From jhminshall at comcast.net  Tue Mar  2 11:28:38 2004
From: jhminshall at comcast.net (Janet Minshall)
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2004 10:28:38 -0500
Subject: [saymaListserv] Fwd: Treasury Department Is Warning Publishers of
 the Perils of Criminal Editing of the Enemy
Message-ID: <p05210603bc6a57954b62@[192.168.1.101]>

Dear SAYMA and Atlanta Meeting Friends,  I thought, since so many 
Friends are writers, teachers, editors, translators, etc., that this 
message from Tom Coyner, from Seoul Monthly Meeting in South Korea, 
might be of interest.
			Janet Minshall



>X-Originating-IP: [211.43.212.222]
>X-Sender: aci_worldwide at mail.gabia.co.kr
>Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2004 08:33:12 +0900
>To: coyner at gol.com
>From: Tom Coyner <coyner at gol.com>
>Subject: Treasury Department Is Warning Publishers of the Perils of
>   Criminal Editing of the Enemy
>
>Treasury Department Is Warning Publishers of the Perils of Criminal 
>Editing of the Enemy
>February 28, 2004
>  By ADAM LIPTAK
>The New York Times
>
>Writers often grumble about the criminal things editors do
>to their prose. The federal government has recently weighed
>in on the same issue - literally.
>
>It has warned publishers they may face grave legal
>consequences for editing manuscripts from Iran and other disfavored
>nations, on the ground that such tinkering amounts to trading with the
>enemy.
>
>Anyone who publishes material from a country under a trade embargo is
>forbidden to reorder paragraphs or sentences, correct syntax or grammar,
>or replace "inappropriate words," according to several advisory letters
>from the Treasury Department in recent months.
>
>Adding illustrations is prohibited, too. To the baffled
>dismay of publishers, editors and translators who have been briefed
>about the policy, only publication of "camera-ready copies of
>manuscripts" is allowed.
>
>The Treasury letters concerned Iran. But the logic, experts said, would
>seem to extend to Cuba, Libya, North Korea and other nations with which
>most trade is banned without a government license.
>
>Laws and regulations prohibiting trade with various nations have been
>enforced for decades, generally applied to items like oil, wheat,
>nuclear reactors and, sometimes, tourism. Applying them to grammar,
>spelling and punctuation is an infuriating interpretation, several
>people in the publishing industry said.
>
>"It is against the principles of scholarship and freedom of expression,
>as well as the interests of science, to require publishers to get U.S.
>government permission to publish the works of scholars and researchers
>who happen to live in countries with oppressive regimes," said Eric A.
>Swanson, a senior vice president at John Wiley & Sons, which publishes
>scientific, technical and medical books and journals.
>
>Nahid Mozaffari, a scholar and editor specializing in literature from
>Iran, called the implications staggering. "A story, a poem, an article
>on history, archaeology, linguistics, engineering, physics, mathematics,
>or any other area of knowledge cannot be translated, and even if
>submitted in English, cannot be edited in the U.S.," she said.
>
>"This means that the publication of the PEN Anthology of Contemporary
>Persian Literature that I have been editing for the last three years,"
>she said, "would constitute aiding and abetting the enemy."
>
>Allan Adler, a lawyer with the Association of American Publishers, said
>the trade group was unaware of any prosecutions for criminal editing.
>But he said the mere fact of the rules had scared some publishers into
>rejecting works from Iran.
>
>Lee Tien, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
>a civil liberties group, questioned the logic of making
>editors a target of broad regulations that require a
>government license.
>
>"There is no obvious reason why a license is required to
>edit where no license is required to publish," he said.
>"They can print anything as is. But they can't correct
>typos?"
>
>In theory - almost certainly only in theory - correcting typographical
>errors and performing other routine editing could subject publishers to
>fines of $500,000 and 10 years in jail.
>
>"Such activity," according to a September letter from the department's
>Office of Foreign Assets Control to the Institute of Electrical and
>Electronics Engineers, "would constitute the provision of prohibited
>services to Iran."
>
>Tara Bradshaw, a Treasury Department spokeswoman, confirmed
>the restrictions on manuscripts from Iran in a statement. Banned
>activities include, she wrote, "collaboration on and editing of the
>manuscripts, the selection of reviewers, and facilitation of a review
>resulting in substantive enhancements or alterations to the
>manuscripts."
>
>She did not respond to a request seeking an explanation of
>the department's reasoning.
>
>Congress has tried to exempt "information or informational materials"
>from the nation's trade embargoes. Since 1988, it has prohibited the
>executive branch from interfering "directly or indirectly" with such
>trade. That exception is known as the Berman Amendment, after its
>sponsor, Representative Howard L. Berman, a California Democrat.
>
>Critics said the Treasury Department had long interpreted
>the amendment narrowly and grudgingly. Even so, Mr. Berman said, the
>recent letters were "a very bizarre interpretation."
>
>"It is directly contrary to the amendment and to the intent
>of the amendment," he said. "I also don't understand why
>it's not in our interest to get information into Iran."
>
>Kenneth R. Foster, a professor of bioengineering at the University of
>Pennsylvania, said the government had grown insistent on the editing
>ban. "Since 9/11 and since the Bush administration took office," he
>said, "the Treasury Department has been ramping up enforcement."
>
>Publishers may still seek licenses from the government that would allow
>editing, but many First Amendment specialists said that was an
>unacceptable alternative.
>
>"That's censorship," said Leon Friedman, a Hofstra law professor who
>sometimes represents PEN. "That's a prior restraint."
>
>Esther Allen, chairwoman of the PEN American Center's translation
>committee, said the rules would also appear to ban translations. "During
>the cold war, the idea was to let voices from behind the Iron Curtain be
>heard," she said. "Now that's called trading with the enemy?"
>
>In an internal legal analysis last month, the publishers' association
>found that the regulations "constitute a serious threat to the U.S.
>publishing community in general and to scholarly and scientific
>publishers in particular." Mr. Adler, the association's lawyer, said it
>was trying to persuade officials to alter the regulations and might file
>a legal challenge.
>
>These days, journals published by the engineering institute reject
>manuscripts from Iran that need extensive editing and run a disclaimer
>with those they accept, said Michael R. Lightner, the institute vice
>president responsible for publications. "It tells readers," he said,
>"that the article did not get the final polish we would like."
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/28/national/28PUBL.html?ex=1079158847&ei=1&en=eac99d113b10fbff
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From freepolazzo at comcast.net  Thu Mar  4 21:59:28 2004
From: freepolazzo at comcast.net (free polazzo)
Date: Thu, 04 Mar 2004 20:59:28 -0500
Subject: [saymaListserv] Atlanta Five on trail
Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.2.20040304205544.03906408@mail.comcast.net>

Hi Friends in SAYMA,

This was sent by Micheal Allison to the AFM list.   SAYMA Friends may also 
want to know about how a visit to Zell Miller's
office by a group of Friends turned into a civil action.

Peace,

Free


>Dear Friends,
>I hope this all finds you peaceful and positive!  The Atlanta Five are in 
>the news 
>at--http://www.gsusignal.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/03/02/4044ff113a61d 
>---and also
>at  http://www.antiwar.com/  Scroll down under USA heading to "Retired 
>Georgia State Professor on Trial for AntiWar Protests ".





Free

"The greatest ally of injustice is silence" 




From freepolazzo at comcast.net  Sun Mar  7 20:43:37 2004
From: freepolazzo at comcast.net (free polazzo)
Date: Sun, 07 Mar 2004 19:43:37 -0500
Subject: [saymaListserv] The Infinite Mind: What it Means to be a Man
Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.2.20040307193846.00af7780@mail.comcast.net>


Hello Friends,

Our Yearly Meeting(SAYMA) has prayed over how patriarchy needs to change 
and how men are at the heart of keeping it in place.


Follow this link to listen to a wonderful link at the "infinite mind" where 
there is a show on tonite called "What it means to be a man.".


http://www.lcmedia.com/mind312.htm

    It will be available on streaming audio during the week at :

www.theinfinitemind.org

Free

"The greatest ally of injustice is silence" 
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From tlamm at chpl.net  Mon Mar  8 10:09:46 2004
From: tlamm at chpl.net (Tim Lamm)
Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2004 09:09:46 -0500
Subject: [saymaListserv] Announcing Yearly Meeting 2004
Message-ID: <050001c40517$dc52ff30$15a8a8c0@BRADBURY1>

Dear Friends,

The flier announcing Yearly Meeting '04 was mailed last week to all monthly
meetings and worship groups in SAYMA and to attendees of last year's
gathering.  However, it has come to my attention that many of these fliers
may have been damaged in the mail and not delivered.  It's my fault for not
folding them properly for mailing.

If you do not see copies of the flier appearing in your Meeting, or if you
would like a copy for yourself or to give to someone, you may find it on the
SAYMA web site.  Here is the link:

http://www.sayma.org/YM2004_Flyer.pdf

---Tim Lamm, Clerk
YM2004 Planning Committee
SAYMA



From bright_crow at mindspring.com  Mon Mar  8 10:49:12 2004
From: bright_crow at mindspring.com (Mike Shell)
Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2004 09:49:12 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
Subject: [saymaListserv] Fw: NYTimes.com Article: The Detainees: As U.S.
 Detains Iraqis, Families Plead for News
Message-ID: <26246248.1078757352289.JavaMail.root@wamui04.slb.atl.earthlink.net>

Friends,

This is a very disturbing story.  Please read and share it.

Blessed Be,
Michael.


-----Forwarded Message-----
THE NEW YORK TIMES

The Detainees: As U.S. Detains Iraqis, Families Plead for News

March 7, 2004
 By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN 

More than 10,000 Iraqi men and boys are in American custody,
swept up in raids by American forces that still occur
daily.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/07/international/middleeast/07DETA.html?ex=1079756280&ei=1&en=83f0bb605d2cead9


---------------------------------

For general information about NYTimes.com, write to 
help at nytimes.com.  

