Love in practice is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.
Yes, the White House fountain is green today.
Just wanted to note that this Lent has been a real time of learning and growth for me. I’m finally recognizing that when I’m uncomfortable, that often means learning and growth is happening.
Pie and Coffee classic: The Real Saint Patrick, starring the Duffy Bros.
This is Obama’s 50th full day in office, and the mid-point of the 100 Days Campaign to Close Guantanamo and End Torture.
Today, the vice-presidential motorcade drove by the vigil. The last time this happened was the morning of Inauguration Day. A nice way to mark day 50.
We also hand-delivered letters about the Uighurs to every Senate office today. We’re hoping some of the Senators draft their own letter to Obama soon. It is time to get this thing done with.
More daily updates, you could go to the 100 Days site, or follow us on Twitter.
Today 12 people in orange jumpsuits from the 100 Days Campaign attended Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy’s “Getting to the Truth Through a Nonpartisan Commission of Inquiry” hearing. (Several folks were amused this was a hearing about forming a commission; see also I Think We Should Start Talking About Starting A Band.)
The caffeine headaches are fading, and I’m beginning to appreciate Lent. Giving something up for Lent is a more effective sort of New Year’s Resolution. You’re reminded of your commitment every Friday and Sunday, and your friends and family will be even more disappointed if you backslide–it’s not just a commitment to yourself, but to God!
Today there were all sorts of folks at the White House protesting on all sorts of issues. Even saw old Joe the Plumber. We’ve had a big, wonderful group in town for the 100 Days Campaign this week. People are coming from many perspectives; I recorded a roundtable yesterday to capture some of them.
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mp3 link (14MB, 29 min), other formats, podcast feed
Power Shift 2009 begins in DC today. After a full week of activism, I need a break from all that, so I won’t be connecting with PS, but I hope to run across some participants this weekend. I love that Monday the Speaker of the House is speaking, then thousands of people will head off to do civil disobedience at a coal plant. (Note that Pelosi and Reid yesterday took steps to have this plant stop using coal.)
Carl Malamud, rogue archivist and information activist, is campaigning to be made the Public Printer (head of the Government Printing Office). “I’m inspired by Gus Geigengack, a working printer who convinced FDR to name him to the post.”
Mr. Malamud’s “Hack 3: Be Government†was the direct inspiration for Worcester Indymedia’s 2008 project to create a free, public archive of City Council meeting videos. (The City refused to sell us copies of the videos or help in any way; in 2009 they finally started doing this themselves.)
I endorse his campaign, and hope that you will, too. He’s done a heck of a job opening government from the outside–he’d do a heck of a job on the inside, too. Read his platform and then endorse away! “To endorse my nomination, simply comment on any blog post (like this one!), tweet me [@carlmalamud], or send me email [carl@media.org]. The endorsements will be harvested, set into a book, and released as a free PDF file with paper copies dispatched to the White House Office of Personnel. Thank you for your support.”
People I read who are endorsing: On the Commons, Boing Boing
Many of this week’s participants in the 100 Days Campaign to Close Guantanamo and End Torture are Catholics, so Ash Wednesday is an important day.
We wanted to connect the practice of our 100 Days vigil to our Lenten practice, so after visiting the White House sidewalk we processed to St. Matthew’s Cathedral and held a vigil during the transition between masses.
As our text we chose a line from Friday’s first reading:
This, rather, is the fasting that I wish:
releasing those bound unjustly,
untying the thongs of the yoke;
Setting free the oppressed,
breaking every yoke
(Isaiah 58:6)
A vigil like this can easily come across as a protest against the church or the churchgoers, and indeed we’ve already received one angry, eloquent e-mail from someone who understood our message and is sympathetic to the cause, but didn’t like the vigil one bit. Continue reading “Day 36: Ash Wednesday”
Time to hammer out my Lenten gameplan.
Last year, my Lenten project/sacrifice was to pray and fast for an end to the Iraq War. The year before, I added a little liquid-only fasting to my routine, and the year before that I gave up soy on Fridays. (As a vegan, the usual Lenten Friday no-meat fast doesn’t require any sacrifice.)
This year, I’m going to try to give up caffeine, and spend an extra ten minutes each day in silent prayer.
If you have ideas, links, or projects to share, please add a comment. May your Lent be a powerful time!
We are told he was injured falling from a tree. More details to come.
Peter was a veteran of both the U.S. Army and Marines who became one of the leading anti-war activists in America.
[…]
Peter leaves behind his wife, Ellen Grady, and their 4 daughters.
And the longtime peace activist Peter DeMott has died at the age of sixty-two. Shortly before the US invasion of Iraq, DeMott and three other peace activists poured their own blood on the posters, flags and walls of a military recruiting station outside of Ithaca, New York. The activists became known as the St. Patrick’s Day Four. Demott served four months in federal prison for the action. He became a peace activist after fighting with the Marines in Vietnam.
A U.S. appeals court has reversed a lower court ruling that the 17 Uighur detainees at Guantanamo should be immediately released into the US. Washington Post:
Two of the judges, Karen LeCraft Henderson and A. Raymond Randolph, found that Urbina overstepped his authority in ordering such a remedy. Only the Executive Branch and Congress have the power to allow people to enter the United States, they ruled.
“The question here is not whether petitioners should be released, but where,” Randolph wrote in an 18-page opinion. “Never in the history of habeas corpus has any court thought it had the power to order an alien held overseas brought into the sovereign territory of a nation and released into the general population.”
In an opinion concurring with Randolph and Henderson, judge Judith W. Rogers wrote that Urbina had the right to order the release of the Uighurs into the United States but had acted “prematurely.”
Matt Daloisio was planning to attend a Move America Forward press conference last week to ask some hard questions, and involved me in his scheme to make a “press pass.”
Continue reading “Catholic Worker press credentials”