From bright_crow at mindspring.com Sun May 1 22:40:03 2005 From: bright_crow at mindspring.com (Michael Austin Shell) Date: Sun, 01 May 2005 22:40:03 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] SEYMpeace.org Fifth Month Update Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.0.20050501223553.02920b90@pop.mindspring.com> Friends, I invite you to visit the fifth month update of Southeastern Yearly Meeting's Peace & Social Concerns website: http://seympeace.org/ In particular, take a look at Quaker Bolivia Link in the "What's NEW?" section: http://seympeace.org/#NEW Also note that the site has been reorganized, moving the different "Issues of Concern" to separate pages to make them easier to navigate (not to mention easier to update): http://seympeace.org/#ISSUES Thanks, Mike Shell Member, Columbia (SC) Monthly Meeting Attender, Jacksonville (FL) Monthly Meeting From jhminshall at comcast.net Tue May 3 12:56:59 2005 From: jhminshall at comcast.net (Janet Minshall) Date: Tue, 3 May 2005 12:56:59 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Does This Sound Familiar? (Relevant to the Testimony on Truth and the Proposed Testimony on Care of the Earth) Message-ID: Dear Friends, I think this article is particularly timely for SAYMA Friends right now. It makes a point that I've been trying to make in messages and articles for several years, but this piece makes the point more clearly. We can help the environment considerably more than we do by understanding and promoting economically sound proposals to fix what is broken. We can also be more effective as environmentalists by checking our facts and being sure that what we say about the environment is accurate and well founded (For some painfully truthful discussion of commonly misunderstood issues read The Skeptical Environmentalist, 2004, by Bjorn Lomborg, a former Greenpeace activist). In Peace, Janet Minshall Environmental economics Rescuing environmentalism Apr 21st 2005 From The Economist print edition Market forces could prove the environment's best friend-if only greens could learn to love them "THE environmental movement's foundational concepts, its method for framing legislative proposals, and its very institutions are outmoded. Today environmentalism is just another special interest." Those damning words come not from any industry lobby or right-wing think-tank. They are drawn from "The Death of Environmentalism", an influential essay published recently by two greens with impeccable credentials. They claim that environmental groups are politically adrift and dreadfully out of touch. They are right. In America, greens have suffered a string of defeats on high-profile issues. They are losing the battle to prevent oil drilling in Alaska's wild lands, and have failed to spark the public's imagination over global warming. Even the stridently ungreen George Bush has failed to galvanise the environmental movement. The solution, argue many elders of the sect, is to step back from day-to-day politics and policies and "energise" ordinary punters with talk of global-warming calamities and a radical "vision of the future commensurate with the magnitude of the crisis". Europe's green groups, while politically stronger, are also starting to lose their way intellectually. Consider, for example, their invocation of the woolly "precautionary principle" to demonise any complex technology (next-generation nuclear plants, say, or genetically modified crops) that they do not like the look of. A more sensible green analysis of nuclear power would weigh its (very high) economic costs and (fairly low) safety risks against the important benefit of generating electricity with no greenhouse-gas emissions. Small victories and bigger defeats The coming into force of the UN's Kyoto protocol on climate change might seem a victory for Europe's greens, but it actually masks a larger failure. The most promising aspect of the treaty-its innovative use of market-based instruments such as carbon-emissions trading-was resisted tooth and nail by Europe's greens. With courageous exceptions, American green groups also remain deeply suspicious of market forces. If environmental groups continue to reject pragmatic solutions and instead drift toward Utopian (or dystopian) visions of the future, they will lose the battle of ideas. And that would be a pity, for the world would benefit from having a thoughtful green movement. It would also be ironic, because far-reaching advances are already under way in the management of the world's natural resources-changes that add up to a different kind of green revolution. This could yet save the greens (as well as doing the planet a world of good). "Mandate, regulate, litigate." That has been the green mantra. And it explains the world's top-down, command-and-control approach to environmental policymaking. Slowly, this is changing. Yesterday's failed hopes, today's heavy costs and tomorrow's demanding ambitions have been driving public policy quietly towards market-based approaches. One example lies in the assignment of property rights over "commons", such as fisheries, that are abused because they belong at once to everyone and no one. Where tradable fishing quotas have been issued, the result has been a drop in over-fishing. Emissions trading is also taking off. America led the way with its sulphur-dioxide trading scheme, and today the EU is pioneering carbon-dioxide trading with the (albeit still controversial) goal of slowing down climate change. These, however, are obvious targets. What is really intriguing are efforts to value previously ignored "ecological services", both basic ones such as water filtration and flood prevention, and luxuries such as preserving wildlife. At the same time, advances in environmental science are making those valuation studies more accurate. Market mechanisms can then be employed to achieve these goals at the lowest cost. Today, countries from Panama to Papua New Guinea are investigating ways to price nature in this way (see article). Rachel Carson meets Adam Smith If this new green revolution is to succeed, however, three things must happen. The most important is that prices must be set correctly. The best way to do this is through liquid markets, as in the case of emissions trading. Here, politics merely sets the goal. How that goal is achieved is up to the traders. A proper price, however, requires proper information. So the second goal must be to provide it. The tendency to regard the environment as a "free good" must be tempered with an understanding of what it does for humanity and how. Thanks to the recent Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the World Bank's annual "Little Green Data Book" (released this week), that is happening. More work is needed, but thanks to technologies such as satellite observation, computing and the internet, green accounting is getting cheaper and easier. Which leads naturally to the third goal, the embrace of cost-benefit analysis. At this, greens roll their eyes, complaining that it reduces nature to dollars and cents. In one sense, they are right. Some things in nature are irreplaceable-literally priceless. Even so, it is essential to consider trade-offs when analysing almost all green problems. The marginal cost of removing the last 5% of a given pollutant is often far higher than removing the first 5% or even 50%: for public policy to ignore such facts would be inexcusable. If governments invest seriously in green data acquisition and co-ordination, they will no longer be flying blind. And by advocating data-based, analytically rigorous policies rather than pious appeals to "save the planet", the green movement could overcome the scepticism of the ordinary voter. It might even move from the fringes of politics to the middle ground where most voters reside. Whether the big environmental groups join or not, the next green revolution is already under way. Rachel Carson, the crusading journalist who inspired greens in the 1950s and 60s, is joining hands with Adam Smith, the hero of free-marketeers. The world may yet leapfrog from the dark ages of clumsy, costly, command-and-control regulations to an enlightened age of informed, innovative, incentive-based greenery. Copyright © 2005 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nc_stereoman at charter.net Tue May 3 15:51:59 2005 From: nc_stereoman at charter.net (Steve Livingston) Date: Tue, 03 May 2005 15:51:59 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Does This Sound Familiar? (Relevant to the Testimony on Truth and the Proposed Testimony on Care of the Ear In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <42779E1F.1548.1C7AF65@localhost> Dear Friends, In reading the two opening paragraphs of this essay, I found several statements which did not ring true to me. Environmentalism "just another special interest"? I don't think so. Environmentalists to blame for "losing the battle over Arctic drilling"? Not true! "Failure to spark the public imagination over global warming"? Au contraire! My skepticism was already on red alert, though, due to the reference to Bjorn Lomborg as "a former Greenpeace activist". To me, that sounded a bit like referring to Paul Wolfowitz as "a former Socialist". The "painful truths" revealed by Dr. Lomborg have been categorically debunked by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner E.O. Wilson, Climatologist Stephen H. Schneider, National Academy of Sciences member Norman Myers (who said of the scope of Lomborg's knowledge of biodiversity that "he lacks even a preliminary understanding of the science in question"), Lester Brown (concerning population control, said that Lomborg's analysis was "so fundamentally flawed that other professionals would do well to disassociate themselves from his work"), Emily Matthews of the World Resources Institute (who reports that Lomborg "fudges data" to reach predetermined conclusions), Al Hammond, a senior scientist at the World Resources Institute (who accuses Lomborg of "exaggeration, sweeping generalizations, the presentation of false choices, selective use of data, and outright errors of fact"), and David Nemtzow, president of the Alliance to Save Energy (who says "Lomborg wastes his time battling a straw man"). It does not seem to me that Lomborg's work has passed the test of being "accurate and well-founded". The same can be said for the essay in question, "The Death of Environmentalism" by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus. It has in fact sparked a good, healthy debate among leading envirnomentalists, but by no means is there a consensus of opinion that the environmental movement, such as it is, is dead in the water, or has, in the words of the authors, become "just another special interest". In our current Orwellian national media climate, it seems to me that every movement that puts the well-being of people and the planet ahead of profit-making has been demeaned as "just another special interest". In a speech to this year's annual meeting of the Alliance for Global Sustainability, Martin S. Kaplan, whose environmental credentials are similarly impeccable as Shellenberger and Nordhaus, had these observations to make, which I find particularly appropriate to Friends: "I would note that the conservation movement is only 100 years old and the environmental movement perhaps 50 years old. We are fortunate indeed that these three writers [referring additionally to Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times] did not evaluate the status of other historical movements midway in their terms. For example, would they have urged people to give up the fight to abolish slavery because it took a couple of hundred years? Would they have urged giving up the goal of women's suffrage, perhaps around 1900, nearly a quarter of a century before women achieved the right to vote? ". . . . Given their philosophy of causation and responsibility, I suppose in the 1850s they would have blamed the failure to abolish slavery on the abolition movement rather than the slaveholders and the economic interests tied to them. Perhaps around 1900 they would have blamed the failure to achieve the right to vote for women on the strategy and tactics of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, rather than on men who controlled the society. And not one of those . . . denunciations of the environmental movement includes any equivalent attack on the entrenched opposition of the economic interests that sell oil, mercury, and even arsenic. "I find it quite outrageous, too, that the phrase 'special interest' has been transmuted from reflecting those who have a financial benefit at stake to those who are pursuing a goal of benefiting the entire society rather than themselves individually. This misuse of the phrase 'special interest' flies in the face of how that term was used during the Progressive Movement at the beginning of the 20th century." As a Friend with a more than passing concern for the stewardship of our planet, and as one who will immediately attest to my own seemingly intractable complicity in the systematic degradation of the environment, I am open to hearing and considering market-based approaches to reducing the impact of our lifestyle upon the well-being of the less fortunate members of our species as well as others with whom we share this blue-green spaceship. At the same time, I am not willing to dismiss the cautionary wisdom that has been accumulated by the environmental movement over the past fifty or more years because it may negatively impact market-based approaches. I want to hear all sides of the debate, and I am particularly attuned to those arguments that are based on something other than self-interest, as that appeals to the peculiar faith that I practice. It is enough that such arguments are given, with concern and regret, but when they are relegated to the morgue, or the slag-heap of "special interests", they pique my attention even more. Steve From Rblissfam at cs.com Tue May 3 18:19:02 2005 From: Rblissfam at cs.com (Rblissfam at cs.com) Date: Tue, 03 May 2005 18:19:02 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Does This Sound Familiar? (Relevant to theTestimony on Truth and the Proposed Testimony on Care of the Earth) Message-ID: <1DD44CFD.3D937FA3.027DB407@cs.com> I agree with Steve. Watch "I Love Huckabees" a comical look at the dedicated environmentalist against the slick green of the market, a path his former friend takes. We don't have the pr advisors that those in the market have. It's either join us or lose. Either way you lose. The way we live our life is one of the best witnesses we can have. We've got to walk the walk before we can talk the talk. And many of us are making large efforts to do just that. There is too much history of market forces saying they're green, when as usual, it's a cover up for making more bucks with as little regs as possible. Also watch "the Corporation" sometime to help yourself understand alittle better what we are up against. Rachael Bliss Janet Minshall wrote: >Dear Friends, I think this article is >particularly timely for SAYMA Friends right now. >It makes a point that I've been trying to make in >messages and articles for several years, but this >piece makes the point more clearly.  