Who is Gary Garino?

New Posts on Conscious Lifestyle

2008-06-06T05:34:00.001-07:00

Check out my latest post about social responsibility at consciouslifestyle.org. It's on Iron Man, Gandhi, and Edward Said.

vI've decided to post once a week to clarify my vision for Conscious Lifestyle. This will include discussions on awareness, social responsibility, and social entrepreneurship.

Conscious Lifestyle is also giving grants for youth leaders. Visit the site to check it out.

Ex-Israeli Generals Denounce Checkpoints

2008-02-19T13:11:00.000-08:00

By LAURIE COPANS
The Associated Press
Wednesday, February 13, 2008; 9:55 AM

JERUSALEM -- A group of retired Israeli generals has launched a campaign urging the army to remove West Bank roadblocks, warning on Wednesday that the travel restrictions sow Palestinian hatred of Israel and stymie the peace process.

The 12 top former commanders say the hundreds of checkpoints dotting the West Bank are excessive and other military means can be used to prevent suicide bombings in Israel.

The Palestinians have long demanded that Israel remove the roadblocks as a way to build faith in recently renewed peace talks.

The generals have written a letter to Defense Minister Ehud Barak in an effort to persuade him to gradually remove the checkpoints, which severely restrict movement of the some 2 million Palestinians who live in the West Bank and have crippled their economy. Israel maintains the checkpoints are vital for its security.

"You have to understand that there is damage in having the Palestinian people with its back to the wall, not seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, unable to improve their economy, unable to move from place to place," Ilan Paz, a signatory of the letter and a former head of the army's administration of Palestinian civilian affairs, told Israel Radio. " This creates a reality that creates terror, and we have to remember that."

Obama at Ebenezer Church 1/20

2008-01-27T12:32:00.000-08:00

Check out more by Matt Werner at http://www.youtube.com/user/djmattwerner.

Montel Turns the Tables

2008-01-27T12:29:00.000-08:00

A Picture's Wortha Thousand Words

2008-01-21T16:44:00.001-08:00

US President George W. Bush (C) leans over to talk with a girl (R) after Bush participated in a lesson for young children on the importance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day during a tour of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, DC, 21 January 2008. By Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty.

I wonder why these negotiations never work? Do you think that pro-Israeli bias may make the conditions unacceptable?

2008-01-09T18:11:00.000-08:00

Get $1,000 for Your Socially Innovative Idea

2008-01-04T15:55:00.000-08:00

Are you passionate about making the world a better place? Have an idea about how to make your fellow students and your school more socially responsible? Want to turn that idea into a reality?

Conscious Lifestyle is accepting applications for its 2008 venture program.

Submit an application for the chance to win:

* Up to $1,000 in start-up funding
* Web space on consciouslifestyle.org
* Monthly skill-building workshops
* Personalized support
* Access to a network of social entrepreneurs

To learn more and download an application, visit consciouslifestyle.org.

Application Deadline: February 15, 2008.

Are you serious? Giuliani is out of his mind!

2008-01-03T14:48:00.000-08:00

Kanye and Thom York

2008-01-03T14:28:00.000-08:00

Obama + Oprah = Unstoppable

2007-12-10T19:19:00.000-08:00

Italian Spiderman

2007-12-02T17:35:00.001-08:00

Your Tax-payer Money Hard at Work

2007-10-28T19:13:00.000-07:00

Isn't this guy a tough, fear-nothing, cowboy?

Desmon Tutu: Realizing God's dream for the Holy Land

2007-10-28T16:53:00.000-07:00

The Boston Globe
October 26, 2007

WHENEVER I am asked if I am optimistic about an end to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, I say that I am not. Optimism requires clear signs that things are changing - meaningful words and unambiguous actions that point to real progress. I do not yet hear enough meaningful words, nor do I yet see enough unambiguous deeds to justify optimism.

However, that does not mean I am without hope. I am a Christian. I am constrained by my faith to hope against hope, placing my trust in things as yet unseen. Hope persists in the face of evidence to the contrary, undeterred by setbacks and disappointment. Hoping against hope, then, I do believe that a resolution will be found. It will not be perfect, but it can be just; and if it is just, it will usher in a future of peace.

My hope for peace is not amorphous. It has a shape. It is not the shape of a particular political solution, although there are some political solutions that I believe to be more just than others.

Neither does my hope take the shape of a particular people, although I have pleaded tirelessly for international attention to be paid to the misery of Palestinians, and I have roundly condemned the injustices of certain Israeli policies that compound that misery. Thus I am often accused of siding with Palestinians against Israeli Jews, naively exonerating the one and unfairly demonizing the other.

Nevertheless, I insist that the hope in which I persist is not reducible to politics or identified with a people. It has a more encompassing shape. I like to call it "God's dream."

God has a dream for all his children. It is about a day when all people enjoy fundamental security and live free of fear. It is about a day when all people have a hospitable land in which to establish a future. More than anything else, God's dream is about a day when all people are accorded equal dignity because they are human beings. In God's beautiful dream, no other reason is required.

God's dream begins when we begin to know each other differently, as bearers of a common humanity, not as statistics to be counted, problems to be solved, enemies to be vanquished or animals to be caged. God's dream begins the moment one adversary looks another in the eye and sees himself reflected there.

All things become possible when hearts fixed in mutual contempt begin to grasp a transforming truth; namely, that this person I fear and despise is not an alien, something less than human. This person is very much like me, and enjoys and suffers, loves and fears, wonders, worries, and hopes. Just as I do, this person longs for well-being in a world of peace.

God's dream begins with this mutual recognition - we are not strangers, we are kin. It culminates in the defeat of oppression perpetrated in the name of security, and of violence inflicted in the name of liberation. God's dream routs the cynicism and despair that once cleared the path for hate to have its corrosive way with us, and for ravenous violence to devour everything in sight.

God's dream comes to flower when everyone who claims to be wholly innocent relinquishes that illusion, when everyone who places absolute blame on another renounces that lie, and when differing stories are told at last as one shared story of human aspiration. God's dream ends in healing and reconciliation. Its finest fruit is human wholeness flourishing in a moral universe.

In the meanwhile, between the root of human solidarity and the fruit of human wholeness, there is the hard work of telling the truth.

From my experience in South Africa I know that truth-telling is hard. It has grave consequences for one's life and reputation. It stretches one's faith, tests one's capacity to love, and pushes hope to the limit. At times, the difficulty of this work can make you wonder if people are right about you, that you are a fool.

No one takes up this work on a do-gooder's whim. It is not a choice. One feels compelled into it. Neither is it work for a little while, but rather for a lifetime - and for more than a lifetime. It is a project bigger than any one life. This long view is a source of encouragement and perseverance. The knowledge that the work preceded us and will go on after us is a fountain of deep gladness that no circumstance can alter.

Nothing, however, diminishes the fear and trembling that accompany speaking the truth to power in love. An acute awareness of fallibility is a constant companion in this task, but because nothing is more important in the current situation than to speak as truthfully as one can, there can be no shrinking from testifying to what one sees and hears.

What do I see and hear in the Holy Land? Some people cannot move freely from one place to another. A wall separates them from their families and from their incomes. They cannot tend to their gardens at home or to their lessons at school. They are arbitrarily demeaned at checkpoints and unnecessarily beleaguered by capricious applications of bureaucratic red tape. I grieve for the damage being done daily to people's souls and bodies. I have to tell the truth: I am reminded of the yoke of oppression that was once our burden in South Africa.

I see and hear that ancient olive trees are uprooted. Flocks are cut off from their pastures and shepherds. The homes of some people are bulldozed even as new homes for others are illegally constructed on other people's land. I grieve for the land that suffers such violence, the marring of its beauty, the loss of its comforts, the despoiling of its yield. I have to tell the truth: I am reminded of the bitter days of uprooting and despoiling in my own country.

I see and hear that young people believe that it is heroic and pious to kill others by killing themselves. They strap bombs to their torsos to achieve liberation. They do not know that liberation achieved by brutality will defraud in the end. I grieve the waste of their lives and of the lives they take, the loss of personal and communal security they cause, and the lust for revenge that follows their crimes, crowding out all reason and restraint. I have to tell the truth: I am reminded of the explosive anger that inflamed South Africa, too.

Some people are enraged by comparisons between the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and what happened in South Africa. There are differences between the two situations, but a comparison need not be exact in every feature to yield clarity about what is going on. Moreover, for those of us who lived through the dehumanizing horrors of the apartheid era, the comparison seems not only apt, it is also necessary. It is necessary if we are to persevere in our hope that things can change.

Indeed, because of what I experienced in South Africa, I harbor a vast, unreasoning hope for Israel and the Palestinian territories. South Africans, after all, had no reason to suppose that the evil system and the cycles of violence that were sapping the soul of our nation would ever change. There was nothing special or different about South Africans to deserve the appearance of the very thing for which we prayed and worked and suffered so long.

Most South Africans did not believe they would live to see a day of liberation. They did not believe that their children's children would see it. They did not believe that such a day even existed, except in fantasy. But we have seen it. We are living now in the day we longed for.

It is not a cloudless day. The divine arc that bends toward a truly just and whole society has not yet stretched fully across my country's sky like a rainbow of peace. It is not finished, it does not always live up to its promise, it is not perfect - but it is new. A brand new thing, like a dream of God, has come about to replace the old story of mutual hatred and oppression.

I have seen it and heard it, and so to this truth, too, I am compelled to testify - if it can happen in South Africa, it can happen with the Israelis and Palestinians. There is not much reason to be optimistic, but there is every reason to hope.

Desmond Tutu is the former archbishop of Cape Town, chairman of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Movies You Should See

2007-10-28T07:18:00.001-07:00

Remains of a Church in California

2007-10-28T07:14:00.000-07:00

For more amazing photos, check out http://www.time.com/time/photoessays.

Umm, yeah. You probably won't see this on MTV

2007-10-12T08:28:00.000-07:00

Don't Touch

2007-09-04T06:15:00.000-07:00

"Don’t touch—make war. Don’t touch—be abstract, about God and death and life and love. Don’t touch—make war at a distance. Don’t touch your enemy, except to destroy him. Don’t touch, because in the touch of hand to hand is Michelangelo’s electric moment of creation. Don’t touch, because law and order have so decreed, limiting the touch of man to man, to the touch of nightsticks upon flesh…"

-Daniel Berrigan

Cheney '94: Invading Baghdad Would Create Quagmire C-SPAN

2007-08-18T22:08:00.001-07:00

Give Peace A Chance - John Lennon

2007-08-18T21:40:00.001-07:00

Homage to a genius. "War is over, if you want." -John Lennon

Elephant Safari

2007-07-13T20:02:00.001-07:00

Took a quick rafting/safari trip. Highlight was being on top of these beast and seeing them tear their own path through the jungle, uprooting trees and stomping fallen branches like toothpicks. We also got to play with the elephant baby below. Yeah...there aren't many safety rules, haha.