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company






From freepolazzo at comcast.net  Tue Mar  9 09:07:12 2004
From: freepolazzo at comcast.net (free polazzo)
Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2004 08:07:12 -0500
Subject: [saymaListserv] Now is the time to speak out!
Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.2.20040309080636.02726ba8@mail.comcast.net>



Dear Friends

I was moved, yesterday, to call a local radio station in town that promotes 
itself as the "voice of the community".   When you call in, you are asked 
to identify the part of town you live in so everyone knows "who" you are, I 
imagine.

The host (a self proclaimed "Libertarian") was bashing the Mayor of Atlanta 
for lobbying in the GA Statehouse AGAINST the proposed constitutional 
amendment to outlaw gay marriages.    (Georgia already passed a law 
prohibiting gay marriage a few years ago when all thought Hawaii was going 
to be the first state to allow them).

The talk show host was ranting about the hubris some people had to compare 
the right to marry someone of the same sex to the struggle for civil rights 
by African Americans.   When he said that the "Founding Fathers" of America 
never intended for marriage to be other than between a man and a woman I 
just had to call him.  I was Quaking as I was put on hold.   I was also 
praying that I could get my message out in a friendly way.

When I asked him why he was using as models those in our history who didn't 
even want count his people as a whole human being, he attacked me for 
putting words in his mouth.    He said the right to marry someone of the 
same sex isn't a civil rights issue because people choose to be Homosexual 
and that African Americans don't choose their race.    When I told him my 
twin brother is gay and that he didn't choose his sexual orientation he 
pretty much called me a ignorant liar and pulled the plug on me.

He then proceeded to tell the next caller that I didn't even have the guts 
to admit I was gay and pretended to have a twin.  Snicker, Sniker.

Well, I never expected to convince the talk show person of anything, but I 
pray that someone in the "community" knows that not only gay bashers are 
out there.   They know there is support for them and some are willing to be 
public about it.

The reason I'm telling you this story is to encourage all of you to listen 
to these shows (not easy) and to call in and express your views. The radio 
is the new "town hall" and there needs to be, in my opinion, more 
participation by Friends in the discussion so our truths are in the world 
for others to consider.    We need to not only speak to those of like minds 
and hearts.   We need to stand up and be counted and heard.   Especially 
those who are part of meetings that approve homosexual marriages need to be 
visible, because in those cases we said we would support those we married 
under the care of our meeting.

It helps to prepare by meditating for a time and then to write down one or 
two key points you wish to present.   Expect to be personally attacked and 
to be unplugged.   I held the audience and the host in the Light after I 
was unplugged.

The new underground railroad will be above ground with radio and TV 
speakers set to the opinion makers stations.     Please get on board and 
don't miss this wonderful opportunity to shine our light in the darkness 
that is coming.  It is very needed.    Please overcome our communities 
tendency to avoid verbal conflict and speak your truth to power.   If 
Friends won't speak up, then who will?

Blessings,

Free

"The greatest ally of injustice is silence" 
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From nunispablo at yahoo.com  Tue Mar  9 11:10:41 2004
From: nunispablo at yahoo.com (Paul Nunis)
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 07:10:41 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [saymaListserv] Now is the time to speak out!
In-Reply-To: <6.0.3.0.2.20040309080636.02726ba8@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <20040309151041.30888.qmail@web13704.mail.yahoo.com>

"The radio is the new "town hall" and there needs to
be, in my opinion, more participation by Friends in
the discussion so our truths are in the world for
others to consider."


   Talk radio is the new 'Fight Club', where people
tune in to hear the host devour challengers, not to
hear the caller's point of view.

It sounds like Free got off lightly, some hosts use
the tape delay to slip in audio clips of things that
the caller never said, in order to incite greater
hilarity among the audience.

These shows are rarely intended to be a forum for real
discourse, they are instead a platform for specific
viewpoints, and callers are either supportive of that
viewpoint, or their calls are manipulated to support
that viewpoint, often by making opposing or even
neutral callers appear ridiculous...

So pardon me if I don't fuel the anti-gay agenda by
playing into the hands of talk radio hosts.

Paul Nunis



=====
" There is no standing above the conflict on Olympian heights...The artist must elect to fight for Freedom
or for Slavery.  I have made my choice. "
Paul Robeson

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Search - Find what you’re looking for faster
http://search.yahoo.com


From Reilly at USA.net  Wed Mar 10 10:50:49 2004
From: Reilly at USA.net (Peter C. Reilly)
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 09:50:49 -0500
Subject: [saymaListserv] New Meeting House support inside and outside SAYMA
Message-ID: <!~!UENERkVCMDkAAQACAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABgAAAAAAAAATMVZgt96VUC7hfwV3jm6M8KAAAAQAAAA+j1goBITeUyXszFE0KmLPgEAAAAA@USA.net>

Friends,

Berea Friends Meeting is moving forward with its search for a Meeting House.
We are looking at our current building very seriously.

Over the years, Berea Meeting has received and contributed to other
Meetings, which have bought/built Meeting Houses. Our Finance committee is
looking at all options of support.

Our question is how much each Meeting raised from other Meetings inside and
outside the Yearly Meeting? We are trying to get an idea of how much we
could hope to raise to keep our mortgage down.

If you do not know the answer, but you know someone in your Meeting who
does, could you please forward this message to him or her?

Thank you.

Peace,

	Pete





From bright_crow at mindspring.com  Wed Mar 10 16:58:14 2004
From: bright_crow at mindspring.com (Mike Shell)
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 15:58:14 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
Subject: [saymaListserv] Fwd: Petition Alert - Oppose the Federal Marriage
	Amendment
Message-ID: <28975612.1078952294435.JavaMail.root@wamui04.slb.atl.earthlink.net>

Dear Friends,
I have just read and signed the petition:
Oppose the Federal Marriage Amendment
http://www.thePetitionSite.com/takeaction/645382377
Please help by signing this petition. It takes 30 seconds and will really help. Please follow this link:
The system centralizes signature collection to provide consolidated, useful reports for petition authors and targets. Please forward this email to others you believe share your concern. To view additional petitions, please click here:
http://www.thePetitionSite.com 
Thank you

Total Signatures: 7,844
The most recent signatures*  as of 12:55 PM PST Mar 10, 2004

# 7,844   3/10/04  12:09 PM   Alice and H. Richard Leuchtag, TX, US
# 7,843   3/10/04  12:09 PM   Anonymous, CA, US
# 7,842   3/10/04  12:07 PM   Anonymous, VA, US
# 7,841   3/10/04  12:07 PM   Michael Iannoli, CA, US
# 7,840   3/10/04  12:06 PM   Morgan Polotan, MA, US
# 7,839   3/10/04  12:06 PM   Val Huston, IL, US
# 7,838   3/10/04  12:05 PM   D. Wilkerson, CA, US
# 7,837   3/10/04  12:05 PM   Anonymous, NY, US
# 7,836   3/10/04  12:05 PM   Anonymous, ND, US
# 7,835   3/10/04  12:04 PM   Anonymous, OR, US
# 7,834   3/10/04  12:04 PM   Anne Marie Ouverson, IL, US
# 7,833   3/10/04  12:01 PM   Jessica Rosenberg, PA, US
# 7,832   3/10/04  12:00 PM   Tracie Livermore, CA, US
# 7,831   3/10/04  11:59 AM   Jo Dee Hollar, AK, US
# 7,830   3/10/04  11:59 AM   Barbara Back, CA, US
# 7,829   3/10/04  11:59 AM   Robert M. Kahn, MA, US
# 7,828   3/10/04  11:59 AM   Anonymous, MN, US
# 7,827   3/10/04  11:58 AM   Katerina Vati, CA, US
# 7,826   3/10/04  11:57 AM   Danyel Foi, CA, US
# 7,825   3/10/04  11:57 AM   Karen Alline Smith, NC, US
# 7,824   3/10/04  11:56 AM   Stacy Lehrer, NC, US
# 7,823   3/10/04  11:56 AM   John Coakley, NY, US
# 7,822   3/10/04  11:56 AM   Gayle Urban, AZ, US
# 7,821   3/10/04  11:55 AM   Anonymous, MA, US
# 7,820   3/10/04  11:55 AM   Anonymous, CA, US

To add your name to this petition go to:

   http://www.thePetitionSite.com/takeaction/645382377

*Signers may choose to hide their identity to the public.  Such names will appear as "Anonymous" on the PetitionSite.com and advocacy emails similar to this. (The signature number above may not match the number assigned to your signature on the first page of the petition.) To view additional petitions, please click here:
http://www.thePetitionSite.com






From bright_crow at mindspring.com  Thu Mar 11 14:39:57 2004
From: bright_crow at mindspring.com (Mike Shell)
Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 13:39:57 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
Subject: [saymaListserv] New links on seympeace.or
Message-ID: <23545909.1079030397663.JavaMail.root@wamui06.slb.atl.earthlink.net>

Friends,

Please check the new links on seympeace.org:
http://seympeace.org/index.html#NEW

Blessed be,
Michael.






From freepolazzo at comcast.net  Sun Mar 14 09:56:34 2004
From: freepolazzo at comcast.net (free polazzo)
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2004 08:56:34 -0500
Subject: [saymaListserv] It the counting that counts, not the voting
Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.2.20040314084710.0288cd28@mail.comcast.net>


Dear Friends,

Please be aware that many of the new voting machines being installed, 
without a printed audit trail, are NOT the solution to the problem of 
counting all the votes fairly.  (All of Georgia' s machines don't print out 
any paper trail, either).

See the article below (red is my highlighting) about how even Florida is 
once again, leading the nation in exposing the issues around counting the 
votes, fairly.

If the Truth will set us Free, then we have a long way to go to make sure 
that we have truthful counts.