We can help >the environment considerably more than we do by >understanding and promoting economically sound >proposals to fix what is broken.   We can also be >more effective as environmentalists by checking >our facts and being sure that what we say about >the environment is accurate and well founded (For >some painfully truthful discussion of commonly >misunderstood issues read >  The Skeptical Environmentalist, 2004, by Bjorn >Lomborg, a former Greenpeace activist). >             In Peace, Janet Minshall > > >Environmental economics >Rescuing environmentalism >Apr 21st 2005 >From The Economist print edition >Market forces could prove the environment's best >friend-if only greens could learn to love them > >"THE environmental movement's foundational >concepts, its method for framing legislative >proposals, and its very institutions are >outmoded. Today environmentalism is just another >special interest." Those damning words come not >from any industry lobby or right-wing think-tank. >They are drawn from "The Death of >Environmentalism", an influential essay published >recently by two greens with impeccable >credentials. They claim that environmental groups >are politically adrift and dreadfully out of >touch. > >They are right. In America, greens have suffered >a string of defeats on high-profile issues. They >are losing the battle to prevent oil drilling in >Alaska's wild lands, and have failed to spark the >public's imagination over global warming. Even >the stridently ungreen George Bush has failed to >galvanise the environmental movement. The >solution, argue many elders of the sect, is to >step back from day-to-day politics and policies >and "energise" ordinary punters with talk of >global-warming calamities and a radical "vision >of the future commensurate with the magnitude of >the crisis". > >Europe's green groups, while politically >stronger, are also starting to lose their way >intellectually. Consider, for example, their >invocation of the woolly "precautionary >principle" to demonise any complex technology >(next-generation nuclear plants, say, or >genetically modified crops) that they do not like >the look of. A more sensible green analysis of >nuclear power would weigh its (very high) >economic costs and (fairly low) safety risks >against the important benefit of generating >electricity with no greenhouse-gas emissions. >Small victories and bigger defeats > >The coming into force of the UN's Kyoto protocol >on climate change might seem a victory for >Europe's greens, but it actually masks a larger >failure. The most promising aspect of the >treaty-its innovative use of market-based >instruments such as carbon-emissions trading-was >resisted tooth and nail by Europe's greens. With >courageous exceptions, American green groups also >remain deeply suspicious of market forces. > >If environmental groups continue to reject >pragmatic solutions and instead drift toward >Utopian (or dystopian) visions of the future, >they will lose the battle of ideas. And that >would be a pity, for the world would benefit from >having a thoughtful green movement. It would also >be ironic, because far-reaching advances are >already under way in the management of the >world's natural resources-changes that add up to >a different kind of green revolution. This could >yet save the greens (as well as doing the planet >a world of good). > >"Mandate, regulate, litigate." That has been the >green mantra. And it explains the world's >top-down, command-and-control approach to >environmental policymaking. Slowly, this is >changing. Yesterday's failed hopes, today's heavy >costs and tomorrow's demanding ambitions have >been driving public policy quietly towards >market-based approaches. One example lies in the >assignment of property rights over "commons", >such as fisheries, that are abused because they >belong at once to everyone and no one. Where >tradable fishing quotas have been issued, the >result has been a drop in over-fishing. Emissions >trading is also taking off. America led the way >with its sulphur-dioxide trading scheme, and >today the EU is pioneering carbon-dioxide trading >with the (albeit still controversial) goal of >slowing down climate change. > >These, however, are obvious targets. What is >really intriguing are efforts to value previously >ignored "ecological services", both basic ones >such as water filtration and flood prevention, >and luxuries such as preserving wildlife. At the >same time, advances in environmental science are >making those valuation studies more accurate. >Market mechanisms can then be employed to achieve >these goals at the lowest cost. Today, countries >from Panama to Papua New Guinea are investigating >ways to price nature in this way (see article). >Rachel Carson meets Adam Smith > >If this new green revolution is to succeed, >however, three things must happen. The most >important is that prices must be set correctly. >The best way to do this is through liquid >markets, as in the case of emissions trading. >Here, politics merely sets the goal. How that >goal is achieved is up to the traders. > >A proper price, however, requires proper >information. So the second goal must be to >provide it. The tendency to regard the >environment as a "free good" must be tempered >with an understanding of what it does for >humanity and how. Thanks to the recent Millennium >Ecosystem Assessment and the World Bank's annual >"Little Green Data Book" (released this week), >that is happening. More work is needed, but >thanks to technologies such as satellite >observation, computing and the internet, green >accounting is getting cheaper and easier. > >Which leads naturally to the third goal, the >embrace of cost-benefit analysis. At this, greens >roll their eyes, complaining that it reduces >nature to dollars and cents. In one sense, they >are right. Some things in nature are >irreplaceable-literally priceless. Even so, it is >essential to consider trade-offs when analysing >almost all green problems. The marginal cost of >removing the last 5% of a given pollutant is >often far higher than removing the first 5% or >even 50%: for public policy to ignore such facts >would be inexcusable. > >If governments invest seriously in green data >acquisition and co-ordination, they will no >longer be flying blind. And by advocating >data-based, analytically rigorous policies rather >than pious appeals to "save the planet", the >green movement could overcome the scepticism of >the ordinary voter. It might even move from the >fringes of politics to the middle ground where >most voters reside. > >Whether the big environmental groups join or not, >the next green revolution is already under way. >Rachel Carson, the crusading journalist who >inspired greens in the 1950s and 60s, is joining >hands with Adam Smith, the hero of >free-marketeers. The world may yet leapfrog from >the dark ages of clumsy, costly, >command-and-control regulations to an enlightened >age of informed, innovative, incentive-based >greenery. > >Copyright © 2005 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. > From jhminshall at comcast.net Tue May 3 18:58:40 2005 From: jhminshall at comcast.net (Janet Minshall) Date: Tue, 3 May 2005 18:58:40 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Does This Sound Familiar? (Relevant to the Testimony on Truth and the Proposed Testimony on Care of the Ear In-Reply-To: <42779E1F.1548.1C7AF65@localhost> References: <42779E1F.1548.1C7AF65@localhost> Message-ID: Dear Steve Livingston, Sorry, I think you haven't even read an accurate biography of Lomborg or the several confirmations of his activism from other Greenpeace activists. I would expect environmentalists whose work he questions to retaliate. I am glad that you are open to market-based approaches to cleaning up the environment. Would that others were so open. Best Regards, Janet Minshall >Dear Friends, > >In reading the two opening paragraphs of this essay, I found several >statements which did not ring true to me. Environmentalism "just another >special interest"? I don't think so. Environmentalists to blame for "losing >the battle over Arctic drilling"? Not true! "Failure to spark the public >imagination over global warming"? Au contraire! My skepticism was >already on red alert, though, due to the reference to Bjorn Lomborg as >"a former Greenpeace activist". To me, that sounded a bit like referring >to Paul Wolfowitz as "a former Socialist". > >The "painful truths" revealed by Dr. Lomborg have been categorically >debunked by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner E.O. Wilson, Climatologist >Stephen H. Schneider, National Academy of Sciences member Norman >Myers (who said of the scope of Lomborg's knowledge of biodiversity >that "he lacks even a preliminary understanding of the science in >question"), Lester Brown (concerning population control, said that >Lomborg's analysis was "so fundamentally flawed that other >professionals would do well to disassociate themselves from his work"), >Emily Matthews of the World Resources Institute (who reports that >Lomborg "fudges data" to reach predetermined conclusions), Al >Hammond, a senior scientist at the World Resources Institute (who >accuses Lomborg of "exaggeration, sweeping generalizations, the >presentation of false choices, selective use of data, and outright errors >of fact"), and David Nemtzow, president of the Alliance to Save Energy >(who says "Lomborg wastes his time battling a straw man"). It does not >seem to me that Lomborg's work has passed the test of being "accurate >and well-founded". > >The same can be said for the essay in question, "The Death of >Environmentalism" by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus. It has >in fact sparked a good, healthy debate among leading >envirnomentalists, but by no means is there a consensus of opinion that >the environmental movement, such as it is, is dead in the water, or has, >in the words of the authors, become "just another special interest". In >our current Orwellian national media climate, it seems to me that every >movement that puts the well-being of people and the planet ahead of >profit-making has been demeaned as "just another special interest". > >In a speech to this year's annual meeting of the Alliance for Global >Sustainability, Martin S. Kaplan, whose environmental credentials are >similarly impeccable as Shellenberger and Nordhaus, had these >observations to make, which I find particularly appropriate to Friends: > >"I would note that the conservation movement is only 100 years old and >the environmental movement perhaps 50 years old. We are fortunate >indeed that these three writers [referring additionally to Nicholas Kristof >of the New York Times] did not evaluate the status of other historical >movements midway in their terms. For example, would they have urged >people to give up the fight to abolish slavery because it took a couple of >hundred years? Would they have urged giving up the goal of women's >suffrage, perhaps around 1900, nearly a quarter of a century before >women achieved the right to vote? > >". . . . Given their philosophy of causation and responsibility, I suppose >in the 1850s they would have blamed the failure to abolish slavery on >the abolition movement rather than the slaveholders and the economic >interests tied to them. Perhaps around 1900 they would have blamed >the failure to achieve the right to vote for women on the strategy and >tactics of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, rather than on >men who controlled the society. And not one of those . . . denunciations >of the environmental movement includes any equivalent attack on the >entrenched opposition of the economic interests that sell