January 2008

As I mentioned earlier, my landlord decided to have the apple tree in the back-garden felled last weekend.

(The centenary Week of Prayer for Christian Unity starts today.)

2007-02-08

2007-04-24 Read the rest of this entry »

The Green Party of England and Wales gets about 4.0 % of the vote on Facebook’s ‘standing poll’. Adding the sister parties in Scotland and Northern Ireland does not improve the situation too much.

In the last general election (2005), the Greens got 1.0 % of the vote. One could argue that this should land it 6 members in a 646-seat House of Commons were proportional representation in place, until one notices the usual 5 % threshold as applies in Germany, Aotearoa New Zealand, and Taiwan.

One could further argue that proportional representation will change voter behaviour by defeating the ‘wasted vote’ argument, but I am not sure how far that would carry. By the way, Green Party Taiwan got 0.6 % for party-list ballots in last weekend’s legislative election. And I am glad Clara Rojas is now free; I hope Íngrid Betancourt will soon follow.

Or: œcumenism in Oxford; and trees. Last Friday, journalist Eric Albert of the French newspaper La Croix interviewed several of us about œcumenism in Oxford, for a series for the centenary Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which starts this Friday. La Croix is a daily paper of Catholic foundation, with circulation about 100 000. Those interviewed include: Bede Gerrard (Orthodox; county œcumenical officer), Hugh Lee (city rector, Anglican), Stephen Platt (Russian Orthodox), Rosemary (layperson at Blackfriars, the Catholic Dominican friary), me (Église Reformée Unie), and several others. We had fun discussing. Expect to read something about this in French soon.

Tree-related news: Earlier in the month, there was some brouhaha about a tree in Bonn Square in the city centre. Now that tree is gone. ¶ Last Wednesday, my friend Oxfordshire County Councillor Deborah Glass Woodin was wrongly arrested whilst trying to ascertain the legality of some tree-felling attempts by Oxford City Council in the nearby Westgate area (but not at the same site as Bonn Square). ¶ Later in the weekend, my landlord decided to chop off the apple tree in the back-garden (more on this later, with photographs perhaps).

For this Saturday: have a happy feast-day of Saint Wulfstan, Bishop of Worcester, patron of vegetarians.

On May 17, 1968, a group of Catholics now known as the “Catonsville Nine” went to the draft board in Catonsville, Maryland, took 378 draft files, brought them to the parking lot in wire baskets, dumped them out, poured homemade napalm over them, and set them on fire.

To remember the anniversary of this event, which continues to bear fruit today, we talked with Catonsville Nine member (and our housemate) Tom Lewis. Also part of the conversation is long-time peace activist Emeritus Professor Michael D. True, Ph.D. and Doctor of Humane Letters (honoris causa).

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Bruce and I went to a show at The Q, 362 Chandler St in Worcester. The time has come to talk about it.

Bruce: . . . I already was elected.

Pie and Coffee: Elected to what?

B: Elected to make a difference in the world and in people’s lives. And I’ve already succeeded.
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As reported in Boing Boing and elsewhere, Friday was the 6th anniversary of the opening of the Guantánamo prison.

As reported in the Telegram & Gazette Worcester Catholic Worker (and reluctant Pie and Coffee contributor) Claire Schaeffer-Duffy was arrested for civil disobedience at the US Supreme Court as part of an anti-Gitmo protest.

508 is a show about Worcester. This week’s panel includes Bruce Russell, Cha-Cha Connor, and Brendan Melican.

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Cha-Cha mourns the closing of the Java Hut; Worcester gets traffic cameras; Mike speculates that the Main South Alliance for Public Safety is a diabolical Freemasonic conspiracy; the benches in Federal Square are gone. Mike: “David Hitch is the worst editorial cartoonist in the country.” (Typical witless example.) Also: Worcester City Councilors promise a citizen revolution.

Listen to the mp3 or other formats.

If you’d like to leave a recorded message to be played on the show, call 508.471.3897.

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Not on the podcast: My hero Edmund Hillary has died. I love that there’s no photo of him being the first man atop Everest, just Tenzing Norgay, either because he forgot to ask TN to take one, or because he didn’t think it was important enough to show TN how to use the camera. I also love that his first words upon returning to base camp were: “Well, George, we finally knocked the bastard off.” A true adventurer.

WorcesterActivist.org back on its feet
WorcesterActivist.org has been running on a really flaky shared server. After months of wanting to move it, it’s finally moved. Let me know if there is anything wrong (as I expect there is).

Apologizing to the indigenous
Whispers: The Power of “Sorry”:

At a recent Mass to commemorate the 190th anniversary of a California mission built by native converts, the Miwok Indians, Sacramento’s bishop-emeritus apologized for the church’s mistreatment of the early community.

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It’s time for our annual conversation from and about the Mid-Ohio Valley. This year, Mark and Sarah talk about the Aeropress coffee maker, the Golden Girls, Yakov Smirnoff, “Black Pete,” and “Bubble.”

But not Barry Switzer.

Pie and Coffee: Are we going to talk about coffee first, or Barry Switzer first?

Mark: Whatever you want. I don’t care.

P: I’m drinking this cup of coffee. This is not the greatest cup of coffee I’ve ever had.

M: Yeah, it’s okay coffee, but it’s not–

Sarah: I’d say it’s solid.

M: I’d say it’s fine. I mean, that’s the thing, it’s perfectly acceptable.
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I may as well say up front that I’m a fan of Carl Malamud’s “be the government” philosophy.

So when I wanted to check up on the details of a Worcester City Council meeting from months past, I thought: “We should archive them online.”

The Government Channel already cablecasts the meetings, so a year ago I asked the City’s law department if these cablecasts are public domain. No answer yet.

Three weeks ago, I ordered a DVD of the most recent City Council meeting from the Government Channel. I’ve been told that the ordinary turnaround time is “a couple days,” but no DVD yet.

Civic leaders like Councilors Toomey and Smith have been asking the City to make the meetings available online, but they’ve had no more luck than I have.

I’m tired of waiting. Next week I’m going to tape the meeting with my own camera, and post it at the Internet Archive. This is far from ideal, but at least it’s a step. My dream would be for Indymedia to setup a computer to automatically record and post the meetings; this would take less than $400, along with the aid of someone more skilled with Linux than I am.

Anyone want to help? Let me know.