Month: April 2006

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.

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.
Continue reading “A comment on “Doonesbury””

On March 7, the Worcester City Manager’s office released a report that called for a five-year plan to end homelessness.

It doesn’t inspire much confidence.

The report’s second sentence admits that it comes out of the same process that brought us the city’s anti-panhandling plan. Almost none of that plan was implemented. The parts that were implemented were failures.

Should we expect anything different from the anti-homelessness plan?

In any case, five years is far too long. If the city wants to be in the business of ending homelessness, what is needed is a focused one-year plan with clear priorities. The City Manager’s report is scattered, reads like a laundry list of concerns, and avoids making tough choices about what really matters.

It is unfortunate that city government has no credibility and no sense of urgency on homelessness. Homelessness hurts all of us, and we each have a role to play in ending it.
Continue reading “No credibility, no urgency”