oil, mercury, >and even arsenic. > >"I find it quite outrageous, too, that the phrase 'special interest' has been >transmuted from reflecting those who have a financial benefit at stake to >those who are pursuing a goal of benefiting the entire society rather >than themselves individually. This misuse of the phrase 'special interest' >flies in the face of how that term was used during the Progressive >Movement at the beginning of the 20th century." > >As a Friend with a more than passing concern for the stewardship of our >planet, and as one who will immediately attest to my own seemingly >intractable complicity in the systematic degradation of the environment, I >am open to hearing and considering market-based approaches to >reducing the impact of our lifestyle upon the well-being of the less >fortunate members of our species as well as others with whom we share >this blue-green spaceship. At the same time, I am not willing to dismiss >the cautionary wisdom that has been accumulated by the environmental >movement over the past fifty or more years because it may negatively >impact market-based approaches. > >I want to hear all sides of the debate, and I am particularly attuned to >those arguments that are based on something other than self-interest, >as that appeals to the peculiar faith that I practice. It is enough that such >arguments are given, with concern and regret, but when they are >relegated to the morgue, or the slag-heap of "special interests", they >pique my attention even more. > >Steve From nc_stereoman at charter.net Tue May 3 21:14:34 2005 From: nc_stereoman at charter.net (Steve Livingston) Date: Tue, 03 May 2005 21:14:34 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Does This Sound Familiar? (Relevant to the Testimony on Truth and the Proposed Testimony on Care of the Ear In-Reply-To: References: <42779E1F.1548.1C7AF65@localhost> Message-ID: <4277E9BA.29701.2EF050C@localhost> Thanks for your reply, Janet. It seems to me that we might be mutually engaged in a search to find what is accurate, or true, and that we benefit from sharing what we learn in our communal effort to round out our perspective. Therefore I encourage you to share what you have found to be inaccurate about the biographies of Lomborg that I have read, as well as the endorsements you refer to that he has received from other Greenpeace activists. It seems to me that Lomborg has offered some wisdom on the matter of the so-called "Death" of environmentalism, in his references to the great progress that has been realized in making business and industry more cosiderate of the environment. Is this not precisely because the environmental movement has brought stewardship into the global consciousness, and conscience? After the elections last November, there was a lot of talk in the "Liberal Media" about the tremendous losses sustained by the Liberal Element of our society: maps were drawn to demonstrate how tiny was the support of the Blue candidate, and the media declared that the Majority Party had won a "mandate" based on something called "moral values". Now a bit of time has passed, and it is becoming more clear just what that "mandate" was, and what the "values" were that vaulted the current leadership into power. In "The Death of Environmentalism", Shellenberger and Nordhaus argue that environmentalists have failed to energize the public because their approach is fear-based rather than visionary. If their observation is accurate, it bodes ill for the current anti-environmental regime, because their approach is fear-based rather than visionary. How else could they convince the people to act against our own better interests and judgment to support the most environmentally destructive policy ever devised: the policy of war as a diplomatic tool? If their observation is accurate, it bodes well for the future of environmentalism as a spiritual practice, inspiring people to rejoice in their service to the earth and to their fellow beings, to practice mindfulness of their personal habits and consumption, and to never shy away from naming what they see as harmful out of fear that they may be perceived as standing in the way of profit-making. Steve On 3 May 2005 at 18:58, Janet Minshall wrote: > Dear Steve Livingston, Sorry, I think you haven't even read an > accurate biography of Lomborg or the several confirmations of his > activism from other Greenpeace activists. I would expect > environmentalists whose work he questions to retaliate. > > I am glad that you are open to market-based approaches to cleaning up > the environment. Would that others were so open. Best Regards, Janet > Minshall -- Steve Livingston nc_stereoman at charter.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jhminshall at comcast.net Tue May 3 23:01:43 2005 From: jhminshall at comcast.net (Janet Minshall) Date: Tue, 3 May 2005 23:01:43 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Does This Sound Familiar? (Relevant to the Testimony on Truth and the Proposed Testimony on Care of the Ear In-Reply-To: <4277E9BA.29701.2EF050C@localhost> References: <42779E1F.1548.1C7AF65@localhost> <4277E9BA.29701.2EF050C@localhost> Message-ID: Dear Steve Livingston, You are right that we share a mutual search for truth. I am somewhat indisposed at the moment but have, nonetheless found factual info on Lomborg. He is presently serving as Executive Director of the Copenhagen Consensus, a group which has formed a consortium of concerned economists from around the world to sort through and come to agreement on appropriate and achievable responses to a whole range of world problems which need to be addressed. His new book is Global Crises, Global Solutions and is available in bookstores now. From a biography of Lomborg: From February 2002 to July 2004 Lomborg was director of Denmark's national Environmental Assessment Institute and in that capacity did additional research to support the data first presented in his book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, which was published in Europe in 2001, several years before it was available in the US. Following below this message is part of the text of an 11-page article which appeared in Scientific American in 2002, before Lomborg's book was available in the US. The full article with Lomborg's response is on the Greenspirit site: www.greenspirit.com/lomborg. Please go look for yourself. also see: PDF] By rolling out four advocates of environmental pessimism to attack File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML ... Bjorn Lomborg's brave book you have greatly increased my respect for that book. Not only does your reaction implicitly honour the book as a ... www.lomborg.com/files/RidleySciAmerLomborg.pdf Lomborg responds to critics in a detailed message titled "Errors and Corrections" (to the Skeptical Environmentalist) which can be found at: www.lomborg.com/errors.htm. Please read them yourself and see if you still wish to discredit his work. In Peace, Janet Minshall **Greenspirit Publishes Lomborg's Reply - Media Release Feb. 25** **Scientific American Threatens Greenspirit - Media Release March 6** **London Observer Reports on Bjorn Lomborg's Dispute with Scientific American** **Silence from Scientific American on Threat to Sue Greenspirit - Media Release April 7** When Bjorn Lomborg published The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge University Press - 2001) he must not have been prepared for the onslaught of comment, both personal and professional, that has erupted in the popular and scientific press (see www.lomborg.com ). Whereas the popular media have generally reported positively on the 500-plus page analysis of the global environment, the scientific press in North America has been negative to the point of personal insult. It is very clear that extreme environmentalists are deeply threatened by the breath of fresh air Lomborg brings to the debate. Among the most scathing of the attacks on Lomborg was an 11-page editorial in the January 2002 edition of Scientific American. With the rather high-handed title "Science Defends itself Against the Skeptical Environmentalist" the editorial declared the book a "failure" and invited four prominent environmentalists to do their worst to discredit Lomborg and his analysis. Scientific American did not give Lomborg any opportunity to respond to his critics, even though they gave him a copy of the editorial before it went to press. They said they would give Lomborg one page in a future edition to reply to 11 pages of full-on attack. Lomborg's response was to publish the text of the Scientific American article on his own website and to intersperse it with a detailed response to every point raised by his critics. Scientific American then threatened to sue Lomborg over copyright. In response to my complaint Scientific American wrote "This is an infringement of our copyright and interferes with our business of selling the article." Does Scientific American really think that they will lose readership because Lomborg has posted a response to a publication that is already off the newsstands? I believe they acted out of political motivation and are purposefully stifling Lomborg's efforts to defend himself. And I don't blame Lomborg for giving in to such a huge organization when threatened with legal action. (If you go to Lomborg's website www.lomborg.com and look under Critiques you will find he has removed the offending text, thus gutting the effectiveness of his response.) I think we should defy Scientific American's blatant attempt to muzzle Lomborg. Anyone who reads his response to the Scientific American attack will have to agree that it is thoughtful and thorough. Here is a link to the entire response complete with Lomborg's comments. LINK TO LOMBORG'S REPLY TO SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN (.PDF Acrobat File) I call on all scientists, organizations, and citizens to publish this document on their websites. I do not believe Scientific American can prevent this legitimate right of free speech. The entire editorial was an attack on Bjorn Lomborg. Surely he has a perfect right to defend himself on his own website. I am willing to bring this to the test. Please help with this effort. If you do not have a website then send the document to someone who does. You can build a link to Lomborg's original article by referring to www.greenspirit.com or you can retrieve the Acrobat .pdf file from the Link to Lomborg's Reply above and publish the document directly on your site. Please let me know by e-mail patrickmoore at greenspirit.com that you have published Lomborg's rebuttal and I will publish a list of websites and organizations that have joined in this effort to bring some critical thinking and intellectual rigor back into the debate about the environment. I don't necessarily agree with every word of Lomborg's impressive book, but that is not the issue here. The environmental movement has become riddled with extremism, misinformation, misguided priorities and downright deception. It is wonderful that this dogmatic conceit is now being effectively challenged. Let's put some wind in Lomborg's sails! Here is the entire text of Lomborg's response to the attack from Scientific American: Bjørn Lomborg's comments to the 11-page critique in January 2002 Scientific American (SA), (in black) Substantially finished December 31, 2001; latest update February 16, 2002, 16:47:45 [Background: Recently I have received - through informal channels - the final proofs of an 11 page feature in Scientific American, all of it devoted to a trashing of my recent book The Skeptical Environmentalist, Cambridge University Press 2001 (referred as SE in references). By now, it appears that I will be able to present my views in a 1- page article in the May issue of Scientific American. This document is my chance to put my arguments to the readers of Scientific American with much greater detail and documentation. References to various works are, unless otherwise noted, to the same sources as used in SE. The full bibliography can be downloaded at www.lomborg.org.] Scientific American, p61-71, January 2002, (in red). The text comes from the final draft and has been transferred from pdf into Word, meaning that occasionally italics or words may have been dropped. Most of the layout has been retained in headings, subheadings and usage of capital lettering. The first page (p61) is an editorial by editor-in-chief, John Rennie, the other ten pages flow in three columns into each other, with a sentence on each page in very large font for interest. These sentences will be pointed out below, but may come from an editorial decision. On the web, Scientific American describes the collection of essays thus: (SA) Misleading Math about the Earth ESSAYS BY STEPHEN SCHNEIDER, JOHN P. HOLDREN, JOHN BONGAARTS AND THOMAS LOVEJOY The book The Skeptical Environmentalist uses statistics to dismiss warnings about peril for the planet. But the science suggests that it's the author who is out of touch with the facts. Science defends itself against The Skeptical Environmentalist (BL) This statement is potentially the most surprising of all - that the following critique should be science defending itself against my book. In a sense this encapsulates the bias of the following critiques. My book clearly makes a claim to science and to be factually based. I openly state the facts and my sources, and thus anybody is free to point out where these are faulty or incorrect and of course, such errors will