Blessings,

Free

"The greatest ally of injustice is silence"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Florida as the Next Florida   (Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company)


March 14, 2004


As Floridians went to the polls last Tuesday, Glenda Hood,
Katherine Harris's successor as secretary of state, assured
the nation that Florida's voting system would not break
down this year the way it did in 2000. Florida now has "the
very best" technology available, she declared on CNN. "And
I do feel that it's a great disservice to create the
feeling that there's a problem when there is not." Hours
later, results in Bay County showed that with more than 60
percent of precincts reporting, Richard Gephardt, who long
before had pulled out of the presidential race, was beating
John Kerry by two to one. "I'm devastated," the county's
top election official said, promising a recount of his
county's 19,000 votes.

Four years after Florida made a mockery of American
elections, there is every reason to believe it could happen
again. This time, the problems will most likely be with the
electronic voting that has replaced chad-producing punch
cards. Some counties, including Bay County, use paper
ballots that are fed into an optical scanner, so a recount
is possible if there are questions. But 15 Florida
counties, including Palm Beach, home of the infamous
"butterfly ballot," have adopted touch-screen machines that
do not produce a paper record. If anything goes wrong in
these counties in November, we will be in bad shape.

Florida's official line is that its machines are so
carefully tested, nothing can go wrong. But things already
have gone wrong. In a January election in Palm Beach and
Broward Counties, the victory margin was 12 votes, but the
machines recorded more than 130 blank ballots. It is simply
not believable that 130 people showed up to cast a nonvote,
in an election with only one race on the ballot. The
runner-up wanted a recount, but since the machines do not
produce a paper record, there was nothing to recount.

In 2002, in the primary race for governor between Janet
Reno and Bill McBride, electronic voting problems were so
widespread they cast doubt on the outcome. Many Miami-Dade
County votes were not counted on election night because
machines were shut down improperly. One precinct with over
1,000 eligible voters recorded no votes, despite a 33
percent turnout statewide. Election workers spent days
hunting for lost votes, while Floridians waited, in an
uncomfortable replay of 2000, to see whether Mr. McBride's
victory margin, which had dwindled to less than 10,000,
would hold up.

This past Tuesday, even though turnout was minimal, there
were problems. Voters were wrongly given computer cards
that let them vote only on local issues, not in the
presidential primary. Machines did not work. And there
were, no doubt, other mishaps that did not come to light
because of the stunning lack of transparency around voting
in the state. When a Times editorial writer dropped in on
one Palm Beach precinct where there were reports of
malfunctioning machines, county officials called the police
to remove him.

The biggest danger of electronic voting, however, cannot be
seen from the outside. Computer scientists warn that votes,
and whole elections, can be stolen by rigging the code that
runs the machines. The only defense is a paper record of
every vote cast, a "voter-verified paper trail," which can
be counted if the machines' tallies are suspect. Given its
history, Florida should be a leader in requiring paper
trails. But election officials, including Theresa LePore,
the Palm Beach County elections supervisor who was
responsible for the butterfly ballot, have refused to put
them in place.

Last week, Representative Robert Wexler, a Florida
Democrat, filed a federal lawsuit to require paper trails.
He relies on the Supreme Court's holding in Bush v. Gore
that equal protection requires states to use comparable
recount methods from county to county. Florida law
currently requires a hand recount in close races. That is
possible in most counties, but the 15 that use electronic
voting machines do not produce paper records that can be
recounted. Under the logic of Bush v. Gore, Representative
Wexler is right.

After the 2000 mess, Americans were assured they would not
have to live through such a flawed election again. But
Florida has put in place a system, electronic voting
without a paper trail, that threatens once more to produce
an outcome that cannot be trusted. There is still time
before the November vote to put printers in place in the 15
Florida counties that use touch screens. As we learned four
years ago, once the election has been held on bad
equipment, it is too late to make it right.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/14/opinion/14SUN1.html?ex=1080271608&ei=1&en=b350476ece83b943  
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From freepolazzo at comcast.net  Mon Mar 15 09:29:35 2004
From: freepolazzo at comcast.net (free polazzo)
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 08:29:35 -0500
Subject: [saymaListserv] Mel Gibson's passion of the Christ not quite
	"gospel"
Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.2.20040315080941.028a9dc0@mail.comcast.net>

Dear Friends,

Below is an analysis of a Rabbi's findings of the movie Mel Gibson produced 
called "The Passion of the Christ".  It's high earnings tell a story of 
many, many people seeing the movie.    What that means, I don't know.   So 
I am following the debate in print in order to understand what this 
"passion by the viewers" indicates.


>
>Can we criticize "The Passion of the Christ" without criticizing Christianity?
>
>On Diane Sawyer's interview, Mel Gibson said complaints should not be 
>directed against him, but against the Gospels.  This is untrue.  The movie 
>contains 13 extra-biblical anti-Jewish components that are not found in 
>the Gospels.  Our argument is not with Christianity, the New Testament or 
>the Gospels.  Our argument is with anti-Jewish material that Gibson added 
>to the film:
>
>1.  Jews throw Jesus, shackled in chains, off a bridge.  Demonic creatures 
>lurk
>      bellow.
>2.  Agents of the High Priest pay money to other Jews to assemble at the High
>      Priest's courtyard and demand Jesus' death.
>3.  A Jew tells a Roman that it is all about an "internal affair" 
>concerning someone
>      who "broke the Temple laws".
>4.  Jesus is physically assaulted by a crowd of about 100 prayer-shawl clad
>      Jews.
>5.  While awaiting his meeting with Pontius Pilate, Jewish captors shackle 
>Jesus
>      to a wall in a chamber.
>6.  An aide tells Pilate: trouble is brewing "within the walls."  The 
>Pharisees
>      apparently hate the man."  (The Pharisees are almost totally absent 
> from the
>      Gospel passion narratives.)
>7.  Judas is driven to suicide by small, sweet Jewish children (wearing 
>kippot)
>      who turn into devils. (His disciples, however, do not wear kippot.)
>8.  Pilate sums up the Jewish abuse of Jesus by asking the priests, "Do you
>      always punish your prisoners before they are judged?"
>9.  Pilate confesses to his wife that he fears the Jewish High Priest will 
>lead a
>      revolt against Rome if he does not yield to Jewish demands to 
> crucify Jesus.
>      He needs reinforcements because an uprising has already begun.
>10.The cross is being constructed at the orders of the High Priest in the 
>courtyard
>      of the Temple.
>11.The High Priest throws stones at Mary Magdalene and, with other 
>priests, is
>      in a place where death is taking place. (A priest cannot be in 
> presence of the
>      dead.)
>12.Judas grovels for dropped coins - Medieval stereotype of greedy Jews.
>13. Racist descriptions of Jews with hooked noses, whose degree of bend
>        indicates the degree of their evilness.
>
> From Rabbi Siegal in Charleston, SC
>


PS:     Please note, during the public debate, how few of the advocates of 
the movie see the Anti Jewish enhancements as being erroneously added for 
effect.   Not too surprising to those of us raised as Jews.   Racism just 
won't go away without the dominant culture (Chrisitanity in this country, 
in this case) taking responsibility for ending it.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism#Origins_of_racism  for more on the 
history of racism.  
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From bright_crow at mindspring.com  Tue Mar 16 11:07:49 2004
From: bright_crow at mindspring.com (Mike Shell)
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 10:07:49 -0500 (GMT-05:00)
Subject: [saymaListserv] FWD: "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver
Message-ID: <29393025.1079449669555.JavaMail.root@wamui08.slb.atl.earthlink.net>

"Wild Geese"
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
   love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscape,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over, announcing your place
in the family of things.








From jhminshall at comcast.net  Tue Mar 16 12:04:56 2004
From: jhminshall at comcast.net (Janet Minshall)
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 11:04:56 -0500
Subject: [saymaListserv] Fwd: Economic Justice
Message-ID: <p06020402bc7cd5a645f0@[192.168.1.101]>


Dear Friends, This article is so concise and well-grounded in its 
discussion of economic equality that it will probably be the last I 
send for awhile. Janet

