From moriah at preferred.com Wed Sep 1 04:54:49 2004 From: moriah at preferred.com (Mary Calhoun) Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 04:54:49 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] IMP^o^ 167 Rep Mtg ...mailbox near you! Message-ID: <066601c49007$8756ccc0$6464a2c6@abc> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ IMP ^o^ Bulletin 167 Coming to a mailbox near you! Rep Meeting registration packets for -- .............................................................. -- Sept 10, 2004, hosted by Berea (KY) FM ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ <|> Registration packets have been mailed to the f/Friends listed below for the Sept 10th Fall Rep Meeting in Berea KY. (Main session: 10:00 am Eastern) <|> Please register by Sept 3; you may register by mail or e-mail. Anyone can participate in Representative Meetings; those attending represent the Yearly Meeting. Each meeting is encouraged to send someone. The person to register with is: <|> Wendy Satterthwaite 118 Holly St, Berea KY 40403 red at kih.net <|> Please see IMP^o^ 168 to find out what information to supply by e-mail in order to register. <|> You'll need to see a packet even if you register electronically (it contains directions, maps, agenda, and other important information). If you aren't on the list below, please contact -- -- one of the people listed -- the SAYMA office AdminAsst at sayma.org 276-628-5852 or visit... -- http://www.sayma.org/online_documents.htm <|> If you could use help to arrange "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 -- clerks & members of SAYMA committees -- SAYMA Clerks and Treasurer -- SAYMA's representatives to wider Quaker organizations -- SAYMA archivist & web manager, & 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 Gary Briggs . . . . . . . Asheville Barbara Esther . . . . . . . Asheville Margaret Farmer . . . . . . . Asheville Trina Farmer . . . . . . . Asheville Joy Gosset . . . . . . . Asheville Adrienne Labotka . . . . . . . Asheville Steve Livingston . . . . . . . Asheville Betsey Collins . . . . . . . Athens Ellen Johnson . . . . . . . Athens Cathianne Watkins . . . . . . . Athens Deb Weiler . . . . . . . Athens Kathy Burke . . . . . . . Atlanta Susan Cozzens . . . . . . . Atlanta Chris Duke . . . . . . . Atlanta Jeremiah Gold-Hopton . . . . . . . Atlanta Carol Gray . . . . . . . Atlanta Karen terHorst Morris . . . . . . . Atlanta Ronald Nuse . . . . . . . Atlanta Perry Treadwell . . . . . . . Atlanta Ceal Wutka . . . . . . . Atlanta Tom Brawner . . . . . . . Auburn Brian Boggs . . . . . . . Berea Therese Hildebrand . . . . . . . Berea Carol Lamm . . . . . . . Berea Tim Lamm . . . . . . . Berea Beth Meyers . . . . . . . Berea Harry and Laura Robie . . . . . . . Berea Wendy Satterthwaite . . . . . . . Berea Mark Gooch . . . . . . . Birmingham Jane Hiles . . . . . . . Birmingham Connie LaMonte . . . . . . . Birmingham Judy Prince . . . . . . . Birmingham Gail Fannon . . . . . . . Boone John Geary . . . . . . . Boone Melissa Meyer . . . . . . . Boone Bob French . . . . . . . Brevard Lee Scott . . . . . . . Brevard Joan Williams . . . . . . . Brevard Jane Goldthwait . . . . . . . Celo 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 Tim Lally . . . . . . . Chattanooga Bill Reynolds . . . . . . . Chattanooga Peggy Bonnington . . . . . . . Clarksville Nancy Winfrey . . . . . . . Clemson Sallie Prugh . . . . . . . Columbia Jerry Rudolph . . . . . . . Columbia Julia Sibley-Jones . . . . . . . Columbia Alice Wald . . . . . . . Columbia Annie Black . . . . . . . Cookeville Hazel Hall . . . . . . . Cookeville Deanna Nipp . . . . . . . Cookeville Gladys Draudt . . . . . . . Crossville Dennis Gregg . . . . . . . Crossville Errol Hess . . . . . . . Foxfire Edie Patrick . . . . . . . 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 Smith . . . . . . . Murfreesboro Dick Houghton . . . . . . . Nashville John Potter . . . . . . . Nashville Kit Potter . . . . . . . Nashville Geoffrey Pratt . . . . . . . Nashville Joyce Rouse . . . . . . . Nashville Christina VanRegenmorter . . . . . . . Nashville Penelope Wright . . . . . . . Nashville Kim Carlyle . . . . . . . New Moon Susan Carlyle . . . . . . . New Moon Ginny Baumann . . . . . . . Oxford Nan Johnson . . . . . . . Oxford Daryl Bergquist . . . . . . . Royal Douglas Price . . . . . . . Sevier County Lyn Hutchinson . . . . . . . Sewanee Tony Bing . . . . . . . Swannanoa Mel Keiser . . . . . . . Swannanoa Anne Welsh . . . . . . . Swannanoa Bob Welsh . . . . . . . Swannanoa Bettina Wolff . . . . . . . Swannanoa Sharon Annis . . . . . . . West Knoxville Barbara Conant . . . . . . . West Knoxville Jim Hamill . . . . . . . West Knoxville Kendall Ivie . . . . . . . West Knoxville Missy Ivie . . . . . . . West Knoxville Ernest Lee . . . . . . . West Knoxville Kathleen Mavournin . . . . . . . West Knoxville Carol Nickle . . . . . . . West Knoxville Sharon Phelps . . . . . . . West Knoxville Lee Ann Swarm . . . . . . . West Knoxville ~~~~ end ^o^ ~~~~ postdate 083104 ~~~~ _____________________________ 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 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 list-server sayma at kitenet.net. You can subscribe on the web at http://kitenet.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sayma. ------------------------------------------------------ From moriah at preferred.com Wed Sep 1 05:21:48 2004 From: moriah at preferred.com (Mary Calhoun) Date: Wed, 1 Sep 2004 05:21:48 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] IMP^o^ 168 Rep Meeting "e-registration" Message-ID: <066701c49007$87f57dc0$6464a2c6@abc> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ IMP ^o^ Bulletin 168 Information needed to register electronically for Fall Rep Meeting ... .......................................................... but you still need to see a registration packet! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ <|> You can register by e-mail for the Fall Rep Meeting scheduled for Sept 11 in Berea KY. (Main session: 10:00 am Eastern time) <|> Please register by Sep 3rd. Everyone coming must be registered. The person to register with is: <|> Wendy Satterthwaite, red at kih.net <|> You will need to see a registration packet even if you register by e-mail; it contains maps, directions, agenda, and other important information. <|> If you don't have a packet, please -- -- check IMP^o^ 167, to see if one was mailed to you, or ... -- contact a person who was listed in IMP^o^ 167, or ... -- contact your meeting clerk, 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 167 & 168 will give you partial information. <|> Info needed for Rep Meeting registration: 1. If you need childcare please notify Beth Meyers, 859-986-9262, right away. Childcare is very limited. 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 Sept 7, you can contact Wendy Satterthwaite (859-986-2193 red at kih.net) if you want reassurance! 8. Cancellation: after registering, if you are unable to attend for any reason, please notify Wendy Satterthwaite as soon as possible at 859-986-2193, red at kih.net ~~~~ end ^o^ ~~~~ postdate 08-31-04 ~~~~ ________________________________ 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 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 list server, sayma at kitenet.net. You can subscribe on the web at http://kitenet.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sayma. ------------------------------------------------------ From jhminshall at comcast.net Thu Sep 2 14:24:16 2004 From: jhminshall at comcast.net (Janet Minshall) Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 14:24:16 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Fwd: Re: Is Population Decline A Greater Threat Now Than PopulationGrowth? Message-ID: Dear Friends, These messages follow up on the messages I sent earlier to you with the same subject heading "Is Population Decline A Greater Threat Now Than Population Growth?". Janet Minshall Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 02:11:23 -0400 To: Stan Becker From: Janet Minshall Subject: Re: Is Population Decline A Greater Threat Now ThanPopulationGrowth? Cc: Bcc: X-Attachments: Hi Stan, I do not miss your point at all but consider it misleading. According to your own printout there were in 1999 (apparently the most recent data you used) only about 1.5 million live births in the US per year above the death rate, the other 1.5 million of your 3 million number are all arriving immigrants both legal and illegal. These are persons already counted in global population data. From my perspective you can't count them twice. Those 1.5 million net births in the US are dropping steadily. The white population of European descent IS at or below replacement. According to the 2002 Revision of World Population Prospects by the UN Population Division "For the first time the UN Pop.Div. projects that future fertility levels in the MAJORITY of developing countries will likely fall below 2.1 children per woman, the level needed to ensure the long-term replacement of the population." "By 2050, the medium variant of the 2002 Revision projects that 3 out of every 4 countries in the less developed regions will be experiencing below-replacement fertility." "A second important change in the 2002 Revision is that it anticipates a more serious and prolonged impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the most affected countries than previous revisions." According to what I've read about the current population decline in Russia there are not only fewer live births but fewer healthy newborns. The death rate has increased dramatically, too. The health effects of obesity, cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption seem to be catching up with HIV/AIDS in the morbidity data. In a September '03 article in The National Geographic (not usually thought of as a radical rag) Joseph Chamie, Director of the Pop. Div. says "Its a monumental change. There's no way out of the demographic box." If he sees clearly what the trends represent why is it that you do not? If, as I expect, the US is able to delay the onset of population decline and the serious impact on the economy which that would cause by admitting still more refugees and immigrants, will you continue to sound and spread the alarm over the growth of population as net births in the US are flat and net births in most of Europe and 3 out of every 4 less developed countries are below replacement? Yes, the US will have to hustle to manage the environmental effects of that many more people living here, as will the European countries who choose the same route to delay the effects of population decline. But if we/they fail, the increase in deaths from pollution and toxicity in the food and water supplies will bring population numbers down even faster. It seems to me that too many environmentalists have a starry-eyed glaze over their eyes when they contemplate the world with a flat or declining population. I think it is high time that we get serious about the deadly depressing realities of such a world. That would seem to be the best way to stimulate creative problem solving before its too late to even try. Janet (Microcredit as provided on a small scale by Right Sharing is exactly what I'm talking about when I suggest "economic development targeted at women" in my message. J) Stan Becker wrote: Janet Some agreement but some of the facts need to be re-emphasized it seems. 1. population decline is NOT underway in North America (and only in selected countries n=15 last I looked in Europe). In fact the US is ADDING 3 million persons per year. Why do you keep missing this fact? 2. It is unclear if the "same amount of time and money" for economic development would be as well spent as that on contraception and sterilization. Contraception is a very inexpensive and cost-effective part of development. The UN estimated that it would take 10-15 billion per year to meet all reproductive health needs of couples in the world. Microcredit seems comparable in cost but many other development things are probably not. Maybe you have cost information (e.g. of education/schools) available? 3. "Women's economic well-being and safety has more to do with the childbearing decisions she makes than does provision of contra. and steriliz. services" This is generally correct but not necessarily the case. Women in Bangladesh are using contraception at a rate above 50% and in all economic classes (51%,53%,53%,59% for those with none, primary incomplete, primary complete and secondary+ education (Demo. and Health Survey of 1999/2000) . Poverty can create a demand for family planning perhaps sometimes. sb Janet Minshall wrote: > Hi Again Stan, Which arguments I use are used to deny funding for > contraceptive assistance? Do you mean pointing out that a population > decline is underway in Europe and North America is used to deny > funding in Less Developed Countries? Or do you mean that raising the > issues of white people of European descent being suspect regarding > racism, sexism and imperialism are used to deny funding in LDCs? If > it is the latter, I really don't think people/governments of Less > Developed Countries need any help suspecting us of deception in this > regard. It seems to me that if we are clear and truthful on all > levels that we really wish to provide contraception/sterilization > only to those who wish to use them, and make a serious effort to > train workers to avoid any language or behavior that gives the > impression that we are providing contraception/sterilization to > achieve racist, sexist or imperialistic goals, then we aren't in any > way contributing to the misuse of information. As you well know, any > information can be misused. From my perspective that is not a reason > to avoid telling the truth. > > This would probably be more clearly communicated to the less > developed world if the same amount of time and money was devoted to > economic development targeted at women as the amount of time and > money devoted to contraception and sterilization services. Since > both of us know that a woman's economic wellbeing and safety has more > to do with the childbearing decisions she makes than does provision > of contraceptive and sterilization services that just makes sense. It > also turns out to be of the greatest benefit in relieving poverty in > Less Developed Countries as a whole. THAT is what needs to be > communicated and stressed here in the US. > > Now are we on the same page? I feel as if we are finally > communicating and may actually find agreement for the first time in > twenty years or so. I hope that is the case. Janet > Stan Becker wrote: > >JM > > > >Makes sense. The problem comes when arguments you use are used to > >deny funding > >for contraceptive assistance. (Baby and bathwater problem?) > >Similarly, abuse of > >sterilization in Bangladesh (by incentives for providers mostly) and > >recently in > >Peru that was reported was blown up and forced cutbacks to the point > >that it is > >hard to receive sterilization services in those countries now. > > > >sb > > > >Janet Minshall wrote: > > > >> Hi Stan, I'm fine with e-mail. My hearing loss actually makes it > >> easier to communicate this way than face to face. Yes, I did hear > >> your plenary address three years ago. I agree completely that it is > >> our obligation to provide funds so that women who wish to use > >> contraception may do so. It is my guess, however, that in most such > >> situations there are trained workers from the target population > >> itself assigned to discuss contraception and other issues related to > >> childbearing -- hopefully, most of them women -- so that the > >> disconnects over racism, sexism and imperialism I am talking about in > >> the message, sent previously under the same "Subject" heading, >do not occur. Are we on the same page now? Best >Regards, Janet > >> > >> >Janet > >> > Stan Becker wrote: > >> >Sorry this is being done by email. > >> > > >> >Let me simply say that it is estimated (from quite good survey data) > >> >that there are approximately 100 million women in the world who want > >> >to space or limit their births but do not have access to modern > >> >contraception. If there are 1.2 billion people living on less than > >> >$1 per day, someone has to help subsidize modern contraception and > >> >help governments or NGOs provide it to these women(couples). To me > >> >it is the OBLIGATION of us in rich nations to provide these > >> >commodities unless/until countries can do it on their own. Burkina > >> >Faso, Mali, Niger are cases in point. 