Tata Trucks

2007-07-13T19:53:00.000-07:00

Villages in Nepal

2007-07-09T19:24:00.001-07:00

Kids in Nepal

2007-07-08T20:08:00.000-07:00

Kathmandu

2007-07-05T20:21:00.000-07:00

So the highlight of KTM was seeing the the Kumari Devi, which is a young girl in Nepal with too much make-up, silly rules like not being able to touch the groung, and the status of "living goddess." We randomely walked in her courtyard exactly at the time when she came to her window to wave awkwardly at a handful of people. This rare event supposedly brings on-lookers good fortune. The Kumari may not be as lucky, since her trip to the US (first in Kumari history) will most likely lead to her being deemed mortal again. I know people think America is morally loose, but going from God to regular human over night is pretty drastic. Anyways, the Kumaris is one of the many bazaar things in Nepal that have made this trip interesting. Read more on the Kumari at:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-nepal-living-goddess,1,2344839.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

http://www.visitnepal.com/nepal_information/kumari.php

Western Nepal

2007-07-05T19:34:00.000-07:00

So these are random pictures from my new home in Western Nepal. One of my favorites is the picture of me and my colleague in a minibus from one city to another. They packed 28 people into a 10 passenger van. One lady passed out on my shoulder while her baby was entrusted to perfect strangers like ourselves. When the vans get so packed that not another body can fit, they put a dozen people on the roof. If you can survive the ride without falling off when the driver breaks for a cow sleeping on the highway the roof is actually a great seat because the breeze brings the temperature down to the double digits. Then again, when the monsoon suddenly breaks, you're in trouble!

CES Welcome

2007-07-05T19:12:00.000-07:00

When we arrived in Western Nepal we were welcomed by CES (Creation of an Equitable Society), which is the NGO that we have come to help. The welcome included having red tika put on our foreheads and greating long lines of people who would introduce themselves, hand us flowers, and say "namaste" with a small bow. It was an overwhelming welcome, partly because of the generosity, and partly because my bare feet were burning on the sun scorched cement.

Welcome to Nepal

2007-07-04T18:52:00.001-07:00

These pictures are from a cultural program that was put on for us in a Dalit village when we arrived. There was a lot of dancing, speech-making, eating, and saying "namaste" with overflowing handfuls of flowers. Highlights of the day included eating our first meal off of dishes made of leaves and being forced to dance Nepali style. Little did we know that a 1 hour television special was played on a local news channel about us! The next day we were stopped in the streets by people telling us how they watched us eat, dance, and make speeches for an hour.

What the poor want

2007-06-14T08:32:00.000-07:00

While interviewing the women's savings groups in the Tharu villages of Western Nepal I made a short list of what they want. Here are the top things:

-Literacy classes
-The ability to send their children to school
-A water pump so they don't have to walk to the river everyday
-Toilets
-Trainings on skills that will help them generate more revenue
-Access to medicine when they get sick
-Awareness about sanitation
-Book-keeping classes

...So pretty much they want education, health, compensation for their hard work, and technology that will make their days less burdensome. Sounds reasonable to me.

Vision and Strategy

2007-05-13T09:34:00.000-07:00

The most important role for a CEO is conveying a strong sense of vision, and strategy formulation to achieve taht vision is the CEO's most important skill.

Barack Obama 2008

2007-05-12T18:12:00.001-07:00

Access to more than 50 percent of West Bank restricted for Palestinians: World Bank

2007-05-09T05:46:00.000-07:00

Access to more than 50 percent of West Bank restricted for Palestinians: World Bank
The Associated Press
Tuesday, May 8, 2007

RAMALLAH, West Bank: A new World Bank report says the troubled Palestinian economy cannot recover unless Israel dismantles its web of physical and administrative obstacles to Palestinian movement in the West Bank. Here are some figures from the report.
____

Since Israel signed an agreement on improving movement and access for Palestinians in November 2005, restrictions have instead become tighter. Since the agreement, the number of physical obstacles in the West Bank increased by 44 percent, to 547.
____

Israel's permit system can be used to control the movement of Palestinian residents outside their immediate municipal area and to restrict access to more than 50 percent of the West Bank. In compiling that figure, the bank considered the West Bank and east Jerusalem as a single unit, in line with the international community's refusal to accept Israel's annexation of the eastern sector of the city.
___

Physical and administrative obstacles have divided the West Bank into 10 enclaves, and Palestinians have to move through checkpoints to get from one to the other.
___

About 250,000 Israelis live in 121 settlements in the West Bank, or roughly twice as many as the 126,900 who were present in the area at the time of 1994 interim peace deals between Israel and the Palestinians. Between 2001 and 2005, the settler population grew by 5.5 percent a year, while the population within Israel grew by 1.8 percent a year.
____

Built-up areas of Jewish settlements cover about 3 percent, and the settlements' municipal boundaries an additional six percent. The settlements' areas of "regional jurisdiction" are larger than the boundaries, and include agricultural and industrial areas and space for further expansion.
____

The Israeli settlement watchdog group Peace Now, citing official government figures, estimates that nearly one-third of land included in settlement jurisdictions is privately owned by Palestinians.
___

Israel's separation barrier slices off 8.5 percent of the West Bank. That area, declared "closed" by Israel and falling under a strict permit regime, is home to some 50,000 Palestinians in 38 villages and towns.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/05/09/africa/ME-GEN-Israel-World-Bank-Glance.php

Sheryl Crow makes Karl Rove squirm

2007-04-24T20:41:00.000-07:00

The "highlight" of the White House Correspondents Dinner had to be when we were introduced to Karl Rove. How excited were we to have our first opportunity ever to talk directly to the Bush Administration about global warming.

We asked Mr. Rove if he would consider taking a fresh look at the science of global warming. Much to our dismay, he immediately got combative. And it went downhill from there.

We reminded the senior White House advisor that the US leads the world in global warming pollution and we are doing the least about it. Anger flaring, Mr. Rove immediately regurgitated the official Administration position on global warming which is that the US spends more on researching the causes than any other country.

We felt compelled to remind him that the research is done and the results are in (www.IPCC.ch). Mr. Rove exploded with even more venom. Like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum, Mr. Rove launched into a series of illogical arguments regarding China not doing enough thus neither should we. (Since when do we follow China's lead?)

At some point during his ramblings, we became heartbroken to think that the President of the United States and his top advisers have partially built a career on global warming not being real. We have been telling college students across the country for the past two weeks that government does not change until people demand it... well, listen up folks, everyone had better get a lot louder because the message clearly is not getting through.

In his attempt to dismiss us, Mr. Rove turned to head toward his table, but as soon as he did so, Sheryl reached out to touch his arm. Karl swung around and spat, "Don't touch me." How hardened and removed from reality must a person be to refuse to be touched by Sheryl Crow? Unfazed, Sheryl abruptly responded, "You can't speak to us like that, you work for us." Karl then quipped, "I don't work for you, I work for the American people." To which Sheryl promptly reminded him, "We are the American people."

At that point Mr. Rove apparently decided he had had enough. Like a groundhog fearful of his own shadow, he scurried to his table in an attempt to hibernate for another year from his responsibility to address global warming. Drama aside, you would expect as an American citizen to be able to engage in a civil discussion with a public official. Instead, Mr. Rove was dismissive, condescending, and quite frankly a bully.

Ultimately, we were left wondering what on Earth Mr. Rove was talking about when he said "the American people." If more than 60% of American voters, the Supreme Court, over 400 cities, the US National Academy of Sciences, numerous major US corporations, and others don't constitute the American people, then what does? The truth is, if this administration cared one iota about the American people, they would have addressed this problem long ago, and the sad reality is that this problem has been left to us, all of us, since the current administration has abandoned this issue entirely. In the absence of true leadership, we must guide ourselves. We can solve this, but we had better act fast.
(Story from Huffington Post)
www.stopglobalwarming.org

Why Are Americans So Stupid?

2007-04-24T19:53:00.000-07:00

We've all heard about how most Americans can't find Iraq on a map or tell you who Condi Rice is. Here's more bad news....72% of Americans don't know that plastics are made from petroleum. No wonder we're the reason human-caused planetary extinction is around the corner. Check out the results of this national survey on plastic-headed Americans.

Snapshot of Survey Results:

72% of respondents do not know that plastic is made out of oil/petroleum
On average, respondents estimated 38% of plastic is recycled (the reality is less than 6%, according to the EPA)
Nearly 40% (38.1%) of respondents said plastic will biodegrade underground, in home compost, in landfills, or in the ocean (plastic will not biodegrade in any of these environments).
After learning that plastic is made from oil and never biodegrades, half (50.1%) of respondents stated they would be likely or very likely to pay 5-10% more for a natural, biodegradable plastic. Only 24% were unlikely/very unlikely to pay this much more.
62% of respondents rate their own level of environmental knowledge as fair or poor, with only 5.6% rating it as excellent.

And these are the people who want to dictate how the rest of the world lives. Scary.

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/070420/20070420005536.html?.v=1

Rep. Rohrabacher (R): "Torturing one innocent person is a fair price to pay for locking up 50 terrorists"

2007-04-24T19:46:00.000-07:00

Rep. Rohrabacher: ‘I Hope It’s Your Families That Suffer’ From A Terrorist Attack

This is outrageous. How do these people get elected? He's still using the "these people will kill thousands because they HATE our way of life." It sounded stupidly simplistic when Bush said it 4 years ago. Now this guy is justifying torture, linking Islam with violence, and wishing death on American citizens.

He literally thinks American lives are worth more than non-American lives. What's that called again....oh yeah, racism, white/Christian/American supremacy, and jingoism. I wouldn't be surprised if this guy goes to church on Sunday. Typical Christian who thinks that loving is only necessary for the person he sees in the mirror. Someone should give him a hug, teach him to read, and tell him to stop hating.

Watch the video at: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/24/rohrabacher-terrorists/

In January, South America’s largest city officially banned outdoor advertising.

2007-04-23T19:14:00.000-07:00

Forget culture jamming, let's just get rid of all outdoor advertising.

This is amazing!