then be posted on my web site. Thus, there is no need to defend science from my book - any possible defeat of science was never the issue. The discussion is whether the statements in my book are correct or not. The need to make it sound like a battle of science against my book seems entirely to misplace and bias the focus. Rather, the standpoint that might need to defend itself from my book would be the alarmist environmentalism, and that is perhaps the headline that would make more sense: Alarmist environmentalism defends itself against the Skeptical Environmentalist. (SA) MISLEADING MATH about the EARTH CRITICAL thinking and hard data are the cornerstones of all good science. Because environmental sciences are so keenly important to both our biological and economic survival-causes that are often seen to be in conflict-they deserve full scrutiny. With that in mind, the book The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge University Press), by Bjørn Lomborg's reply to Scientific American January 2002 critique, 16-Feb-02 16:47 2/32 Lomborg, a statistician and political scientist at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, should be a welcome audit. And yet it isn't. As its subtitle-Measuring the Real State of the World- indicates, Lomborg's intention was to reanalyze environmental data so that the public might make policy decisions based on the truest understanding of what science has determined. His conclusion, which he writes surprised even him, was that contrary to the gloomy predictions of degradation he calls "the litany," everything is getting better. Not that all is rosy, but the future for the environment is less dire than is supposed. Instead Lomborg accuses a pessimistic and dishonest cabal of environmental groups, institutions and the media of distorting scientists' actual findings. (A copy of the book's first chapter can be found at www.lomborg.org) The problem with Lomborg's conclusion is that the scientists themselves disavow it. Many spoke to us at SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN about their frustration at what they described as Lomborg's misrepresentation of their fields. His seemingly dispassionate outsider's view, they told us, is often marred by an incomplete use of the data or a misunderstanding of the underlying science. Even where his statistical analyses are valid, his interpretations are frequently off the mark-literally not seeing the state of the forests for the number of the trees, for example. And it is hard not to be struck by Lomborg's presumption that he has seen into the heart of the science more faithfully than have investigators who have devoted their lives to it; it is equally curious that he finds the same contrarian good news lurking in every diverse area of environmental science. (BL) Making it sound like all scientists disavow it is simply untrue. Many scientists, both in private and publicly (e.g. statements on the book) have praised the book. Below, you will see that none of the claims of "misrepresentation", "incomplete use of data" and "misunderstanding of the underlying science" are substantiated. The only specific claim presented here by the editor is that I am "literally not seeing the state of the forests for the number of the trees." This can only refer to the one paragraph on forests by Lovejoy (the only treatment of the matter in the following text) - and here the analysis is quite clear. I try to show that environmental movements will tell us we are at risk of loosing "the last remaining forests on earth" and that our time is "the eleventh hour for the world's forests" (WWF, quoted in SE:110). Yet, the longest data series actually tells us of very little change in the world forested area in the post-war period (SE:111). Moreover, the longest future scenarios from the UN climate panel (IPCC) show that in all likelihood the Earth will have even greater forest cover in 2100 than it has had since 1950 (IPCC 2000b, SE:283). Here, exactly looking coolly at the longest data series gives us much better information than just going with the environmental myths and hype. Thus, in the editor's only concrete claim, he seems to be wide off the mark. Pointing out that it seems questionable that I should know better than the people who've devoted their lives to particular areas, though clearly circumstantial, nevertheless looks like a powerful point. Yet, any person who has devoted his or her life to a single issue will naturally come to consider this area one of the most crucial issues, and any problem inside the area will likely be seen as necessary to solve. And this is exactly my point - we should take the science of these people seriously, but we should not uncritically adopt their evaluation of the problems. There are a multitude of problems in any area of society - there are always things we would like to improve - but we only have a limited amount of resources. Thus, as a society we need to ask, whether the problems are getting bigger or smaller (are we going in the right direction), what can we do (much or marginal) and would this be the best use of our resources (other areas where we could do even more good). Such an appraisal does not come automatically from any single issue area. This is why we need to look, not only at the science of each area, but also to ask: 'so, all in all, how important a problem is your issue in the big scheme of things.' This is what I have attempted to do with The Skeptical Environmentalist. (SA) We asked four leading experts to critique Lomborg's treatments of their areas-global warming, energy, population and biodiversity-so readers could understand why the book provokes so much disagreement. Lomborg's assessment that conditions on earth are generally improving for human welfare may hold some truth. The errors described here, however, show that in its purpose of describing the real state of the world, the book is a failure. John Rennie, EDITOR IN CHIEF (BL) Notice that these four experts have certainly not been chosen randomly - two of the four reviewers are actually directly criticized in my book. Lovejoy predicted back in 1980, that 15-20 percent of all species on earth would have died by the year 2000 (1980:331, SE:252), a prediction which clearly did not hold true and this is pointed out in the book. Holdren back in 1980 also clearly thought that many resources were running out. Along with Ehrlich and Holdren, he bet on this belief with Julian Simon: "Frustrated with the incessant claims that the Earth would run out of oil, food and raw materials, the economist Julian Simon in 1980 challenged the established beliefs with a bet. He offered to bet $10,000 that any given raw material - to be picked by his opponents - would have dropped in price at least one year later. The environmentalists Ehrlich, Harte and Holdren, all of Stanford University, accepted the challenge, stating that "the lure of easy money can be irresistible." The environmentalists staked their bets on chromium, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten, and they picked a time frame of ten years. The bet was to be determined ten years later, assessing whether the real (inflation-adjusted) prices had gone up or down. In September 1990 not only had the total basket of raw materials but also each individual raw material dropped in price. Chromium had dropped 5 percent, tin a whopping 74 percent. The doomsayers had lost. Truth is they could not have won. Ehrlich and Co. would have lost no matter whether they had staked their money on petroleum, foodstuffs, sugar, coffee, cotton, wool, minerals or phosphates. They had all become cheaper." (SE:137). Since 1990 the price of raw materials has declined another third (Economist industrial price index, SE:138). The editor claims that the experts are chosen to show why the book is causing so much "disagreement," but given the choice of four experts who clearly feel the book is fundamentally wrong, it is unclear how the reader should be able to understand that there might be any value to my argument, and thus to the disagreement. The obvious lack of any concern for presenting a balanced review of my work calls into question the real purpose of this Scientific American feature. However, one of its contributors, Stephen Schneider, has on a former occasion made a suggestion that might throw some light on the curious imbalance of the Feature under consideration. Schneider considers the "ethical double bind" that might occur to the scientist who is also concerned to contribute to a better world. As a scientist he focuses on truth. As a concerned citizen he must take an interest in political efficiency. Quite obviously, Schneider finds that this presents a delicate dilemma and he expresses the hope that one might be both honest and effective. However, as Schneider agonizes over this dilemma he does offer the following bit of unambiguous advice "So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have."1 Could John Rennie have taken this as editorial advice? I don't know, but I feel that it would account for the tone and the lack of balance of the Feature considered as a whole. Unfortunately, this tone and lack of balance also seem to represent a disappointing and painful abandonment of the long proud tradition of enlightenment and rationality for which Scientific American has been respected in the past. Finally, John Rennie tells us that, yes - Lomborg's fundamental assertion may hold "some truth," and yet, in the very next statement that the book is "a failure." This could seem like somewhat of a glaring contradiction and at least it relies heavily on the ability of the ensuing reviews to establish fundamental and serious errors in the argument - something they never manage to do. 1 "On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but - which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we'd like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public's imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both." (Quoted in Discover, pp. 45-48, Oct. 1989, see also American Physical Society, APS News August/September 1996, http://cyclotron.aps.org/apsnews/0896/11592.html). (SA) Stephen Schneider GLOBAL WARMING: NEGLECTING THE COMPLEXITIES For three decades, I have been debating alternative solutions for sustainable development with thousands of fellow scientists and policy analysts-exchanges carried out in myriad articles and formal meetings. Despite all that, I readily confess a lingering frustration: uncertainties so infuse the issue of climate change that it is still impossible to rule out either mild or catastrophic outcomes, let alone provide confident probabilities for all the claims and counterclaims made about environmental problems. Even the most credible international assessment body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has refused to attempt subjective probabilistic estimates of future temperatures. This has forced politicians to make their own guesses about the likelihood of various degrees of global warming. Will temperatures in 2100 increase by 1.4 degrees Celsius or by 5.8? The difference means relatively adaptable changes or very damaging ones. Against this background of frustration, I began increasingly to hear that a young Danish statistician in a political science department, Bjørn Lomborg, had applied his skills in statistics to better determine how serious environmental problems are. Of course, I was anxious to see this highly publicized contribution- The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World. A "skeptical environmentalist" is certainly the best kind, I mused, because uncertainties are so endemic in these complex problems that suffer from missing data, incomplete theory and nonlinear interactions. But the "real state of the world"-that is a high bar to set, given the large range of plausible outcomes. And who is Lomborg, I wondered, and why haven't I come across him at any of the meetings where the usual suspects debate costs, benefits, extinction rates, carrying capacity or cloud feedback? I couldn't recall reading any scientific or policy contributions from him either. But there was this massive 515 page tome with a whopping 2,930 endnotes to wade through. On page xx of his preface, Lomborg admits, "I am not myself an expert as regards environmental problems"-truer words are not found in the rest of the book, as I'll soon illustrate. I will report primarily on the thick global warming chapter and its 600plus endnotes. That kind of deadweight of detail alone conjures at least the trappings of comprehensive and careful scholarship. So how does the reality of the text hold up to the pretense? I'm sure you can already guess, but let me give some examples to make clear what I learned by reading. (BL) These paragraphs do not really discuss my book but establish several important rhetorical points that need to be mentioned. First is the John Rennie's incantation of "investigators who have devoted their lives" to the science: Schneider is the venerable scientist whereas I'm a nobody. Second, he quotes my introduction where I state I'm not an expert as regards environmental problems. True, but the quote in full actually places this point in context: "I have let experts review the chapters of this book, but I am not myself an expert as regards environmental problems. My aim has rather been to give a description of the approaches to the problems, as the experts themselves have presented them in relevant books and