50 million abortions per > >> >year attest to the magnitude of unwanted childbearing. > >> >Perhaps you would be willing to listen to my Gathering plenary of 3 > >> >years back or did you already? It touches on these topics. > > > > > >> >Stan From nwinfrey at bellsouth.net Thu Sep 2 14:43:39 2004 From: nwinfrey at bellsouth.net (Nancy Winfrey) Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 14:43:39 -0400 (Eastern Standard Time) Subject: [saymaListserv] Fwd: Re: Is Population Decline A Greater Threat Now Than PopulationGrowth? References: Message-ID: <413769DB.000001.01856@NANCY> The way I see it, from a perspective of 70 years and the pre-abortion, pre-birth control era, two major causes of declining population are economic and advances in birth control and abortion. I respect a woman's right to make decisions about her own body, but I still don't think that addresses the underlying causes of population decline. Years ago, the Catholic Church in particular, held as a mission homes for women who needed shelter for an unwanted pregnancy, as well as orphanages for abandoned children. Today, these institutions are mostly gone, even at a government level. Until this country (and by that, I mean us, as citizens and members of the human race) begins to value all women and children as deserving of a right to at least a minimal standard of living no matter how many children may be involved, we will continue to have this dilemma: Those who have access to birth control and/or abortion economically will continue to have smaller and smaller families for economic or personal reasons. Those who do not have the means to access the needed controls will continue to have uncontrolled birthrates, with many of the resulting children needing medical care, welfare, and having poor records for education and being good citizens. Is there a message for Friends in this scenario? Might a more effective way to impact this situation be to begin paying attention to the need for valuing women and children by affording them decent living conditions, support if they wish to keep their children, necessary social services to enhance minimal parenting and life skills, etc.? Is there any way that Friends can help this to happen? I predict that birthrates might even stabilize if the most poor and dysfunctional portions of our citizens are supported as they need to be, and families that are able to access birth control might not so limit their families if it weren't necessary for economic reasons. This doesn't even address the segment of our population which is seeing more and more repro- ductive problems due to lifestyle and environmental pollution! We have that circumstance in our own family, where more children are desired, but not possible due to medical conditions that can't be corrected! This is a complex problem, but as always, paying attention to human needs and social programs can be an answer to what so far sound like dry statistics and projections thereof. Nancy Winfrey Clemson Worship Group Greenville MM -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 15.gif Type: image/gif Size: 2864 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 15_tile.gif Type: image/gif Size: 1380 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jhminshall at comcast.net Sun Sep 5 20:12:42 2004 From: jhminshall at comcast.net (Janet Minshall) Date: Sun, 5 Sep 2004 20:12:42 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Fwd: Re: Population Growth: Should Friends Encourage Refugee and Immigrant Resettlement in the US? What Effect Would That Have On The Environment? Message-ID: Dear Friends, Below you will find a short series of messages, a dialogue, with Friends who are also demographers concerning the issues I have been raising. I have written about immigration and refugee resettlement and the problem in the near future of declining population, not just in the US and Western Europe, but in the whole world. Thank you so much for the many positive comments I have received concerning the messages I have posted. It really gives me support and encouragement to continue these discussions and to share them with all of you who are interested. Blessings, Janet Date: Sun, 5 Sep 2004 19:40:30 -0400 To: treadway at ilstu.edu From: Janet Minshall Subject: Re: Components of population growth Cc: Bcc: X-Attachments: Dear Roy and Stan, I think we will have to agree to disagree. It is not your equation I question but rather the problem that it is not realized by most people that data on population growth includes legal and illegal refugees. When most people see or hear about data on population growth they think only of natural increase. That means that your pronouncements, when condensed and used as "sound bites", are misleading to most people. The issue is important as it seems to me that while our environmental concerns in the US are associated with the total of both net births and refugees/immigrants inhabiting any part of this country, the movement of refugees and immigrants to the US (and to Western Europe, Canada, and the rest of the developed world) actually takes environmental and population pressure off of the less developed countries. Which countries have the greatest economic resources to deal with environmental pollution and to change national/corporate policies? In which countries are environmental issues of concern to the greatest number of people (voters)? I think the obvious answer is the US, Western Europe, Canada and the rest of the developed world. Therefore it makes a lot of sense for environmentalists such as those of us in Quaker Earthcare Witness to begin educating the public on the advantages of welcoming refugees and immigrants from less developed countries because of the improved global environmental outcome such migration is likely to produce. Secondarily, it also makes a lot of sense to begin educating the public concerning the longterm economic advantages to the US and the rest of the developed world of importing a younger workforce to delay the onset of the very serious economic problems which population aging and decline will bring. Instead of telling me about the way demographers think and define issues, maybe you two should become more concerned about the way ordinary people think and define issues. Janet Roy Treadway wrote: >Janet: > > I am not clear from your reply how to state population growth and >migration differently from the way Stan and I do. As professionally >trained demographers, Stan and I learned our first day in a demography >class the fundamental equation of demography, that for any area between >time 1 and time 2: > >P(2) - P(1) = B - D + I - O, where, > P(2) is the population of the area and a second (later) time, > P(1) is the population of the area and a first (earlier) time, > B = Births for the area between time 1 and time 2, > D = Deaths for the area between time 1 and time 2, > I = Inmigration or immigration to the area between time 1 and time 2, >and > O = outmigration or emigration from the area between time 1 and time 2. >P(2 - P(1) is population growth, >B - D is natural increase, and >I - O is net migration (or net immigration). > >Thus, population growth equals natural increase plus net migration. > > The latter is all that Stan and I are saying. Population growth >includes natural increase AND net migration. Certainly, natural >increase and net migration should be clearly and separately stated as >part of population growth. If there is some other accurate way of >expressing population growth without including net migration, please let >me know. I believe it would be misleading NOT to include net migration >in population growth. > > Thanks. > > > Roy > > > >Janet Minshall wrote: > > > > Dear Roy Treadway, Thanks for the clarification. Among the agencies > > that work on immigration issues the increased numbers due to > > immigration and refugee resettlement are intentionally kept separate > > from increased numbers due to population growth (net increase). They are > separated to indicate clearly that immigration and refugee >resettlement are the > > result of dislocation, mobility and human rights issues, not natural > > increase in the population. I think that combining them as you and > > Stan have done is misleading. > > Janet Minshall > > From bright_crow at mindspring.com Tue Sep 7 19:53:20 2004 From: bright_crow at mindspring.com (Michael Austin Shell) Date: Tue, 07 Sep 2004 19:53:20 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] SEYMpeace for Ninth Month Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.0.20040907194931.02920ba0@pop.mindspring.com> Friends, Please visit the updated Peace and Social Concerns website of Southeastern Yearly Meeting. In particular, I encourage you to explore the links related to an important book by war correspondent Chris Hedges, WAR IS A FORCE THAT GIVES US MEANING: http://seympeace.org/#new1 Paul Krugman's Op/Ed piece in the September 7th NEW YORK TIMES is an important piece which cites Hedges' work, and our page also links to a study guide, a review and an interview. Blessed Be, Michael. From jhminshall at comcast.net Wed Sep 8 04:04:45 2004 From: jhminshall at comcast.net (Janet Minshall) Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 04:04:45 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Fwd: Re: Is Population Decline A Greater Threat Now Than Population Growth? In-Reply-To: <413769DB.000001.01856@NANCY> References: <413769DB.000001.01856@NANCY> Message-ID: Hi Nancy Winfrey, Thanks for your comments (below). They were actually along the same lines as some of my own thoughts. I just happened to tune in to a presentation to high level military personnel on C-Span Saturday night about the possible reorganization of the US military as a result of the problems they have encountered in Iraq and before that in Afghanistan and Somalia. They are thinking along the lines of developing two separate military organizations, one to do the actual armed combat and armed peacekeeping, and one to follow up with an army of people who have the skills to help rebuild infrastructure, a legal system, a government and ongoing civil services such as police, fire departments, sanitation, etc. The man who made the presentation was from a military think tank. He was a very effective speaker and had state-of-the-art audiovisual displays to emphasize his points. He spoke out of an understanding of political economics and, especially, out of knowledge of the actual effects of globalization in the world (Not the imagined effects you have heard from anti-globalization protesters, but the actual effects that are apparent to economists and sociologists who have studied the data). The reality is that globalization is beginning to bring nations out of poverty, even some of those which have struggled with issues of corrupt leadership, lagging economic development, exponentially growing populations and millenia of periodic draught and famine. The thing that most intrigued me was that his evaluation of which countries would and which countries would not be able to achieve economic independence came down to how women are treated in those countries. Only those countries which have freed women for full participation in the economy and in the political decision-making process are clearly becoming economically viable. After all these years of talking about inequalities and how they ultimately damage most those who promote and enforce them, we Friends finally have some allies in the military of all places! Now don't get me wrong. I do not believe that the military has changed overnight into a bunch of soft-hearted liberals. Nor do I believe that the changes discussed will actually occur without a lot of struggle. But it makes me feel better about the military to learn that it is rethinking its mission and realizing, at least at the think tank level, that change is necessary. That is an enormous step forward. Yes Nancy, the basic causes of declining population are economic and include the availability on a wide scale of birth control and abortion. But as birth control use goes up and women have access to safe forms of sterilization when their families are complete, abortion numbers go down. At the same time, when women feel safe and economically secure they choose to have fewer children, not more as you hoped. The population ages and then declines. That is the huge problem we face in 40 to 75 years depending on which study you trust most. As the population ages and declines there are fewer and fewer workers to pay taxes and fund our social and health programs, our support systems for the poor, the elderly, the sick