April 2007 Archives

"Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play?"

(Um, no. Sorry, wrong answer. But thanks for playing.)

It was 30 years ago today that a group of committed civic activists raised so much hell in New Hampshire that over 1,400 of them got thrown in the local hoosegow for non-violently protesting something they felt very, very strongly about.

What those people, and the many hundreds of their comrades that didn't end up being jailed along with them, accomplished on April 30, 1977 still resonates after all these years.

As well it should. What they did -- and, more importantly, how they did it -- still serves as a role model for citizen activists to this day.

They called themselves the Clamshell Alliance, and this is their story.

(The following threader was guest-written for the Democracy
Cell Project blog by longtime DCP community member Rachel K. So)

I have lacked health insurance since I left college nine years ago.

With my kind of background -– transgender AND racial minority –- getting a job, even with a college degree, was not easy. I had no choice but to do many odd jobs, that were paying next to nothing and offering no health insurance. Some jobs deliberately used me for under 35 hours, and fired me before 3 months, just so that they would not have to offer me health insurance. Eventually, I joined my family business, which finally let me put my education to use, but was struggling financially for years. Of course, there was no health coverage.

That is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them?

Impeachment is a serious thing.

It's not a thing to be taken lightly. It's not a thing to be undertaken without a lot of forethought, a preponderance of evidence, and a steadfast determination to see it through to its logical conclusion.

We have discussed impeachment in this space before. It's come up often, and it continues to come up often, in the course of comments posted on this blogsite. While the DCP as an entity does not advocate impeachment -- nor should it, given its status as a non-partisan not-for-profit organization dedicated to education and empowerment of citizen activists -- many members of the DCP community can, and frequently have, called for impeachment on their own.

Kennedy and Nixon pioneered television presidential debate in 1960, which was said to be a more flattering medium for Kennedy than for Nixon. This election, we can look forward to another pioneering step.

According to Tech News World, three news/blog sites -- Yahoo, Slate and The Huffington Post -- together will host the first online-only presidential debates this fall. Bloggers can go to any of the three websites and ask questions in real-time and vote on best answers. This will be a first, as will having questions come from those not actually present at the debates. Candidates who come off best with polished, prepared remarks will need to be spontaneous and quick on their feet to do well with the new format.

Take a look to the left and right of this column of text. If you're reading this as an above-the-fold threader intro on the blog's 'Main' page, then you'll see sidebars on both sides of the page. Those two sidebars are common to many parts of the site, but not to all of them. If you're reading this as the entire threader plus comments on its own secondary page, you'll only see the left-hand sidebar. On some parts of the site, such as the forums, you won't see any sidebars at all.

Sidebars are very useful things, which is why you see them on practically all websites. They can contain links and information that's always accessible from any of the various content pages. They can be used to provide ancillary items that can be related to the main page content but aren't part of that content itself. They can display blogrolls, RSS newsfeeds, links to other parts of the site, calendars, photos, widgets -- indeed, practically anything that can fit into a narrow space on one or both sides of the page can and has been used in sidebars.

It's an unfortunate fact that the sidebar(s) on the DCP site are static in design, which means they need to be updated manually or their content grows outdated and stale. And there's no question that the sidebar content on the site hasn't been updated in quite a while. There's a lot of accumulated dust and layers of cobwebs on both sides of the pages these days.

That's one of the goals we have in redoing the DCP site design: we want to make the sidebars more dynamic in design and more useful in content. We want to use those spaces more effectively, to include more information and make sure that it's updated frequently. We want to provide more of what you DCPeeps want to see in the sidebars on this website. That's why we're asking you to tell us what you want to see when you look to the left and the right of what you're reading here.

April 22, 1970 - April 22, 2007.

Happy birthday, Mom.

Okely-dokely! As previously noted, we're actively seeking input from the DCP community about what you fine folks do and don't want to see as part of an upcoming revision/redesign/rebirth of the Democracy Cell Project website. Some of you have posted some comments on that in passing already, but now we'd like to encourage you to get a bit more granular about certain components of the site (and, by extension, the relative importance of those components to why you come here to democracycellproject.net in the first place.)

Welcome to today's live blog about the expanding body of knowledge and understanding about the threats to women from a growing range of environmental insults, and how grassroots groups, physicians and scientists and bold public officials are fighting to solve these problems.

Today's event is one of Teresa Heinz's many lifelong commitments to making our planet a better place to live for women, children--and men.