journals, and to examine the different subject-areas from such a perspective as allows us to evaluate their importance in the overall social prioritization. The key idea is that we ought not to let the environmental organizations, business lobbyists or the media be alone in presenting truths and priorities. Rather, we should strive for a careful democratic check on the environmental debate, by knowing the real state of the world - having knowledge of the most important facts and connections in the essential areas of our world. It is my hope that this book will contribute to such an understanding." (pxx) Of course, saying that truer words are not found in the rest of the book is clearly a rhetoric point, as much of what I say is simply quotes of the best available statistics from the official entities like the UN, OECD, World Bank, EU, US etc. Third, Schneider lets us consider the argument that my many endnotes conjure at least trappings of academic argument. This seems an unreasonable critique, since it really makes it a lot easier for my critics to attempt to show exactly where I might be wrong. The argument also easily backfires, since Schneider does not supply any endnotes or other trappings of academic argument himself. Of course, Scientific American has limited space, but one could easily have imagined that SA would have put out an annotated version of the papers on their website. (That Schneider considers his SA article his best argument is evident from his other, shorter and fiercer article from http://www.gristmagazine.com/ grist/books/schneider121201.asp, where he specifically refers to his SA piece and the Pimm & Harvey Nature article for documentation. Incidentally, the Nature article is also almost devoid of documentation, see download on my website, www.lomborg.org.) (SA) The climate chapter makes four basic arguments: Climate science is very uncertain, but nonetheless the real state of the science is that the sensitivity of the climate to carbon dioxide will turn out to be at the low end of the IPCC uncertainty range-which is for a warming of 1.5 to 4.5 degrees C if carbon dioxide were to double and be held fixed over time. Emissions scenarios, according to the IPCC, fall into six "equally sound" alternative paths. These paths span a doubling in carbon dioxide concentrations in 2100 up to more than tripling and well beyond tripling in the 22nd century. Lomborg, however, dismisses all but the lowest of the scenarios: "Temperatures will increase much less than the maximum estimates from IPCC-it is likely that the temperature will be at or below the B1 estimate [the lowest emissions scenario] (less than 2° C in 2100) and the temperature will certainly not increase even further into the twenty-second century." Cost-benefit calculations show that although the benefits of avoiding climate change could be substantial ($5 trillion is the single figure Lomborg cites), this is not worth the cost to the economy of trying to constrain fossil fuel emissions (a $3trillion to $33trillion range he pulls from the economics literature). Asymmetrically, no range is given for the climate damages. The Kyoto Protocol, which caps industrialized countries' output of greenhouse gases, is too expensive. It would reduce warming in 2100 by only a few tenths of a degree-"putting off the temperature increase just six years." This number, though, is based on a straw-man policy that nobody has seriously proposed: Lomborg extrapolates the Kyoto Protocol, which is applicable only up to 2012, as the world's sole climate policy for another nine decades. (BL) Schneider deserves credit for making clear the main thrust of his criticism in these four points, though he clearly cannot bear just to state them without pejorative statements like "asymmetrically, no rangeŠ" and "straw-man policy", both of which are incorrect and will be dealt with below. (SA) Before providing specifics of why I believe each of assertions is fatally flawed, I should say something about Lomborg's methods. First, most of his nearly 3,000 citations are to secondary literature and media articles. Moreover, even when cited, the peer-reviewed articles come elliptically from those studies that support his rosy view that only the low end of the uncertainty ranges will be plausible. IPCC authors, in contrast, were subjected to three rounds of review by hundreds of outside experts. They didn't have the luxury of reporting primarily from the part of the community that agrees with their individual views. (BL) There is an important distinction between secondary sources and media articles. When discussing the entire state of the world, it would be incredibly inefficient not to use the vast collection of data and theory offered by secondary sources - this is exactly the reason for secondary literature and in general why it is possible to have specialization in science. However, almost all of these secondary sources are exactly the ones used by almost all discussants of the state of the world - the reports of the UN, (FAO, UNDP, UNEP, WHO etc.), IMF, the World Bank, OECD, WRI, Worldwatch Institute, EU, US government agencies etc. In the climate chapter, which Schneider discusses, references to the IPCC reports constitute about one-third of all 646 endnotes. Yet, the IPCC reports are clearly secondary sources. Surely, most people - including myself - would consider these reports the best available summary of our understanding of the climate science, which exactly was my argument for primarily using them as references: "In the following I shall - unless otherwise stated - use the figures and computer models from the official reports of the UN climate panel, the IPCC. The IPCC's reports are the Lomborg's reply to Scientific American January 2002 critique, 16-Feb-02 16:47 6/32 foundation for most public policy on climate change and the basis for most of the arguments put forth by the environmental organizations." (SE:259). When I use media articles this is almost always when analyzing media discussion and illustrating what I believe to be a bias towards bad news or even incorrect information that permeates environmental news reporting. When discussing the IPCC temperature interval for 2100 of 1.4-5.8°C, I point out that: "In the reporting from the major media, such as CNN, CBS, The Times, and Time, it was found that all used the high estimate of 5.8°C warming, and yet none mentioned the low estimate of 1.4°C." Naturally, this statement uses media articles as reference but is the use problematic? Should such a bias not be pointed out? Likewise, I debunk U.S. News & World Report for telling its readers in February 2001 of how global warming would have lots of serious consequences. One of the most outrageous would be the US prediction: "By midcentury, the chic Art Deco hotels that now line Miami's South Beach could stand waterlogged and abandoned," despite IPCC estimates of a water rise of just 16cm (6in) by 2050 (SE:289-91). Is this use of media sources unreasonable? Then, the critique of my use of sources continues with the charge that when I use peer-reviewed articles I do so primarily to support my rosy view of a low range but no further evidence of this is offered. (SA) Second, it is ironic that in a popular book by a statistician one can't find a clear discussion of the distinction among different types of probabilities, such as frequentist and Bayesian (that is, "objective" and "subjective"). He uses the word "plausible" often, but, curiously for a statistician, he never attaches any probability to what is "plausible." The Third Assessment Report of the IPCC, on the other hand, explicitly confronted the need to quantify all confidence terms. Working Group I, for example, gave the term "likely" a 66 to 90 percent chance of occurring. Although the IPCC gives a wide range for most of its projections, Lomborg generally dismisses these ranges, focusing on the least serious outcomes. Not so much as one probability is offered for the chance of a dangerous outcome, yet he makes a firm assertion that climate "will certainly" not go beyond 2 degrees C warming in the 22nd century-a conclusion at variance with the IPCC, other national climate assessments and most recent studies in the field of climate science. (BL) It is correct that IPCC has quantified its 'plausible', but IPCC themselves quite rightly made it clear what the limits were on the accuracy of their different types of probability: "the following words have been used where appropriate to indicate judgmental estimates of confidence: virtually certain (greater than 99% chance that a result is true); very likely (90-99% chance); likely (66-90% chance); medium likelihood (33-66% chance); unlikely (10-33% chance); very unlikely (1-10% chance); exceptionally unlikely (less than 1% chance)," (IPCC 2001d:2, italics added). Unless we are talking about events with very well-established probability distributions (which is the case for almost none of the important global warming issues) it really is just a judgment call whether something has a 89% or 91% chance of occurring - thus, had I made a similar endnote, defining the words of confidence, it might have appeared slightly more objective but not really made any addition to the facts at hand. The second claim is much more serious: that I generally dismiss the IPCC ranges and focus on the least serious outcomes. Neglecting such ranges generally or without reason would, of course, be seriously misleading, which is why I don't do it in the book and which may explain why my critic offers no examples. Take two of the most important characteristics of global warming, sea level increases and temperature impacts on agriculture. For sea level increase I clearly write out the ranges from the main scenarios (SE:264) and for agriculture impact I clearly state the IPCC ranges (SE:288). Next, it is claimed that I do not offer any probability of a dangerous outcome. This is plainly incorrect. In a whole section entitled "Fear of catastrophe" (SE: 315-7) I discuss the two major worries of dangerous outcomes, the sliding of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) and the shut-down of the thermohaline circulation (THC) that drives the Gulf Stream. Here I quote the 2001 IPCC report that a WAIS breakup is considered "very unlikely during the 21st century" (SE:315). Likewise, with respect to the THC, I write out that the 2001 "IPCC conclude that 'the current projections using climate models do not exhibit a complete shut down of the thermohaline circulation by 2100' but point out that it could completely, and possibly irreversibly, shut down 'if the change in radiative forcing is large enough and applied long enough'" (SE:316). In the endnote it is discussed how likely it is that the radiative forcing will be large enough and applied long enough for this shut-down to happen. Thus, for both the major dangerous outcomes I discuss the probability in detail, contrary to Schneider's claim. The final quote of "will certainly" only works because it has been taken out of context: "This more realistic model holds several key points. First, it shows that global warming is not an ever worsening problem. In fact, under any reasonable scenario of technological change and without policy intervention, carbon emissions will not reach the levels of A1FI and they will decline towards the end of the century, as we move towards ever cheaper renewable energy sources. Second, temperatures will increase much less than the maximum estimates from IPCC - it is likely that the temperature will be at or below the B1 estimate (less than 2°C in 2100) and the temperature will certainly not increase even further into the twenty-second century. Third, Š" (SE:286, italics added). The quote "will certainly" comes from a model which is deemed "more realistic," but it is naturally only within this model that I can say that the temperature will be below 2°C and not keep increasing into the 22nd century. To make me say otherwise (that I should make "a firm assertion") is simply called misquoting. (SA) Now let us look in more detail at the four major arguments he makes in this chapter. Climate science. A typical example of Lomborg's method is his paraphrase of a secondary source in reporting a 1989 Hadley Center paper in the journal Nature in which the researchers make modifications to their climate model: "The programmers then improved the cloud parameterizations in two places, and the model reacted by reducing its temperature estimate from 5.2° C to 1.9° C." Had this been first-rate scholarship, Lomborg would have consulted the original article, in which the concluding sentence of the first paragraph presents the authors' caveat: "Note that although the revised cloud scheme is more detailed it is not necessarily more accurate than the less sophisticated scheme." In a similar vein, he cites Richard S. Lindzen's controversial stabilizing feedback, or "iris effect," as evidence that the IPCC climate sensitivity range should be reduced by a factor of almost three. He fails either to understand this mechanism or to tell us that it is based on only a few years of data in a small part of one ocean. Extrapolating this small sample of data to the entire globe is like extrapolating the strong destabilizing feedback over midcontinental landmasses as snow melts during the spring-such an inappropriate projection would likely increase estimates of climate sensitivity by a factor of several. (BL) I am glad to have pointed out the typical way I refer to