and the disabled, and fewer resources available to fund education of any kind. Everything that depends on tax dollars begins to fall apart. What do we do? 40 to 75 years really isn't a very long time to come up with an answer. Janet Minshall Nancy Winfrey wrote: >The way I see it, from a perspective of 70 years and the >pre-abortion, pre-birth control era, two major causes of declining >population are economic, and advances in birth control and abortion. > >I respect a woman's right to make decisions about her own body, but >I still don't think that addresses the underlying causes of >population decline. > >Years ago, the Catholic Church in particular, held as a mission >homes for women who needed shelter for an unwanted pregnancy, as >well as orphanages for abandoned children. > >Today, these institutions are mostly gone, even at a government level. > >Until this country (and by that, I mean us, as citizens and members >of the human race) begins to value all women and children as >deserving of a right to at least a minimal standard of living no >matter how many children may be involved, we will continue to have >this dilemma: > >Those who have access to birth control and/or abortion economically >will continue to have smaller and smaller families for economic or >personal reasons. Those who do not have the means to access the >needed controls will continue to have uncontrolled birthrates, with >many of the resulting children needing medical care, welfare, and >having poor records for education and being good citizens. > >Is there a message for Friends in this scenario? Might a more >effective way to impact this situation be to begin paying attention >to the need for valuing women and children by affording them decent >living conditions, support if they wish to keep their children, >necessary social services to enhance minimal parenting and life >skills, etc.? Is there any way that Friends can help this to happen? > >I predict that birthrates might even stabilize if the most poor and >dysfunctional portions of our citizens are supported as they need to >be, and families that are able to access birth control might not so >limit their families if it weren't necessary for economic reasons. >This doesn't even address the segment of our population which is >seeing more and more repro- >ductive problems due to lifestyle and environmental pollution! We >have that circumstance in our own family, where more children are >desired, but not possible due to medical conditions that can't be >corrected! > >This is a complex problem, but as always, paying attention to human >needs and social programs can be an answer to what so far sound like >dry statistics and projections thereof. > >Nancy Winfrey >Clemson Worship Group >Greenville MM > > > >The following document was sent as an embedded object but not >referenced by the email above: >Attachment converted: Janet's HD:15_tile.gif (GIFf/ogle) (0001DC63) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 15.gif Type: image/gif Size: 2864 bytes Desc: not available URL: From freepolazzo at comcast.net Wed Sep 8 11:49:48 2004 From: freepolazzo at comcast.net (free polazzo) Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 11:49:48 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] How to handle some of the problems caused by Population Decline In-Reply-To: References: <413769DB.000001.01856@NANCY> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20040908082717.02cb36e8@mail.comcast.net> At 04:04 AM 9/8/2004, you, wrote: > As the population ages and declines there are fewer and fewer >workers to pay taxes and fund our social and health programs, our >support systems for the poor, the elderly, the sick and the disabled, >and fewer resources available to fund education of any kind. >Everything that depends on tax dollars begins to fall apart. What do >we do? 40 to 75 years really isn't a very long time to come up with >an answer. > > Janet Minshall Here are some possible solutions to the declining population issue. I post them here to share them with the SAYMA community. My hopes/guesses about the future: 1. Productivity per person will increase as computers and processes we use to make and deliver "stuff" (not a technical term is it?) improves. 2. With fewer people with more resources being produced per person, there will be less conflict between individuals and between "tribes". (this includes nations and other, older human organizations". 3. The percentage of resources that go to the military will decline because of item 2. 4. Creativity will be seen as the "wealth of nations" by more and more economic units (Smaller Businesses, Co-ops, large corporations, whatever). Attracting corporations will be less important than attracting creative people. see 5 Creative people want to live in cities with other creative people. This link will allow you to see you your city/region ranks in creativity in the USA. 6. The creative "Creative Class" wants to live in places that offer "Three T's: Technology, Talent and Tolerence". (From the book: "The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life" Richard Florida ;Paperback; $11.17 at: www.amazon.com 7. To attract and retain the "Creative Class", who are not producing more and more of the wealth, Governmental units (cities, towns, states, countries) will compete for them to live and work in their communities. (See how your city ranks in "Creativity" http://www.creativeclass.org/rankings.shtml 8. Processes will be changed to preserve the plant's natural bio sphere as item 4 continues to increase in importance. The following quote is taken from: http://www.creativeclass.org/book.shtml The Rise of the Creative Class gives us a provocative new way to think about why we live as we do today ­ and where we might be headed. In a book that weaves a storytelling with a massive body of research, Richard Florida traces the fundamental theme that runs through a host of seemingly unrelated changes in American society: the growing role of creativity in our economy. Just as William Whyte's 1956 classic The Organization Man showed how the organizational ethos of that age permeated every aspect of life, Florida describes a society in which the creative ethos is increasingly dominant. Millions of us are beginning to work and live much as creative types like artists and scientists always have - with the result that our values and tastes, our personal relationships, our choices of where to live, and even our sense and use of time are changing. Leading the shift are the nearly 38 million Americans in many diverse fields who create for a living ­ the Creative Class. The Rise of the Creative Class chronicles the ongoing sea of change in people's choices and attitudes, and shows not only what's happening but also how it stems from a fundamental economic change. The Creative Class now comprises more than thirty percent of the entire workforce. The choices these people make already had a huge economic impact, and in the future they will determine how the workplace is organized, what companies will prosper or go bankrupt, and even which cities will thrive or wither. This link takes you to an audio presentation by the author of "The Creative Class" to a group located in Memphis, TN. http://www.colettaandcompany.com/public/smartcity/florida/splash.cfm 9. Older people can be productive in this "creative" world. They can continue to provide for themselves, although probably at a lower income level than before. 10. Taxes can be raised to provide for the elderly. The elderly will be a large voting block and will be able to redistribute the wealth using the tax system. I think all the upheaval we are experiencing with the shift in jobs, professions, leisure are all exciting and necessary for the peaceable kindom to arrive. Most Quakers want the way our communities prioritize where our money goes to change. It may be happening before our very eyes. Free -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From freepolazzo at comcast.net Wed Sep 8 13:35:23 2004 From: freepolazzo at comcast.net (free polazzo) Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 13:35:23 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] CORRECTION: How to handle some of the problems caused by Population Decline Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20040908133337.02d7bce0@mail.comcast.net> Please note the following correction to the last posting: 7. To attract and retain the "Creative Class", who are not producing more and more of the wealth, Governmental units (cities, towns, states, countries) will compete for them to live and work in their communities. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jhminshall at comcast.net Sat Sep 11 14:58:35 2004 From: jhminshall at comcast.net (Janet Minshall) Date: Sat, 11 Sep 2004 14:58:35 -0400 Subject: Fwd: Re: [earthcare] Re: [saymaListserv] Fwd: Re: Is Population Decline A Greater Threat Now Than Population Growth? Message-ID: Dear Friends, Below are two messages, responses to Mary Gilbert and to Elaine, both Earthcare Friends who wrote in response to my previous message. Thanks for the dialogue. Janet Minshall Dear Elaine, Thanks for the response. I do think Sweden is relevant but I also think the worldwide problem of population decline will be much more serious than the one already experienced in Sweden. Sweden has done what I'm suggesting the US may do by encouraging the immigration of people who wish to live there from less developed countries. Eventually however, at current rates, all the developed countries will run out of prospective immigrants and refugees as population declines around the globe. Sweden is a liberal democratic capitalist economy and after a period of stasis or stagnation (which I'm sure will happen in the US, too) I can't see the further adaptations that can replace younger workers. At least not yet. We don't presently have a choice about whether to base our economy on growth. Capitalism, the basis of our economy, evolved and developed around growth of population over the past three to seven hundred years (depending on when you choose to place the date of the beginning of its rise.) Roy Treadway, a demographer who wrote on this list about it, recognized that capitalism developed out of the disintegration of feudalism. That puts the date of the beginnings of capitalism at least seven hundred years ago. Capitalism is an integral part of all the various systems and organizations we (and the Swedes) have developed over time. I really hope and pray that Sweden is able to find an answer to the next level of challenge we face after the developed countries have attracted as many refugee and immigrant workers as are willing to come. That is the answer I'm looking for. Janet Minshall Elaine writes: I would suggest that countries like Sweden have dealt with this issue. Sweden is more of a steady state economy and something we should strive for. Basing our economy on growth is not the answer, it will lead to the destruction of our ecosystems and quality of life. Many years ago Alva and Gunnar Myrdal wrote about what they thought would be a population crisis (lack of) in Sweden! It didn't happen tho birthrates did decline. But the Swedes adapted their economy plus they have encouraged immigration. The Scandinavian countries all seem to be doing well. We lived in Sweden during the summers for over 10 years and found that most Swedes were far better off than most Americans. And their taxes have actually been lowered during those years. Elaine from Janet: "Yes Nancy, the basic causes of declining population are economic and include the availability on a wide scale of birth control and abortion. But as birth control use goes up and women have access to safe forms of sterilization when their families are complete, abortion numbers go down. At the same time, when women feel safe and economically secure they choose to have fewer children, not more as you hoped. The population ages and then declines. That is the huge problem we face in 40 to 75 years depending on which study you trust most. As the population ages and declines there are fewer and fewer workers to pay taxes and fund our social and health programs, our support systems for the poor, the elderly, the sick and the disabled, and fewer resources available to fund education of any kind. Everything that depends on tax dollars begins to fall apart. What do we do? 40 to 75 years really isn't a very long time to come up with an answer. From Janet: Hi Mary Gilbert, Thanks for responding. I use mostly UN data which is gathered well outside the control of the US military and US multinational corporations. The data the UN produces includes many "measures of public well-being", to use your words, and even a fair amount of ecologically relevant information. That data shows that as a result of globalization ordinary people in many less developed countries are moving out of poverty and into the middle class in large numbers and have been for many, many years. I understand your analogy of Donald Trump in a homeless shelter but that isn't what I or the military think tank speaker I mentioned are talking about. The facts regarding the economic circumstances of ordinary people in less developed couintries are not derived from their national GDP (and since Donald Trump just went into bankruptcy in two of his largest investments, it would probably be safer to use Bill Gates as your example). If you look at UN figures for yourself you'll find that both China and India, as well as many other developing countries, have "turned the corner" (to use Bush's overused metaphor) and are now showing consistent improvement in the standard of living of the poorest of their people. That is truly what is happening in the world but I find that many Friends do not even wish to find out first hand (study the economic data for themselves) because they have grown so attached to a shared world view of dominance by evil "profiteers of Free Trade", to use your terminology. Yes, the rich are getting richer, but so are the poor. Given Friends' testimony on Truth, it is really important for Quakers to make the effort to find out the realities of the world they live in rather than just passing on or accepting the tired cliches of "political correctness". A few spokespersons from the labor movement have succeeded in convincing most liberals in this country that virtually all of the work done abroad is done in "sweatshops" and that the only way you can be certain that you aren't contributing to that supposed horror is to join the US labor unions in protesting globalization. They have managed to convince many