Good Friday items

P&C’s Michael Paulukonis was part of the team behind Skipscreen, the red-hot “free Firefox add-on that lets you skip all the clicking and waiting on sites like RapidShare, Zshare, MegaUpload, and Sharebee.” 120,000 downloads this week–congrats!

Mozart: music pirate
Charming musical post about “Gregorio Allegri’s arrangement of Psalm 51” from Rocco Palmo, just in time for Holy Week.

Are protests effective?
Management prof Brayden King says yes. I’m eager to dig into the research to see if any strategies seem to be more effective than others.
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Flower festival, Japanese Buddhist temple, Washington, D.C.

Palm Sunday mass was not the only important religious ceremony I attended this weekend. At the temple in DC where I’ve been living, today was the annual celebration of Buddha’s birthday, the “flower festival” or hana-matsuri. It’s also the 35th anniversary of this temple, and the National Cherry Blossom Festival.

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I dreamed I saw Tom Lewis last night

Tom LewisAlive as he could be.
“Tom,” I said, “You’re one year dead.”
“I never died,” said he,
“I never died,” said he.

Tom said, “When people pray for peace
Or paint what’s good and fair,
Whenever people fill the jails,
Tom Lewis will be there.
Tom Lewis will be there.

“When people open up their homes
Or serve soup on the street,
Assuming that I don’t get lost,
Tom Lewis you will meet.
Tom Lewis you will meet.”

And standing there as short as life,
Two caps upon his head,
Tom hugged me and before I woke
He whispered, “I ain’t dead.”
He whispered, “I ain’t dead.”

Today’s the anniversary of Tom Lewis’s death. Matt Feinstein was singing “I Dreamed I Saw Tom Lewis Last Night” at a party late last year–seems fitting.

I haven’t dreamt about Tom in months, but I think about him every day.

HBML closes today

Happy Birthday Mike Leslie!HBML, the visionary junk shop that for three years has been, pound-for-pound, Worcester’s most important cultural institution, is closing today.

Without HBML as an inspiration and retail outlet, Bruce Russell and I would not have released the Snow Ghost CD and books. HBML also was underwriter for the Snow Ghost Community Show.

I’m sad to see it go, but more than that, thankful it ever existed.

6 Happy Birthday Mike Leslie

vlcsnap-281731 The Thong Song is still relevant

The “Catholic Worker Peace Team” model

Scott Schaeffer-Duffy and Brenna Cussen discuss the “Catholic Worker Peace Team” model for international peace trips.

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mp3 link, more formats

Elements of the Catholic Worker Peace Team model:

  • Short duration
  • Personalist (non-governmental)
  • Spiritually-based
  • Direct service to those in need
  • Information gathering
  • Nonviolent direct action to make the situation better

Scott and Brenna are planning a May 2009 trip to Gaza, Sderot, and the West Bank. Their trip to Darfur and its aftermath was the first project documented on Pie and Coffee.

508 #67: Stone Soup damaged by fire

This morning I stepped off a Greyhound in Worcester, turned on my phone, and saw this text message: “Everybody is fine but stone soup had a big fire.”

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Kevin Ksen photo

Stone Soup, Worcester’s beloved arts, activism, and community center at 4 King Street, was damaged by a fire late Thursday, March 26. The fire began in the basement–the cause is as yet unknown. No one was injured.

The Stone Soup community is committed to continuing and rebuilding, whether at King Street or another site. The building is currently unusable, and member groups are temporarily meeting at the Pleasant Street Neighborhood Network Center, 301 Pleasant Street.

Stone Soup is in need of donations of time, money, and other items. Donations can be mailed to Stone Soup c/o Pleasant Street Neighborhood Network Center, 301 Pleasant St., Worcester, MA 01609. Lists of specific needs are being compiled, and will be posted at stonesoupworcester.org.

More photos and news updates at Indymedia.

Fujichia: FIRE AT STONE SOUP, NATURAL MODIFICATION

Telegram & Gazette, March 28: Stone Soup plans next story

Worcester Magazine: From the Ashes

Fundraiser: HBML closes forever April 1, with all proceeds going to Stone Soup.

NECN news story:

WCCA story:

mp3 link

A march to nowhere and other items

Linda LeTendre, in DC this week to join the 100 Days Campaign, reviews the recent antiwar march in DC, which I skipped:

There was a “standoff” between some demonstrators and some police officers, with the demonstrators taunting the officers. This was high idiocy for two reasons: (1) It did not promote peace, and (2) The officers were armed, the taunters were not. The officers were called to some other part of the event and as they left the taunters cheered as if they had won some great victory — further raising their level on the idiocy scale.

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Three items of interest: Church, Guantanamo, Action

“The coming evangelical collapse”
Michael Spencer:

Being against gay marriage and being rhetorically pro-life will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of Evangelicals can’t articulate the Gospel with any coherence. We fell for the trap of believing in a cause more than a faith.

Michael Bell runs the numbers. As a New England Catholic, whose own church is in steep decline while local evangelical churches seem to be thriving, these articles were full of surprises for me.

During last summer’s Catholic Worker National Gathering it struck me that the Catholic Worker movement is one of the few things about my church that’s not either in decline or in a defensive mode–the CW communities are doing great, with a good mix of ages, marked by openness, faith, and courage. I wish I could say the CW is a good model for the “future of the Church,” but interest has waxed and waned over the decades, and most people number their association with the CW in years rather than decades, so I think we’ll have to look elsewhere for that.
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Podcast: Michael Ratner on “The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld”

Last night’s talk by Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights as part of the 100 Days Campaign. Georgetown Law School, Washington, DC, March 18, 2009.

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Download the mp3 (41MB, 85 min), see other formats, or subscribe to the 100 Days podcast feed.

He does get into accountability/prosecution, but starts off with a great explanation of where we’ve been and where we are with America’s policies of torture and indefinite detention.