>
>A QUESTION OF JUSTICE?
>Mar 11th 2004
>
>The toll of global poverty is a scandal. But deploring economic
>"injustice" is no answer
>
>HUNDREDS of millions of people in the world are forced to endure lives
>of abject poverty--poverty so acute that those fortunate enough to live
>in the United States, or Europe or the rich industrialised parts of
>Asia can scarcely comprehend its meaning. Surely there is no more
>commanding moral imperative for people in the West than to urge each
>other, and their governments, to bring relief to the world's poorest.
>And what a tragedy it is, therefore, that many of the kind souls who
>respond most eagerly to this imperative bring to the issue an
>analytical mindset that is almost wholly counterproductive. They are
>quite right, these champions of the world's poor, that poverty in an
>age of plenty is shameful and disgusting. But they are quite wrong to
>suppose, as so many of them do, that the rich enjoy their privileges at
>the expense of the poor--that poverty, in other words, is inseparable
>from a system, capitalism, that thrives on injustice. This way of
>thinking is not just false. It entrenches the very problem it purports
>to address.
>
>Symptomatic of this mindset is the widespread and debilitating
>preoccupation with "global inequality". Whenever the United Nations and
>its plethora of associated agencies opine about the scandal of world
>poverty, figures on inequality always pour forth. (Such figures,
>though, are always higher than the likely reality: see article[1]) It
>is not bad enough, apparently, that enormous numbers of people have to
>subsist on less than a dollar a day. The claim that this makes in its
>own right on the compassion of the West for its fellow men is deemed,
>apparently, too puny. The real scandal, it seems, is that much of the
>world is vastly richer than that. The implication, and often enough the
>explicit claim, is that the one follows from the other: if only we in
>the West weren't so rich, so greedy for resources, so driven by
>material ambition--such purblind delinquent capitalists--the problem of
>global poverty would be half-way to being solved.
>
>EQUITY AT A PRICE
>Certain ideas about equality are woven into the fabric of the liberal
>state, and quite inseparable from it: first and foremost, equality
>before the law. But equality before the law, and some other kinds of
>liberal equality, can be universally granted without infringing
>anybody's rights. Economic equality cannot. A concern to level economic
>outcomes must express itself as policies that advance one group's
>interests at the expense of another's. This puts political and ethical
>limits on how far the drive for economic equality ought to go.
>(Strictly practical limits, as well, since too noble a determination to
>take from the rich to give to the poor will end up impoverishing
>everyone.) It also means that perfect economic equality should never be
>embraced, even implicitly, as an ideal. Perfect economic equality is a
>nightmare: nothing short of a totalitarian tyranny could ever hope to
>achieve it.
>
>The preoccupation bordering on obsession with economic equality that
>one so often encounters at gatherings of anti-globalists, in the
>corridors of aid agencies and in socialist redoubts in backward parts
>of the world reflects a "lump of income" fallacy. This remarkably
>tenacious misconception is that there is only so much global income to
>go around. If the United States is consuming $10 trillion worth of
>goods and services each year, that is $10 trillion worth of goods and
>services that Africa cannot consume.
>
>But goods and services are not just lying around waiting to be grabbed
>by the greediest or most muscular countries. Market economics is not a
>zero-sum game. America consumes $10 trillion worth of goods and
>services each year because it PRODUCES (not counting the
>current-account deficit of 5% or so of the total) $10 trillion of goods
>and services each year. Africa could produce and consume a lot more
>without America producing and consuming one jot less. It so happens
>that the case for more aid, provided of course that it is well spent,
>is strong--but the industrialised countries do not need to become any
>less rich before Africa can become a lot less poor. The wealth of the
>wealthy is not part of the problem.
>
>To believe otherwise, however, is very much part of the problem. For
>much of the 20th century the developing countries were held back by an
>adapted socialist ideology that put global injustice, inequality and
>victimhood front and centre. Guided by this ideology, governments
>relied on planning, state monopolies, punitive taxes, grandiose
>programmes of public spending, and all the other apparatus of applied
>economic justice. They also repudiated liberal international trade,
>because the terms of global commerce were deemed exploitative and
>unfair. Concessions (that is, permission to retain trade barriers) were
>sought and granted in successive negotiating rounds of the General
>Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. A kind of equity was thus deemed to
>have been achieved. The only drawback was that the countries stayed
>poor.
>
>Towards the end of the century, many developing countries--China and
>India among them--finally threw off this victim's mantle and began to
>embrace wicked capitalism, both in the way they organised their
>domestic economies and in their approach to international trade. All of
>a sudden, they are a lot less poor, and it hasn't cost the West a cent.
>In Africa, too, minds are now changing, but far more slowly. Perhaps
>that has something to do with the chorus that goes up from Africa's
>supposed friends in the West, telling the region that its plight is all
>the fault of global inequality, "unfair trade" and an intrinsically
>unjust market system.
>
>HEED THE CALL
>People and their governments in the West should heed the call of
>compassion, and respond with policies to help the world's poor, and
>indeed to advance the opportunities of the (much less desperately) poor
>in their own countries. Expressed that way, the egalitarian impulse is
>a good thing, worth nurturing. But a compassionate regard for the poor,
>as any good Marxist will tell you, is a very different thing from a
>zeal for economic "justice". That zeal, despite the exemplary fate of
>the socialist experiment at the end of the 20th century, guides a great
>deal of thinking still. And it continues to do nothing but harm.
>
>-----
>[1] http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_ID=2498851
>
>
>
>See this article with graphics and related items at 
>http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2499118&subjectID=423172&emailauth=%2527%2525%252FO%252A%255BN%255F6%2527%2540X%2520%250A
>
>Go to http://www.economist.com for more global news, views and 
>analysis from the Economist Group.
>
>- ABOUT ECONOMIST.COM -
>
>Economist.com is the premier online source of global news, views and
>analysis.  Visit http://www.economist.com for worldly insight as well
>as market information and exclusive resource libraries.
>


From freepolazzo at comcast.net  Sun Mar 21 08:28:09 2004
From: freepolazzo at comcast.net (free polazzo)
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 07:28:09 -0500
Subject: [saymaListserv] NYTimes.com Article: Essay: The Honesty Virus 
Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.2.20040321072510.028925a8@mail.comcast.net>


>Dear Friends,


As honesty is a key piece of our testimony on Simplicity, I submit this 
analysis by Clive Thompson of the NY Times,
about how the internet may be helping to decrease the amount of lying that 
happens in the world.

Enjoy this piece of good news. I did.

Honestly!

:)

Free


>Essay: The Honesty Virus
>
>March 21, 2004
>  By CLIVE THOMPSON
>
>
>
>
>
>Everyone tells a little white lie now and then. But a
>Cornell professor recently claimed to have established the
>truth of a curious proposition: We fib less frequently when
>we're online than when we're talking in person. Jeffrey
>Hancock asked 30 of his undergraduates to record all of
>their communications -- and all of their lies -- over the
>course of a week. When he tallied the results, he found
>that the students had mishandled the truth in about
>one-quarter of all face-to-face conversations, and in a
>whopping 37 percent of phone calls. But when they went into
>cyberspace, they turned into Boy Scouts: only 1 in 5
>instant-messaging chats contained a lie, and barely 14
>percent of e-mail messages were dishonest.
>
>Obviously, you can't make sweeping generalizations about
>society on the basis of college students' behavior. (And
>there's also something rather odd about asking people to be
>honest about how often they lie.) But still, Hancock's
>results were intriguing, not least because they upend some
>of our primary expectations about life on the Net.
>
>Wasn't cyberspace supposed to be the scary zone where you
>couldn't trust anyone? Back when the Internet first came to
>Main Street, pundits worried that the digital age would
>open the floodgates of deception. Since anyone could hide
>behind an anonymous Hotmail address or chat-room moniker,
>Net users, we were warned, would be free to lie with
>impunity. Parents panicked and frantically cordoned off
>cyberspace from their children, under the assumption that
>anyone lurking out there in the ether was a creep until
>proved otherwise. And to a certain extent, the fear seemed
>justified. According to Psych 101, we're more likely to lie
>to people when there's distance between us -- and you can't
>get much more distant than a hot-chat buddy in Siberia who
>calls himself 0minous-1.
>
>Why were those fears unfounded? What it is about online
>life that makes us more truthful? It's simple: We're
>worried about being busted. In ''real'' life, after all,
>it's actually pretty easy to get away with spin. If you
>tell a lie to someone at a cocktail party or on the phone,
>you can always backtrack later and claim you said no such
>thing. There's probably no one recording the conversation,
>unless you're talking to Linda Tripp (in which case you've
>clearly got other problems).
>
>On the Internet, though, your words often come back to
>haunt you. The digital age is tough on its liars, as a
>seemingly endless parade of executives are learning to
>their chagrin. Today's titans of industry are laid low not
>by ruthless competitors but by prosecutors gleefully waving
>transcripts of old e-mail, filled with suggestions of
>subterfuge. Even Microsoft was tripped up by old e-mail
>messages, and you would figure its employees would know
>better. This isn't a problem for only corporate barons. We
>all read the headlines; we know that in cyberspace our
>words never die, because machines don't forget. ''It's a
>cut-and-paste culture,'' as Hancock put it (though he told
>me that on the phone, so who knows? There's only a 63
>percent chance he really meant it).
>
>Indeed, the axiom that machines never forget is built into
>the very format of e-mail -- consider that many e-mail
>programs automatically ''quote'' your words when someone
>replies to your message. Every day, my incoming
>
>e-mail reminds me of the very words I wrote yesterday, last
>week or even months ago. It's as if the gotcha politics of
>Washington were being brought to bear on our everyday
>lives. Every time I finish an e-mail message, I pause for a
>few seconds to reread it before I hit ''send'' just to make
>sure I haven't said something I'll later regret. It's as if
>I'm constantly awaiting the subpoena. And it's not only
>e-mail that records our deeds for future scrutiny. Before
>going on a first date, people Google their partners to see
>what they can learn. Mobile phones take photographs. The
>other day I saw an ad promoting the world's first
>''terabyte'' hard drive for consumers' use: it can store
>two years' worth of continuous music, or about 200 million
>pieces of average-size e-mail. In a couple of years, that
>sort of hardware will be standard issue in even the
>cheapest Dell computer. We are facing an age in which
>virtually nothing will be forgotten.
>
>Maybe this helps explain why television programs like
>''C.S.I.'' have become so popular. They're all about
>revealing the sneaky things that people do. We watch with
>fascination and unease as scientists inspect the tiniest of
>clues -- a stray hair on a car seat, a latent fingerprint
>on a CD-ROM. After you've seen high-tech cops rake over
>evidence from a crime scene with ultraviolet light and
>luminol and genetic sequencers enough times, you get the
>message: Watch out, punk. We've got files on you. Forensic
>science has become the central drama of pop culture, and
>its popularity may well increase our anxieties about
>technology. So no wonder we're so careful to restrict our
>lying to low-fi environments. We have begun to behave like
>mobsters, keenly suspicious of places that might be bugged,
>conducting all of our subterfuge in loud restaurants and
>lonely parks, where we can meet one on one.
>
>Still, it's not only the fear of electronic exposure that
>drives us to tell the truth. There's something about the
>Internet that encourages us to spill our guts, often in
>rather outrageous ways. Psychologists have noticed for
>years that going online seems to have a catalytic effect on
>people's personalities. The most quiet and reserved people
>may become deranged loudmouths when they sit behind the
>keyboard, staying up until dawn and conducting angry
>debates on discussion boards with total strangers. You can
>usually spot the newbies in any discussion group because
>they're the ones WRITING IN ALL CAPS -- they're tripped out
>on the Internet's heady combination of geographic distance
>and pseudo-invisibility.
>
>One group of psychologists found that heated arguments --
>so-called flame-war fights, admittedly a rather fuzzy
>category -- were far more common in online discussion
>boards than in comparable face-to-face communications.
>Another researcher, an Open University U.K. psychologist
>named Adam Joinson, conducted an experiment in which his
>subjects chatted online and off. He found that when people
>communicated online, they were more likely to offer up
>personal details about themselves without any prompting.
>Joinson also notes that the Samaritans, a British
>crisis-line organization, has found that 50 percent of
>those who write in via e-mail express suicidal feelings,
>compared with only 20 percent of those who call in. This
>isn't because Net users are more suicidally depressed than
>people offline. It's just that they're more comfortable
>talking about it -- ''disinhibited,'' as the mental-health
>profession would say.
>
>Who knew? When the government created the Internet 30 years
>ago, it thought it was building a military tool. The Net
>was supposed to help the nation survive a nuclear attack.
>Instead, it has become a vast arena for collective therapy
>-- for a mass outpouring of what we're thinking and
>feeling. I spend about an hour every day visiting blogs,
>those lippy Web sites where everyone wants to be a pundit
>and a memoirist. (Then I spend another hour writing my own
>blog and adding to the cacophony.) Stripped of our bodies,
>it seems, we become creatures of pure opinion.
>
>Our impulse to confess via cyberspace inverts much of what
>we think about honesty. It used to be that if you wanted to
>know someone -- to really know and trust them -- you
>arranged a face-to-face meeting. Our culture still
>fetishizes physical contact, the shaking of hands, the
>lubricating chitchat. Executives and politicians spend
>hours flying across the country merely for a five-minute
>meeting, on the assumption that even a few seconds of face
>time can cut through the prevarications of letters and
>legal contracts. Remember when George W. Bush first met
>Vladimir Putin, gazed into his eyes and said he could trust
>him because he'd acquired ''a sense of his soul''?
>
>So much for that. If Bush really wanted the straight goods,
>he should have met the guy in an AOL chat room. And maybe,
>in the long run, that's the gratifying news. As more and
>more of our daily life moves online, we could find
>ourselves living in an increasingly honest world, or at
>least one in which lies have ever more serious
>consequences. Bush himself can't put old statements about
>W.M.D. behind him partly because so many people are
>forwarding his old speeches around on e-mail or posting
>them on Web sites. With its unforgiving machine memory, the
>Internet might turn out to be the unlikely conscience of
>the world.
>
>
>
>
>Clive Thompson writes frequently for the magazine about
>science and technology.
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/21/magazine/21ESSAY.html?ex=1080871217&ei=1&en=6ff5c33f86be1b75
>
>Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