well-meaning people that the ordinary working conditions in other countries amount to torture and degradation. They don't. I've visited several factories in Africa and Eastern Europe that are called sweatshops and they are simply less grand than their counterparts in the US. They have electric lights and fans and much better restrooms than most local people have in their houses. When working on contracts for US companies they pay better and provide better benefits than other local employers. Workers in those factories laugh at Americans who come there and tell them they have to go on strike to protest their treatment. They know they are doing quite well by the standards prevalent in their country and recognize that it is the Americans who are threatened by their work. As to the inference that the military is preparing for future wars, you're darned right they are. That is what they do. Thinking that they do anything else is naieve. What is important to note is that they are aware of at least some of their most grievous errors and are preparing to change. That, as I said before, is a hopeful sign. Lets hold the in the Light of the Holy Spirit to support the changes they are considering. Janet Minshall From Mary Gilbert Greetings, I have been reading only some of the back-and-forth about population, and this comment is not on that subject. Consider it a footnote. The data accepted by the administration and its fellow-thinkers about countries achieving economic growth/viability/stability are data that look at GNP and an averaging of wealth that obscures the growing divide between the profiteers of "Free Trade" and the majority of the populations in those countries. ("If Donald Trump walks into a homeless people's shelter the average income of those present increases to one of great wealth.") These data include neither measures of public well-being nor real ecological sustainability, so the wealth they indicate is based in the dectruction of local economies and public self-sufficiency, and horrendous violation of the local ecosystems. I also find it onimous that the military is thinking about an internal readjustment indicative of planning more invasions. These invasions are for the purpose of establishing U.S. imperial control of economies everywhere. Walking (sometimes not so) cheerfully, Mary Gilbert Janet Minshall wrote: > > Hi Nancy Winfrey, Thanks for your comments (below). They were >actually along > the same lines as some of my own thoughts. I just happened to tune in to a > presentation to high level military personnel on C-Span Saturday night about > the possible reorganization of the US military as a result of the problems > they have encountered in Iraq and before that in Afghanistan and Somalia. > They are thinking along the lines of developing two separate military > organizations, one to do the actual armed combat and armed peacekeeping, and > one to follow up with an army of people who have the skills to help rebuild > infrastructure, a legal system, a government and ongoing civil services such > as police, fire departments, sanitation, etc. > > The man who made the presentation was from a military think tank. He was a > very effective speaker and had state-of-the-art audiovisual displays to > emphasize his points. He spoke out of an understanding of >political economics > and, especially, out of knowledge of the actual effects of globalization in > the world (Not the imagined effects you have heard from anti-globalization > protesters, but the actual effects that are apparent to economists and > sociologists who have studied the data). The reality is that globalization is > beginning to bring nations out of poverty, even some of those which have > struggled with issues of corrupt leadership, lagging economic development, > exponentially growing populations and millenia of periodic draught >and famine. > The thing that most intrigued me was that his evaluation of which countries > would and which countries would not be able to achieve economic independence > came down to how women are treated in those countries. Only those countries > which have freed women for full participation in the economy and in the > political decision-making process are clearly becoming economically viable. > After all these years of talking about inequalities and how they ultimately > damage most those who promote and enforce them, we Friends finally have some > allies in the military of all places! > > > Now don't get me wrong. I do not believe that the military has changed > overnight into a bunch of soft-hearted liberals. Nor do I believe that the > changes discussed will actually occur without a lot of struggle. But it makes > me feel better about the military to learn that it is rethinking its mission > and realizing, at least at the think tank level, that change is necessary. > That is an enormous step forward. > > Yes Nancy, the basic causes of declining population are economic and include > the availability on a wide scale of birth control and abortion. But as birth > control use goes up and women have access to safe forms of sterilization when > their families are complete, abortion numbers go down. At the same >time, when > women feel safe and economically secure they choose to have fewer children, > not more as you hoped. The population ages and then declines. That is the > huge problem we face in 40 to 75 years depending on which study you trust > most. As the population ages and declines there are fewer and fewer workers > to pay taxes and fund our social and health programs, our support systems for > the poor, the elderly, the sick and the disabled, and fewer resources > available to fund education of any kind. Everything that depends on tax > dollars begins to fall apart. What do we do? 40 to 75 years really isn't a > very long time to come up with an answer. > > Janet Minshall >> From jhminshall at comcast.net Mon Sep 13 18:52:20 2004 From: jhminshall at comcast.net (Janet Minshall) Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 18:52:20 -0400 Subject: Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: [saymaListserv] Fwd: Re: Is Population Decline A Greater Threat Now Than Population Growth? Message-ID: Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 18:45:17 -0400 To: To: ,,,,, From: Janet Minshall Subject: Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: [saymaListserv] Fwd: Re: Is Population Decline A Greater Threat Now Than Population Growth? Cc: freepolazzo at comcast.net Bcc: X-Attachments: Hi Russ, You and Free (my partner) came up with interesting and, in some ways, similar, answers. Both of you are in business and work with the machines and systems which may be able to bridge the gap (the decline in workers in the economy). Free's response is reprinted just below your message. Thanks for the discussion. Best Regards, Janet From: Russell Nelson Date: Wed, 8 Sep 2004 16:47:18 -0400 To: Janet Minshall Subject: Re: Fwd: Re: [saymaListserv] Fwd: Re: Is Population Decline A Greater Threat Now Than Population Growth? Janet Minshall writes: > >education of any kind. Everything that depends on tax dollars begins > >to fall apart. What do we do? 40 to 75 years really isn't a very > >long time to come up with an answer. Robots. Once people realize that we need *fewer* jobs, not more, all the resistance to automating things will go away. Look at things like http://www.ruf.dk (dual-mode transport). What do we need trucks drivers and/or taxicab drivers for, when cars can drive themselves? That's the more concrete answer. The more "ethereal" answer is simply increased capital accumulation. There is one and only one thing that creates program: capital. On the most simplest possible level, it's the difference between eating your seedcorn, and saving it to plant next season. Everyone can understand the necessity of doing that (because everyone who is currently alive had ancestors who did that), so everyone should be able to understand the need for accumulating capital of all sorts, not just seedcorn. Russ -- --My blog is at angry-economist.russnelson.com | Violence never solves Crynwr sells support for free software | PGPok | problems, it just changes 521 Pleasant Valley Rd. | +1 212-202-2318 voice | them into more subtle Potsdam, NY 13676-3213 | FWD# 404529 via VOIP | problems. Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 11:49:48 -0400 To: sayma at kitenet.net From: free polazzo Subject: How to handle some of the problems caused by Population Decline At 04:04 AM 9/8/2004, Janet wrote: As the population ages and declines there are fewer and fewer workers to pay taxes and fund our social and health programs, our support systems for the poor, the elderly, the sick and the disabled, and fewer resources available to fund education of any kind. Everything that depends on tax dollars begins to fall apart. What do we do? 40 to 75 years really isn't a very long time to come up with an answer. Janet Minshall Free Polazzo wrote on the SAYMA discussion list: Here are some possible solutions to the declining population issue. I post them here to share them with the SAYMA community. My hopes/guesses about the future: 1. Productivity per person will increase as computers and processes we use to make and deliver "stuff" (not a technical term is it?) improves. 2. With fewer people with more resources being produced per person, there will be less conflict between individuals and between "tribes". (this includes nations and other, older human organizations". 3. The percentage of resources that go to the military will decline because of item 2. 4. Creativity will be seen as the "wealth of nations" by more and more economic units (Smaller Businesses, Co-ops, large corporations, whatever). Attracting corporations will be less important than attracting creative people. see 5 Creative people want to live in cities with other creative people. This link will allow you to see you your city/region ranks in creativity in the USA. 6. The creative "Creative Class" wants to live in places that offer "Three T's: Technology, Talent and Tolerence". (From the book: "The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life" Richard Florida ;Paperback; $11.17 at: www.amazon.com 7. To attract and retain the "Creative Class", who are producing more and more of the wealth, Governmental units (cities, towns, states, countries) will compete for them to live and work in their communities. (See how your city ranks in "Creativity" http://www.creativeclass.org/rankings.shtml 8. Processes will be changed to preserve the plant's natural bio sphere as item 4 continues to increase in importance. The following quote is taken from: http://www.creativeclass.org/book.shtml The Rise of the Creative Class gives us a provocative new way to think about why we live as we do today - and where we might be headed. In a book that weaves a storytelling with a massive body of research, Richard Florida traces the fundamental theme that runs through a host of seemingly unrelated changes in American society: the growing role of creativity in our economy. Just as William Whyte's 1956 classic The Organization Man showed how the organizational ethos of that age permeated every aspect of life, Florida describes a society in which the creative ethos is increasingly dominant. Millions of us are beginning to work and live much as creative types like artists and scientists always have - with the result that our values and tastes, our personal relationships, our choices of where to live, and even our sense and use of time are changing. Leading the shift are the nearly 38 million Americans in many diverse fields who create for a living - the Creative Class. The Rise of the Creative Class chronicles the ongoing sea of change in people's choices and attitudes, and shows not only what's happening but also how it stems from a fundamental economic change. The Creative Class now comprises more than thirty percent of the entire workforce. The choices these people make already had a huge economic impact, and in the future they will determine how the workplace is organized, what companies will prosper or go bankrupt, and even which cities will thrive or wither. This link takes you to an audio presentation by the author of "The Creative Class" to a group located in Memphis, TN. http://www.colettaandcompany.com/public/smartcity/florida/splash.cfm 9. Older people can be productive in this "creative" world. They can continue to provide for themselves, although probably at a lower income level than before. 