secondary sources - namely quote them accurately. The quote comes from Science magazine in 1997: "A few years ago, a leading climate model - developed at the British Meteorological Office's Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research, in Bracknell - predicted that an Earth with twice the preindustrial level of carbon dioxide would warm by a devastating 5.2 Degrees Celsius. Then Hadley Center modelers, led by John Mitchell, made two improvements to the model's clouds--how fast precipitation fell out of different cloud types and how sunlight and radiant heat interacted with clouds. The model's response to a carbon dioxide doubling dropped from 5.2 Celsius to a more modest 1.9 Celsius." (Kerr 1997a:1040). However, the claim that I should have gone back to the original article seems suspect on several grounds. First, why would a major Science overview article not be a trustworthy source in general (and why not mention that the source is Science, rather than merely "a secondary source")? Second, it is of course possible that there are errors in secondary sources, though the risk is probably very small when using reputable sources like Science. The necessary question, though, is whether this is an important error? And if so, why has nobody (including my critic) corrected the article when it appeared in Science? Finally, is it really correct that the only relevant article to go back to is an article from 1989 (eight years earlier), where they point out the more detailed cloud scheme is "not necessarily more accurate"? Naturally, much research has been done since 1989 to establish which cloud scheme is the more accurate; in a 1993 article Michell points out (together with C. A. Senior): "The importance of the representation of cloud in a general circulation model is investigated by utilizing four different parameterization schemes for layer cloud in a low-resolution version of the general circulation model at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research at the United Kingdom Meteorological Office. The performance of each version of the model in terms of cloud and radiation is assessed in relation to satellite data from the Earth Radiation Budget Experiment (ERBE). Schemes that include a prognostic cloud water variable show some improvement on those with relative humidity-dependent cloud, but all still Lomborg's reply to Scientific American January 2002 critique, 16-Feb-02 16:47 8/32 show marked differences from the ERBE data. The sensitivity of each of the versions of the model to a doubling of atmospheric C02 is investigated. Midlevel and lower-level clouds decrease when cloud is dependent on relative humidity, and this constitutes a strong positive feedback. When interactive cloud water is included, however, this effect is almost entirely compensated for by a negative feedback from the change of phase of cloud water from ice to water. Additional negative feedbacks are found when interactive radiative properties of cloud are included and these lead to an overall negative cloud feedback. The global warming produced with the four models then ranges from 5.4° with a relative humidity scheme to 1.9°C with interactive cloud water and radiative properties. Improving the treatment of ice cloud based on observations increases the model's sensitivity slightly to 2.1°C. Using an energy balance model, it is estimated that the climate sensitivity using the relative humidity scheme along with the negative feedback from cloud radiative properties would be 2.8°C. Thus, 2.8°- 2.1°C appears to be a better estimate of the range of equilibrium response to a doubling of C02." (Senior & Mitchell 1993, http://ams.allenpress.com/ams online/?request=getabstract& issn=1520-0442&volume=006&issue=03&page=0393, italics added). Here, they basically tell us that the model which produced the 1.9°C is better though not necessarily by a lot ("some improvement") and that the low-end estimates are "better estimates." Thus, the example of secondary source quotation seems curious at best or deliberately misleading at worst. The claim against Lindzen seems unreasonable as pointed out in Lindzen's own letter to Scientific American, available at my web-site. Here Lindzen writes: "One small point of personal interest to me illustrates the rather bizarre nature of these attacks. Schneider claims that Lomborg cites a paper by me and colleagues (Lindzen, Chou and Hou, Does the Earth Have an Adaptive Infrared Iris?, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 82, 2001) on what we refer to as the 'iris effect' in order to reduce the IPCC claimed sensitivities by a factor of 3. What Lomborg does, is devote a quarter of a page to our paper in order to point out that it 'might pose a challenge' to the IPCC range. Schneider goes on to chide Lomborg for failing to present an allegedly fatal flaw in our argument: that it is simply the extrapolation of data from "a few years of data from a small part of one ocean." He also presents an absurdly incomprehensible 'analogy' to positive feedbacks from midcontinental ice melts in spring. What Schneider really illustrates is that he completely misunderstands what we have done, which is to assess the effect of temperature on the behavior of cumulonimbus convection and its impact on large scale upper level cirrus clouds in the tropics. The primary requirement of such a study is that it deal with a period and a region which contain a large enough number of cumulonimbus towers; the results (which are normalized by a measure of cumulus activity) are then scalable to the entire tropics - a far cry from naive extrapolation . The period we dealt with (20 months in the paper, but now extended to 4 years) and the area looked at (30 o S-30 o N, and 130 o E-170 o W) amply satisfied this criterion. As a logical test of this, we showed that the dependence of the ratio of cirrus area to convective activity remained robust even when we restricted ourselves to arbitrary small subsets in time and space of our full data set. We have also ascertained that existing climate GCMs fail to replicate the observations. As our paper amply stresses (and as Lomborg acknowledges), there remain uncertainties in our work, but Schneider's concern over 'extrapolation' is not one of them. Thus, at one fell swoop, Schneider misrepresents both the book he is attacking and the science that he is allegedly representing." (SA) As a final example, he quotes a controversial hypothesis from Danish cloud physicists that solar magnetic events modulate cosmic rays and produce "a clear connection between global low-level cloud cover and incoming cosmic radiation." The Danish researchers use this hypothesis to support an alternative to carbon dioxide for explaining recent climate change. Lomborg fails to discuss- and I haven't seen it treated by the authors of that speculative theory either- what such purported changes to this cloud cover have done to the radiative balance of the earth. Increasing clouds, it has been well known since papers by Syukuro Manabe and Richard T. Wetherald in 1967 and myself in 1972, can warm or cool the atmosphere depending on the height of the cloud tops, the reflectivity of the underlying surface, the season and the latitude. The reason the IPCC discounts this theory is that its advocates have not demonstrated any radiative forcing sufficient to match that of much more parsimonious theories, such as anthropogenic forcing. Schneider calls this theory "an alternative to carbon dioxide for explaining recent climate change." However, neither the Danish cloud physicists nor I say that they are an alternative, but a supplementary explanation: "the sun as another important factor in the explication of increasing global temperatures" (SE:276, italics added). Moreover, I do point out both its still unsolved scientific problems but also its force and an attempt to show the relative importance of the two: "A number of unanswered questions and unsolved scientific problems still remain in these theoretical relationships. But the point is that the sunspot theory has created a possible correlation in that a shorter sunspot cycle duration, such as the one we are experiencing now, means more intense solar activity, less cosmic radiation, fewer low-level clouds, and therefore higher temperatures. This theory also has the tremendous advantage, compared to the greenhouse theory, that it can explain the temperature changes from 1860 to 1950, which the rest of the climate scientists with a shrug of the shoulders have accredited to "natural variation." Notice that the connection between temperature and the sunspot cycle seems to have deteriorated during the last 10-30 years, with temperatures outpacing sunspot activity in Figure 165. Most likely we are instead seeing an increasing signal, probably from greenhouse gases like CO2. Such a find exactly underscores that neither solar variation nor greenhouse gases can alone explain the entire temperature record. Rather, the fact that the emerging greenhouse gas signal only appears now seems to indicate once again that the estimated CO2 warming effect needs to be lowered. One such critical study finds that the solar hypothesis explains about 57 percent of the temperature deviations and that the data suggest a climate sensitivity of 1.7°C, a 33 percent reduction of the IPPC best estimate" (SE:277-8, italics added). In conclusion, I do not accept the charge of having misconstrued climate science. If I am so wrong, one would expect that my critic should have had an easy time showing it, not having to rely on nitpicking, quoting out of context, and misrepresenting. > >Thanks for your reply, Janet. It seems to me >that we might be mutually engaged in a search to >find what is accurate, or true, and that we >benefit from sharing what we learn in our >communal effort to round out our perspective. >Therefore I encourage you to share what you have >found to be inaccurate about the biographies of >Lomborg that I have read, as well as the >endorsements you refer to that he has received >from other Greenpeace activists. > >It seems to me that Lomborg has offered some >wisdom on the matter of the so-called "Death" of >environmentalism, in his references to the great >progress that has been realized in making >business and industry more cosiderate of the >environment. Is this not precisely because the >environmental movement has brought stewardship >into the global consciousness, and conscience? > >After the elections last November, there was a >lot of talk in the "Liberal Media" about the >tremendous losses sustained by the Liberal >Element of our society: maps were drawn to >demonstrate how tiny was the support of the Blue >candidate, and the media declared that the >Majority Party had won a "mandate" based on >something called "moral values". Now a bit of >time has passed, and it is becoming more clear >just what that "mandate" was, and what the >"values" were that vaulted the current >leadership into power. > >In "The Death of Environmentalism", >Shellenberger and Nordhaus argue that >environmentalists have failed to energize the >public because their approach is fear-based >rather than visionary. If their observation is >accurate, it bodes ill for the current >anti-environmental regime, because their >approach is fear-based rather than visionary. >How else could they convince the people to act >against our own better interests and judgment to >support the most environmentally destructive >policy ever devised: the policy of war as a >diplomatic tool? > >If their observation is accurate, it bodes well >for the future of environmentalism as a >spiritual practice, inspiring people to rejoice >in their service to the earth and to their >fellow beings, to practice mindfulness of their >personal habits and consumption, and to never >shy away from naming what they see as harmful >out of fear that they may be perceived as >standing in the way of profit-making. > >Steve > >On 3 May 2005 at 18:58, Janet Minshall wrote: > > > Dear Steve Livingston, Sorry, I think you haven't even read an > > accurate biography of Lomborg or the several confirmations of his > > activism from other Greenpeace activists. I would expect > > environmentalists whose work he questions to retaliate. > > > > I am glad that you are open to market-based approaches to cleaning up > > the environment. Would that others were so open. Best Regards, Janet > > Minshall >-- >Steve Livingston >nc_stereoman at charter.