walking the stations; this year, it looked like they’d already finished when we passed them.

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Holy Thursday AIDS action: This afternoon some Clark and St Michael’s students went to the local office of Abbott Laboratories dressed up as bunnies and carrying 4,000 black plastic eggs. They delivered 300 letters asking Abbott to make one of their AIDS drugs available to all of the developing world, as they’ve done in South Africa. An Abbott guy gave them the name of someone they can discuss the issue with, so the demo had a happy ending.

I made a short movie of the events (WMV, 1.9MB).

Update: NECN video clip of the event. I like how the anchor says they were “rotten” eggs, then Andy Lacombe clarifies that they were plastic. There’s no way there were 8,000, though.
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From TUGboat: The Communication of the TeX Users Group, volume 26, number 3, 2005:

Our Lutheran brother, the venerable Donald E. Knuth responds to the question “If you weren’t busy writing your masterpieces, what technology would you try to revolutionize [...]?” from a journalist for the Free Software Magazine:

Well, certainly I would try to work for world peace and justice. I tend to think of myself as a citizen of the world; I am pleasantly excited when I see the world getting smaller and people of different cultures working together and respecting their differences. Conversely I am distressed when I learn about deep-seated hatred or when I see people exploiting others or shoving them around pre-emptively.

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This week Blessed Sacrament Parish began what they hope will be an annual tradition of staging a free, wordless passion play the Monday and Tuesday of Holy Week.

Based on the capacity of the church, I’d say they had well over 200 people there for the week’s second performance.

Gerard L’Esperance played Matthew. I talked with him briefly after his performance. [WMV, 1.3MB]

Picture: Judas prepares to hang himself.

As a member of the Catholic Worker movement, I have had 22 years’ experience sheltering the homeless, many of them veterans. I have also had experience delivering humanitarian aid and working for peace in war-torn Nicaragua, Bosnia, Israel-Palestine, Iraq, and Darfur, Sudan. I have found the Doonesbury portrayal of the Iraq war veterans’ experience especially insightful and sensitive. PSTD is something that everyone who has been in a war zone experiences. Most Americans, especially politicians with no combat experience, like President Bush, have no idea what the reality of war is for soldiers or civilians. Doonesbury has helped to sensitize people without alienating them.

Unfortunately, Sunday’s strip chooses to criticize President Bush for insensitivity toward the troops by protraying him as being kept awake by the cries of stem cells.
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According to the Anglican liturgical calendar, today is the feast day of William of Ockham, so I will try to be brief. Yesterday was the anniversary of the martyrdom of St Dietrich, in addition to being Palm Sunday by current Gregorian reckoning.
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