10. Taxes can be raised to provide for the elderly. The elderly will be a large voting block and will be able to redistribute the wealth using the tax system. I think all the upheaval we are experiencing with the shift in jobs, professions, leisure are all exciting and necessary for the peaceable kindom to arrive. Most Quakers want the way our communities prioritize where our money goes to change. It may be happening before our very eyes. Free -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bright_crow at mindspring.com Mon Sep 13 23:07:19 2004 From: bright_crow at mindspring.com (Michael Austin Shell) Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 23:07:19 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] FW: Garrison Keillor on the new Republicans Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.0.20040913230629.02920060@pop.mindspring.com> Friends, Please read and share this peace. Garrison Keillor has decided to stop pulling his punches. Blessed Be, Michael http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/979/ > >We're Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore > >By Garrison Keillor > > > >Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party. Once, it > was the party of pragmatic Main Street businessmen in steel-rimmed > spectacles who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their > communities and supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships. >They were good-hearted people who vanquished the gnarlier elements of >their party, the paranoid Roosevelt-haters, the flat Earthers and >Prohibitionists, the antipapist antiforeigner element. The genial >Eisenhower was their man, a genuine American hero of D-Day, who made it OK >for reasonable people to vote Republican. He brought the Korean War to a >stalemate, produced the Interstate Highway System, declined to rescue the >French colonial army in Vietnam, and gave us a period of peace and >prosperity, in which (oddly) American arts and letters flourished and >higher education burgeoned-and there was a degree of plain decency in the >country. Fifties Republicans were giants compared to today's. Richard >Nixon was the last Republican leader to feel a Christian obligation toward >the poor. >In the years between Nixon and Newt Gingrich, the party migrated southward >down the Twisting Trail of Rhetoric and sneered at the idea of public >service and became the Scourge of Liberalism, the Great Crusade Against >the Sixties, the Death Star of Government, a gang of pirates that diverted >and fascinated the media by their sheer chutzpah, such as the misty-eyed >flag-waving of Ronald Reagan who, while George McGovern flew bombers in >World War II, took a pass and made training films in Long Beach. The Nixon >moderate vanished like the passenger pigeon, purged by a legion of angry >white men who rose to power on pure punk politics. "Bipartisanship is >another term of date rape," says Grover Norquist, the Sid Vicious of the >GOP. "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to >the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the >bathtub." The boy has Oedipal problems and government is his daddy. >The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of >hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based >economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, >freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, >tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop >tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people >who believe Neil Armstrong's moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, >little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt's evil spawn and their >Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow >of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble >of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason >the rest of the world thinks we're deaf, dumb and dangerous. >Rich ironies abound! Lies pop up like toadstools in the forest! Wild swine >crowd round the public trough! Outrageous gerrymandering! Pocket lining on >a massive scale! Paid lobbyists sit in committee rooms and write >legislation to alleviate the suffering of billionaires! Hypocrisies shine >like cat turds in the moonlight! O Mark Twain, where art thou at this >hour? Arise and behold the Gilded Age reincarnated gaudier than ever, >upholding great wealth as the sure sign of Divine Grace. Here in 2004, >George W. Bush is running for reelection on a platform of tragedy--the >single greatest failure of national defense in our history, the attacks of >9/11 in which 19 men with box cutters put this nation into a tailspin, a >failure the details of which the White House fought to keep secret even as >it ran the country into hock up to the hubcaps, thanks to generous tax >cuts for the well-fixed, hoping to lead us into a box canyon of debt that >will render government impotent, even as we engage in a war against a >small country that was undertaken for the president's personal >satisfaction but sold to the American public on the basis of brazen >misinformation, a war whose purpose is to distract us from an enormous >transfer of wealth taking place in this country, flowing upward, and the >deception is working beautifully. >The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few is the death >knell of democracy. No republic in the history of humanity has survived >this. The election of 2004 will say something about what happens to ours. >The omens are not good. >Our beloved land has been fogged with fear--fear, the greatest political >strategy ever. An ominous silence, distant sirens, a drumbeat of whispered >warnings and alarms to keep the public uneasy and silence the opposition. >And in a time of vague fear, you can appoint bullet-brained judges, strip >the bark off the Constitution, eviscerate federal regulatory agencies, >bring public education to a standstill, stupefy the press, lavish gorgeous >tax breaks on the rich. >There is a stink drifting through this election year. It isn't the Florida >recount or the Supreme Court decision. No, it's 9/11 that we keep coming >back to. It wasn't the "end of innocence," or a turning point in our >history, or a cosmic occurrence, it was an event, a lapse of security. And >patriotism shouldn't prevent people from asking hard questions of the man >who was purportedly in charge of national security at the time. >Whenever I think of those New Yorkers hurrying along Park Place or getting >off the No.1 Broadway local, hustling toward their office on the 90th >floor, the morning paper under their arms, I think of that non-reader >George W. Bush and how he hopes to exploit those people with a little >economic uptick, maybe the capture of Osama, cruise to victory in November >and proceed to get some serious nation-changing done in his second term. >This year, as in the past, Republicans will portray us Democrats as >embittered academics, desiccated Unitarians, whacked-out hippies and >communards, people who talk to telephone poles, the party of the >Deadheads. They will wave enormous flags and show over and over the >footage of firemen in the wreckage of the World Trade Center and bodies >being carried out and they will lie about their economic policies with >astonishing enthusiasm. >The Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by >Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln >spoke of. This gang of Pithecanthropus Republicanii has humbugged us to >death on terrorism and tax cuts for the comfy and school prayer and flag >burning and claimed the right to know what books we read and to dump their >sewage upstream from the town and clear-cut the forests and gut the IRS >and mark up the constitution on behalf of intolerance and promote the >corporate takeover of the public airwaves and to hell with anybody who >opposes them. >This is a great country, and it wasn't made so by angry people. We have a >sacred duty to bequeath it to our grandchildren in better shape than >however we found it. We have a long way to go and we're not getting any >younger. >Dante said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in >time of crisis remain neutral, so I have spoken my piece, and thank you, >dear reader. It's a beautiful world, rain or shine, and there is more to >life than winning. From freepolazzo at comcast.net Tue Sep 14 08:14:48 2004 From: freepolazzo at comcast.net (free polazzo) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 08:14:48 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] FW: Garrison Keillor on the new Republicans In-Reply-To: <6.1.2.0.0.20040913230629.02920060@pop.mindspring.com> References: <6.1.2.0.0.20040913230629.02920060@pop.mindspring.com> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20040914080758.02d8d158@mail.comcast.net> Dear Friends, >Whenever I hear the phrase "values" I think that the person is voting to >support their religious views. This country was founded, in part, to >premit us to live together, in peace, and worship (or not) as we were >led. When I am asked to support a candidate because their "values" >are "better" or "more American" or "Godly", then I know that we are in the >middle of a religous war. There are no outward weapons, but there are >casualites, non the less. The poor, the ill, women, people who are not >heterosexual, foreigners who don't try to pass as Europeans, people of >color, the earth, endangered species, the elderly, the uneducated. Please, If there are any "New Republicans" out there, please explain to me where Garrison or I am in error. I have voted Republican, in the past, and am really unhappy at how that party seems to have become the party of "Me and mine". Free means "free to choose". When there are only two people who have a chance of becoming President of the US of A, it behooves both political parties to be very careful whom they present as their candidates. I wish there were better choices, but the fact that there are none may say more about "we the people" than it does about the people who are being offered as our leaders for then next two or four or six years. Blessings, Free At 11:07 PM 9/13/2004, you wrote: >Friends, > >Please read and share this peace. Garrison Keillor has decided to stop >pulling his punches. > >Blessed Be, >Michael > > >http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/979/ From bright_crow at mindspring.com Tue Sep 14 13:35:50 2004 From: bright_crow at mindspring.com (Mike Shell) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 13:35:50 -0400 (GMT-04:00) Subject: [saymaListserv] Re: Garrison Keillor on the new Republicans Message-ID: <19759283.1095183350464.JavaMail.root@wamui03.slb.atl.earthlink.net> Free writes: >>Please, If there are any "New Republicans" out there, please explain to me where Garrison or I am in error. I have voted Republican, in the past, and am really unhappy at how that party seems to have become the party of "Me and mine". >>Free means "free to choose". When there are only two people who have a chance of becoming President of the US of A, it behooves both political parties to be very careful whom they present as their candidates. I wish there were better choices, but the fact that there are none may say more about "we the people" than it does about the people who are being offered as our leaders for then next two or four or six years.<< This Friend speaks my mind. I have always voted candidates, not parties. Now it seems the system has become so distorted that candidates are chosen (by the party bosses) solely on the basis of getting into power or of staying in power. Why has the citizenry accepted this? Is it because we still live by the fantasy that if only the "right man" (gender bias intended) were found to fix everything for us, we as individuals could continue our perennially adolescent lives without having to take responsibility? I hold the world in the Light, in the midst of my own fear for the safety of us all. Blessed Be, Michael. From Vmbra at aol.com Tue Sep 14 21:47:05 2004 From: Vmbra at aol.com (Vmbra at aol.com) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2004 21:47:05 EDT Subject: [saymaListserv] Fwd: Re: Is Population Decline A Greater Threat Now Than... Message-ID: <84.33b26da9.2e78f919@aol.com> I like Free's and Russ's responses. The only consequence of exponential growth will be exponential decay at some time in the future. That's the bad news. The worse news is that the time constant of the decay is likely to be a lot shorter than that of the growth. Population stabilization and eventual decline are not to be feared. One way or another, the population will stop growing. We can choose how: through rapid deflation via disease, war, or starvation, or through a soft landing by controlling fertility. Janet says we have 40-75 years to deal with the consequences if population eventually stops growing worldwide. At today's rate of change of technology, that's forever. But the goal should be mitigating the transient demographic consequences of a distorted population pyramid that could result from stabilization, not prevention of decline. cps -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bright_crow at mindspring.com Thu Sep 16 08:36:59 2004 From: bright_crow at mindspring.com (Mike Shell) Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 08:36:59 -0400 (GMT-04:00) Subject: [saymaListserv] Fw: Poem from Wendy - "Birmingham Sunday" by Richard Farina Message-ID: <21873040.1095338220220.JavaMail.root@wamui06.slb.atl.earthlink.net> Friends, The following is from a very dear F/friend, Wendy, in Jacksonville (FL) Monthly Meeting. She sends out poems almost every day. This one has a special history...for her and for all of us. Blessed Be, Michael. <><><><><><><><><><><><><> Dear Poems People, Friends and Kinfolk, Today is the 41st anniversary of the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in which 4 young girls were killed. Later in the day, 2 young boys, Virgil Lamar Ware and Johnny Robinson, were gunned down in Birmingham. After that profound day, White folk in droves joined the African American Freedom Struggle. It's as if the killing of African American adults - especially, men - was something that could be avoided, as they knew the risks of activism; but the killing of "innocent" children is where many White folks drew the line. -- I had a mystical experience when I was 13 while listening to a recording of Richard Farina's sister-in-law, Joan Baez, singing this song to the tune of the traditional "I Loved a Lass." At that moment, I knew I'd study the African American Freedom Struggle and be involved in it for the rest of my life (not much of a transition since I was born into it). But, this song is one I have sung every day or two or three since then, for 27 years. It centers me. I sing it in sorrow, in appreciation, in the shower, but never in indifference. Sometimes, it is sung through tears; sometimes, I imagine the children's families listening to me sing it. When I barely make it, singing through the tears, I think to myself: And, here I am White and trying to just sing a song! Yet, perhaps, through this practice, I'm expressing or transforming the love, sorrow, hatred, fear, high blood pressure, and hope I psychically gather from African Americans who I encounter in another practice of mine: silently taking into my heart these aspects of racism throughout the days' encounters as I pass others along the street or in the grocery store, etc. I do this with White folks, too. - By the way, this church has begun a campaign to raise $2.6 million for structural repairs - from old age and the bombing. -- Okay, here's the song. I don't usually send long poems, but today's an exception. "Birmingham Sunday" by Richard Farina (the n has that wave above it) Come round by my side and I'll sing you a song. I'll sing it so softly, it'll do no one wrong. On Birmingham Sunday the blood ran like wine, And the choirs kept singing of Freedom. That cold autumn morning no eyes saw the sun, And Addie Mae Collins, her number was one. At an old Baptist church there was no need to run. And the choirs kept singing of Freedom. The clouds they were gray and the autumn winds blew, And Denise McNair brought the number to two. The falcon of death was a creature they knew, And the choirs kept singing of Freedom. The church it was crowded, but no one could see That Cynthia Wesley's dark number was three. Her prayers and her feelings would shame you and me. And the choirs kept singing of Freedom. Young Carole Robertson entered the door And the number her killers had given was four. She asked for a blessing but asked for no more, And the choirs kept singing of Freedom. The men in the forest they once asked of me, How many black