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nc_stereoman at charter.net Wed May 4 09:00:05 2005 From: nc_stereoman at charter.net (Steve Livingston) Date: Wed, 04 May 2005 09:00:05 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Does This Sound Familiar? (Relevant to the Testimony on Truth and the Proposed Testimony on Care of the Ear In-Reply-To: References: <4277E9BA.29701.2EF050C@localhost> Message-ID: <42788F15.9243.3B66AA@localhost> Thanks for the links, Janet. I had already read the material that appeared in Scientific American, as well as the rebuttal at the greenspirit website. As I said in my earlier message, I am interested in hearing all sides of the debate, and the links you offered do provide a good overview. Lomborg does offer some wisdom to us in his book - a point I also previously offered to his credit - but it does not serve the purposes of truth to refer to him as "a former Greenpeace activist" if he in fact was not one, nor to support him with unspoken endorsements of "other Greenpeace activists" if there are no such endorsements. I was also aware of his position as Director of the Copenhagen Consensus, an organization that he founded. Perhaps I have read an accurate biography of Lomborg after all! I think it is a waste of effort to try to defend Lomborg's conclusion's as if they are facts. As the editors of Scientific American pointed out in a recent issue, those scientists who criticized his work called into question not the validity of his conclusions, but of his methodology. Worthy of effort IMHO is the examination of the points he raises, as well as those of actual environmental scientists, in terms of their position in our value system: is truth being served? am I mindful of these connections? how does this speak to my place of unity with Divine purpose? what can I do, or not do, about this? Our intellectual conjectures about the future of the environment will always be dogged by our inability to fully comprehend the Big Picture; our failure to count a single butterfly wing may be enough to throw our entire analysis off track. We cannot know. It is worthwhile for us to be aware of policy, and statistics, and to question both. As Lomborg himself said in a recent interview about the book he authored, no one is expected to accept everything he says at face value, the intention is to spark a lively exchange of ideas and opinions. But as Rachael pointed out in her posting, it is incumbent upon us, if we seek spiritual guidance for our lives, to look inward as well as outward; one of the fews things we can own with certainty is our own witness. Steve From jhminshall at comcast.net Thu May 5 14:24:32 2005 From: jhminshall at comcast.net (Janet Minshall) Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 14:24:32 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Fwd: Re: Speaking truth to mutterings Message-ID: >Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 14:19:12 -0400 >To: "Steve Woodall" >From: Janet Minshall >Subject: Re: Speaking truth to mutterings >Cc: >Bcc: >X-Attachments: > >Thank you Woody. Janet > > >Janet, > >I should have replied earlier and thanked you for your courageous voice >concerning globalization. Now there are two reasons to thank you, the >second being your May 3rd e-mail concerning the environment. > >As someone who earned a PhD in forest hydrology, worked as a researcher for >the U.S. Forest Service for 7 years, worked 11 years in one of the most >stringent hazardous waste regulatory programs in the country (Georgia's) and >who subsequently observed the regulated community from my vantage point as >an environmental consultant (working for a Canadian consulting engineering >firm for 6 years), I have some experience in knowing what is working and >what is not working concerning the environment. Our cities are greener than >ever, and the ivory-billed woodpecker survived on its own, with no help from >humans. George Bush has charged the Army Corps of Engineers with replacing >the "no net loss" policy on wetlands with a policy of expanding wetlands >(meaning that we are now creating large wetlands to compensate for impacts >on small areas of wetlands). > >Truth 1: there are good ideas and bad ideas, not good people and bad >people. Sierra Clubbers and Quakers can have both kinds of ideas; real >estate developers and industrialists can too. Truth 2: The physical earth >and the biological world are resilient. Human resilience (well-documented) >is a reflection of the general resilience of nature. Corollary 1: we can >out-live the bad ideas. Corollary 2: the good ideas should be embraced, no >matter who expresses them. > >You and I may not end up on the same side of every controversy, but it is >refreshing to hear a Quaker who has good credentials regarding social and >personal justice (you) speak out against the anti-intellectual bias that is >creeping into FGC meetings. Thank you. > >Woody (Steve Woodall) >office: 404/315-7395 >mobile: 678/431-0725 >> >>-----Original Message----- >>From: afmdiscussion at yahoogroups.com [mailto:afmdiscussion at yahoogroups.com] >>On Behalf Of Janet Minshall >>Sent: Tuesday, May 03, 2005 12:57 PM >>To: afmdiscussion at yahoogroups.com; sayma at kitenet.net; >>earthcare at yahoogroups.com >>Subject: [afmdiscussion] Does This Sound Familiar? (Relevant to the >>Testimony on Truth and the Proposed Testimony on Care of the Earth) >> >>Dear Friends, I think this article is >>particularly timely for SAYMA Friends right now. >>It makes a point that I've been trying to make in >>messages and articles for several years, but this >>piece makes the point more clearly. We can help >>the environment considerably more than we do by >>understanding and promoting economically sound >>proposals to fix what is broken. We can also be >>more effective as environmentalists by checking >>our facts and being sure that what we say about >>the environment is accurate and well founded (For >>some painfully truthful discussion of commonly >>misunderstood issues read >> The Skeptical Environmentalist, 2004, by Bjorn >>Lomborg, a former Greenpeace activist). >> In Peace, Janet Minshall >> >> >>Environmental economics >>Rescuing environmentalism >>Apr 21st 2005 >>From The Economist print edition >>Market forces could prove the environment's best >>friend-if only greens could learn to love them >> >>"THE environmental movement's foundational >>concepts, its method for framing legislative >>proposals, and its very institutions are >>outmoded. Today environmentalism is just another >>special interest." Those damning words come not >>from any industry lobby or right-wing think-tank. >>They are drawn from "The Death of >>Environmentalism", an influential essay published >>recently by two greens with impeccable >>credentials. They claim that environmental groups >>are politically adrift and dreadfully out of >>touch. >> >>They are right. In America, greens have suffered >>a string of defeats on high-profile issues. They >>are losing the battle to prevent oil drilling in >>Alaska's wild lands, and have failed to spark the >>public's imagination over global warming. Even >>the stridently ungreen George Bush has failed to >>galvanise the environmental movement. The >>solution, argue many elders of the sect, is to >>step back from day-to-day politics and policies >>and "energise" ordinary punters with talk of >>global-warming calamities and a radical "vision >>of the future commensurate with the magnitude of >>the crisis". >> >>Europe's green groups, while politically >>stronger, are also starting to lose their way >>intellectually. Consider, for example, their >>invocation of the woolly "precautionary >>principle" to demonise any complex technology >>(next-generation nuclear plants, say, or >>genetically modified crops) that they do not like >>the look of. A more sensible green analysis of >>nuclear power would weigh its (very high) >>economic costs and (fairly low) safety risks >>against the important benefit of generating >>electricity with no greenhouse-gas emissions. >>Small victories and bigger defeats >> >>The coming into force of the UN's Kyoto protocol >>on climate change might seem a victory for >>Europe's greens, but it actually masks a larger >>failure. The most promising aspect of the >>treaty-its innovative use of market-based >>instruments such as carbon-emissions trading-was >>resisted tooth and nail by Europe's greens. With >>courageous exceptions, American green groups also >>remain deeply suspicious of market forces. >> >>If environmental groups continue to reject >>pragmatic solutions and instead drift toward >>Utopian (or dystopian) visions of the future, >>they will lose the battle of ideas. And that >>would be a pity, for the world would benefit from >>having a thoughtful green movement. It would also >>be ironic, because far-reaching advances are >>already under way in the management of the >>world's natural resources-changes that add up to >>a different kind of green revolution. This could >>yet save the greens (as well as doing the planet >>a world of good). >> >>"Mandate, regulate, litigate." That has been the >>green mantra. And it explains the world's >>top-down, command-and-control approach to >>environmental policymaking. Slowly, this is >>changing. Yesterday's failed hopes, today's heavy >>costs and tomorrow's demanding ambitions have >>been driving public policy quietly towards >>market-based approaches. One example lies in the >>assignment of property rights over "commons", >>such as fisheries, that are abused because they >>belong at once to everyone and no one. Where >>tradable fishing quotas have been issued, the >>result has been a drop in over-fishing. Emissions >>trading is also taking off. America led the way >>with its sulphur-dioxide trading scheme, and >>today the EU is pioneering carbon-dioxide trading >>with the (albeit still controversial) goal of >>slowing down climate change. >> >>These, however, are obvious targets. What is >>really intriguing are efforts to value previously >>ignored "ecological services", both basic ones >>such as water filtration and flood prevention, >>and luxuries such as preserving wildlife. At the >>same time, advances in environmental science are >>making those valuation studies more accurate. >>Market mechanisms can then be employed to achieve >>these goals at the lowest cost. Today, countries >>from Panama to Papua New Guinea are investigating >>ways to price nature in this way (see article). >>Rachel Carson meets Adam Smith >> >>If this new green revolution is to succeed, >>however, three things must happen. The most >>important is that prices must be set correctly. >>The best way to do this is through liquid >>markets, as in the case of emissions trading. >>Here, politics merely sets the goal. How that >>goal is achieved is up to the traders. >> >>A proper price, however, requires proper >>information. So the second goal must be to >>provide it. The tendency to regard the >>environment as a "free good" must be tempered >>with an understanding of what it does for >>humanity and how. Thanks to the recent Millennium >>Ecosystem Assessment and the World Bank's annual >>"Little Green Data Book" (released this week), >>that is happening. More work is needed, but >>thanks to technologies such as satellite >>observation, computing and the internet, green >>accounting is getting cheaper and easier. >> >>Which leads naturally to the third goal, the >>embrace of cost-benefit analysis. At this, greens >>roll their eyes, complaining that it reduces >>nature to dollars and cents. In one sense, they >>are right. Some things in nature are >>irreplaceable-literally priceless. Even so, it is >>essential to consider trade-offs when analysing >>almost all green problems. The marginal cost of >>removing the last 5% of a given pollutant is >>often far higher than removing the first 5% or >>even 50%: for public policy to ignore such facts >>would be inexcusable. >> >>If governments invest seriously in green data >>acquisition and co-ordination, they will no >>longer be flying blind. And by advocating >>data-based, analytically rigorous policies rather >>than pious appeals to "save the planet", the >>green movement could overcome the scepticism of >>the ordinary voter. It might even move from the >>fringes of politics to the middle ground where >>most voters reside. >> >>Whether the big environmental groups join or not, >>the next green revolution is already under way. >>Rachel Carson, the crusading journalist who >>inspired greens in the 1950s and 60s, is joining >>hands with Adam Smith, the hero of >>free-marketeers. The world may yet leapfrog from >>the dark ages of clumsy, costly, >>command-and-control regulations to an enlightened >>age of informed, innovative, incentive-based >>greenery. >> >>Copyright C 2005 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. >> >> >>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed] >> >> >> >>------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> >>In low income neighborhoods, 84% do not own computers. >>At Network for Good, help bridge the Digital Divide! >>http://us.click.yahoo.com/hjtSRD/3MnJAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM >>--------------------------------------------------------------------~-> >> >> >>Yahoo! Groups Links >> >><*> To visit your group on the web, go to: >> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/afmdiscussion/ >> >><*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: >> afmdiscussion-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com >> >><*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: >> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ >> From GlennReinhart at aol.com Fri May 6 04:35:03 2005 From: GlennReinhart at aol.com (GlennReinhart at aol.com) Date: Fri, 6 May 2005 04:35:03 EDT Subject: [saymaListserv] Quakers in the News - week ended 5/6/2005 Message-ID: <90.5d504e16.2fac8637@aol.com> Dear Friends, One may click on any blue underlined text for a link to a summary, the full text story, and to comment on any article. Please see http://quakersinthenews.blogspot.com for a chronological archive of all stories this year. The most widely reported story of the week had 33 occurences in the US, and 1 in the UK (The Guardian) picking up the AP wire story. The article did not mention that AFSC is associated with the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers. The story quotes an AFSC community organizer in the sit-in at the University of Hawaii over the University's plan to establish a