January 2008

What are Pie and Coffee readers and contributors doing for Lent?

Among other things, I’ll be participating in the Worcester Lenten fast and prayer for an end to the Iraq War. I’m not sure yet what form my fasting will take.

Feel free to post your thoughts below, or link to a blog post. Contributors, feel free to add resources to this post.

From the pope’s Lenten message:

The Gospel highlights a typical feature of Christian almsgiving: it must be hidden: “Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,” Jesus asserts, “so that your alms may be done in secret” (Mt 6,3-4). . . . If, in accomplishing a good deed, we do not have as our goal God’s glory and the real well being of our brothers and sisters, looking rather for a return of personal interest or simply of applause, we place ourselves outside of the Gospel vision.

So I assume everybody is giving alms, and you don’t have to mention that.

As Roman Catholics who love the Church, we listened closely to Pope John Paul II who called the 2003 Iraq War “a defeat for humanity” and to Pope Benedict XVI who said, “There were not sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq,” and went on to say, “We should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a just war.”

We remember that, despite the Vatican’s clear opposition to the Iraq War, only one American Bishop, Most Rev. John Michael Botean, condemned it. In a 2003 Lenten Pastoral Letter, Bishop Botean called the Iraq War “objectively grave evil, a matter of mortal sin.”

On March 19, the Iraq War will enter its fifth year. More than 150,000 Iraqi civilians and nearly 4,000 American soldiers have perished. Hundreds of thousands of our sisters and brothers have been injured, orphaned, or left homeless.

We cannot help but wonder if this war could have been prevented with a stronger voice of opposition from all of us in the American Catholic Church. We admit our own complicity by our failure to raise our own voices more forcefully. But, even now, we believe that the voice of our Church can help end the bloodshed.

Therefore, inspired by the witness of Blessed Franz Jagerstatter, we join concerned Catholics in twelve other dioceses around the United States to call for a Lenten prayer and fast for peace. Like Jagerstatter, the only known Roman Catholic to refuse service in Hitler’s military during World War II, we believe that the Church must not stay “silent in the face of what is happening.” Starting on Ash Wednesday, we invite all people of conscience to join us at Saint Paul’s Cathedral for midday Mass each weekday, followed by a peace vigil outside the church and, shortly thereafter, at the nearby United States Federal Building. We will conclude our prayer and fasting during Holy Week on March 19th with a special Catholic peace witness at the Federal Building.

We hope and pray that this witness in Worcester and other dioceses around the country will draw the Church closer to the nonviolent Christ and help our nation to end the Iraq War and Occupation.

This weekend, 4 of us played with 2 gadgets that are intended to establish new market niches and which embrace “openness”: the XO (aka OLPC, a tiny laptop for developing-world kids) and the Chumby (a tiny wifi-enabled Linux box intended to compete with clock radios).

My blog post “The Chumby Is a Waste of Money” is coming soon, but I have to admit that watching the Worcester Commons webcam on this thing was pure fun.

Whatever the faults of OLPC’s strategy, their project already seems to have scared for-profit companies into making laptops for developing-world kids. And boy, the XO is a sweet piece of hardware: playing with it, I got the same thrill as when I first used the Wii and iPhone.

Odd UI: A big plus, in my book. What’s life without challenges?

Interesting apps: Two friends, much less geeky than I, had great fun seeing what they could get this thing to do. If there’s a fine line between confusing and intriguing, this is on the right side of that line.

Durable: I’m very hard on gadgets, so I love the solid feel of the XO. This is the only laptop I’d be comfortable using as a club or cutting board.

Cute as heck: Your iPhone will look sleek this year, old-fashioned next year. A thing of cuteness is cute forever.

We were telling one friend about the arty video game Passage (via Kottke), and Nick got it running on the XO. A cool end to a cool afternoon.

Related:
The XO in Darfur
XO vs. Macbook Air
Using the Chumby to build a robot car

God, on this Sunday after the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity,
we again thank you for your Church;
and for our sisters and brothers united in your son, Jesus Christ,
who taught us to pray to you as our father in heaven.

Lord, in your mercy,
hear our prayer.
Read the rest of this entry »

508 is a show about Worcester. This week’s co-host is Brendan Melican. This week’s guests are Jeff Barnard and Anne Lewenberg.

Standard Podcast [ 25:03 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The City and EPA disagree about Worcester’s water treatment; we explore the social dynamics of having a city councilor as a Facebook friend. (Here’s the Cory Doctorow essay.)