Billboards, neon signs, bus-stop ads, even the Goodyear blimp - all were suddenly illegal. Folha de Sao Paulo reporter Vinicius Galvao describes seeing his city as though for the first time.

http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2007/04/20/04

VINICIUS GALVAO:They uncovered a lot of problems the city had that we never realized. For example, there are some favelas, which are the shantytowns. I wrote a big story in my newspaper today that in a lot of parts of the city we never realized there was a big shantytown. People were shocked because they never saw that before, just because there were a lot of billboards covering the area.

BOB GARFIELD: No writer could have [LAUGHING] come up with a more vivid metaphor. What else has been discovered as the scales have fallen off of the city's eyes?

VINICIUS GALVAO: Sao Paulo's just like New York. It's a very international city. We have the Japanese neighborhood, we have the Korean neighborhood, we have the Italian neighborhood and in the Korean neighborhood, they have a lot of small manufacturers, these Korean businessmen. They hire illegal labor from Bolivian immigrants.

And there was a lot of billboards in front of these manufacturers' shops. And when they uncovered, we could see through the window a lot of Bolivian people like sleeping and working at the same place. They earn money, just enough for food. So it's a lot of social problem that was uncovered where the city was shocked at this news.

PBwiki is the greatest!

2007-04-20T08:27:00.000-07:00

One problem that I had when I first started Conscious Lifestyle is that I had so much information, but no way to organize it or make it accessible to other people. For example, I had lists of companies to add scribbled on paper, saved on my own computer, or buried in my email inbox. When I wanted to tell someone about the companies I would have to send out individual emails, which then got buried in other people's inboxes. Finally, I found a solution, http://www.pbwiki.com.

PBwiki's tagline is: “Make a PBwiki as easily as a peanut butter sandwich”. If you don't have a wiki for your company, classroom, club or group of friends, you should get one. Setting up a PBwiki is free and takes only 10 seconds. The best thing about PBwiki is that they actually care about the people that use its product. They give you a lot of free stuff, and if you want to get fancy you can pay for extras.

So go ahead and check out the PBwiki tour.

Have fun!

R.I.P. ALL victims of violence

2007-04-18T13:15:00.000-07:00

I rarely laugh out loud when I read the Wall Street Journal, but what I found at the top of the "What's News" section was so preposterous, that I couldn't help it.

"Bush urged Virginia Tech survivors to 'overcome evil with good.'"

How about overcoming evil with policies that prohibit mentally instable people from getting two semi-automatic handguns? How about overcoming the evil of poverty and the AIDS pandemic with living up to a sliver of the foreign aid that our government has promised? How about overcoming the evil of war and occupation by being honest and admitting that Iraq was a disastrous mistake?

It's interesting that Bush paraphrases a biblical mandate related to loving one's enemies. The killer at Virginia Tech was living by the paradigm that Bush's foreign policy perpeturates; that is, that you should NOT love your enemies, that you should kill them. Bush resents the Lord's notion that you should turn the other cheek. In fact, Bush has shown us that you should slap someone that may, or may not, slap you. Bush doesn't make a statement when 171 people die in Baghdad (for example, today). It begs the question, "What does Bush care about?"I genuinely hope that his confused-religious rhetoric turns into a sincere love for God and other people. If so, he'll repent for the blood on his hands, and perhaps then, there will be space for new life to grow.

Read the article here.

Project Management

2007-04-18T13:04:00.000-07:00

Today I rewrote the phrasing for the advertisement of our Conscious Lifestyle Social Innovator program. A friend had to email me and let me know that what we had was not up to par. How did I miss this? We are 6 weeks into promotion and I'm just now bringing it to where we need it to be to attract applications. Why didn't I look at it earlier and ask, "is this the best it can be?" When didn't I survey people from our demographic?

I've become so convinced that there is power in a network of people that all use their strengths to work for the cause. Why did I even write the ad in the first place? Creative writing/marketing is not my gift. There are a million people that can do it better than I can. Why didn't I delegate the task to them? Someone could have crafted an ad that we can all be proud of.

Teamwork. Momentum. Strengths. Communication. Vision. Strategy.

I'm learning a lot.

Stewart, Colbert viewers best informed, Fox News viewers worst

2007-04-16T12:06:00.000-07:00

Pew Survey Finds Most Knowledgeable Americans Watch 'Daily Show' and 'Colbert'-- and Visit Newspaper Sites
Published: April 15, 2007 11:30 PM ET

NEW YORK A new survey of 1,502 adults released Sunday by Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that despite the mass appeal of the Internet and cable news since a previous poll in 1989, Americans' knowledge of national affairs has slipped a little. For example, only 69% know that Dick Cheney is vice president, while 74% could identify Dan Quayle in that post in 1989.

Other details are equally eye-opening. Pew judged the levels of knowledgeability (correct answers) among those surveyed and found that those who scored the highest were regular watchers of Comedy Central's The Daily Show and Colbert Report. They tied with regular readers of major newspapers in the top spot -- with 54% of them getting 2 out of 3 questions correct. Watchers of the Lehrer News Hour on PBS followed just behind.

Virtually bringing up the rear were regular watchers of Fox News. Only 1 in 3 could answer 2 out of 3 questions correctly. Fox topped only network morning show viewers.

Told that Shia was one group of Muslims struggling in Iraq, only 32% of the total sample could name "Sunni" as the other key group.

The percentage of those who knew their state's governor dropped to 2 in 3. Almost half know that Rep. Nancy Pelosi is Speaker of the House and 2 in 3 know that Condi Rice is secretary of state. But just 29% can identify Scooter Libby, 21% know Robert Gates and 15% can name Sen. Harry Reid.

But nearly 9 in 10 knew about President Bush's troop escalation in Iraq.

Men scored higher than women, and older Americans did better than younger, on average. Democrats and Republicans were about equally represented in the most knowledgeable group but there were more Republicans in the least aware group.

Day-to-day life in Palestine

2007-04-14T07:18:00.000-07:00

The following is the report for a week in March from the village I stayed in this summer. You won't hear about this kind of stuff in the news. No one has died. These people have just been humiliated and inconvenienced. This is the new tactic used to make life for Palestinians so difficult that they surrender their land to the Israelis who harrass them. Why is it that some people want more rights than others? Why is it that some people dehumanize others? Why is it that the US funds the occupation of Palestine? When will this nightmare end?

Wednesday 14 March
Mueller and a Dove learned from shepherds that settlers plowed under a Palestinian barley field late the previous night. The farmer who owns the land plans to file a police report. Internationals gathered documentation for lawyers working on the case.

Friday 16 March
In the afternoon, two settlers approached two young shepherds in the Palestinian village of Tuba. The settlers hit two of the sheep and told the boys they had to leave. Two hours later, nine settlers returned. Armed with sticks, they knocked over stacks of firewood, cut the rope on a bucket hanging in a well, and threatened the boys and their family.

Tuesday 20 March
A settler chased the children from Tuba and Magayer Al-Abeed during their walk home from school. One child sustained injuries when she ran away from the settlers and fell. The soldiers accompanying the children did nothing.

Thursday 22 March
Soldiers arrested a young man with special needs from the Palestinian town of Yatta at a checkpoint near Tuwani because he did not have an Israeli-issued ID. Muehlsteph and a Dove went with his father to the Israeli police station at Kiryat Arba. Shortly before they arrived at the station, the police called the father to say they could not cope with his son's way of answering questions. When they learned he has special needs, they released him. As the group was leaving Kiryat Arba, a police officer told the father to take his son to get an ID. The father informed him that he has tried over twenty times; the officer said a Palestinian should expect to be turned down one hundred times before acquiring one.

Monday 26 March
Schramm and a Dove monitored a flying checkpoint on the road to Yatta. Soldiers refused to allow any cars to pass for one hour, because a funeral was taking place in the Susiya settlement, and settlers from other settlements and outposts were afraid to drive to Susiya with Palestinians moving about freely.

Wednesday 28 March
Muehlsteph and a Dove went to the Palestinian village of Al-Birki to document damage done by soldiers during a raid the previous night. They learned that approximately sixty soldiers arrived in the village near 2:00 that morning. They forced the families, including the children, to wait out in the cold until they left at 4:30 a.m. They searched five houses, and did body searches of all of the men, claiming to be looking for weapons. They found none.

Friday 30 March
At the invitation of the At-Tuwani Committee (responsible for coordinating nonviolent activity in the region), two Palestinians came to Tuwani to lead nonviolence training for the people of the area. Thirty-two women attended the morning session and twenty-five men attended in the afternoon. They discussed the history and practice of nonviolent resistance and how to apply that to their lives in the South Hebron Hills.

Saturday 31 March
Muehlsteph joined shepherds from the Palestinian villages of Biweeg and Bani Na'im who went with activists from the Israeli peace organization Ta'ayush to graze their sheep near the settlement of Pnei Chever. They abandoned the land several years ago, when Israel built the settlement. Five settlers came to the fields in protest. Soldiers told the settlers that they could leave because the soldiers intended to force the shepherds off the land. The soldiers began to move the sheep and shepherds. In the afternoon a large number of settlers arrived with a dog and kicked the sheep. They threw stones at a car belonging to a Ta'ayush activist and attempted to prevent the car from leaving the area. Israeli Border Police arrived and allowed the car to leave.

Friday 6 April
The nonviolence trainers returned to the South Hebron Hills to lead a training session for the people of the villages west of Tuwani. Over eighty Palestinian shepherds and farmers, both men and women, participated in the training.

Cop attacks Sikh bronze star vet for not moving his van. “You f**** Arab! You f* immigrant, go back to you f**** country before I kill you!”

2007-04-11T18:41:00.000-07:00

Wow. Read this now. http://www.saldef.org/content.aspx?a=1682

Worse Than Apartheid?

2007-04-11T11:31:00.000-07:00

By Robert D. Novak
Monday, April 9, 2007; 12:00 AM

BETHLEHEM, West Bank -- Hani Hayek, an accountant who is the Christian mayor of the tiny majority-Christian Palestinian village of Beit Sahour, was angry last week as he drove me along the Israeli security wall. "They are taking our communal lands," he said, pointing to the massive Israeli settlement of Har Homa. "They don't want us to live here. They want us to leave."

Har Homa, dwarfing nearby dwellings of Beit Sahour, seemed larger than when I saw it at Holy Week a year ago. It is. The Israeli government has steadily enlarged settlements on the occupied West Bank, and I could see both the construction at Har Homa and road building for a dual transportation system for Israelis and Palestinians.

Jimmy Carter raised hackles by titling his book about the Palestinian question "Peace Not Apartheid." But Palestinians allege this is worse than the former South African racial separation. Nearing the 40th anniversary of the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank, the territory has been so fragmented that a genuine Palestinian state and a "two-state solution" seem increasingly difficult.