Photo of T. by D. Grieser

Jeff Lewis, this morning, photo by C. Halushek

Teresa, concerned and hopeful, photo by C. Halushek

Steve Curwood, telling it like it is, photo by C. Halushek

Dorett, liveblogging

Tyrone Hayes, PhD

More than 2,000 participants are gathered here today in beautiful downtown Pittsburgh to hear the latest science and solutions from world leaders in studying women's health and the environment.

We'll be live blogging from the floor all day, bringing you critical new ideas and information from the speakers, plus special one-on-one interviews with speakers and with activists from Boston to Seattle.

"Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?"
-- Jack Kerouac, 'On the Road'

Greetings, DCPeeps. Today's blog threader is going to take a somewhat different tack than what we usually write about in this space. In fact, several blog threaders over the next couple of weeks are going to be taking the same kind of different tack.

The Democracy Cell Project was started at the end of 2004 with a set of hopeful goals and ambitious aspirations. As is the way of such things, over the years some of those remain intact while others have fallen by the wayside. And as is also the way of such things, the situation around us has changed significantly and new goals and aspirations have been added to the mix along the way.

One core tenet has never changed, though: that the Democracy Cell Project is a community, not a preconfigured entity. What we do here is participatory, not pontificatory. This is not a top-down enterprise. It has always been a concept, a community, a place in cyberspace where things happen from the ground up. And it was what it was and is what it is because of the people that are part of it, not in spite of them.

A lot of time has passed since the Democracy Cell Project was first given virtual life. A lot of things are different now than they were back then. Old paths have turned to other destinations. Old arrows have found other marks. Old voices have fallen silent, while new ones have come to be heard here. Change is an inevitable fact of life, and the DCP is a living thing.

So as times change, as lives change, the DCP inevitably changes also. Which is what brings us to the subject of today's threader:

Whither goes thou, Democracy Cell Project, in thy shiny car in the night?

"I go where the silence is", said Amy Goodman, "and say something." And so too do the creative arts therapists, who are putting together a conference entitled GIVE PEACE A CHANCE: COMMUNITY CONSCIOUSNESS, INNER WISDOM to be held April 26-30 in New York City.

The group, the American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama, put together a YouTube video to share their perspective on how peace can come to us, if only we learn to talk out our differences. Given the events of Monday, this seems like more than a suggestion; it seems like we had better get going.

The country needs the healing power of conversation, expression, and mutual understanding. Moreover, the world is telling us we need it too. And they understand, as some of us do too, that the planet depends on our coming to our senses, in every sense.

Dance, sing, draw, paint, sculpt, write, enact, converse, witness, listen, and acknowledge that we are, for better or for worse, all in this together, and there is no progress without struggle.

Share some of yours today.

(Song "If We Can Talk About It" written and performed by Wells Hanley; videography and editing by Kris Parn)

Teresa Heinz Kerry is no stranger to the spotlight. She's been on stage in front of crowds larger than most of us can even imagine. But as far as she's concerned, her most important work takes place behind the scenes. As head of the Heinz Endowments and the Heinz Family Philanthropies, she has long been a leader in promoting responsible, sustainable social action.

One of Teresa Heinz Kerry's more visible projects is the ongoing Women's Health and the Environment Conference series. This year's keynote conference will be held in Pittsburgh on this coming Friday, April 20, and will feature a number of outstanding speakers, scientists, and activists discussing critical health issues facing women today.

We will be attending the Women’s Health & the Environment: New Science, New Solutions conference and will posting reports about it here at the DCP blog. Today, however, we're also participating in a special 17-stop virtual blog tour (see the complete tour schedule here). And that gave us the opportunity to ask Teresa Heinz Kerry a few questions of particular interest to members of the DCP community:

Let's say you were someone with something important to talk about -- like, say, Teresa Heinz Kerry -- and an initiative you wanted to make sure people knew about -- like, say, the annual Conference on Women’s Health & the Environment -- and you wanted to make sure that the information got out to as many interested individuals from as many different interest groups as possible. How would you go about spreading the word?

Well, if you had the time and the travel budget (and didn't mind leaving a devastatingly huge carbon footprint in your wake), you might fly around the country for a series of sit-down appearances with interested groups. Or if you had the time and the telephone switchboard headroom, you might call around the country for a series of phone conversations with interested individuals.

Or, if you were thinking outside the box, you might re-visualize the usual personal appearance tour as a virtual appearance tour instead. You might figure that instead of stopping in 17 different places to talk to 17 different groups in person, you'd stop by 17 different blogs to talk to 17 different online audiences instead.

And, if you were Teresa Heinz Kerry, you'd go right ahead and do just that.

We here at the DCP aren't anti-religious -- far from it, actually. We're well aware of the spiritual aspects of living a creative and meaningful existence. We regularly reflect upon the Tao of politics in this space. We acknowledge the faith-based principles underlying many of the peace movements happening in America today. And we're certainly not anti-Christian here, even those of us that aren't Christians ourselves.