berries grew in the Blue Sea. And I asked them right back with a tear in my eye. How many dark ships in the forest? On Birmingham Sunday a noise shook the ground. And people all over the earth turned around. For no one recalled a more cowardly sound. And the choirs kept singing of Freedom. The Sunday has come and the Sunday has gone. And I can't do much more than to sing you this song. I'll sing it so softly, it'll do no one wrong. And the choirs keep singing of Freedom. From jhminshall at comcast.net Fri Sep 17 09:34:03 2004 From: jhminshall at comcast.net (Janet Minshall) Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 09:34:03 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Re: [afmdiscussion] Fwd: [earthcare] Future Population Decline: What Are Our Responsibilities As Friends? In-Reply-To: <001a01c49a4b$525edd70$6401a8c0@roy> References: <001a01c49a4b$525edd70$6401a8c0@roy> Message-ID: Dear Roy Taylor, Thanks for your very good letter and change of focus. I understand your concern about water, especially in Atlanta with its crumbling pipelines and sinkholes caused by massive leaks in the water and sewer systems. One of my sons lives in a small apartment in a fairly nice part of town (Briarcliff Rd. near Callanwolde) and pays $70 a month for water because of the problems with the water lines. I think the political will is just developing to fix the system in Atlanta now that the bills are so high. I also think that we have a very creative and innovative portion of humanity who will come up with short term solutions to most of the problems we see as looming threats right now like the pipe sleeve system which has been developed to fix the leaking water pipes and sewer lines of Atlanta. As to long term water supplies, I have read that desalinization plants will be an interrim measure for Western Europe, Canada, Japan and the US (the developed countries) and that drawing down water from the oceans for desalinization may help to balance the rising sea levels from global warming. Long term, the population decline will dramatically reduce demand for water for human use and for agriculture, as will increased morbidity from diseases like HIV in the less developed countries and the effects of lifestyle (obesity, smoking, alcohol consumption, and drug use) in the developed countries. I tend to think long term because that is the nature of the field I was trained in, political economics. I, too, am worried about the world we have created and how the very large population we will still have in 40 to 75 years will cope with what I see as the even greater threat to humanity of population aging and decline. I think we are both right and I definitely do not consider you a "Chicken Little" for voicing your concerns. It is you who will create the political will that needs to exist in enough people to make change happen. It is that political will that will stimulate the creativity and innovation which will help us adapt to such problems as the water shortage. I'd be interested in your response. Thanks for your message. Janet Minshall Janet, Long term population projections on a global scale are difficult for even the most experienced of demographers. The amount of variables and their varying potential for influence are staggering. Assuming that we could start to agree on the the numbers and the timeline would there exist a political will to make the changes necessary to offset the impact? We can not even find that will here in the metropolitan Atlanta region when the effect of over development has been well documented. The North Metro Georgia Water Planning District's plan for water supply charts us as running out of water sometime between 2015 and 2018. Because of the positive development blinders we wear, we allow them to fool us that we can allocate more water from existing reserviors, build new reserviors and conserve enough water to continue developing in the same manner as we have with out change for 30 years or more. So I am told to stop being like Chicken Little and trying to upset people. They seem to get very irritated when I use their report to expose this flaw. What I'm getting at is that each of our Meetings exist in areas where there is little political will to change the status quo. One of the fears in this Country around planning is that it involves us collectively and we have to give up our individuallity to do so. We all know that socialism leads to communism and there is nothing worse. We can't be expected to change our lifestyles or where and how we develop because that would be giving up our individual rights. Globally, we will be living in a state of growth for the next 40 - 75 years. Regionally, we are running out of resources to maintain the type of development that we have been doing for that many years. I am more worried about the world we will have created by then than I am about our ability to cope with a leveling off and decline of population. Let's assume we could get ourselves in a power position to effect change. Would the same suggestions for effecting positive change in a growing population be similar for ones with a declining population? Live more lightly on the earth. Respect one another. Treat each other as equals. See that which is Christ in everyone you meet. Peace & Love Roy From nc_stereoman at charter.net Fri Sep 17 17:43:19 2004 From: nc_stereoman at charter.net (Steve Livingston) Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 17:43:19 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Re: [afmdiscussion] Fwd: [earthcare] Future Population Decline: What Are Our Responsibilities As Friends? In-Reply-To: References: <001a01c49a4b$525edd70$6401a8c0@roy> Message-ID: <414B2237.30073.BCF55A@localhost> Hello Janet and Roy, Re: Chicken Little. I have often run into this argument Roy, especially when trying to express misgivings about plans that look good in the short term but have no lasting power. This is especially true IMHO when calling into question the consumption of resources that ought to be in the public domain but are increasingly being exhausted or privatized. To my mind, clean water is the most fundamental and critical of said resources. I read not long ago of efforts to privatize Atlanta's water system. Any insights on that experience from you or Janet? Or others reading this? Janet, I am quite amazed at the suggestion that drawing down water from the oceans might help balance the rising sea levels from global warming. My understanding of the sheer denisty of the human population is that all of the people in the developed countries would not fill up a box one kilometer on each side and two hundred meters high. How much water could they possibly use up, never to return to the global ecosystem? How much impact could that possibly make on the earth's oceans, with a surface area of 510 million square kilometers? Steve On 17 Sep 2004 at 9:34, Janet Minshall wrote: > Dear Roy Taylor, Thanks for your very good letter and change of > focus. From earthsteward at urisp.net Fri Sep 17 23:38:45 2004 From: earthsteward at urisp.net (Daryl Bergquist) Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2004 22:38:45 -0500 Subject: [saymaListserv] Re: [afmdiscussion] Fwd: [earthcare] Future Population Decline: What Are Our Responsibilities As Friends? In-Reply-To: <414B2237.30073.BCF55A@localhost> References: <001a01c49a4b$525edd70$6401a8c0@roy> <414B2237.30073.BCF55A@localhost> Message-ID: <414BADC5.7050505@urisp.net> Greetings, I would echo Steve's amazement over the concept of desalinization peceptively lowering the level of the oceans. First, though the technologies exist for desalinization of sea water, they require a lot of energy and energy is another resource we are using at increasingly unsustainable rates. That is another discussion with lots of implications. Second I agree with Steve's comment about the relatively small amount of human use in relation to the ocean and the impossibility of lowering sea level thereby, though I can't verify his figures. But further than that, we do not consume (use up) water we simply make it polluted and salty or evaporate it and it all goes back into the water cycle eventually back into the ocean. Desalinization of sea water would not effect the level of the oceans other than the very tiny amount of water in the desalinization system at a given time and in the biomas of humans. Upon reflection, perhaps that is what Steve was saying. I do know that we can use fresh water way more efficiently than we do. I lived on 1/2 gallon per day of drinking and cooking water while sailing in the tropics. I use very much more than that now, even though I know what is possible. Daryl Bergquist - Royal worship Group Steve Livingston wrote: >Hello Janet and Roy, > >Re: Chicken Little. I have often run into this argument Roy, especially when trying to express misgivings about plans that >look good in the short term but have no lasting power. This is especially true IMHO when calling into question the >consumption of resources that ought to be in the public domain but are increasingly being exhausted or privatized. To my >mind, clean water is the most fundamental and critical of said resources. I read not long ago of efforts to privatize Atlanta's >water system. Any insights on that experience from you or Janet? Or others reading this? > >Janet, I am quite amazed at the suggestion that drawing down water from the oceans might help balance the rising sea >levels from global warming. My understanding of the sheer denisty of the human population is that all of the people in the >developed countries would not fill up a box one kilometer on each side and two hundred meters high. How much water could >they possibly use up, never to return to the global ecosystem? How much impact could that possibly make on the earth's >oceans, with a surface area of 510 million square kilometers? > >Steve > >On 17 Sep 2004 at 9:34, Janet Minshall wrote: > > > >>Dear Roy Taylor, Thanks for your very good letter and change of >>focus. >> >> > >_______________________________________________ >Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting and Association mailing list >posting address: sayma at kitenet.net >subscribe/unsubscribe: http://kitenet.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sayma > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kcarlyle at main.nc.us Sun Sep 19 11:11:41 2004 From: kcarlyle at main.nc.us (Kim Carlyle) Date: Sun, 19 Sep 2004 11:11:41 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] SAF -- Call for submissions Message-ID: <00e301c49e62$26e1c390$906dc0d1@yourfulkl1oh2q> Dear Friends, Send stuff to SAF editor at sayma.org Thanks, Eds. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kcarlyle at main.nc.us Mon Sep 20 17:34:48 2004 From: kcarlyle at main.nc.us (Kim Carlyle) Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 17:34:48 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Correction -- SAF Submissions Message-ID: <000101c49f64$0154b0d0$aa6dc0d1@yourfulkl1oh2q> I wrote: Dear Friends, Send stuff to SAF editor at sayma.org Thanks, Eds. I meant: Dear Friends, Send stuff to SAFeditor at sayma.org Thanks, Eds. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jhminshall at comcast.net Mon Sep 20 19:00:40 2004 From: jhminshall at comcast.net (Janet Minshall) Date: Mon, 20 Sep 2004 19:00:40 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Re: [afmdiscussion] Fwd: [earthcare] Future Population Decline: What Are Our Responsibilities As Friends? In-Reply-To: <414BADC5.7050505@urisp.net> References: <001a01c49a4b$525edd70$6401a8c0@roy> <414B2237.30073.BCF55A@localhost> <414BADC5.7050505@urisp.net> Message-ID: Hi Steve and Daryl, Sorry, I should have given the source -- it was from an article on water issues in a popular economics journal which I have since discarded. I don't think that anyone, either the writer or me, thinks that water is ever lost not to return to the atmosphere, groundwater, oceans, etc. The point that was made was that using water from the oceans and the process of desalinization would not in any way deplete water supplies and might counter the increase in sea levels from global warming a bit. Yes, Daryl, desalinization does use energy, and I know it exists because the countries in North Africa use water from the Mediterranean as their basic drinking water supply. When I traveled there many years ago, the countries which had suffered damage to their desalinization equipment during WWII still had slightly salty drinking water. To get completely salt-free water you had to buy it imported, which was very very unusual back then. Also, the slightly salty water was used to make and bottle the local versions of Coca-Cola. (There is nothing in the world I have tasted which is quite as awful as a salty Coca-Cola, especially when one is thirsty!) I think the issue of how much and what kind of energy would be used for desalinization is an interesting one. I would think that a solar-powered processor would be feasible now or soon and might be something worth some serious time and effort. Daryl? Janet >Greetings, > >I would echo Steve's amazement over the concept of desalinization >peceptively lowering the level of the oceans. First, though the >technologies exist for desalinization of sea water, they require a >lot of energy and energy is another resource we are using at >increasingly unsustainable rates. That is another discussion with >lots of implications. Second I agree with Steve's comment about the >relatively small amount of human use in relation to the ocean and >the impossibility of lowering sea level thereby, though I can't >verify his figures. But further than that, we do not consume (use >up) water we simply make it polluted and salty or evaporate it and >it all goes back into the water cycle eventually back into the >ocean. Desalinization of sea water would not effect the level of the >oceans other than the very tiny amount of water in the >desalinization system at a given time and in the biomas of humans. >Upon reflection, perhaps that is what Steve was saying. > >I do know that we can use fresh water way more efficiently than we >do. I lived on 1/2 gallon per day of drinking and cooking water >while sailing in the tropics. I use very much more than that now, >even though I know what is possible. > >Daryl Bergquist - Royal worship Group > >Steve Livingston wrote: > >>Hello Janet and Roy, >> >>Re: Chicken Little. I have often run into this argument Roy, >>especially when trying to express misgivings about plans that >>look good in the short term but have no lasting power. This is >>especially true IMHO when calling into question the >>consumption of resources that ought to be in the public domain but >>are increasingly being exhausted or privatized. To my >>mind, clean water is the most fundamental and critical of said >>resources. I read not long ago of efforts to privatize Atlanta's >>water system. Any insights on that experience from you or Janet? Or >>others reading this? >> >>Janet, I am quite amazed at the suggestion that drawing down water >>from the oceans might help balance the rising sea >>levels from global warming. My understanding of the sheer denisty >>of the human population is that all of the people in the >>developed countries would not fill up a box one kilometer on each >>side and two hundred meters high. How much water could >>they possibly use up, never to return to the global ecosystem? How >>much impact could that possibly make on the earth's >>oceans, with a surface area of 510 million square kilometers? >> >>Steve >> >>On 17 Sep 2004 at 9:34, Janet Minshall wrote: >> >> >> >>>Dear Roy Taylor, Thanks for your very good letter and change of >>>focus. >>> >>> >> >>_______________________________________________ >>Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting and Association mailing list >>posting address: sayma at kitenet.net >>subscribe/unsubscribe: >>http://kitenet.