The security wall has led to virtual elimination of suicide bombings and short-term peace. But life is hard for Palestinians, whose deaths because of conflict increased 272 percent in 2006 while Israeli casualties declined. In a minor incident last week of the type that goes unnoticed internationally, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troopers killed a Palestinian man accused of illegally entering a firing zone while collecting metal scraps to sell. The Britain- based organization Save the Children estimates that half the children in the occupied territories are psychologically traumatized.

Palestinians argue that things have gotten worse because of pervasive feelings of hopelessness. Students at Bethlehem University (run by the Catholic Brothers of De La Salle, with an enrollment that is 70 percent Muslim) sounded more pessimistic and radicalized than a year ago. Ahmad al Issa, a fourth-year journalism student, was held for a year in an Israeli prison on charges of throwing stones at Israeli troops. Now he has bought into the libel that Jewish employees at the World Trade Center were warned in advance of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The U.S.-backed boycott following the election victory of the extremist group Hamas in early 2006 has made the Palestinian Authority destitute, crippling government services. Deprived of help from the authority, with the economy in a shambles, city governments are bankrupt. Bethlehem's mayor, Victor Batarseh, has a special problem because tourists and pilgrims no longer stay overnight in the city of Christ's birth. Out of money and credit, he is ready to lay off the city's 165 staffers.

Batarseh, a U.S. citizen who practiced thoracic surgery in Sacramento, is pinned down in Bethlehem. A Christian and political independent who calls himself a private-enterprise democrat, Batarseh is on the Israeli blacklist because he contributed to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which the State Department has designated a terrorist organization. Denied permits for Jerusalem, the mayor must drive to Amman, Jordan, to get to meetings in Europe.

Contact with the PFLP is not a requirement for being holed up by the Israel Defense Forces. Bethlehem University students cannot get to Jerusalem, a few minutes' drive away, unless they sneak in illegally. The students from the separated Gaza enclave have to take classes from Bethlehem via the Internet.

Republican Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey was at the university the same day I was, and faculty members could hardly believe a real live member of Congress was there. Smith later was given a tour of Jerusalem to see with his own eyes that the separation barrier in most places is a big, ugly and intimidating wall, not merely a fence.

Smith, an active Catholic layman, was drawn here because of the rapid emigration of the Holy Land's Christian minority. They leave more quickly than Muslims because contacts on the outside make them more mobile. Peter Corlano, a Catholic member of the Bethlehem University faculty, told Smith and me: "We live the same life as Muslims. We are Palestinians."

Concerned by the disappearance of Christians in the land of Christianity's birthplace, Smith could also become (as I did) concerned by the plight of all Palestinians. If so, he will find precious little company in Congress.

© 2007 Creators Syndicate Inc.

Someone Please Tell Me McCain Will Retire Based on Insanity

2007-04-11T11:27:00.000-07:00

McCain's BS photo-op took a tragic turn yesterday: "21 Shia market workers were ambushed, bound and shot dead north of the capital."

"The victims came from the Baghdad market visited the previous day by John McCain, the US presidential candidate, who said that an American security plan in the capital was starting to show signs of progress."

One can't help but wonder if this wasn't in response to McCain's false bravado. (Source: AlterNet)

McCain's Lies About Situation in Baghdad

2007-04-11T11:23:00.000-07:00

Last week John McCain was caught with his pants down, claiming that "General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in an unarmed humvee."

It was not true -- not by a longshot -- and he was forced to beat a hasty and mealy-mouthed retreat.

Today, McCain, who also said that "There are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods, today," went out to a market very close to the Green Zone with over 100 armed guards, 3 helicopters, 2 gunships (and a partridge in a...) before holding a press conference in which he reiterated his "it ain't as bad as they tell you in the media" storyline: "The American people are not getting the full picture of what's happening here..."

CNN's Michael Ware, who laughed at McCain's previous claims HERE was reportedly laughing at this press conference. Indeed, as you can see in the video, "microimprovement" or no microimprovement, Baghdad and the nation of Iraq as a whole is a mess...

C&L, which gets the hat tip on the video, notes this from Newsweek: "[I]t didn't take the insurgents long to send their reply. Less then 30 minutes after McCain wrapped up, a barrage of half a dozen mortars peppered the boundaries of the Green Zone, where the senators held their press conference."

Story from AlterNet. To see video go to: http://alternet.org/blogs/video/50034/

The McCain Lies Never End

2007-04-10T19:21:00.000-07:00

Just a day after John McCain observed that: "Extremist Shiite militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr is in hiding, his followers are not contesting American forces," Moqtada al-Sadr, the powerful Shiite leader, called on the mostly Shia Iraqi army and police to "turn all their efforts" to the US Military.

Thoughts on the new ConsciousLifestyle.org, set to launch this summer

2007-04-06T14:01:00.000-07:00

It seems like there are some sites online that are just plain popular. Most are blogs that derived - not from extensive planning - but rather, from the creator's own desire to do what s/he loved. The success was organic. The creator of the site enjoyed was s/he was doing, so s/he did it well. People came to the site because of the quality of the writing, period.

On the other hand you have ventures that are incredibily well planned. They are derived from market analysis, well-planned strategy, and disciplined actions. The creators of these sites know they can succeed before they even begin. They anticipate who will come to the site. They set goals and create plans to achieve them. They are the opposite of organic.

This is obviously a spectrum that we need to be aware of. If we jump into this thing too soon, everyone that is involved better love what they are doing. If not, we may lose steam and collapse. If, on the other hand, we become very disciplined in running the site, we better have planned to ensure success. Who wants to write for free when no one will read it?

-What time-frame do we have for this launch?
-What must be accomplished by launch date?
-What incentives do we offer our writers?
-What is our market?
-How do we reach our demographic?

Letter to the Editor in Hartford Courant

2007-04-01T10:57:00.000-07:00

The following was published in the Hartford Courant a couple weeks ago:

Thanks For Rachel's Story

Thanks for printing Bessy Reyna's March 16 column "The Voice Of A Martyr."

As someone who has been to Israel/Palestine twice, I cannot overemphasize the need to have open dialogue on what is happening there.

Rachel Corrie was only a few years older than me, so her writings eloquently express my own reactions to seeing the human rights abuses in the West Bank. Her death is jarring because she was such a young, idealistic American woman.

By retelling her stories, we are forced to think about the idealistic Palestinian men and women, boys and girls who face humiliation, harassment and the possibility of death every day.

Michael Del Ponte
New Haven

Sites I like, so you should like them, too.

2007-04-01T08:17:00.000-07:00

Good Magazine
Amazing magazine on making the world a better place. $20 a yr. subscription. 100% of proceeds go to charity.

Defunker
T-Shirts I like. (Translastion: "T-Shirts you should buy for me.")

The Case Against Meat
"Evidence Shows that Our Meat-Based Diet is Bad for the Environment, Aggravates Global Hunger, Brutalizes Animals and Compromises Our Health."

You Grow Girl
I just thought the name of this one was funny.

Conscious Lifestyle offers up to $1,000 for leaders of next 10 CL Ventures

2007-03-29T12:14:00.000-07:00

Apply to be a Conscious Lifestyle Social Innovator!

Start your Conscious Lifestyle venture with up to $1,000 in grant money!

The Conscious Lifestyle Youth Venture Social Innovator Program seeks highly motivated student leaders who care about the environment and their fellow human beings, and who have what it takes to lead a Conscious Lifestyle venture.

The purpose of each venture is three-fold.

1. To educate students on how to become socially and environmentally conscious consumers.

2. To make your school's purchases better for the environment and the world at large.

3. To be a pioneer in the burgeoning Conscious Lifestyle movement and join the global Youth Venture Gen-V network.

Conscious Lifestyle Social Innovators will receive:

• A start-up grant of up to $1,000
• A web page for your Venture, hosted on consciouslifestyle.org
• Specialized support from Conscious Lifestyle
• A starter kit with guides on how to raise money, plan events, and earn publicity
• Conscious Lifestyle t-shirts for your members
• Access to the Youth Venture Gen-V global network

If you are passionate about changing the world and have the leadership skills to run a successful Venture we invite your to apply for one of the 10 Conscious Lifestyle Social Innovator positions.

Apply Now!

Social Entrepreneurs

2007-03-15T15:46:00.001-07:00

“They offer a model for a new kind of leader who melds the discipline of business with the perspective of those less fortunate, and brings a tough-minded optimism to bear on the biggest challenges confronting our communities, our countries and the planet.”

Skoll Foundation Awards 10 Social Entrepreneurs $1 million each.

Read story here.

Another activist victory

2007-03-14T22:00:00.000-07:00

"Pig Out"

"WITH some fanfare, the world’s largest pork producer, Smithfield Foods, recently announced that it intended to phase out certain cages for its breeding females. Called gestation crates, the cages virtually immobilize pigs during their pregnancies in metal stalls so narrow they are unable to turn around."

Yet another example of how activism works. No pet owner would agree to have his or her dog or cat kept in a box that doesn't even allow them to turn around. Why is this exploitation okay for livestock? Why is it that only "animal rights activists" stand up for these issues? Isn't it just common sense that torture is wrong? Maybe I'm too optomistic, but I believe there are significant injustices that must be stopped and those who do not get involved will be as shameful as people who stood silent in the face of slavery, misogynistic voting laws, apartheid, etc.

Congrats to activists who have been working hard for this victory. Still a long way to go.

Read story here.

Despair in Palestine

2007-03-12T08:53:00.000-07:00

This is a great article that shows how despair leads to violence in Palestine. NY Times article.

Boycott Israel

2007-03-05T21:13:00.001-08:00

In 2006, 660 Palestinians were killed by Israel, twice as many as the preceding year. In 2006, 23 Israelis were killed by Palestinians, half as many as the preceding year. Since Israel bombed the only power plant in Gaza, hundreds of Palestinians have gone without electricity. Collective punishment is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The Apartheid Wall was condemned by the International Courth of Justice at the Hague. Everyday illegal Israeli settlements expand further into the West Bank. For some reason people don't get it. Israel terrorizes. It's time to stop supporting terrorism. Boycott Israel. End tax-payer funding of Apartheid Israel. A Jewish-only state is as racist and undemocratic as a Christian- or Muslim-only state. Equal rights for all humans. Peace follows reconciliation. Reconciliation follows repentance. True repentance necessitates an end to systematic oppression. The occupation is, by definition, systematic oppression. End the Occupation. Free Palestine.

D-Plan is back for one show!!!