We respond to some claims by Anthony Hmura, and note that his blog is totally avant garde. Brendan updates us on the median income debate. Note that he’s now Chair of the Cultural Commission!

HBML is “expanding,” and Mike won the giant plush squid.

Jeff Barnard talks about why there’s no “top story” in Worcester, and Anne Lewenberg describes the ongoing, successful Anarchist Theory and Action Skill Share Series.

Listen to the mp3 or other formats.

Update:Jeff created this fun short video using his own footage and the 508 audio:

An extra $1,000,000 for Worcester’s homeless
Good article by Jay Whearly:

The ambitious initiative, announced by the Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts, is to begin immediately and will initially target 125 people, an estimated 20 percent of Worcester’s chronic homeless population.

[...]

Home Again pulls together the resources of Community Healthlink, Central Massachusetts Housing Alliance, Dismas House, Henry Lee Willis Community Center, Jeremiah’s Inn, and South Middlesex Opportunity Council’s People in Peril Shelter in Worcester. Brook [sic] Doyle, vice president of homeless and detoxification services for Community Healthlink will serve as project director.

Rep. Jim McGovern, Brooke Doyle, Brian Bickford, and Cha-Cha Connor at this year’s Worcester memorial for those who have died homeless.

Sad news from the Columbia, Missouri Catholic Worker
Read the letter:

Those of us who remain are hurting. I have lost my wife. My daughters feel abandoned and betrayed by their mother suddenly moving to another town without telling them when or why. My grandson no longer has his grandmother to dote on him. Other St. Francis CW members feel manipulated and saddened that she refused to confide in us. We don’t know if St. Francis operations in Columbia, MO can survive this crisis and we are struggling.

Read the rest of this entry »

Jay Smooth: Ten OTHER Things Martin Luther King Said

via Maximum Fun

Jean Kirkhope: “It’s crazy to think I can fundraise $6,000 to build a house for a family in Nepal. Even if I asked one dollar from every person I knew, I’d still come up $5,730 short. But I’m told anything is possible with God and I’ve always been a sucker for an optimistic view of the world. So I guess I’ll start praying and asking a lot more people I don’t know, too!”

“Please send $1 in a secured envelope OR check or money order payable to:
The Catholic Worker Farm
c/o Jeannie Kirkhope
885 Orchard Run Rd.
Spencer, WV 25276″

Pie and Coffee article on Jean’s Catholic Worker farm

More about this project

My friends are publishing books faster than I can read them these days, which is probably a good thing; to wit:

• Rupert Read, Philosophy for Life.
• Andrew Basden, Philosophical Frameworks for Understanding Information Systems.
• Martin and Margot Hodson, Cherishing the Earth.
• Dave Bookless, Planetwise: Dare to care for God’s world.

On Saturday, I went to a day-conference ‘What is the world coming to? Ecological crisis and Christian hope’ at Redcliffe College, organized by the John Ray Initiative. Speakers included Ernest Lucas, Margot Hodson, and Dave Bookless.

On Sunday evening, we had a united service at the cathedral Christ Church, Oxford, for the centenary Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, with Bishop William Kenney (Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Birmingham) preaching.

508 is a show about Worcester. This week’s panel includes Brendan Melican.

Standard Podcast [ 33:19 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Inspired by the words of City Councilor Bill Eddy, we provide an infusion of enthusiasm.

Economic Development Initiatives Status Report: “A start-up company that has developed a way to grow plants for cosmetics and health will be the first business to redevelop land in the South Worcester Industrial Park.” Things are happening with the Mason-Winfield Lot. Mike agrees with Jeff, and disagrees with Gary Rosen, that the current wayfinding sign is not that great; Brendan informs us that much, much more is to come.

Brendan points out that the City is confusing the matter of median family income. Mike talks to Pat Moriarty about Worcester’s community radio station, WCUW 91.3FM. The Lincoln Estate-Elm Park Neighborhood Association continues its public feud with Bob Bourassa. Jeff Barnard: “Now I wonder, have I ever actually laughed at a David Hitch cartoon?”

Anthony Hmura responds to our podcast with a third post about Grace Ross. Colin Novick provides an infusion of enthusiasm by encouraging the city to not pollute the river; Clive McFarlane makes an inaccurate Abbie Hoffman reference. A Holy Cross alum is writing speeches for Obama.

Mike will be running HBML on Jan 23, and recording interviews for the podcast with whoever stops by.

Listen to the mp3 or other formats.