But we are opposed to erasing the lines of separation between church and state. We agree with the framers of the Constitution that a political theocracy has no place in American society. And that means we're increasingly concerned about the unparalleled degree of overlap that exists between the Bush administration, the neoconservative movement, and the overtly Christian right wing of the Republican Party.

That's why we're going to turn today's DCP blog threader over to NY Times op-ed contributor Paul Krugman, in the form of excerpts from a column of his titled "For God's Sake":

Tuesday's climate-change debate between current Senator Kerry and former Speaker Gingrich got a big raise for everybody involved.

It raised awareness of the urgent need to deal with the science of global climate change in a responsible manner.

It raised questions of why smart people from both sides of the issues can't work together more often to find mutually-acceptable solutions to common problems.

It raised the bar for reasonable, rational, respectful discourse between persons from different partisan political parties.

It raised eyebrows on the part of pundits who had been predicting a 'smackdown' but got a hug fest instead.

It raised the hopes of those who believe progressive politics is finally on the rebound in America.

And it raised the hackles of arch-conservatives who bitterly accused their erstwhile standard-bearer of selling out to those terrible tree-hugging leftists.

(I especially liked that last side effect -- sorry, über-right wingnuts, but the science is real and even Gingrich is going green these days. Deal with it.)

The Seattle Times has a contest each year with Peeps candy. These were my favorite entries, when we need all the attention drawn to Peace activists (or Peeps activists, in this case) that we can get! As the judges said, "Who knew Peeps were such activists? We got Peeps melted by global warming, ecoPeeps sitting in a tree, anti-war Peeps, GreenPeeps sailing the ocean." (I also included the iPeeps and the WarholPeeps as well, and you can see more in the archives for the past four contests at the Seattle Times.)

John Kerry and Newt Gingrich are debating the government's role in dealing with global climate change this morning at 10 am EDT, and enviromentally-minded netizens will be blogging about it in real time.

The debate, hosted by New York University’s John Brademas Center for the Study of Congress, will take place in the Russell Senate Office Building and will be broadcast live by C-Span and simultaneously webcast at http://c-span.org.

As TheHill.com notes, this event ought to be a thinking-man's matchup well worth watching:

Kerry, who bowed out of the 2008 presidential race earlier this year, has been dubbed an “environmental champion” by the non-partisan League of Conservation Voters. His website touts a long record of fighting for the environment. He and his wife Teresa Heinz Kerry also recently wrote This Moment on Earth, which addresses climate change and preserving the environment.

"Newt’s a guy who has spent a lot of time wrestling with climate change and the environment. He reads about it, he teaches about it, he writes about it,” Kerry said Thursday. “We don’t see eye to eye about everything, obviously, but that’s what makes for a good debate.

“As a father, when someone tells me that within the next decade, if we don't deal with global warming, our children and grandchildren may deal with global catastrophe, that tells me I damn well better do whatever I can to help make Washington deal with this responsibly,” Kerry added. “We need these good old-fashioned debates and forums and discussions to get everyone thinking creatively on both sides of the aisle.”

[snip]

“America should focus its energy policy in four areas,” Gingrich writes on his website. “Basic research for a new energy system, incentives for conservation, more renewable resources, and environmentally sound development of fossil fuels.

“The lengthy process of environmental planning must be made more efficient and cost effective,” he adds.

Kerry also noted he hopes this debate will keep climate change in the forefront of Americans’ minds.

“This is an issue of incredible importance to everyone’s lives, and we need to do big and small things every day to draw attention to the problem as well as the solutions. Al Gore has done a phenomenal job with his movie,” he added. “You do what you can to build the dialogue.”

Various progressive political posters will be giving the play-by-play and commenting on what they see and hear from Kerry and Gingrich on Kerry's blog this morning.

The more voices and the more different points of view that are represented in live-blogging discussions of this sort, the better the quality of the resulting discourse.

So stop by the Kerry blog and join the live-blogging thread there, and/or add your own live-blogging comments to this DCP blog thread during the debate as well.

It's scheduled to run from 10 am through 12 noon EDT, and there may be Q&A sessions afterwards, so there'll be plenty of time to put your two cents in at both locations.

"Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it."

But polar bears can't talk. So it's up to us to talk about it for them. Because they're in trouble and they need our help.

One of the most visible side effects of global warming is that Arctic sea ice is melting away at ever-increasing rates.

Polar bears are completely dependent on Arctic sea ice to survive, but recent reports indicate that 80 percent of that ice could be gone in 20 years -- all of it by 2040.