2007-03-01T15:54:00.000-08:00

Glue for the hearts of all those hipsters that are still sad about D-Plan breaking up. They're reuniting for a benefit concert. Check the pitchfork article for details.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/41483

The next Romero?

2007-02-27T19:38:00.000-08:00

What happens when a bishop is so radically in favor of the poor that it gets him in trouble with the church? He becomes the front runner as a presidential candidate. Reading this article warmed my heart. Yale can be a cold place where solidarity, the preferential option for the poor, and social justice are utterly foreign concepts. Perhaps news like this can wake Elis up.

Read story here.

Al Gore wins an Oscar

2007-02-26T14:29:00.000-08:00

Watch Gore on the Oscars. Then, if you haven't seen An Inconvenient Truth, do yourself a favor and watch that, too.

The Chicken Dance Collection

2007-02-26T13:51:00.000-08:00

Possibly the greatest thing about Arrested Development. The chicken dances. I was thinking about re-watching all three seasons just so I could see everyone's dances, but then I remembered a little invention called the internet. Watch the video here.

My favorite is Lindsay's. "Chaw-che-cha-che-cha-che-cha..."

Even the Catholic Church is Down With Conscious Lifestyle

2007-01-29T19:33:00.000-08:00

The idea that one of the most important contributions to social change that Westerners can make is to embrace a shift in lifestyle has been supported over and over again. I remember when people would dismiss my decisions to boycott certain companies. They argued that one person's consumer decisions doesn't accomplish anything. What they didn't realize is that each one of those "small" acts have shaped my lifestyle and affected the consciousness of those around me and visitors to consciouslifestyle.org.

Here's another piece of the puzzle. In 1991 Pope John Paul II authored Centesimus Annus, an encyclical on our economy. Here's the wisdom:

We must "create LIFESTYLES in which the quest for truth, beauty, goodness and communion with others for the sake of common growth are the factors which determine CONSUMER CHOICES, savings and investments."

Yet another random organic video....

2007-01-25T19:38:00.000-08:00

"Store Wars...May the Farm be with you."

Ummmm, yeah. "Darth Tater," "Obie One Canolli," "Ham Solo," "Chu Broccoli," and "Princess Lettuce."

Like the Mouth Revolution video below the cheesey-ness kinda gets to you and makes you laugh.

http://www.storewars.org/flash/index.html

Mouth Revolution

2007-01-25T19:29:00.000-08:00

Cheesey or funny? You be the judge.

http://www.mouthrevolution.com/

Holy Land Christmas Brings Joy Despite Conflict and Death

2007-01-22T14:45:00.000-08:00

From America Magazine...

Once again Christmas in the Holy Land is faced with “circumstances of death and frustration,” but the holiday still brings joy and announces salvation to all, said Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah of Jerusalem in his traditional Christmas message. “Christmas is coming to Bethlehem with the wall and the checkpoints on the ground,” he said in the message read to journalists at a press conference Dec. 20. “The occupation and deprivation of freedom on one side and fear and insecurity on the other continue as before,” he said. “Gaza remains a big prison, a place of death and of internal Palestinian dissension.” Though the West Bank city of Bethlehem should be a city of peace, it is a place of “conflict and death,” Patriarch Sabbah said. Peace could be reached if those responsible were “sincerely determined,” he said. Life in Bethlehem has become “very difficult to endure” despite the numerous solidarity initiatives, for which Palestinians are grateful. Palestinians’ “fundamental need” is for “peace, justice, freedom and an end to the occupation,” the patriarch said.

How Green is Your Sanctuary?

2007-01-21T10:34:00.000-08:00

In the fall I wrote an article that was published in The Other Journal, which is a progressive Christian theological journal. I've been meaning to post it here for months, so I finally did so. Click on the paragraph below and enjoy.

The first time I visited Yale Divinity School was in 2005, on Earth Day. Chapel was filled with the language of creation. As we proceeded into the quad to enjoy the beautiful spring day, the songs, sermon and even silence seemed to be filled with environmental images. This theme of eco-awareness was palpable, like the feeling of grass beneath bare feet. Hearty organic bread was broken and organic wine was passed from worshipper to worshipper. A list of 10 practical things one can do to love God’s creation was distributed and a brown bag lunch with Cal DeWitt of the Au Sable Institute was enjoyed after the service. This was a very green sanctuary.

Vegan Chic

2007-01-21T09:57:00.000-08:00

I recently added an article to consciouslifestyle.org about a growing trend of consumers becoming conscious about cruelity-free clothing. You can check out the article here. I also found a slew of vegan sites that I thought I would post. Such as...

Vegan Essentials
Vegan Store
Moo Shoes
And even Vegan MySpace

Since I started Conscious Lifestyle in 2005 many new sites about conscious consumerism have popped up. Keep checking consciouslifestyle.org for regular updates, inluding new companies, articles, and videos. We'll be adding Fair Trade products to the site this spring, and perhaps vegan products after that.

Word up, Teddy

2006-11-30T20:26:00.000-08:00

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriot and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

-THeodore Roosevelt, 1918

The unarmed women of the Gaza Strip have taken the lead in resisting Israel's latest bloody assault

2006-11-10T07:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday at dawn, the Israeli air force bombed and destroyed my home. I was the target, but instead the attack killed my sister-in-law, Nahla, a widow with eight children in her care. In the same raid Israel's artillery shelled a residential district in the town of Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip, leaving 19 dead and 40 injured, many killed in their beds. One family, the Athamnas, lost 16 members in the massacre: the oldest who died, Fatima, was 70; the youngest, Dima, was one; seven were children. The death toll in Beit Hanoun has passed 90 in one week.

This is Israel's tenth incursion into Beit Hanoun since it announced its withdrawal from Gaza. It has turned the town into a closed military zone, collectively punishing its 28,000 residents. For days, the town has been encircled by Israeli tanks and troops and shelled. All water and electricity supplies were cut off and, as the death toll continued to mount, no ambulances were allowed in. Israeli soldiers raided houses, shut up the families and positioned their snipers on roofs, shooting at everything that moved. We still do not know what has become of our sons, husbands and brothers since all males over 15 years old were taken away last Thursday.

They were ordered to strip to their underwear, handcuffed and led away.

It is not easy as a mother, sister or wife to watch those you love disappear before your eyes. Perhaps that was what helped me, and 1,500 other women, to overcome our fear and defy the Israeli curfew last Friday - and set about freeing some of our young men who were besieged in a mosque while defending us and our city against the Israeli military machine.

We faced the most powerful army in our region unarmed. The soldiers were loaded up with the latest weaponry, and we had nothing, except each other and our yearning for freedom. As we broke through the first barrier, we grew more confident, more determined to break the suffocating siege. The soldiers of Israel's so-called defence force did not hesitate to open fire on unarmed women. The sight of my close friends Ibtissam Yusuf abu Nada and Rajaa Ouda taking their last breaths, bathed in blood, will live with me for ever.

Later an Israeli plane shelled a bus taking children to a kindergarten. Two children were killed, along with their teacher. In the last week 30 children have died. As I go round the crowded hospital, it is deeply poignant to see the large number of small bodies with their scars and amputated limbs. We clutch our children tightly when we go to sleep, vainly hoping that we can shield them from Israel's tanks and warplanes.

But as though this occupation and collective punishment were not enough, we Palestinians find ourselves the targets of a systematic siege imposed by the so-called free world. We are being starved and suffocated as a punishment for daring to exercise our democratic right to choose who rules and represents us. Nothing undermines the west's claims to defend freedom and democracy more than what is happening in Palestine. Shortly after announcing his project to democratise the Middle East, President Bush did all he could to strangle our nascent democracy, arresting our ministers and MPs. I have yet to hear western condemnation that I, an elected MP, have had my home demolished and relatives killed by Israel's bombs. When the bodies of my friends and colleagues were torn apart there was not one word from those who claim to be defenders of women's rights on Capitol Hill and in 10 Downing Street.

Why should we Palestinians have to accept the theft of our land, the ethnic cleansing of our people, incarcerated in forsaken refugee camps, and the denial of our most basic human rights, without protesting and resisting?

The lesson the world should learn from Beit Hanoun last week is that Palestinians will never relinquish our land, towns and villages. We will not surrender our legitimate rights for a piece of bread or handful of rice. The women of Palestine will resist this monstrous occupation imposed on us at gunpoint, siege and starvation. Our rights and those of future generations are not open for negotiation.

Whoever wants peace in Palestine and the region must direct their words and sanctions to the occupier, not the occupied, the aggressor not the victim. The truth is that the solution lies with Israel, its army and allies - not with Palestine's women and children.

Jameela al-Shanti is an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council for Hamas. She led a women's protest against the siege of Beit Hanoun last Friday. This article was published first in the Guardian

Absurd Lunch

2006-11-09T11:42:00.000-08:00

Between spoonfuls of cream of broccoli soup at HGS I read word-by-word through Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor and AIDs and its Metaphors. When my eyes moved over the phrase “grandiloquent fantasies” I had to stop and pay homage to the superfluity of the statement like I do when a Lamborghini drives by, causing me to stop in my tracks and observe the unnecessary extravagance before me.

As I sat in awe of Sontag’s brilliance I placed my spoonful of soup back into its bowl and began eavesdropping on the conversation to my right. To be honest, eavesdropping may not be the best description of my activity. The female with too much make up, a Juicy zip up, and pink and purple tights was nearly giving an unexpected oration on absurdity. No soapbox, just strong vocal cords.

“We began casting on the spring opera. We chose il blah blavio. (She then pauses to confirm that no one else in the room is even vaguely familiar with this opera. Her students wait to be taught and she begins listing categorical truths about this production). It is a masterpiece. It is disgustingly beautiful. It is one-and-a-half hours long, which is the perfect length to be in character – the audience is just dying to know how it’s going to end, which is almost always death.” (Our teacher gets up to find dessert, presumably to carbo-load for her next proclamation.)

Her British friend makes an obscure reference to Freud in passing that has to be explained. So she goes into psychology and perceptions of death to explain why she doesn’t want to give a presentation. My attention excuses it’s self from the conversation and returns to soup and Sontag.

No Mercy for Gaza

2006-11-06T09:16:00.000-08:00

At 7.05am today, Monday 6 November 2006, IOF fired a missile hitting a group of school children near a school in Beit Lahia, near the town of Beit Hanoun. One child, 16-year-old Ramzi Ash-Shrafi, was killed while six others were wounded from the missile shrapnel. In addition, a nursery bus that was passing the area to collect children was also hit by the missile. As a result, one teacher was injured. Her arm later needed amputation. Ten children were admitted to hospital suffering from trauma.