Free

"The greatest ally of injustice is silence" 




From moriah at preferred.com  Sun Mar 21 08:24:20 2004
From: moriah at preferred.com (Mary Calhoun)
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 07:24:20 -0500
Subject: [saymaListserv] IMP^o^ 163 Rep Mtg ...mailbox near you!
Message-ID: <03e801c40f43$f5591ce0$b872fea9@LocalHost>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
IMP ^o^ Bulletin 163
Coming to a mailbox near you!
Rep Meeting registration packets for --
..............................................................
-- April 3, 2004, hosted by Nashville (TN) FM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


<|>  Registration packets have been mailed to the f/Friends listed below for the April 3rd Spring Rep Meeting in Nashville TN.  (Main session: 9:00 am Central) 

<|>  Please register by March 26, by phone, or e-mail.  (No postal-mail registrations this time, please.) Anyone can participate in Representative Meetings; those attending represent the Yearly Meeting.  Each meeting is encouraged to send someone.  The people to register with are:

<|>  Please send your registration info to both registrars; this has been requested due to their complicated travel schedules.  Thanks for your help with this!

<|>  Penelope Wright
            615-298-1385
            pennywright at earthlink.net 

<|>  Maaret Houghton
            615-463-9512
            maarethoughton at bellsouth.net 
 
<|>  Please see IMP^o^ 164 to find out what information to supply by e-mail or phone in order to register.

<|>  You'll still need to see a registration packet (it contains directions, map, agendas, and other important information). If you aren't on the list below, please contact --
        -- one of the other people listed, or ...
        -- the SAYMA office
            AdminAsst at sayma.org 
            276-628-5852, or ... 
        -- www.sayma.org   

<|>  If you could use help with arranging "green" travel (car-pooling) to Rep Mtg, please contact Bill Reynolds, cisland at aol.com.

<|>  If you should have been among the names below, and aren't, please let the SAYMA office know.  Packets have been sent to f/Friends listed in the office as --
        -- clerks/contacts for their meetings/worship groups
        -- SAYMA representatives from meetings 
                           & worship groups
        -- members of SAYMA Ministry & Nurture and
                           Yearly Meeting Planning Committees
        -- clerks of SAYMA committees
        -- SAYMA Clerks and Treasurer
        -- SAYMA's representatives to wider Quaker
                            organizations
        -- SAF editors 
        -- SAYF Admin Asst

<|>  If you're named below and don't need to be, please let the office know that too!

<|>  Mailed to, in meeting order...

Free Polazzo . . . . . . . . . Anneewakee
Barbara Esther . . . . . . . . . Asheville 
Margaret Farmer . . . . . . . . . Asheville 
Steve Livingston . . . . . . . . . Asheville 
Lauren Mitchell . . . . . . . . . Asheville 
Evan Richardson . . . . . . . . . Asheville 
Betsey Collins . . . . . . . . . Athens 
Ellen Johnson . . . . . . . . . Athens 
Deb Weiler . . . . . . . . . Athens 
Kathy Burke . . . . . . . . . Atlanta 
Jeremiah Gold-Hopton . . . . . . . . . Atlanta 
Kathy Johnson . . . . . . . . . Atlanta 
Jonah McDonald . . . . . . . . . Atlanta 
Karen terHorst Morris . . . . . . . . . Atlanta 
Martha Tate . . . . . . . . . Atlanta 
Joe Taylor . . . . . . . . . Atlanta 
Perry Treadwell . . . . . . . . . Atlanta 
Tom Brawner . . . . . . . . . Auburn 
Brian Boggs . . . . . . . . . Berea 
Therese Hildebrand . . . . . . . . . Berea 
David Kennedy . . . . . . . . . Berea 
Carol Lamm . . . . . . . . . Berea 
Tim Lamm . . . . . . . . . Berea 
Beth Myers . . . . . . . . . Berea 
Wendy Satterthwaite . . . . . . . . . Berea 
Mark Gooch . . . . . . . . . Birmingham 
Jane Hiles . . . . . . . . . Birmingham 
Connie LaMonte . . . . . . . . . Birmingham 
Gail Fannon . . . . . . . . . Boone 
John Geary . . . . . . . . . Boone 
Bob French . . . . . . . . . Brevard 
Lee Scott . . . . . . . . . Brevard 
Joyce Johnson . . . . . . . . . Celo 
Bob McGahey . . . . . . . . . Celo 
Geeta McGahey . . . . . . . . . Celo 
Colin Sugioka . . . . . . . . . Celo 
Marmon Thompson . . . . . . . . . Celo 
Rachel Weir . . . . . . . . . Celo 
Ray Lewis . . . . . . . . . Charleston 
Steve Mininger . . . . . . . . . Charleston 
Charles Schade . . . . . . . . . Charleston 
Nancy Beecher . . . . . . . . . Chattanooga 
Becky Ingle . . . . . . . . . Chattanooga 
Larry Ingle . . . . . . . . . Chattanooga 
Bill Reynolds . . . . . . . . . Chattanooga 
Peggy Bonnington . . . . . . . . . Clarksville 
Nancy Winfrey . . . . . . . . . Clemson 
John Spraker . . . . . . . . . Cleveland 
Stan Spraker . . . . . . . . . Cleveland 
Sallie Prugh . . . . . . . . . Columbia 
Jerry Rudolph . . . . . . . . . Columbia 
Julia Sibley-Jones . . . . . . . . . Columbia 
Alice Wald . . . . . . . . . Columbia 
Annie Black . . . . . . . . . Cookeville 
Hector Black . . . . . . . . . Cookeville 
Hazel Hall . . . . . . . . . Cookeville 
Deanna Nipp . . . . . . . . . Cookeville 
Gladys Draudt . . . . . . . . . Crossville 
Dennis Gregg . . . . . . . . . Crossville 
Mary Calhoun . . . . . . . . . Foxfire 
Beth Keiter . . . . . . . . . Foxfire 
Bob Keiter . . . . . . . . . Foxfire 
Christopher Berg . . . . . . . . . Greenville 
Norman Goerlich . . . . . . . . . Greenville 
Judy Guerry . . . . . . . . . Huntsville 
Susan Phelan . . . . . . . . . Huntsville 
David Ciscel . . . . . . . . . Memphis 
Kristi Estes . . . . . . . . . Memphis 
Debra Johnson . . . . . . . . . Memphis 
Larry Jordan . . . . . . . . . Memphis 
Neena Ledbetter . . . . . . . . . Memphis 
Ron McDonald . . . . . . . . . Memphis 
Wib & Mary Kate Smith . . . . . . . . . Murfreesboro 
Dick Houghton . . . . . . . . . Nashville 
Maaret Houghton . . . . . . . . . Nashville 
Kit Potter . . . . . . . . . Nashville 
Geoffrey Pratt . . . . . . . . . Nashville 
Joyce Rouse . . . . . . . . . Nashville 
Penelope Wright . . . . . . . . . Nashville 
Kim Carlyle . . . . . . . . . New Moon 
Susan Carlyle . . . . . . . . . New Moon 
Nan Johnson . . . . . . . . . Oxford 
Daryl Bergquist . . . . . . . . . Royal 
Douglas & Jane Price . . . . . . . . . Sevier County 
Lyn Hutchinson . . . . . . . . . Sewanee 
Tony Bing . . . . . . . . . Swannanoa Valley 
Susan Carlyle . . . . . . . . . Swannanoa Valley 
Mel Keiser . . . . . . . . . Swannanoa Valley 
Kathryn Parke . . . . . . . . . Swannanoa Valley 
Bob Welsh . . . . . . . . . Swannanoa Valley 
Bettina Wolff . . . . . . . . . Swannanoa Valley 
Sharon Annis . . . . . . . . . West Knoxville 
Barbara Conant . . . . . . . . . West Knoxville 
Lee Hoefer . . . . . . . . . West Knoxville 
Missy Ivie . . . . . . . . . West Knoxville 
Turtle MacDermott . . . . . . . . . West Knoxville 
Carol Nickle . . . . . . . . . West Knoxville 
Lee Ann Swarm . . . . . . . . . West Knoxville 

~~~~~~ end ^o^ ~~~~~~ postdate 032104 ~~~~~~
_____________________________
IMP ^o^ ... "Information Made Present"

is a bulletin service of the SAYMA office to provide practical details
to our geographically-challenged Yearly Meeting via our free
list-server:  semi-official information, bulletins that you can print,
post, announce, publish, or pass around.  Please address questions,
corrections, and additions to AdminAsst at sayma.org, or
276-628-5852 (machine; in-person Tu/Th 5-7:30p).
Thank you!  ^o^
-----------------------------------------------------
To receive IMP^o^ bulletins, subscribe to the free list server,
sayma at kitenet.net.  You can subscribe on the web at
http://kitenet.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sayma.
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From moriah at preferred.com  Sun Mar 21 08:42:36 2004
From: moriah at preferred.com (Mary Calhoun)
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 07:42:36 -0500
Subject: [saymaListserv] IMP^o^ 164 Rep Meeting "e-registration"
Message-ID: <03ec01c40f43$f7fe9a60$b872fea9@LocalHost>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
IMP ^o^ Bulletin 164
Information needed to register electronically
for Spring Rep Meeting ...
..........................................................
but you still need to see a registration packet!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


<|>  Please register by phone or e-mail for the Spring Rep Meeting scheduled for April 3rd in Nashville TN.  (Main session:  9:00 am Central time) No postal-mail registrations this time, please.

<|>  Please register by March 29.  Everyone coming must be registered. 

The people to register with are; please send your information to both:

<|>  Penelope Wright -- 615-298-1385, pennywright at earthlink.net

<|>  Maaret Houghton -- 615-463-9512, maarethoughton at bellsouth.net  

<|>  You will still need to see a registration packet; it contains maps, directions, agenda, and other important
information.

<|>  If you don't have a packet, please --
-- check IMP^o^ 163, to see if one was mailed to you, or ...
-- contact a person who was listed in IMP 163, or ...
-- contact your meeting clerk or worship group contact, or ...
-- visit www.sayma.org to download and print the materials, or ...
-- contact the SAYMA office at 276-628-5852, AdminAsst at sayma.org

<|>  Meanwhile, IMP^o^ bulletins 163, 164, and 165 will give you partial information.

<|>  Info needed for Rep Meeting registration:

1.  If you need childcare please contact Penelope Wright by March 29.

2.  Your name and address

3.  Purpose for attending:
    (a) Rep Meeting, M&N, Yearly Mtg Planning, other
    (b) child; please give name(s), age(s) and special needs of child(ren)
requiring care.

4.  Meeting or Worship Group name

5.  Your contact info:  area code + phone number (& e-mail address if you
have one).  If giving both, please indicate the preferred means of
communication.

6.  Hospitality needed (place to sleep & light breakfast provided by local
f/Friend):

    (a)  Please indicate people who can share a room...
    (b)  ...& those who can share a bed.
    (c)  Friday night for (#) ____ people.  Expected time of arrival: ______
    (d)  Saturday night for (#) ____ people.  Expected time of arrival: ____
    (e)  Please say who is arriving when, if the folks above are not all 
traveling together.
    (f)   Any special needs? (Vegetarian, vegan, special diet, house without
stairs, hills, wood smoke, pets, or a child-proof house, etc. ...?)

7.  If you ask for hospitality, and your request hasn't been acknowledged by March 30, you can contact Penelope Wright (612-298-1385, pennywright at earthlink.net) if you want reassurance.

8.  Cancellation:  after registering, if you are unable to attend for any
reason, please notify Penelope Wright as soon as possible at 615-587-0950 (cell).