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sayma >> >> >> >> > >_______________________________________________ >Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting and Association mailing list >posting address: sayma at kitenet.net >subscribe/unsubscribe: http://kitenet.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sayma -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nc_stereoman at charter.net Thu Sep 23 23:31:45 2004 From: nc_stereoman at charter.net (Steve Livingston) Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 23:31:45 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] a matter of scale Message-ID: <41535CE1.8128.16BDC7@localhost> Dear Friends, My favorite Iraq blogger is Juan Cole, a professor of Mideast History at U of MI. He writes "Informed Comment" and can be found at juancole.com. If you want to know what is really going on in the Middle East, Prof. Cole adds the cultural, tribal issues, and family issues, with a keen understanding of language and history. He often shares opinions of colleagues, and occasionally writes his own. I want to share with you a comparison he drew in his column today that really gives substance to the compassion many citizens feel for the "enemy" in Iraq. If America were Iraq, What would it be Like? by Juan Cole President Bush said Tuesday that the Iraqis are refuting the pessimists and implied that things are improving in that country. What would America look like if it were in Iraq's current situation? The population of the US is over 11 times that of Iraq, so a lot of statistics would have to be multiplied by that number. Thus, violence killed 300 Iraqis last week, the equivalent proportionately of 3,300 Americans. What if 3,300 Americans had died in car bombings, grenade and rocket attacks, machine gun spray, and aerial bombardment in the last week? That is a number greater than the deaths on September 11, and if America were Iraq, it would be an ongoing, weekly or monthly toll. And what if those deaths occurred all over the country, including in the capital of Washington, DC, but mainly above the Mason Dixon line, in Boston, Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco? What if the grounds of the White House and the government buildings near the Mall were constantly taking mortar fire? What if almost nobody in the State Department at Foggy Bottom, the White House, or the Pentagon dared venture out of their buildings, and considered it dangerous to go over to Crystal City or Alexandria? What if all the reporters for all the major television and print media were trapped in five-star hotels in Washington, DC and New York, unable to move more than a few blocks safely, and dependent on stringers to know what was happening in Oklahoma City and St. Louis? What if the only time they ventured into the Midwest was if they could be embedded in Army or National Guard units? There are estimated to be some 25,000 guerrillas in Iraq engaged in concerted acts of violence. What if there were private armies totalling 275,000 men, armed with machine guns, assault rifles (legal again!), rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar launchers, hiding out in dangerous urban areas of cities all over the country? What if they completely controlled Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Denver and Omaha, such that local police and Federal troops could not go into those cities? What if, during the past year, the Secretary of State (Aqilah Hashemi), the President (Izzedine Salim), and the Attorney General (Muhammad Baqir al-Hakim) had all been assassinated? What if all the cities in the US were wracked by a crime wave, with thousands of murders, kidnappings, burglaries, and carjackings in every major city every year? What if the Air Force routinely (I mean daily or weekly) bombed Billings, Montana, Flint, Michigan, Watts in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Anacostia in Washington, DC, and other urban areas, attempting to target "safe houses" of "criminal gangs", but inevitably killing a lot of children and little old ladies? What if, from time to time, the US Army besieged Virginia Beach, killing hundreds of armed members of the Christian Soldiers? What if entire platoons of the Christian Soldiers militia holed up in Arlington National Cemetery, and were bombarded by US Air Force warplanes daily, destroying thousands of graves and even pulverizing the Vietnam Memorial over on the Mall? What if the National Council of Churches had to call for a popular march of thousands of believers to converge on the National Cathedral to stop the US Army from demolishing it to get at a rogue band of the Timothy McVeigh Memorial Brigades? What if there were virtually no commercial air traffic in the country? What if many roads were highly dangerous, especially Interstate 95 from Richmond to Washington, DC, and I-95 and I-91 up to Boston? If you got on I-95 anywhere along that over 500-mile stretch, you would risk being carjacked, kidnapped, or having your car sprayed with machine gun fire. What if no one had electricity for much more than 10 hours a day, and often less? What if it went off at unpredictable times, causing factories to grind to a halt and air conditioning to fail in the middle of the summer in Houston and Miami? What if the Alaska pipeline were bombed and disabled at least monthly? What if unemployment hovered around 40%? What if veterans of militia actions at Ruby Ridge and the Oklahoma City bombing were brought in to run the government on the theory that you need a tough guy in these times of crisis? What if municipal elections were cancelled and cliques close to the new "president" quietly installed in the statehouses as "governors?" What if several of these governors (especially of Montana and Wyoming) were assassinated soon after taking office or resigned when their children were taken hostage by guerrillas? What if the leader of the European Union maintained that the citizens of the United States are, under these conditions, refuting pessimism and that freedom and democracy are just around the corner? -- Steve Livingston nc_stereoman at charter.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From freepolazzo at comcast.net Fri Sep 24 09:41:09 2004 From: freepolazzo at comcast.net (free polazzo) Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2004 09:41:09 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] NYTimes.com Article: The Candidates, Seen From the Classroom Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20040924090048.02e91fb0@mail.comcast.net> Hi, A clear and timely explanation of why President Bush may well "win" the TV Debates (and the election), even though he may have the worse ideas and even have fewer people supporting his views. It would be terrible for this election to be won or lost on "style", but how you say it may be as important as what you say. Friends surely know this truth, as we also seem too often be convinced by style over content. Maybe this is part of the curse of being "too educated"? Or is it that we are not educated enough? Humm. . . . Free ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Candidates, Seen From the Classroom September 24, 2004 By STANLEY FISH N.Y. Times.com Article CHICAGO In an unofficial but very formal poll taken in my freshman writing class the other day, George Bush beat John Kerry by a vote of 13 to 2 (14 to 2, if you count me). My students were not voting on the candidates' ideas. They were voting on the skill (or lack of skill) displayed in the presentation of those ideas. The basis for their judgments was a side-by-side display in this newspaper on Sept. 8 of excerpts from speeches each man gave the previous day. Put aside whatever preferences you might have for either candidate's positions, I instructed; just tell me who does a better job of articulating his positions, and why. The analysis was devastating. President Bush, the students pointed out, begins with a perfect topic sentence - "Our strategy is succeeding"- that nicely sets up a first paragraph describing how conditions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia four years ago aided terrorists. This is followed by a paragraph explaining how the administration's policies have produced a turnaround in each country "because we acted." The paragraph's conclusion is concise, brisk and earned: "We have led, many have joined, and America and the world are safer." It doesn't hurt that the names of the countries he lists all have the letter "a," as do the words "America" and "safer." He and his speech writers deserve credit for using the accident of euphony to give the argument cohesiveness and force. There is of course no logical relationship between the repetition of a sound and the soundness of an argument, but if it is skillfully employed repetition can enhance a logical point or even give the illusion of one when none is present. The students also found repetition in the Kerry speech, about the outsourcing of jobs, but, as many pointed out, when Mr. Kerry repeats the phrase "your tax dollars" it is because he has become lost in his own sentence and has to begin again. When he finally extracts himself from that sentence, he makes two big mistakes in the next one: "That's bad enough, but you know there's something worse, don't you?" No, Senator Kerry, we don't know - because you haven't told us. He is asking people to respond to a point he hasn't yet made and, even worse, by saying "don't you?" he is implying they should know what this point is before he makes it. As a result, the audience is made to feel stupid. And if that wasn't "bad enough,'' consider his next two sentences. Up until now Mr. Kerry's point (insofar as you could discern one) had been that current tax policies reward companies for moving their operations overseas. But he goes on to add, "it gets worse than that in terms of choices." The audience barely has time to wonder what and whose choices he's talking about before it is entirely disoriented by the declaration that "today the tax code actually does something that's right." Excuse us, but how can getting something "right" be "worse"? It turns out that there is an answer to that question later in the speech - Mr. Kerry says that while the tax code now rewards companies that export American products, Mr. Bush wants to eliminate that good incentive - but it comes far too late for an audience discombobulated by the sudden and unannounced change in the argument's direction. Senator Kerry, my students observed with a mix of solemnity and glee, has violated two cardinal rules of exposition: don't presume your audience has information you haven't provided, and always pay attention to the expectations of your listeners. They also felt that when he concludes by declaring that "when I'm president of the United States, it'll take me about a nanosecond to ask the Congress to close that stupid loophole," he undercuts the dignity both of his message and of the office he aspires to by calling the loophole "stupid" (instead of "unconscionable" or "unprincipled" or even "criminal"). "Stupid," one student said, is not a "presidential kind of word." So what? What does it matter if Mr. Kerry's words stumble and halt, while Mr. Bush's flow easily from sentence to sentence and paragraph to paragraph? Well, listen to the composite judgments my students made on the Democratic challenger: "confused," "difficult to understand," "can't seem to make his point clearly," "I'm not sure what he's saying," and my favorite, "he's kind of 'skippy,' all over the place." Now of course it could be the case that every student who voted against Mr. Kerry's speech in my little poll will vote for him in the general election. After all, what we're talking about here is merely a matter of style, not substance, right? And - this is a common refrain among Kerry supporters - doesn't Mr. Bush's directness and simplicity of presentation reflect a simplicity of mind and an incapacity for nuance, while Mr. Kerry's ideas are just too complicated for the rhythms of publicly accessible prose? Sorry, but that's dead wrong. If you can't explain an idea or a policy plainly in one or two sentences, it's not yours; and if it's not yours, no one you speak to will be persuaded of it, or even know what it is, or (and this is the real point) know what you are. Words are not just the cosmetic clothing of some underlying integrity; they are the operational vehicles of that integrity, the visible manifestation of the character to which others respond. And if the words you use fall apart, ring hollow, trail off and sound as if they came from nowhere or anywhere (these are the same thing), the suspicion will grow that what they lack is what you lack, and no one will follow you. Nervous Democrats who see their candidate slipping in the polls console themselves by saying, "Just wait, the debates are coming.'' As someone who will vote for John Kerry even though I voted against him in my class, that's just what I'm worried about. Stanley Fish is dean emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago. From moriah at preferred.com Sun Sep 26 09:03:32 2004 From: moriah at preferred.com (Mary Calhoun) Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 09:03:32 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] IMP^o^ 169 SE Regional Gathering/FWCC Message-ID: <035301c4a3c9$a2869720$6464a2c6@abc> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ IMP ^o^ Bulletin 169 Southeast Regional Gathering Friends World Committee for Consultation, Section of the Americas ......................................................................... October 22-24, 2004 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ from a September 14 message from Rachel Weir, SAYMA representative to Friends World Committee for Consultation <|> October 22-24, 2004, the southeast region of Friends World Committee for Consultation will hold a gathering at Cane Creek Meeting, Snow Camp, North Carolina. <|> The theme is the same as the recent Triennial: Being Faithful Witness in a Changing World. Acts 1:8 "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth". <|> There will be two panels. One will talk about outreach of the yearly meetings in the region. The second will focus more specifically on outreach in Jamaica. <|> There will be a field trip with a historical theme. <|> Anyone who would like to attend can contact Rachel Weir for a registration form: 828-675-4456 or seregionalgathering at yahoo.com and leave their mailing address. ~~~~~~ end ^o^ ~~~~~~ 1stpost 092604 ~~~~~~ _______________________________________ 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; in-person Tu/Th 5-7:30p), or SAYMA Admin Asst, PO Box 2191, Abingdon, VA 24212-2191. Thank you! ^o^ ----------------------------------------------------- To receive IMP^o^ bulletins, subscribe to the list server, sayma at kitenet.net. You can subscribe on the web at http://kitenet.