IOF's continued offensive on north Gaza has left 45 Palestinians killed in (50 in the entire Gaza Strip) in its sixth day. Of the killed, nine are children, two are women and one is elderly. Some 190 have also been injured, including 46 children and 45 women. An IOF air strike hit near a school and a nursery bus children. In addition, IOF have destroyed 64 homes, 11 of which completely, seized 34 others, and demolished five public institutions, two stores and five vehicles. The humanitarian situation in Beit Hanoun has further deteriorated owing to the shortage of foodstuffs, electricity, water and medicine, as well as increasing damage to the town's infrastructure.

Making me want to stay in school forever

2006-10-23T18:36:00.000-07:00

"The human spirit alone
can comprehend something
of the bond between
the instability of the world and
the stability of God.

This is the poet's task:
to name the perpetuating persisting object
in relation to
what's unchanging."

-Paul Claudel

Fear Controls

2006-10-19T21:28:00.000-07:00

What's better than being elected based on your merit and character? Winning because someone was sacred into voting along party lines. In the new GOP add voters are told that the stakes = imminent terror attacks and that the answer is to support the party that has made the US one of the most hated countries in the world.

There's a little school yard logic that can be employed here. If the kid that always gets beat up brings a knife to school you probably don't want to sit next to the guy he hates at lunch. Chances are there's a reason he hates him and you're better off talking some sense into the bully or finding new friends.

Check out the GOP video on their dazzling Web site.

http://www.gop.com/

Happiness

2006-10-18T14:10:00.000-07:00

"Happiness"
by Jane Kenyon

There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.

And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.

No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon.
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.

It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basket maker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.

It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.

Consumer Social Repsonsibility....Brilliant

2006-10-15T15:42:00.000-07:00

"In its broadest form, CnSR can be defined as the conscious and deliberate choice to make certain consumption choices based on personal and moral beliefs. It includes two basic components: an ethical one relating to the underlying importance of the social aspects of a company’s products and business processes; and a consumerism component that implies that the preferences and desires of consumer segments are partially responsible for the increasing influence of ethical or social factors."

Read more from the Stanford Social Innovation Review:

http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/the_other_csr/

Cloumbia Students Shut Down Minuteman Event

2006-10-08T11:32:00.000-07:00

Racists beware...There are still activists that will resist your hatred and clear the temple NT style.

Watch Columbia University activists shut down a Minuteman event. If only Yalies had the courage to get their hands dirty.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=cfnn7wTgoE8

Another reason to give up meat

2006-09-18T21:03:00.000-07:00

An essay that I wrote called "Why All American Christians Should be Vegetarians" is being published in a forthcoming theological journal. Here's a favorite excerpt of mine on environmental racism...
"
The greatest polluter of waterways in the United States comes from the manure excreted by the animals that are made into meat. This manure is often pumped beneath confinement facilities or stored it in waste lagoons. Although in can be used as fertilizer, the overabundance produced in today’s meat processing industry results in a hazardous surplus. “Airborne emissions from hog lagoons include ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, hundreds of volatile organic compounds, dust, and endotoxins that cause respiratory dysfunction” (58). The people that bear the negative effects of surplus manure are those that live nearest to the meatpacking plants and manure lagoons. Many people living in these areas report “breathing difficulties, burning sensations in their noses and throats, nausea, vomiting, headaches, and sleeping problems” (Nibert, 110). A detailed analysis of 2,514 swine-confinement facilities in NC found they were disproportionately located in poor, nonwhite communities that are dependent on local wells for their household water supply. These areas also had the highest disease rates and least access to health care in the state. It is clear that the poor and people of color bear a disproportionate burden of pollution from livestock waste."

Moving, but not moving on

2006-09-18T11:00:00.000-07:00

I've been sick, without internet, and expected to read millions of pages for classes which began a week and a half ago. I have been busy, but still thinking of Palestine and will write more about my experience when I have the time to do so. I'm also working on a video project about the Mayor of a farming village in the West Bank who was abducted in the middle of the night. I'll post it soon.

Wish I could write more on the transition, but instead I just copy and pasted an email conversation I recently had. I also posted pictures of protesters at the Intl. AIDs conference and an unrelated photo of a sicki die-in.

EMAIL FROM FRIEND:

Hey deeps

i am in south africa right now. the reason i am emailing you is becuase i just came from a meeting at the Treatment Action Campaign office in Pietermaritzburg. TAC is the group that had the sick die-in at the International AIDS conference in august to demand treatment.

i thought of you because i know you love sicky die-ins

keep in touch. how is yale?

MY EMAIL IN RESPONSE:

That die-in was so sicki that I was moved to lay motionless in this crowded computer lab for twenty minutes before getting up, yelling "all power to the multitude," and replying to your note.

Yale is amazing. It is a bourgeois paradise where one can escape the admittedly nonacademic and non-hip issues of this world while referencing Foucault over vegan Malaysian food. Classes are classy, the kids are brilliant and often great to talk with, and New Haven rocks my socks off. The only downside is that the Div students aren't really into activism. I intend to change that a bit and jump on the undergrad bandwagon, which happens to be sending 110 students to NYC for the "Save Darfur" rally this weekend. (No div students will be in attendance, but they'll pray about it on Monday and do a exegetical analysis of genocide on Tuesday.)

So yes, all is well.

Let's keep in touch and do simultaneous/multicontinental die-ins on a regular basis.

Be very blessed, my friend.

dp

HEBRON: Nighttime round-up of Palestinian men

2006-09-18T10:58:00.000-07:00

CPTnet
16 September 2006

HEBRON: Nighttime round-up of Palestinian men
by Christina Gibb

CPT Hebron received a telephone call at 10:00 p.m. on 13 September, saying that soldiers were holding a dozen men near the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee (HRC) in the Old City. Team members also saw that soldiers were entering a house near the team's apartment. Four team members, with a visiting photographer, went to investigate.

Christina Gibb, Cynthia Burnside and the photographer went to the neighbours, while John Lynes and Char Smith went to the HRC.

Israeli soldiers had just brought four men out of the neighbours' house, and took them along the street towards the Ibrahimi Mosque, with the CPTers following. They passed some men sitting on the ground, guarded by soldiers, and then were joined by another squad of soldiers bringing five more men. The soldiers took them all through the turnstiles checkpoint, into the open space by the Mosque, where forty Palestinian men were already sitting on the ground. Each squad of six to ten soldiers turned back for a further search as soon as they had brought one lot of men in. By the Mosque, the soldierstook each man in turn and photographed him holding a sign with his name or ID number. They then took his fingerprints, and directed him past a barrier to another area. After a short time, the officer in charge first ordered and then pushed the CPTers back through the turnstile, where they stayed by the Mosque Gate.

Meanwhile Lynes and Smith had found a group of detained men at the HRC, whom soldiers soon moved to the Mosque too. The CPTers followed a squad of soldiers who were systemically banging on all the doors with their rifle butts. One carried a large sledgehammer for forcing the doors if families did not open them. Lynes stayed in the alleyway, while Smith went into
several houses with the soldiers. They not only searched every room for men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five but also burst into a room where seven young children were asleep. One soldier pointed his gun at them, but when Smith remonstrated with him he stopped doing so. The mother thanked her profusely.

By 11.30 p.m. there were ninety Palestinian men by the Mosque, and the
soldiers returned empty handed. The last man brought in had his hands
cuffed, and then his wife arrived, with a very frightened small girl. She
complained angrily to an officer that a soldier had stolen money and a
necklace.

At midnight, the soldiers started releasing the men one at a time back
through the turnstiles. The last was released by 1:30 a.m.

Why I'm Here in Palestine

2006-08-20T14:55:00.000-07:00

I've recently enjoyed reading the book Challenging Christion Zionism, which is a collection of papers from a Sabeel conference from 2005. I would highly recommend it.

Naim Ateek, who is one of the most prominent theologians writing on Palestine, expresses quite clearly why I'm here.

"Indeed, there is a great threat facing the people of Israel-Palestine. It is not, however, the threat of Palestinian terrorism. It is the threat that has its roots in the Israeli military occupation and oppression of over three million Palestinians. God cannot be pleased when the forces of empire deny God's children their basic God-given rights to life and freedom. Faithfulness to God forces us to act on behalf of our fellow human beings who are oppressed and dehumanized."

More pictures have been added!

2006-08-20T14:17:00.000-07:00

Go here to see more.

Better yet, go on an upcoming CPT delegation.

"Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of God."

I'm Tired of Being a Punching Bag

2006-08-20T13:00:00.000-07:00

Let me preface this post by relaying 3 important messages straight from the heart of the Occupied Territories:

1. I realize that it's fair for me to be a punching bag for reasons I will state below.
2. If you click on the above picture you can see the view from our roof, with a minaret on the left and a military watch tower on the right.
3. American pop music is being blasted from a nearby Palestinian home, or possibly the military base across the street, which is really random.

(By the way, sorry to be a downer, but last night I was awakened by what sounded like someone being tortured in the base. If I heard these sounds coming from across the street of my home in CA I would call the cops and scrupulously search the neighborhood to see what was happening. Last night I thought about it for a few minutes and went back to sleep, knowing that "These things happen all the time." This is what the Occupation has done to me in a month. I've been thinking a lot about what psychological effects of the military occupation must have on the Palestinians. I can tell you stories about watching a video of a brutal murder on the cellphone of a teenager, as if it were a music video, and violence being passed around families and friends, but this tangent is getting far from the point, so let me return to why I feel like a punching bag.)

Over the last month I have seen hostility towards Americans rise, especially in Hebron. When I arrived here I remember walking down the street and everyone yelling, "Welcome. Welcome to Palestine. Welcome to Hebron." The kids were cute and wanted to know our names and where we came from. The old men smiled as they greeted us with "Salaam Alaikum."

Knowing how the US government has supported Israel, despite Israel's human rights violations and disregard of international law, I found the hospitatlity of Palestinians to be excessively welcoming. On the one hand, it is wonderful that they recognize the difference between my government and my people, but on the other hand my tax dollars have been spent on weapons that kill Arabs and I haven't done enough to convince my government to stop supporting this horrible occupation.

With this in mind I happily listened to Palestinians voice their disappointment in Bush, Rice, Cheney and others. I apoligized and promised to do more. I even shrugged off direct comments and bad looks, which were quite rare until last week.