~~~~~~ end ^o^ ~~~~~~ postdate 032104 ~~~~~~

________________________________
IMP ^o^ ... "Information Made Present"

is a bulletin service of the SAYMA office to provide practical details
to our geographically-challenged Yearly Meeting via our free
list-server:  semi-official information, bulletins that you can print,
post, announce, publish, or pass around.  Please address questions,
corrections and additions to AdminAsst at sayma.org, or
276-628-5852 (machine; in-person Tu/Th 5-7:30p). 
Thank you!  ^o^
-----------------------------------------------------
To receive IMP^o^ bulletins, subscribe to the free list server,
sayma at kitenet.net.  You can subscribe on the web at
http://kitenet.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sayma.
------------------------------------------------------

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From moriah at preferred.com  Sun Mar 21 08:52:22 2004
From: moriah at preferred.com (Mary Calhoun)
Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 07:52:22 -0500
Subject: [saymaListserv] IMP^o^ 165 "green" travel to Rep Mtg
Message-ID: <03ed01c40f43$f9ecfce0$b872fea9@LocalHost>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
IMP ^o^ Bulletin 165
Earth-Friendly Travel to...
...Spring Rep Meeting in Nashville
-----------------------------------------------
contact Bill Reynolds
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

<|>    For f/Friends who don't already have a ride-share organized, and could use a hand finding one, Bill Reynolds has volunteered to help organize car-pooling to the April 3 Rep Meeting in Nashville.

<|>    If you're looking for riders, please let him know -- 
                a) how many spaces are available in the vehicle
                b) where it will be leaving from
                c) when it will be departing
                d) general route planned
                e) when it will arrive at Rep Meeting
                f) when it will be returning

<|>    If you seek to 'hitch a ride,' please let him know
                a) how many you are  
                b) where you will be leaving from
                c) when you need to depart
                d) where you could meet a ride
                e) when you need to arrive at Rep Meeting
                f) when you need to return home