Polar bears are already suffering the effects: birth rates are falling, fewer cubs are surviving, and more bears are drowning.

Even when the words in question have had 40 years' worth of sacred, timeless truth seeping into each and every one of them.

________________________________________________________________________________________

As a John Kerry supporter prior to the last election, I was fortunate to become involved in his campaign so early that I was once given a "4JKB4IA" button as a gift. I wore that button last night when I heard John and Teresa talk about their book, "This Moment on Earth," and John recognized it immediately.

John McCain thinks the voters are stupid. Really, it's the only explanation I can think of for this nonsense.

But Mike Pence and Lindsey Graham think the voters are even stupider. Really, it's the only explanation I can think of for THIS nonsense.

First, McCain's disingenuous version of reality on the ground in Baghdad, as he told reporters at a press conference held in the heavily-fortified Green Zone on, fittingly enough, April 1:

After a heavily guarded trip to a Baghdad market, Sen. John McCain insisted Sunday that a U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown in the capital was working and said Americans lacked a "full picture" of the progress.

McCain, a Republican presidential hopeful who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, acknowledged a difficult task lies ahead in Iraq, but criticized the media for not giving Americans enough information about the recent drop in execution-style sectarian killings, the establishment of security posts throughout the city and Sunni tribal efforts against al Qaeda in the western Anbar province.

"These and other indicators are reason for cautious, very cautious optimism about the effects of the new strategy," said McCain, who was leading a Republican congressional delegation to Iraq that included Sen. Lindsey Graham.

McCain, R-Ariz., was combative during the news conference, refusing to respond to a question about whether the U.S. had plans to attack Iran. He also replied testily to a question about remarks he had made in the United States last week that it was safe to walk some Baghdad streets.

"Things are better and there are encouraging signs. I've been here ... many times over the years. Never have I been able to drive from the airport, never have I been able go out into the city as I was today," he said.

We'll get back to the Bizzarro Planet aspect of those remarks in a moment. But let's listen to Pence's and Graham's versions of the same Sunday stroll through the park-like atmosphere of Baghdad's Shorja market:

Climate change has been a big topic here at the DCP, in the mainstream media, and even at the Oscars for a while now. And I'm sure you've heard people talk about spending their money purchasing "carbon offsets", and taking other steps to offset their unavoidable uses of environmentally-dangerous technology by creating environmentally-sound alternatives to counterbalance their effects.

But that's a pretty hard concept to wrap your head around. It's complex, it's technical, and it's counter-intuitive for you averages Joes and Janes. There are a lot of people who are concerned about the issue and want to do what they can, but they just don't know what they can do as individuals to help make a difference.

That's where TerraPass comes in.

TerraPass is an organization that lets you calculate your “carbon footprint”, or the total of the carbon dioxide emissions you create with daily activities such as driving, electricity use, flying, and so on, and to provide you with opportunities to help offset that old technology by investing in new technology that helps better the environment.

Communicating about complex issues around climate change such as renewable resources, investment in industrial efficiency and alternative energy sources is a tough task, though.

So TerraPass uses their TerraBlog to explain the heart of their business to consumers and querying consumers over the web. It’s not just a one-way channel for the company to talk about these issues, but a forum that supports a community of people who are asking the tough questions. And you can find out more about TerraPass, read the environmental news of the day, and share thoughts with others who believe that reducing carbon footprints is economically advantageous as well as economically sound by visiting their blog here:

http://www.terrapass.com/terrablog/index.html

(Ah, come on, you know you want to. Besides, your Mother thinks its a good idea. And you know how she gets.)

:0)

What is "The Beloved Community" and why should we care? John Lewis wants you to know the answer.

First, the official explanation:

“The Beloved Community” is a term that was first coined in the early days of the 20th century by the philosopher-theologian Josiah Royce, who founded the Fellowship of Reconciliation. However, it was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., also a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, who popularized the term and invested it with a deeper meaning which has captured the imagination of people of good will all over the world.

For Dr. King, The Beloved Community was not a lofty utopian goal to be confused with the rapturous image of the Peaceable Kingdom, in which lions and lambs coexist in idyllic harmony. Rather, The Beloved Community was for him a realistic, achievable goal that could be attained by a critical mass of people committed to and trained in the philosophy and methods of nonviolence.

Dr. King’s Beloved Community is a global vision, in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth. In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. In the Beloved Community, international disputes will be resolved by peaceful conflict-resolution and reconciliation of adversaries, instead of military power. Love and trust will triumph over fear and hatred. Peace with justice will prevail over war and military conflict.