August 2006

In the interest of documenting the diverse aspects of Catholic Worker life…

Brenna Cussen (vocalist, guitarist, South Bend Catholic Worker) and Mike Benedetti (accordionist, itinerant Catholic Worker) will be performing at the open mic at Fiddler’s Hearth in South Bend, Indiana, August 23 around 9:15 pm.

Their band is named Brandon Is A Zombie.

Brenna and Mike. Photo by Liz Fallon.

Ordinarily I would hesitate to post a photo of a homeless kid to the net, but after taking Brandon’s photo the other day, he turned around and demanded, “Take a picture of my back.” I did, and I have no qualms about posting it.

Brandon may not be a zombie, but he will try to eat your brain if you don’t watch out. He says, “The back of my hair looks weird!”

Update: Audio of our version of “When The Saints Go Marching In” is at the Archive.

One of the secret organizing principles behind Pie and Coffee is that all of the most frequent posters are Caltech alums.

Kaihsu points me to this page about Wesley T. Salzillo, a contemporary of ours at Caltech, who is now the Dominican brother Raphael Mary Salzillo.

Kaihsu knew him at Tech; I did not. Pretty neat nonetheless.

My friend Councillor Larry Sanders of Oxfordshire got interviewed by our friend Saint Kermit the podcast in New England. Larry is the leader of the Green Party group on the Oxfordshire County Council here in England. He also happens to be a brother of Vermont’s independent Congressman Bernie Sanders. (You can guess that I had a hand in arranging this interview….)

42 people gathered outside South Bend’s Paramount Restaurant last night for a prayer vigil remembering Jan Griffiths, who was run over by Keith Romine earlier this week outside the restaurant, killing her. This restaurant is practically right around the corner from the Catholic Worker house in South Bend where I’m staying.

Also struck was Derrick Herron. According to Tribune reports, Ms. Griffiths was staying at the Center for the Homeless, fleeing a “domestic violence” situation caused by Mr. Herron. Ms. Griffiths had previously been dating Mr. Romine, who she met at the Center, and who was released from prison last December after serving 24 years for killing his wife.

Mr. Romine had been staying at Dismas House, a couple doors down from the CW, but was kicked out and moved to the Center.

A sordid and sadly ironic tale.

After a reading of the 91st Psalm at last night’s vigil, there were words of praise for the Sheriff and the security staff at the Center. But no Sheriff or security staff was there to keep Ms. Griffiths from being killed. Any of us could die at any moment. Nobody with a gun can offer us real security or real safety. Some of us find these things in religion; others do without.

I went to the Oxford preview of An Inconvenient Truth organized by the Climate Outreach and Information Network yesterday. If you have not seen it, go see it; even better, buy the DVD, have your friends over to watch it, and talk with them about climate change. Read the rest of this entry »

Tribune:

The Common Council unanimously passed an ordinance banning solicitation directly in traffic on Monday. The ordinance prohibits those collecting donations, distributing literature, or selling or offering items, from stepping into traffic to solicit motorists. This includes standing on a sidewalk and reaching into traffic in any way.

The discussion seems to have been entirely about people fundraising at intersections, but the last sentence indicates that this would ban panhandling, too. You could stand on the sidewalk and hold your sign, but if a motorist offered you money, you could not reach “into traffic” and take it.

It strikes me that a ban like this has much more impact in a city like South Bend than in Worcester. Worcester has several urban areas with lots of foot traffic, so if you want to pass out fliers or solicit donations, you don’t have to rely on motorists. South Bend, on the other hand, is just a big suburb, with a low population density and few areas with lots of walkers. Motorists are the only game in town.

I went down to the Portland Catholic Worker’s Dorothy Day House this weekend, where I met Lisa Hughes and Father Jim Stephens. I was pleased to note it’s a vegetarian household.

The community is still going strong after two years, and seems to have a nice mix of activism and serving the poor.

In 2003, when I told Catholic Worker types I was from Worcester, they often asked, “Do you know Scott and Claire?” In 2005 and 2006, the number one question has been, “Do you know Christine Lavallee?” Lisa was the latest to ask.

Fr. Jim Stephens and Lisa Hughes in front of Dorothy Day House, Portland, Oregon.

[Portland Catholic Worker: PO Box 11193, Portland OR 97211 / portlandcw@techforpeople.net]

About twenty people gathered at the Federal Building last night in South Bend, Indiana, to repent and pray on the 61st anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan.

Another, more secular, vigil was held in South Bend earlier in the day.

The group, most wearing black, held signs reading “From Nagasaki to Lebanon / Mourn the Dead.”

Pictured: Mike Schorsch. Photo by Mike Benedetti. More photos.

The event was sponsored by the South Bend Catholic Worker and the Catholic Peace Fellowship. It began with the reading of a meditation, reprinted below.

(The South Bend Tribune covered this event. Last year when the Worcester Telegram & Gazette saw fit to cover a similar event in Massachusetts, they saw fit to “balance” the coverage by interviewing a WWII-era man with a poor understanding of the facts. The Tribune, to its credit, did not do this.)

Read the rest of this entry »

On July 24, the South Bend library computers could no longer access Boing Boing, because Smartfilter considers it “nudity.”

I e-mailed the library’s webmaster, and the library said they’d look into it.

As of today, Boing Boing is back.

The US Jesus Radicals conference, “Here in this Place: Anarchism and Christianity in our Context,” starts today in Champaign, Illinois.

Occasional Pie and Coffee contributor Brenna Cussen will be speaking tonight:

6:30-8 pm — Evening Plenary
Living in Community 101
Learn from the experiences of people who have lived in community and/or helped organize one from the ground up. Brenna Cussen (South Bend Catholic Worker), Abigail Kahler (Psalters) and Eric Edgin will reflect on the ups and downs of community life, with a look at the logistics involved in starting out, the obstacles posed by the authorities against it and practical considerations for sustaining it. They will also share the theological/ideological reasons that make living in community a worthwhile endeavor.

(Technorati search on the conference.)