<|>    Bill Reynolds' contact info -- 
                        cisland at aol.com
                        423/ 624-6821

~~~~~~ end ^o^ ~~~~~~ 1stpost 032104 ~~~~~~

_______________________________________
IMP ^o^ ... "Information Made Present"

is a bulletin service of the SAYMA office to provide practical details
to our geographically-challenged Yearly Meeting via our free
list-server:  semi-official information, bulletins that you can print,
post, announce, publish, or pass around.  Please address questions,
corrections and additions to AdminAsst at sayma.org,
276-628-5852 (machine), or SAYMA Admin. Asst., PO Box 2191,
Abingdon, VA 24212-2191.  Thank you!  ^o^
-----------------------------------------------------
To receive IMP^o^ bulletins, subscribe to the free list server,
sayma at kitenet.net.  You can e-mail to sayma-request at kitenet.net,
writing only the word       subscribe    in the body of your e-mail
message.  You can also subscribe on the web at
http://kitenet.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sayma.
------------------------------------------------------
\

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From freepolazzo at comcast.net  Mon Mar 22 08:30:43 2004
From: freepolazzo at comcast.net (free polazzo)
Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 07:30:43 -0500
Subject: [saymaListserv] Equal rights for all?
Message-ID: <6.0.3.0.2.20040322072245.02936c30@mail.comcast.net>


Hi,

Is this trail about freedom of religion or is it about the lack of 
religious freedom in America?

Free

>One Crucial Issue in Pledge Case: What Does Under God Mean?
>
>March 22, 2004
>  By LINDA GREENHOUSE
>
>
>WASHINGTON, March 21 - It has taken 50 years since Congress
>added "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance for the
>validity of that cold war amendment to reach the Supreme
>Court, with arguments scheduled for Wednesday. But before
>the justices can decide whether those two words render the
>pledge unconstitutional, they have to answer a factual
>question that is inextricably entwined with the legal one:
>what exactly does it mean to pledge allegiance to "one
>nation under God"?
>
>According to Michael A. Newdow, the California atheist who
>sued to stop the recitation of the pledge in his daughter's
>elementary school classroom, to recite the pledge with
>"under God" is to take "one side in the quintessential
>religious question `Does God exist?' " a statement of
>"sectarian religious dogma" that the government should not
>sponsor in a public school setting.
>
>According to the Bush administration, which is defending
>the pledge, its recitation is no more a religious act than
>pocketing a coin imprinted with "In God We Trust." The
>administration's brief says both are simply patriotic
>acknowledgments of "the nation's religious history" and of
>the "undeniable historical fact that the nation was founded
>by individuals who believed in God," an empirical statement
>that poses no threat to the separation of church and state.
>
>
>According to the Christian Legal Society, a group of
>lawyers, judges and professors, the pledge has a distinctly
>religious cast, and properly so. The group's brief says
>that the words "under God" support the concept of limited
>government, serving as a reminder that "government is not
>the highest authority in human affairs" because
>"inalienable rights come from God."
>
>According to another group of religious individuals, 32
>Christian and Jewish clergy members who take the opposite
>side in the case, reciting the pledge with "under God"
>invites a troubling kind of civic blasphemy. If children
>are supposed to utter the phrase without meaning it as an
>affirmation of personal faith, the group's brief asserts,
>"then every day, government asks millions of schoolchildren
>to take the name of the Lord in vain."
>
>According to a form letter signed by President Bush and
>sent to those who wrote the White House about the federal
>appeals court decision in June 2002 that declared the
>pledge unconstitutional, reciting the pledge is a way of
>proclaiming "our reliance on God" and of "humbly seeking
>the wisdom and blessing of divine providence."
>
>This letter, clearly in some conflict with the current
>official view, concluded by expressing the wish that "the
>almighty continue to watch over the United States of
>America." Americans United for Separation of Church and
>State and other organizations that oppose the
>administration's position included the letter in an
>appendix to their joint brief.
>
>The striking range of views on just what "under God"
>signifies represents only the beginning, not the end, of
>the justices' task as they take up the case, Elk Grove
>Unified School District v. Newdow, No. 02-1624.
>
>For example, if reciting the pledge is a religious act, is
>it a voluntary or coerced one, and is that distinction even
>relevant? In 1992, the court prohibited prayer led by the
>clergy at public high school commencement ceremonies on the
>ground that the graduating students were effectively
>coerced into participating. But a landmark Supreme Court
>decision from 1943 held that schoolchildren could not be
>required to recite the pledge. One of Dr. Newdow's points
>is that even if the pledge is nominally voluntary, daily
>classroom recitation inevitably labels children who do not
>take part as outsiders.
>
>If reciting the pledge is seen as a patriotic statement of
>homage to the founding fathers, does that make it less
>problematic or more? Prof. Douglas Laycock of the
>University of Texas law school, speaking here Friday at the
>Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, said that seen in
>that light, the message of the pledge is that "if you're
>doubtful about the existence of God, you are of doubtful
>loyalty to the nation." Professor Laycock represents the 32
>clergy members who oppose the pledge.
>
>If "under God" is unconstitutional, what is the fate of
>numerous other examples of religious references scattered
>throughout civic life and long accepted as a benign form of
>"ceremonial deism"?
>
>Jay A. Sekulow, speaking at the same forum, said that even
>the Supreme Court marshal's intonation of "God save the
>United States and this honorable court" would be suspect.
>
>Mr. Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law
>and Justice, a legal organization affiliated with the Rev.
>Pat Robertson, filed a brief on behalf of several dozen
>members of Congress who back the pledge as it is written,
>as well as 250,000 people who signed a supporting petition.
>
>
>Justice Antonin Scalia has recused himself, raising the
>prospect of a 4-to-4 tie. His recusal, announced in October
>when the court accepted the case, stemmed from a speech he
>gave last year that pointedly criticized the lower court's
>reasoning.
>
>Aside from the terrorism-related cases that will be argued
>next month, there is probably no more heavily freighted
>issue on the court's current docket than this one.
>Politicians touch the pledge at their peril: few have
>forgotten the 1988 presidential campaign, when George Bush,
>then the vice president, scored easy points by denouncing
>the veto that his Democratic opponent, Gov. Michael S.
>Dukakis, had cast of a bill requiring Massachusetts
>teachers to lead their classes in the pledge.
>
>The attorneys general of all states have signed a brief
>supporting the pledge, as have the National School Boards
>Association and the National Education Association, the
>teachers' union.
>
>The visibility of the pledge as a political issue faded
>after 1988, only to flare up again nearly two years ago,
>when Dr. Newdow, who has law and medical degrees and who
>argued his own case, won a 2-to-1 decision from the United
>States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San
>Francisco, that the pledge was unconstitutional. The court
>later narrowed its ruling to bar only recitation in public
>school classrooms.
>
>Dr. Newdow will argue his case before the justices. He will
>be opposed by Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson and
>Terence J. Cassidy, counsel for the Elk Grove district,
>near Sacramento, where Dr. Newdow's daughter attends
>school.
>
>A preliminary question, which will be part of the arguments
>on Wednesday, is whether Dr. Newdow, who was never married
>to the girl's mother and is not the custodial parent, has
>standing to pursue the case. The mother, Sandra L. Banning,
>has filed a brief supporting the pledge and her daughter's
>recitation of it. A decision that Dr. Newdow lacks standing
>would wipe out the lower court's ruling, but not the
>emotion the case has generated or the potential that a
>different plaintiff might renew the debate in the next
>case.
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/22/national/22SCOT.html?ex=1080958151&ei=1&en=7362a176e4ca22a3
>
>
>Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company




From kcarlyle at main.nc.us  Fri Mar 26 10:15:19 2004
From: kcarlyle at main.nc.us (Kim Carlyle)
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2004 09:15:19 -0500
Subject: [saymaListserv] SAF
Message-ID: <019c01c4133c$c601f8c0$b96dc0d1@qew>

Dear SAYMA Friends,

Once again it's time to send your articles, opinions, recipes, jokes,
poetry, and other stuff to SAFeditor at sayma.org

Please get them to us by April Fool's Day. Thanks -- SAF eds.



From jewen at bellsouth.net  Wed Mar 24 13:09:38 2004
From: jewen at bellsouth.net (jewen at bellsouth.net)
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 12:09:38 -0500
Subject: [saymaListserv] Equal rights for all?
References: <6.0.3.0.2.20040322072245.02936c30@mail.comcast.net>
Message-ID: <002701c411c2$ca16dc80$6101a8c0@amd1gig>

Dear Free and other Friends,

It seems to me that the really germane legal issue is not being talked about
at all by anybody, including the atheist who is suing in this round of a
perennial debate:

The real issue is, should one be pledging allegiance at all to anything or
anybody?

It seems to me similar to the issue of whether and when people can take
oaths and exactly what is an oath. Arguing about the form of the oath is
secondary to the issue of pledging of an oath--period. There are for example
some Friends who will take an oath if the form is that of an "affirmation"
and does not mention the specific word "swear". This has always seemed to me
to avoid the real question which is,
truth tellers tell truth whether sworn to or not and liars will be able to
lie about telling the truth even when sworn, making it a useless exercise!
Similarly in pledging allegiance (loyalty) to one's country, those who deal
honorably in all their affairs will also behave honorably toward their
country (and everybody else's too), and those who behave dishonorably cannot
be trusted to live up to any pledges they make to anybody about anything.

So the purpose of such a pledge must be something else. Its intension is to
have all citizens doing a common ritual to install a sense of belonging and
mutual obligation to each other and  or to the government of this particular
country above and exclusive toward all others...When "under God" was added,
it was as an additional qualifier of exclusivity  and intended saying more
about those whom it excluded than about those who recited it. It was
inserted to differentiate an America of supposedly God-based values vs a
Communist Bloc that was avowedly secular and atheist. It was a reminder to
every school child about us vs them. And IMHO about as effective as
psychological armor as the "duck and cover drill" was as a civil defense
measure.

It seems to me that those who are insisting upon "under God" are working
against the civic purpose of the pledge in that these words seem to be
dividing loyalties rather than uniting. So I conclude that the real agenda
must be something else, something that is not being talked about in the
briefs, but is aired regularly on the "televangelical" hour. That this
country is or ought to be the "property" of Judeo/Christians, or possibly
conservative Christians only, and that all others should either join the
club or become invisible...It is against this extra-legal agenda that I
think the suits are actually being brought.

This is an elephant that is laying a lot of manure around the civic living
room and instead of getting out the pooper scoopers, everyone is arguing
about the length and color of the drapes. It's much easier to change the
drapes than to deal with the real "stuff"...

The Jewish brief comes closest to dealing with the elephant "stuff" but
stops short of removing the actual elephant, which Jews have traditionally
not been shy about confronting throughout their history: the issue of who
has first place, God or the government, and who takes marching orders from
whom, God or the government. The Jews when ordered to worship Caesar, as
good "citizens" of the Empire throughout the ancient world were required to
do, refused to do it. When told to put an image in their temple, they
refused to do it.

This pledge  of allegiance is an attempt to have one's cake and eat it too,
theologically speaking. By making a pledge to anybody but God, one risks
putting that thing above God, unless that person/thing is also submitted to
God. (Hence the "sacramental" nature of marriage. If marriage to one another
is in fact a reflection of one's "marriage to God" in one's soul, then it is
an extension of that primary relationship, and not a conflict of
interest...Something like that is being attempted in the wording of this
pledge. And that would be good as far as it goes. However, this is allegedly
a democracy and we arrive by this means at the absurd position of deciding