I feel a greater tension in the air now. Nasrallah is gaining much popularity since no one else seems to be denouncing Israel and calling for more than "restaint." The Israeli reaction to the capturing of IDF soldiers in the north was completely out of line with hostage trades over the last 20 years (at which time Israel freed over 1,000 prisoners). Their air raids were brutal and American support was disgusting. Rice called the deaths, displacement and attacks on civil infrastucture the "birth pangs of a new middle east." Many teachers, police men and other civil servants have gone 6 months without a pay check. And I sense that although Hebronites know we are here to help, that we are not doing enough.

I have been asked repeatedly if I support Nasrallah or Bush (as if they are the only 2 options), had stuff thrown at me, had a few boys hit me - which, in my opinion, would have never happened 3 weeks ago - and even felt scared to walk to the taxi stand because of harrassment. I feel like a punching bag and I'm starting to get tired of it. Taking responsibility for an irresponsible government is not how I wanted to spend my summer vacation.

Conscious Lifestyle - We're Winning!

2006-08-19T08:21:00.000-07:00

The following is from an article in the International Herald Tribune from 11 Aug 2006.

It - and the enthusiasm of the title of my post - speak for themselves.

"Most Morrocan textile employees work illegally, receiving wages in cash from companies that keep no records of working hours. That has turned into a big competitive disadvantage now that Western shoppers are looking more at who made their clothes and under what conditions.”

To learn more about who made your clothes and find sweatshop-free apparel, go to ConsciousLifestyle.org.

Street Patrol - Hebron

2006-08-15T00:30:00.000-07:00

Tonight Traci and I went on street patrol in the Old City of Hebron. Almost immediately we met a team of six Israeli soldiers doing their own patrol. They came towards us making their usual slow advance with their backs against the wall and their rifle barrels sweeping up into the air as if removing cobwebs above them. We greeted them with "Shalom" and observed smiles and smirks.

--- I have to stop here and say that I really feel bad for these guys. I've stopped asking them "How are you?" because I know that if I were 18 yrs old the last thing I would want to do is work 12 hours shifts with a 40 lb pack walking the streets of another people's land. Even when some of them act like jerks/cowards/bullies/murderers, there is no denying that the job that they are mandated to do is boring at best. Nonetheless, some of them are nice guys that I would love to sit down and learn from. Most refuse to talk, but as I run into some of them over and over again I'm tempted to sneak them my email address to keep in touch. ---

Anyways, we suspected that the soldiers were going to invade a home so we followed them up to an apartment, and eventually onto a rooftop to their military fort. Apparently I followed too close and they got mad that I was in a "military zone." So Traci and I left and began talking to some Palestinian families. Minutes later we were surprised to see the same group of soldiers walking towards us again! With a loud "SHALOM" I greeted them and we all seemed to be on friendly terms again.

After that I ran into my friend Raid. He seemed so depressed. I asked him what he's doing and he responded with anger, "What can I do? All I do is work and come here. There is nothing for me to do." Raid is about my age and has a wife and 2 kids. As a young Palestinian he can barely leave the Hebron district. Yesterday over tea he told me his dream is to one day see New York City.

Passing two settler boys I said, "Shalom." They ignored me. A settler woman passed and we greeted her, as well. She called us Nazis and spit on the ground.

We met more soldiers checking IDs and taking a rooftop position overlooking a settler building. One soldier said, "What's up?" which I liked. His partner told him not to talk to us. The others ignored us and said something in Hebrew that didn't seem very nice. Approaching them we passed the apartment of a Palestinian man who seemed to be in a very bad mood. The other night his son was blindfolded and taken away.

The highlight of the street patrol was - as always - the children. I have some great footage of them skipping through the street, flying paper kites from the rooftops, crowding around us for a picture, and repeating our funny accents. I'll put the video online when I return to the States.

Little Heroes - Getting to Summer Camp

2006-08-14T23:16:00.000-07:00

Each morning in At Tuwani we (CPT and an Italian group named Operation Dove) accompany children from the nearby village of Tuba to the school in Tuwani for summer camp. The road from Tuba and Tuwani now passes through a Jewish settlement (Maon, which is illegal under international law) and a Jewish settler outpost (Hill 883, which is illegal under international law and Israeli law) . The result is that these children have been beat up, stoned, and verbally attacked as they make their way to school.

In the past our team has walked with the kids the entire way, but after settlers attempted to murder a CPTer with bats and chains, and broke the legs of another CPTer in the process, the military got involved and now does the accompaniment under one rule: internationals should not pass through the settlement.

Now, the Tuba kids walk from their village to the edge of the settlement while half of our team observes, then the military meets them and the kids walk between an army jeep and a hummer. When they get to the other side of the settlement, the rest of our team meets them. This process allows us to see the children during much of their trip and put us in a position to monitor possible attacks on the children, and get in the way if necessary. Sometimes we do pass through the settlement with the children when the possibility of an attack seems high, knowing that even when the military is there, they don't always do enough to protect the kids.

OK...on to the good news!

The other day the military didn't arrive. Thinking that the kids would wait it out, we sat upon a hill top shifting our views from our watches, to the road, to the settlement, and back to our watches. Upset and nervious, we waited and waited. Finally, I heard something in the distance. What I found was a line of children dressed in their white summer camp outfits running down a hill and through the valley. I couldn't believe the courage and resilience of these little kids (6-14 yrs old). Instead of waiting, they took matters in their own hands, risked attack, and RAN so as not to be late. I couldn't believe it. What little heroes!

Weaving rugs in Tuwani

2006-08-14T22:52:00.000-07:00

One of the joys of being in the small (120 persons) sustanance farming village of At Tuwani is watching the local women make rugs in the courtyard outside of our CPT dwelling.

They spin the wool into yarn by hand, and then stretch the yarn out in 25 foot strands. Having done that they use their loom to somehow weave the strands of yarn into a rug (I still haven't figured it out).

What I do know is that the women's cooperative has been an important means to keeping the village alive. In the past, when the local Jewish settlers have poisoned the village's livestock, cut down olive trees and destroyed agricultural equipment, the revenue from the women's goods have made it possible for minimal sustenance to be purchased.

(CLICK ON PICTURES TO ENLARGE.)

Facts about Lebanon

2006-08-14T00:39:00.000-07:00

1. Lebanon has 18 religious communities.

2. It has 40 daily newspapers.

3. It has 42 universities.

4. It has over 100 banks (banks, not branches of a bank).

5. 70% of the students are in private schools.

6. 40% of the Lebanese people are Christians.

7. There's 1 doctor per 10 people in Lebanon (In Europe & America, there's 1 doctor per 100 people).

8. The name LEBANON appears 75 times in the Old Testament.

9. Beirut was destroyed and rebuilt 7 times.

10. There are 3.5 Million Lebanese in Lebanon.

11. There are around 10 Million Lebanese outside Lebanon.

12. Byblos (a city in Lebanon) is the oldest, continuously inhabitated city in the world.

13. Lebanon's name has been around for 4,000 yrs non-stop (it's the oldest country/ nation's name in the world).

14. Lebanon is the only Asian/African country that doesn't have a desert.

15. There are 15 rivers in Lebanon (all of them coming from its own mountains).

16. The first alphabet was created in Byblos (city in Lebanon).

17. Lebanon is the country that has the most books written about it.

18. According to Christianity Jesus Christ made his 1st miracle in Lebanon, in Sidon (The miracle of turning water into wine).

19. The Phoenicians (Original People of Lebanon) built the 1st boat, and they were the first to sail ever.

20. Phoenicians also reached America long before Christopher Columbus did.

21. The 1st law school in the world was built in Lebanon, in Downtown Beirut.

Oh, Ari...You were such a pawn. I forgive you.

2006-08-08T23:11:00.000-07:00

Dear Ari,

Back when I was an avid C-SPAN viewer you used to put me to sleep. How could such a bright young man commit himself to conveying half truths with indifference? I mean, really, it must have been the dullest time of your life. Nonetheless, by rarely being passionate, honest or engaging, you did a fine job of fulfilling your duties as White House spokesperson. When it was all to much to take you resigned and joined NPR. Now I enjoy your reports, which sound sometimes silly and cute, like a weather girl's first day on the job or the boy that runs for freshman class president because he 'has a dream.'

I've included the quote below so that we can laugh together about your Bush days. If only we could turn back the clock and just say no to that dreadful offer!

Your Friend,

Michael

"President Bush has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction; Tony Blair has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction; Donald Rumsfeld has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction; Richard Butler has said they do; the United Nations has said they do; the experts have said they do. Iraq says they don't. You can choose who you want to believe."

Ari Fleischer

White House Press Briefing

December 5, 2002

Ubiquitous Violence

2006-08-08T13:20:00.000-07:00

Journal entry from 4 Aug 2006

I woke up this morning to find a dozen Israeli soldiers lining the roof opposite my window. I've been here for weeks and I still can't get over their M-16s. I don't think it's a good idea to have 18 year old boys - that are either scared out of their minds or bored enough to invent sadistic entertainment - walking around with enough live ammunition to eradicate a small village. Nevertheless, I'm becoming accustomed to the realities of occupation and decided to brush my teeth and go on with the day.

A few hours later my afternoon tea was interrupted by a team of new Israeli soldiers being trained on walking the streets. They crept through the marketplace as if stalking an enemy in the jungle. Sometimes they would peer deeply into stores or the tea room as if there was something hidden within. I confronted the lead soldier, who bumped into me and demanded, "Don't touch me!" As the soldiers crossed the marketplace they pointed their rifles at the children and older men, then disappeared. Crowds of worshippers flowed out of the mosques and enjoyed tea and treats together in the streets.

This evening, as we finished dinner, our guest speaker talked about the difficulty of explaining to his young children that not all Jews are evil. This is something that we have heard from a number of Palestinian parents. To most of us this seems crazy, but since the Palestinian children interact almost exclusively with Jewish settlers and Jewish Soldiers - who are seen as careless occupiers at best and tormenters or murders at worst - it is hard to break the cycle of hate and violence. With his 5 year old son sleeping at his feet our speaker explained that even at this young age the boy knew that Israeli soldiers had shot and abducted his father.

As he continued to speak on this subject someone noticed a squadron of soldiers entering a nearby Palestinian home. The mother was outside with her daughters. I began to film the situation and some CPTers made their way to the home. It's not unusual for Israeli soldiers to occupy a Palestinian house. Sometimes they'll destroy the home or kidnap one of the men. Other times they just put the family in a room for a few hours or until the next morning. We watched the door, waiting for it to open to catch a glimpse of what was happening inside. At around 10pm the soldiers left. The next day the mother of the Palestinian family said the soldiers left because of the international presence.

More Pictures Online

2006-08-08T13:06:00.000-07:00

More Pictures have been added to the site!!! Check them out by clicking HERE.