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sayma. ------------------------------------------------------ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From listener at bellsouth.net Sun Sep 26 18:25:32 2004 From: listener at bellsouth.net (Kit Potter) Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 17:25:32 -0500 Subject: [saymaListserv] FW: preaching political preference Message-ID: <004401c4a417$bc6ab790$6701a8c0@heyoka> Please consider calling. Kit ----- Subject: preaching political preference In a move designed to crush all opposition, House Majority Leader Tom Delay and House Speaker Dennis Hastert have joined with Rep. Walter Jones to attach the Houses of Worship Free Speech Restoration Act (Jones bill/HR 235) to the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 (H.R. 4520). If passed, the Jones bill would go far towards eroding the wall of separation between the institutions of religion and government by reversing IRS tax laws that prohibit houses of worship from engaging in partisan politicking. The American Jobs Creation Act already passed the House and Senate and is in conference committee. By inserting the Jones legislation into this bill during conference committee , Delay and Jones ensure that the House and Senate will never get a chance to vote on the Jones bill, which the House has defeated in various forms twice before. Shortly before the Congress moved into its August Recess, Rep. Jones, according to The Hill newspaper, delivered a letter to the Speaker signed by 131 lawmakers stating that the House ³lost an ideal opportunity to change IRS policy in regards to the ability of houses of worship to endorse partisan candidates when the House passed the tax reform bill on June 17. In that bill, The Interfaith Alliance along with nearly two dozen religious denominations was successful in leading a bipartisan effort to defeat the so-called ³Safe Harbors Act,² a variation of the Jones bill that would have allowed houses of worship to endorse political candidates up to three times without losing their tax-exempt status. Capitol Hill sources say that the letter delivered by Jones to Speaker Hastert is a clear pressure tactic reminding the Speaker that many Republican votes for the larger tax reform bill are in jeopardy if the Jones legislation is not included in the bill. On September 9, action alerts sprang up on Religious-Right websites instructing their members to call Hastert and Delay stating, "³UPDATE: WE NEED YOU TO MAKE CALLS TODAY! The hope of returning free speech to our pastors is closer than ever. There is a solid possibility of inserting HR235, the Houses of Worship Free Speech Restoration Act, into the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 that is currently in conference committee on Capitol Hill.²" Contact House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Thomas and thank him for his past work in preventing this dangerous and landscape-altering legislation from becoming reality. Please ask Chairman Thomas to prevent the hijacking of the Jobs Creation Act by Walter Jones and his Houses of Worship Free Speech Restoration Act. His office can be reached by calling 202-225-3625. Telephone calls are the only communication that will make an impact at this point. With the strong network of right-wing organizations making calls, please immediately let every national organization you are affiliated with know about this. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nc_stereoman at charter.net Sun Sep 26 22:19:40 2004 From: nc_stereoman at charter.net (Steve Livingston) Date: Sun, 26 Sep 2004 22:19:40 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] FW: preaching political preference In-Reply-To: <004401c4a417$bc6ab790$6701a8c0@heyoka> Message-ID: <4157407C.3236.1C936EF@localhost> Thanks for the heads up, Kit. We were just having a discussion about this last week in meeting - not about HR235, but about how we must be careful to maintain our integrity as a meeting in the face of the existing laws. There's a great article in the Christian Science Monitor on HR235. CSM article That was a good education for me. Here's an interesting line from the story you cited at The Hill: "Several groups, including the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Congress, testified that the 2002 Jones bill was unconstitutional." It is interesting to note that whole the story has picked up some minimal coverage in Christian Right media, it is unreported in the mainstream media. Steve -- Steve Livingston nc_stereoman at charter.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bright_crow at mindspring.com Tue Sep 28 09:27:25 2004 From: bright_crow at mindspring.com (Mike Shell) Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 09:27:25 -0400 (GMT-04:00) Subject: [saymaListserv] Fw: Bursey files Appeal Message-ID: <574795.1096378046681.JavaMail.root@wamui05.slb.atl.earthlink.net> Friends, Please read and share this message. Blessed Be, Michael. ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: SC Progressive Network To: network at scpronet.com Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 12:27:36 -0400 Subject: Bursey files Appeal Message-ID: Friends, Below is our press release about filing the appeal of my conviction Friday. Here is a link to a GREAT piece in Slate about the case: http://www.slate.com/id/2107012/ Brett For Immediate Release September 24, 2004 Contact: 803-808-3384 (network at scpronet.com) BURSEY TO APPEAL FREE-SPEECH-ZONE RULING On Sept. 14, Federal Judge Cameron Currie upheld the conviction of Brett Bursey under the statute that deals with threats to the president. Today, Bursey filed a notice of his intention to appeal the ruling to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. Bursey was convicted in November of "knowingly" entering into and refusing to leave a secure zone established by the Secret Service for the protection of the president. "This case is like 'Alice and Wonderland' meets George Orwell," Bursey said. "The government's entire case was made up after the fact to justify my arrest." Federal charges were brought against Bursey by the US Justice Department five months after he was arrested on state charges of trespass. US Attorney Strom Thurmond Jr. had Bursey arrested after state charges were dropped. The South Carolina Supreme Court has ruled that citizens cannot be arrested for trespassing on public property -- a fact Bursey knew when he was threatened with arrest for trespassing while standing on public property during an October 2002 visit to the Columbia Airport by President George Bush. At the Sept. 1 appeal hearing Judge Currie asked prosecutor John Barton whether anyone had ever told Mr. Bursey he was in a federally restricted zone? Barton responded that no one had. The trial transcript established through both defense and prosecution witnesses said that there were hundreds of unscreened people standing in the area where Bursey was arrested. "The judges in this case have chosen to ignore the reality that I was picked out of a crowd of citizens and told that I was going to be arrested for trespassing because of the content of my sign," Bursey said. Judge Currie noted in her ruling that Bursey testified that he was told he was being arrested because of the content of his sign. "If accepted as true by the trial court," Currie wrote. "(That) would have raised serious concerns about the reason for the arrest." But that is precisely what Bursey and his lawyer contend. "We have established that the Secret Service is using broad and vague restricted areas to push people into unconstitutional free speech zones out of sight of the president and the media," said Bursey's attorney Lewis Pitts. "Bursey's arrest had nothing to do with the physical protection of the president and everything to do with the political protection of George Bush." "We want the appeals court to tell the Secret Service that they can do their job without trampling the rights of Americans who oppose the current administration," Pitts said. ### -- South Carolina Progressive Network POB 8325 Columbia SC 29202 803-808-3384 * fax: 803-808-3781 network at scpronet.com www.scpronet.com From debra at debrasjohnson.net Wed Sep 29 14:09:52 2004 From: debra at debrasjohnson.net (debra at debrasjohnson.net) Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:09:52 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] FW: The Congressional Evaluation Project Message-ID: <250600-22004932918952669@M2W066.mail2web.com> Original Message: ----------------- From: Kit Mason kit at hers.com Date: Mon, 27 Sep 2004 12:38:47 -0400 To: friends at memphisquaker.org Subject: [MemphisFriends] The Congressional Evaluation Project Dear Friends, In January 2004, I started looking for information on various congressional incumbents and on some of the senators who are up for re-election, and realized just how little was easily available. A lot of the official webpages are puff pieces with no links to voting records or information on the actual substance of what the person actually *does* to represent the people who elected him. So I wrote The Congressional Evaluation Project, http://www.zipbeep.org/congress/. This compares publicly available evaluations from a wide range of organizations, from Americans for Democratic Action to the Christian Coalition. It rates each lawmaker's voting record on issues including civil liberties, education, health care, abortion, the environment, firearms, neoConservatism and the Religious Right. There are omnibus tables with all the information available; following those are tables that examine specific issues. I've spelled out the assumptions I made in creating the project, the sources of the information, and the limitations. It's for anyone who wants to find out what elected officials have been doing. It includes every congressman and -woman now in office, and every senator whose term expires this year, whether the people are running again or not. (Incumbents not seeking re-election are marked with *** after their names; their records are kept in the project to show how their constituents have been represented during the past few years.) In a few cases, where people were put into office for only part of a term, there's not much information; in some cases there's a whole lot of it. I've spent eight months on it; please give it a few minutes. Look up your own representatives -- you know the issues in your state and district far better than I do. See what you find. If you think what I've been doing is useful, please pass it along, send it to people. It's free, it's all compiled from public information. Send it wherever you think it might be most helpful. And feel free to write me about it. Comments welcome. In the Light, Kit Mason attender, Takoma Park Friends Meeting Preparative, Baltimore Yearly Meeting Please note that this is my own project and not something sponsored by either the Yearly or Monthly meetings. _______________________________________________ friends-memphisquaker.org mailing list friends-memphisquaker.org at lists.memphisquaker.org http://lists.memphisquaker.org/listinfo.cgi/friends-memphisquaker.org -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . From jhminshall at comcast.net Thu Sep 30 10:27:05 2004 From: jhminshall at comcast.net (Janet Minshall) Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 10:27:05 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] A Good Movie To See (relevant to Friends mystical experience) Message-ID: Dear Atlanta and SAYMA Friends, I have a wonderful mind-blowing movie to tell you about. It is titled "What The Bleep Do We Know?" and is playing in Atlanta at the Landmark Art Theatre (where the Midtown 8 used to be, on Monroe across from Grady High School). I don't think it is in very wide release yet, so if you don't have an art theatre nearby, look for it in the city closest to you. It is my guess that it will be released in video format eventually and may also be shown on cable. It is about spirituality, material reality and human behavior and is a very good effort to transmit clearly some aspects of mysticism and mystical experience. If you are able to find it, write about it for Friends on these lists. I'd like to hear what others think of it. It may be, as a new attender at our little worship group said, "a film you could see ten times and have a different experience of it each time". Blessings, Janet Minshall From freepolazzo at comcast.net Thu Sep 30 18:08:33 2004 From: freepolazzo at comcast.net (free polazzo) Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2004 18:08:33 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Violence and Crisis in Islam on NPR Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20040930180630.02f73ed0@mail.comcast.net> HI, With the dearth of news and analysis, I recommend this show to you. Check this link to see this weeks' listing for Krista's Journal. http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org Blessings, Free