by popular vote and electoral college what God's policy is that we are all
going to be "under".  Making policy *for* God rather than deriving policy
*from* the leading of God seems to occur all too frequenly, irrespective of
which political party is doing the driving.) Even our Quaker process in
which we commit ourselves to discern God's position rather than vote for one
set of notions or another, or even cobble together a concensus set of
individual notions has its difficulties.

Perhaps we could substitute another sort of national promise, " I shall
pledge myself and my country's leadership to think it possible that we may
be mistaken!" But I guess that lacks a certain cache
as a civic ritual with flags flapping in the breeze and bands playing and
all that sort of thing....nor is it something that the public schools will
be likely to mandate that teachers lead in the recitation...

Guess I will continue to stand silent when the pledge comes up...unless
somebody can come up with a better alternative.


Julia Parker Ewen



From: "free polazzo" <freepolazzo at comcast.net>
To: <sayma at kitenet.net>
Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 7:30 AM
Subject: [saymaListserv] Equal rights for all?


>
> Hi,
>
> Is this trail about freedom of religion or is it about the lack of
> religious freedom in America?
>
> Free
>
> >One Crucial Issue in Pledge Case: What Does Under God Mean?
> >
> >March 22, 2004
> >  By LINDA GREENHOUSE
> >
> >
> >WASHINGTON, March 21 - It has taken 50 years since Congress
> >added "under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance for the
> >validity of that cold war amendment to reach the Supreme
> >Court, with arguments scheduled for Wednesday. But before
> >the justices can decide whether those two words render the
> >pledge unconstitutional, they have to answer a factual
> >question that is inextricably entwined with the legal one:
> >what exactly does it mean to pledge allegiance to "one
> >nation under God"?
> >
> >According to Michael A. Newdow, the California atheist who
> >sued to stop the recitation of the pledge in his daughter's
> >elementary school classroom, to recite the pledge with
> >"under God" is to take "one side in the quintessential
> >religious question `Does God exist?' " a statement of
> >"sectarian religious dogma" that the government should not
> >sponsor in a public school setting.
> >
> >According to the Bush administration, which is defending
> >the pledge, its recitation is no more a religious act than
> >pocketing a coin imprinted with "In God We Trust." The
> >administration's brief says both are simply patriotic
> >acknowledgments of "the nation's religious history" and of
> >the "undeniable historical fact that the nation was founded
> >by individuals who believed in God," an empirical statement
> >that poses no threat to the separation of church and state.
> >
> >
> >According to the Christian Legal Society, a group of
> >lawyers, judges and professors, the pledge has a distinctly
> >religious cast, and properly so. The group's brief says
> >that the words "under God" support the concept of limited
> >government, serving as a reminder that "government is not
> >the highest authority in human affairs" because
> >"inalienable rights come from God."
> >
> >According to another group of religious individuals, 32
> >Christian and Jewish clergy members who take the opposite
> >side in the case, reciting the pledge with "under God"
> >invites a troubling kind of civic blasphemy. If children
> >are supposed to utter the phrase without meaning it as an
> >affirmation of personal faith, the group's brief asserts,
> >"then every day, government asks millions of schoolchildren
> >to take the name of the Lord in vain."
> >
> >According to a form letter signed by President Bush and
> >sent to those who wrote the White House about the federal
> >appeals court decision in June 2002 that declared the
> >pledge unconstitutional, reciting the pledge is a way of
> >proclaiming "our reliance on God" and of "humbly seeking
> >the wisdom and blessing of divine providence."
> >
> >This letter, clearly in some conflict with the current
> >official view, concluded by expressing the wish that "the
> >almighty continue to watch over the United States of
> >America." Americans United for Separation of Church and
> >State and other organizations that oppose the
> >administration's position included the letter in an
> >appendix to their joint brief.
> >
> >The striking range of views on just what "under God"
> >signifies represents only the beginning, not the end, of
> >the justices' task as they take up the case, Elk Grove
> >Unified School District v. Newdow, No. 02-1624.
> >
> >For example, if reciting the pledge is a religious act, is
> >it a voluntary or coerced one, and is that distinction even
> >relevant? In 1992, the court prohibited prayer led by the
> >clergy at public high school commencement ceremonies on the
> >ground that the graduating students were effectively
> >coerced into participating. But a landmark Supreme Court
> >decision from 1943 held that schoolchildren could not be
> >required to recite the pledge. One of Dr. Newdow's points
> >is that even if the pledge is nominally voluntary, daily
> >classroom recitation inevitably labels children who do not
> >take part as outsiders.
> >
> >If reciting the pledge is seen as a patriotic statement of
> >homage to the founding fathers, does that make it less
> >problematic or more? Prof. Douglas Laycock of the
> >University of Texas law school, speaking here Friday at the
> >Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, said that seen in
> >that light, the message of the pledge is that "if you're
> >doubtful about the existence of God, you are of doubtful
> >loyalty to the nation." Professor Laycock represents the 32
> >clergy members who oppose the pledge.
> >
> >If "under God" is unconstitutional, what is the fate of
> >numerous other examples of religious references scattered
> >throughout civic life and long accepted as a benign form of
> >"ceremonial deism"?
> >
> >Jay A. Sekulow, speaking at the same forum, said that even
> >the Supreme Court marshal's intonation of "God save the
> >United States and this honorable court" would be suspect.
> >
> >Mr. Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law
> >and Justice, a legal organization affiliated with the Rev.
> >Pat Robertson, filed a brief on behalf of several dozen
> >members of Congress who back the pledge as it is written,
> >as well as 250,000 people who signed a supporting petition.
> >
> >
> >Justice Antonin Scalia has recused himself, raising the
> >prospect of a 4-to-4 tie. His recusal, announced in October
> >when the court accepted the case, stemmed from a speech he
> >gave last year that pointedly criticized the lower court's
> >reasoning.
> >
> >Aside from the terrorism-related cases that will be argued
> >next month, there is probably no more heavily freighted
> >issue on the court's current docket than this one.
> >Politicians touch the pledge at their peril: few have
> >forgotten the 1988 presidential campaign, when George Bush,
> >then the vice president, scored easy points by denouncing
> >the veto that his Democratic opponent, Gov. Michael S.
> >Dukakis, had cast of a bill requiring Massachusetts
> >teachers to lead their classes in the pledge.
> >
> >The attorneys general of all states have signed a brief
> >supporting the pledge, as have the National School Boards
> >Association and the National Education Association, the
> >teachers' union.
> >
> >The visibility of the pledge as a political issue faded
> >after 1988, only to flare up again nearly two years ago,
> >when Dr. Newdow, who has law and medical degrees and who
> >argued his own case, won a 2-to-1 decision from the United
> >States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San
> >Francisco, that the pledge was unconstitutional. The court
> >later narrowed its ruling to bar only recitation in public
> >school classrooms.
> >
> >Dr. Newdow will argue his case before the justices. He will
> >be opposed by Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson and
> >Terence J. Cassidy, counsel for the Elk Grove district,
> >near Sacramento, where Dr. Newdow's daughter attends
> >school.
> >
> >A preliminary question, which will be part of the arguments
> >on Wednesday, is whether Dr. Newdow, who was never married
> >to the girl's mother and is not the custodial parent, has
> >standing to pursue the case. The mother, Sandra L. Banning,
> >has filed a brief supporting the pledge and her daughter's
> >recitation of it. A decision that Dr. Newdow lacks standing
> >would wipe out the lower court's ruling, but not the
> >emotion the case has generated or the potential that a
> >different plaintiff might renew the debate in the next
> >case.
> >
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/22/national/22SCOT.html?ex=1080958151&ei=1&e
n=7362a176e4ca22a3
> >
> >
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From nunispablo at yahoo.com  Sun Mar 28 14:51:02 2004
From: nunispablo at yahoo.com (Paul Nunis)
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2004 10:51:02 -0800 (PST)
Subject: [saymaListserv] Affirmations?
In-Reply-To: <002701c411c2$ca16dc80$6101a8c0@amd1gig>
Message-ID: <20040328185102.68003.qmail@web13703.mail.yahoo.com>

--- jewen at bellsouth.net wrote:
"There are for example some Friends who will take an
oath if the form is that of an "affirmation" and does
not mention the specific word "swear". This has always
seemed to me to avoid the real question..." 

Is an affirmation truly a violation of scriptural
prohibitions on taking an oath in this context?
Swearing to something is making a special, or
extraordinary promise to constrain one's behavior to
conform with the conditions of the oath.
Those conditions can include loyalty, fealty,
allegiance, or truthful testimony. And it rests on the
premise that one's behavior would not be such in the
absence of the oath.

Affirming is merely answering in the affirmative that
one's testimony is intended to be truthful, and in no
way limits one's truthfulness.

If asked "Is that your dog?", one is not swearing an
oath when they answer in the affirmative that, "Yes,
it is indeed my dog". 
If the response is "I swear to you, that is indeed my
dog" then special and unneeded emphasis has been
placed that is absent in the case of affirmation.
And it is that special, extraordinary  emphasis, or
making a big deal about truthtelling, that Friends may
wish to avoid by eschewing oath taking and sticking
with a simple affirmation. 

Paul Nunis


=====
" There is no standing above the conflict on Olympian heights...The artist must elect to fight for Freedom
or for Slavery.  I have made my choice. "
Paul Robeson

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance Tax Center - File online. File on time.
http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html


From judylumb at btl.net  Sun Mar 28 18:19:41 2004
From: judylumb at btl.net (Judy Lumb)
Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2004 16:19:41 -0600
Subject: [saymaListserv] affirmation
References: <6.0.3.0.2.20040322072245.02936c30@mail.comcast.net>
	<002701c411c2$ca16dc80$6101a8c0@amd1gig>
Message-ID: <012d01c41512$e02014d0$49f51bce@toshibauser>

I had the occasion to give a deposition in support of a
friend recently. The attorney came to Caye Caulker (Belize)
to collect these on video for a later trial, so it was
relatively informal. I didn't think about the oath business
until they turned on the camera and said they would "swear
me in." I said "wait a minute --- I am a Quaker and ... "
The court reporter said, "OK then, you affirm." I said, "I
affirm that my yea is yea and my nay is nay." The lawyer
laughed and said he had never heard that before. I started
to explain the biblical quote, but we went on with the
proceedings. It caught me off-guard because I hadn't thought
about it beforehand. On later reflection, it felt too easy -
early Quakers had to go to prison for months over such
issues!    Judy



From Vmbra at aol.com  Tue Mar 30 22:24:57 2004
From: Vmbra at aol.com (Vmbra at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2004 21:24:57 EST
Subject: [saymaListserv] Pledging allegiance
Message-ID: <54.25ad70bc.2d9b85f9@aol.com>

I don't have much difficulty pledging allegiance to the United States.  The 
applicable definition of allegiance is the fidelity owed by a citizen to 
his/her government.  So the only concern I might have with pledging allegiance to 
the United States is that the pledge itself might be a special emphasis, 
implying that but for the act of pledging I might *not* give the appropriate level of 
fidelity to the United States.

There is nothing I see in the pledge that implies permanence.  Allegiance is 
given in exchange for good government.  And I do not consider myself bound in 
perpetuity, or required to endorse bad government.  

Pledging allegiance *to the flag* rings of idolatry, however.  And pledging 
*under God* raises all the concerns others have already stated.  

Charles Schade
Charleston WV
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From bright_crow at mindspring.com  Wed Mar 31 23:06:00 2004
From: bright_crow at mindspring.com (Michael Austin Shell)
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 22:06:00 -0500
Subject: [saymaListserv] SEYMpeace.org Update
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20040331220529.009ed670@pop.mindspring.com>

Friends,

Visit http://seympeace.org/ for a new thought for the month and some new links.

Blessed Be,
Michael.