Nonviolence

2006-08-08T12:42:00.000-07:00

"The only people on earth who do not see Christ and His teachings as nonviolent are Christians."

-Mohandas Gandhi

"Open the Gates" Action in Hebron

2006-08-08T10:44:00.000-07:00

This is an action that our delegation did in Hebron. The idea came from a song with these lyrics:

"The Kingdom of God is justice and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Come, Lord, and open the gates, the gates to Your Kingdom."

Check out a slideshow of pictures here. You can slow down the show with the "delay" time option. Also, click on the link called "Hebron" to see a lot of pictures of where I'm staying.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Middle East Delegation Demands Freedom for Political Prisoners and Freedom of Movement for Palestinians

By Michael Del Ponte

8 August 2006

HEBRON--On Friday, 8 August CPT delegates from Sweden, Canada and the United States engaged in a public witness at the Beit Romano checkpoint in Hebron, Palestine to call for the opening of all gates that confine Palestinians under military occupation.

Joined by members of CPT Hebron and local Palestinians, the delegation held a prayer service and sang “Open the Gates” while armed soldiers observed from their watch tower above.

The group chose to witness at the Israeli military base in the Old City of Hebron because its military gates clearly represent the obstacles to Palestinian freedom, such as prison fences, the separation wall, checkpoints and the obstruction of unbiased international media coverage of the occupation.

Knowing that there are more than 9,000 Palestinian prisoners who are often deprived of legal rights and subjected to abuse, the delegation felt compelled to call for the freedom of all political prisoners.

James Thomas, a delegate from the United States explained, “No prisoner’s life is more valuable than another’s. We are demanding the freedom of the women, men and children being held without due process and denouncing the hypocrisy of Israel for valuing the lives of 3 kidnapped soldiers over the thousands of Palestinian prisoners and all casualties of the war in Lebanon. By publicly demanding that these gates be opened, we are reaffirming our commitment to work in Palestine and our home countries for a just end to the Israeli occupation.”

Photos of the action can be found at http://www.cpt.org/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album178.

Mt 26: 36-46

2006-08-06T12:43:00.000-07:00

Today I cried in the Garden of Gethsemene;
It was all to much to bear.
Like the bread boy in Hebron with cart overflowing,
Exhaustion made the invitable immediate
And loaves came crashing down.
Inevitable indeed,
But surely not accepted;
Disappointment turned to despair
And the prisoner began to run.

Today I cried in the Garden of Gethsemane;
Not in anticipation of what might happen to me,
But rather the realization of what is happening to our world.
I have met a family of 22 made homeless in an instant
By Caterpillar bulldozers and demolition orders.
I have watched Israeli soldiers invade and occupy apartments
Stating "security" as their only reason.
I have seen M-16s shoved in the faces of Palestinian children
As well as ambulances attempting to maneuver
passed Israeli checkpoints - before it's too late.
I have walked the lands of West Bank farmers
Whose orchards have been made graveyards
By brutal settler attacks.

Today I cried in the Garden of Gethsemane
Next to olive trees blessed with tears divine.
Roots reach passed rocks towards soil soft and
Living long beyond the hardest times.
These trees 2,000 years of age
Still bear fruit like tribal storytellers.
Gnarled and knotted trunks introduce
Strong branches flexing in the mid-day sun.
They hold bouquets that dance with wind
And fall gracefully to the ground when their time has come.

Today I cried in the Garden of Gethsemane,
Then remembered wonderful faces.
Phone calls from friends, the emails of family,
And inspiration from Israeli activists struggling
With Palestinians against the occupation.
Many meals in the homes of gracious hosts and
Sincere "Salaam Alaikums" make me feel welcomed
In the West Bank despite my country's cruelty.
They know that the guns and tanks,
the fighter planes and helicopters,
were purchased with my dollars,
any yet they pour me tea and wish me peace;
Like Jesus forgiving Judas.

Wonderful faces of children, elders, and Imams,
Nuns and rabbis alike.
These have been redemptive.
Babies are born neither soldiers nor saints,
Simply persons with much potential.
The potential for silent selfishness
Or the potential for giving one's self for others.
None are made without a choice.
All can strive towards greatness.

Today I cried in the Garden of Gethsemane,
then realized an important lesson.
The tears will end and walls will fall,
And occupation will be deemed useless.
All that are needed are wonderful faces
Willing to open their eyes and walk towards greatness;
Willing to change the way they live
And cast the silence into darkness.
Willing to cry, then dry their eyes and
Invite more wonderful faces.

Mass in the Holy Land

2006-07-30T08:18:00.000-07:00

Today I went to mass at the Pontifical Institute Notre Dame of Jerusalem. It was so beautiful. It reminded me of being in Rome with Catholics from all over the world, especially the clergy members from the various orders. On Friday our delegation was returning from a long day of meeting with human rights groups when we came across a group of Franciscans walking the stations of the cross. These moments have provided such a relief to me.

A Room with a View

2006-07-28T08:04:00.000-07:00

These pictures were taken from my room at the CPT apartment in Hebron (click on them to enlarge). In the past, this street connected to the main road and had thriving shops and apartments filled with families. The first picture if of a military outpost on the roof across the street. It's hard to believe that these are the streets that children have to play on.

New Pictures Online

2006-07-28T07:52:00.000-07:00

Check out the pictures from Ramallah and Hebron. When I have more time I'll update the desciptions so you have a better idea of what they are.

http://www.shutterfly.com/view/pictures.jsp

These kids are from a family in At Tuwani, a village that depends on subistance farming. The other pictures of the village show the school and clinic, which could be demolished because they were not built with a permit. Israel has refused permits for all new building in this small village and demolitions have occured. Interestingly enough, the Jewish settlement in the hills above the village gets enough water and electricity as they want. The Geneva Convention prohibits settlements on occupied land, but when has Israel really cared about intl law before?

More News...

2006-07-27T08:36:00.000-07:00

First of all, thanks for all of the emails and prayers. It means so much. I have become accustomed to getting emotional in internet cafes at random locations around the globe. Today I had a chance to read all of your notes at a computer in Jerusalem.

Speaking of Jeusalem, today the Old City was closed to Palestinians that are residents of this small area. The outside workers, worshippers, and visitors were shut out by the military check point that appeared without reason. None of the soliders could explain this to me. Seems like another nonsensical tactic for breaking the Palestinian people. After waiting in line I offered to show my passport to a soldier so as to enter. It was not necessary, he had already seen the color of my skin.

For those who want more news sources. This may be good. Haven't read enough to completely endorse, but worth checking out. http://electronicintifada.net/new.shtml

U.N. Apalled by Beirut Destruction

2006-07-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

The UN's Jan Egeland has condemned the devastation caused by Israeli air strikes in Beirut, saying it is a violation of humanitarian law.

Mr Egeland, the UN's emergency relief chief, described the destruction as "horrific" as he toured the city.

To read the entire article, go here.

My First Day in Israel/Palestine

2006-07-22T11:26:00.000-07:00

I was lucky to have a day to relax and explore the Old City. After 6 hours in the air and a 10 hour time difference I only got 1 hour of sleep, so I was happy to spend my first full day in Israel/Palestine visiting churches, buying things that I forgot, trying new food, and getting lost in the Muslim and Christian quarters.

The highlight of the day was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on the site where Jesus was crucified, died, and buried. To see a video clip of one of the mosaics, check out my page on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=garygarino

Also, when I find an internet connection that's fast enough I'll finish uploading my pictures. So far I've only been able to put random ones from a demonstration in SF, a camping trip to Yosemite, and my childhood bedroom set (random, I know). Anyways, http://dpinasia.shutterfly.com/action/ is the URL where I'll continue to post.

Whwn I watch the news of Lebanon it seems just as distant as when I did so at home. That seems to be the vibe here in Jerusalem. Everyone is talking about what's going on THERE, not scared about being HERE. One other thing...The press here is completely different than in the States. Both push their own agendas, but one thing that is interesting is that here they show the true face of war. No photoshopped, candy-coated pictures. Real pictures of children shot, bodies tore open, homes destroyed. I would assume that many people would prefer to not see this, but you might as well know what your tax dollars are being used for, right? Those F-16s aren't for show. They are being used to bomb families trying to escape, or huddling in their homes.

Greetings from Jerusalem

2006-07-21T12:04:00.000-07:00

I arrived safely in Tel Aviv this evening. Getting through the airport was not a problem. After being pulled aside and questioned briefly I went through the usual immigration process, which was surprisingly brief. Now I'm in Jerusalem checking email and getting ready for a day of tourism in the Old City.

More to come....

How dangerous is the West Bank today?

2006-07-17T16:19:00.000-07:00

This month I will be traveling to Palestine with the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT). Here's the latest from my delegation leader...

"The good news is that, for the most part, although they are only a few dozen miles away from the places we'll be visiting, Gaza and Lebanon are really a whole world away. The current violence that we are seeing in the news (as opposed to the continuing violence that has been ongoing for decades and that the news doesn't report) is really not having much of an impact in the southern West Bank at all. Since the beginning of the Hebron team project, many mini-conflicts have sprung up and died down, but the work of the team or the team members has never really been in jeopardy because of them. So I guess what I’m trying to say is that we will, as always, be careful and try to remain as safe as possible, and I don't think that the region in which we'll be staying will be any more dangerous when we arrive than it was when you all signed up to come on the trip."

The Face of War

2006-07-17T10:18:00.000-07:00

Do you really want your tax dollars to be paying for this?

Terrorism

2006-07-17T10:11:00.000-07:00

GALLOWAY: There will never be a winner because terrorism isn't an adversary -- it is a tactic. Peter Ustinov, the great European intellectual, put it this way: "War is the terrorism of the rich and powerful, and terrorism is the war of the poor and powerless." This word terrorism has been distorted beyond any further usefulness. Terrorism is what the other guy does. If you reduce Fallujah to ash, and kill thousands of people using white phosphorus and other banned weapons and overwhelming firepower, that's not terrorism, but if you blow yourself up outside an Iraqi police station, that is terrorism. No person with half a brain can accept that definition of terrorism. So there will be no end to the war on terrorism, because there is no end to the injustice that produced it.

Vatican Condemns Israel's Attack on Lebanon

2006-07-16T16:08:00.000-07:00

VATICAN CITY, July 14 (Reuters) - The Vatican on Friday strongly deplored Israel's strikes on Lebanon, saying they were "an attack" on a sovereign and free nation.

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano said Pope Benedict and his aides were very worried that the developments in the Middle East risked degenerating into "a conflict with international repercussions."