U.S. Navy Resarch Center there this year. AFSC/Military Research/Public Schools/Sit-In/Protesters occupy president's office at Hawaii university/CourtTV/ALL/ALL/USA/03-May-05 The most inspiring story of the week (to me) was: Religious Diversity/Young Friends//Event blends cultures, faiths/Santa Cruz Sentinel/Santa Cruz/CA/USA/01-May-05 Other stories which show the face of Quakerism are: Category/Article Title/Source/City/Area/Region/Date War/Counter-Recruiting/Eppler, Elias/Resource center to cite 3 people/The Republican/Amherst/MA/USA/29-Apr-05 War/Protest/Conscientious Objecton /Morrison, Norman/Morrison?s sacrifice remembered/Viet Nam News/Hanoi/Viet Nam/Far East/02-May-05 Silence/Worship Sharing//Old-Time Religion For Mainline Churches/Washington Post/Washington/DC/USA/02-May-05 Religious Freedom/Bowne House/Bowne, John/It's tempting to threaten China over our trade deficit. But .../The American Prospect/Boston/MA/USA/05-May-05 Religious Faith /Integrity/Vogel-Borne, Jonathan/Religion Digest/Worcester Telegram/Worcester/MA/USA/30-Apr-05 Religious Faith /Light/Violence//In Jeanette Buck's Theater Play There Are no Coincidences In Life/Voice of America/Washington/DC/USA/03-May-05 Religious Faith /Politics and Economics/Nada podrá separar a las iglesias de Cuba y de los EE.UU./Camino/Havana/Cuba/West Indies/18-Apr-05 Religious Faith /Public Schools//Principal of Neil Armstrong Elementary retires after 11 years//Mooresville / Decatur Times/Mooresville/IN/USA/05-May-05 Religious Faith ///HOUSE OF WORSHIP : Friends worship with simple, quiet meditation/Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/Little Rock/AR/USA/30-Apr-05 Raised-a-Quaker/Journalism/Murrow, Edward R./Heard the news? Challenge readers know their journalists/Durham Herald Sun/Durham/NC/USA/30-Apr-05 Raised-a-Quaker/Quaker Schools/Politics and Economics/Integrity/Greensboro mayor speaks to students about leadership/Carolinian/Greensboro/NC/USA/03-May-05 Quaker Wedding///Finding Just the Right Match for the Do You's /New York Times/New York/NY/USA/01-May-05 Quaker Schools /Arts /Earlham//Conner Prairie faces June deadline /Indianapolis Star/Indianapolis/IN/USA/05-May-05 Quaker Schools /Religious Diversity//God comes before commencement for some /Guilfordian/Guilford/NC/USA/03-May-05 Quaker Schools ///Faces of the week/BBC News/London/England/UK/29-Apr-05 Quaker Schools ///Independent institution celebrates 4 decades of being 'very .../Durham Herald Sun/Durham/NC/USA/30-Apr-05 Quaker History/Slavery /Abolition//Bound for Canaan The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul .../San Francisco Chronicle/San Francisco/CA/USA/30-Apr-05 Peace Activities /Christian Peacemaker/Peacemaking topic of Knox program /Peoria Journal Star/Peoria/IL/USA/01-May-05 Obituary /Sports///Bittick loses his battle with cancer/Long Beach Press-Telegram/Long Beach/CA/USA/30-Apr-05 Obituary ////Esther P. Marino/News-Herald.com/Cleveland/OH/USA/29-Apr-05 Humanitarian Assistance //In Paper, In Practice /TYC/Phayul/Tibet/Asia/01-May-05 FCNL/War/Iraq//Getting Out of Iraq Will Be Tougher than Getting Out of Vietnam/Columbus Free Press/Columbus/OH/USA/03-May-05 Community ///Sheriff apologizes for not finding body after crash/Los Angeles Daily News/Los Angeles/CA/USA/02-May-05 Civil Rights/Jury System/William Penn/Preserving justice Maine, nation celebrate the role of jurors/Central Maine Morning Sentinel/ME/USA/02-May-05 Arts/Film/Family Life/Friendly Persuasion/FIRST-PERSON: Movies that spotlight family life/Baptist Press News///ALL/ALL/USA/05-May-05 Arts/Music///Council changes meeting hours/Whittier Daily News/Whitt ier/CA/USA/02-May-05 Arts/Theater///OUT OF OUR PAST/Palladium-Item/Indianapolis/IN/USA/02-May-05 AFSC/Immigration/Minuteman/Volunteers to Patrol Border Near San Diego/Los Angeles Times/Los Angeles/CA/USA/05-May-05 AFSC/Immigration/Drivers License/Bill worries immigration advocates /NorthJersey.com/Hackensack/NJ/USA/05-May-05 AFSC/International Conflict/Christian Peacemaker Teams/Visionary Engineer Sadeq Faris Outlines How Arab States Can Defy .../Washington Report on Middle East Affairs/Washington/DC/USA/05-May-05 AFSC/International Conflict//Israeli-Palestinian peace will be illusory without popular support/Middle East North Africa Financial Network/Aman/Jordan/M.E./29-Apr-05 AFSC/Military Research/Public Schools/Sit-In/UH sit-in continues for now /Honolulu Advertiser/Honolulu/HI/USA/05-May-05 AFSC/Nuclear non-proliferation/Non-Proliferation and the Nuclear Shadow /Kansas City infoZine/Kansas City/MO/USA/05-May-05 AFSC/Politics and Economics/CAFTA//Another View: Can CAFTA before it destroys sovereignty and small .../The Union Leader/Concord/NH/USA/02-May-05 AFSC/Politics and Economics/The president's budget is immoral/Topeka Capital Journal/Topeka/KS/USA/29-Apr-05 AFSC////Swift Says Fond Goodbye To Homeland/Gazette Newspapers/Long Beach/CA/USA/05-May-05 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cecilia at wutka.com Tue May 3 08:24:40 2005 From: cecilia at wutka.com (Ceal) Date: Tue, 3 May 2005 08:24:40 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Registration for SAYMA Message-ID: <00d101c54fdb$164d8b60$2000a8c0@thinkertoo> Please announce at your Monthly Meeting or Worship Group that the deadline for SAYMA registration is May 10. After this date there will be a $30 late fee. I know people often do not read all the information, especially when they have been doing the same thing for years. But this year, IF YOU WANT A DORM ROOM you must send your registration by May 20. Meals can be bought individually at the cafeteria. Some information was omitted from the packet mailed out this year. This is the same information as before but has been posted at http://www.sayma.org/YM2005/add_info.pdf A registration from is also on the site. I can be reached at cwutka at earthlink.net or 770-808-0016 I enourage people with children to register early so that they can receive the proper medical forms for the SAYF and JYM programs. These can be difficult to fill out from memory if you wait to register on-site. Ceal Wutka Atlanta MM From wrldpeas at mindspring.com Wed May 4 09:05:26 2005 From: wrldpeas at mindspring.com (Roy H Taylor III) Date: Wed, 4 May 2005 09:05:26 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Proposed Testimony on Care of the Earth References: <42779E1F.1548.1C7AF65@localhost> Message-ID: <009401c550a9$f2020180$6401a8c0@roy> Dear Friends, I will side step the issues around Mr. Lomborg for the moment because I feel that they distact from the article in The Economist that inspired Janet's letter. They are pushing a market based approach (what else could The Economist promote) and we should all welcome it. We need all sorts of methods brought toward working on the solution.. I also want to praise Mr.s Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus for their essay. They have gotten many discussions started and we are all in their debt for this. I believe that they start with some disturbing observations that we all need to heed and then even they sucumb to their own special interest before they finish. The decade that started our current movement from Racheal Carson's "Silent Spring" To the passage of the Clean Water and Clean Air Acts of the early seventies was based on the motivators of lack and fear of what you could see now and what was to come. It proved so successful that it has remained the model of approach ever since to much less dramatic results to today when many, even within the fold, are questioning its effectiveness. The model that provided the energy of the early movement has been found to be unsustainable. The result of all the gloom and doom predictions of the past four decades has resulted in turning people off. There are currently environmentelists calling for even more imagination to be used to picture how bad it will really become. Talk about waste of energy. What "The Death" essay alludes to is a lack of Vision within and for the movement. We as Quakers are well suited to bringing this new Vision forward. This new Vision needs to be based on abundance. There is no lack of energy available to us. More solar energy hits this earth in a single day than we use in an entire year. We already acknowledge that there is that of Spirit in everyone. The power of that spirit is limitless. The creative abilities that come with the connection to that Spirit are endless. While most of the universe may be ruled by thermodynamic law of entropy we here on earth posess Life which has the power of collective energy. God bless the grass. Our testiments of peace, equality and simplicity are a part of that Vision. We have gotten way too focused on the problems of environment as if they existed in a world by themselves. The causes and affects are interwoven as everything is. If we are all connected through Spirit then we are all equals. I can't make war on you because you are a part of me. I can't take more than my share because it belongs to all of us. I can't dump my waste on you because you are my brother. I am enlisting the help of everyone that I come in contact with to help write that Vision that will enspire us to choose Life. Those decisions happen in the smallest form to the largest. They comprise a lifestyle. >From picking up a piece of some else's trash and turning the water off while you brush your teeth to what you eat and what you wear to what you drive and what kind of building you choose to live and work in. I call this Choosing Green. Green is the color of the original solar cell transforming solar energy through photosynthesis into chlorophyl the sustainer of Life as we know it. Seeking this Vision will be core discussion of the Ecological Concerns Network Committee meeting at SAYMA in June. If we can find an appropriate time I am hoping that discussion can continue at FGC Gathering in July. Peace & Love, Roy From opihi at mindspring.com Wed May 4 22:24:17 2005 From: opihi at mindspring.com (Joshua Stuart Rose) Date: Wed, 04 May 2005 22:24:17 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Re: Does This Sound Familiar? (Londborg/Death of Environmentalism) In-Reply-To: References: <42779E1F.1548.1C7AF65@localhost> Message-ID: <6.2.1.2.0.20050504213526.020ec220@pop.mindspring.com> Hey all, Two issues seem to have been conflated in the recent back-and-forth on environmentalism: the essay "The Death of Environmentalism" by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, and the book "The Skeptical Environmentalist" by Bjorn Lomborg. These are two very different issues. The Shellenberger/Nordhaus essay is intelligent, thought-provoking writing by two people who have been environmentalists for many years, and so know a fair amount about the topics they address. It would be a mistake to attempt to dismiss this essay with a few CNN-style sound bites such as "Environmentalism is just another special interest" or "Environmentalists are to blame for losing the battle over Arctic drilling". And note - I'm not sure this was clear to everyone - that the essay posted to this listserv was NOT "The Death of Environmentalism", but an editorial from The Economist which just briefly quotes from that much longer work. Grist, the on-line environmental magazine with which most of us are familiar, re-ran the original essay and several in-depth pieces in response; see http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/01/13/doe-reprint/ Lomborg is a very different animal. He is a statistician and political scientist who wrote a book attempting to deal with issues of meteorology, ecology, and several other fields in which he is far from an expert. I'm sure he's a very good statistician, but as an ecologist, he is an incompetent. Any honest and ethical scientist confines his or her comments to those areas where they understand the science involved; Lomborg did not. The criticisms of Lomborg's book did not come just from "environmentalists whose work he questions", as alleged in one preceding e-mail; his critics include many of the scientists whose work he distorts and misrepresents in attempting to make his case. To use as an example the area closest to my specialty, Lomborg addressed forests. One e-mail posted here quoted him using statistics on worldwide forest cover as justification that loss of forests was not a threat. Anyone who actually studies forests knows that this is an incorrect, if not dishonest, analysis. Forests as intact, healthy ecosystems are still being lost rapidly. Healthy forest ecosystems are being replaced by tree plantations and early successional growth that lack most of the species diversity and ecosystem services of the ecosystems they have replaced. In his book, Lomborg disputes the use of a forest loss index on the basis that it does not count timber plantations as forest; speaking as an ecologist who lives in a region where much of the original forest has been converted to plantations, and who has investigated both in detail, I can state authoritatively that Lomborg is wrong, a tree plantation is not any kind of healthy forest. Protection of virgin and old-growth forest, and of forest processes such as fire, flood, and decomposition, should still be a top priority. Ironically, Lomborg, at least wtih regards to forests, makes the same error of which he accuses environmentalists, abusing and misunderstanding the science supposedly supporting his case. Joshua S. Rose, Ph.D. jsr6 at duke.edu http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/ Duke Natural History Society http://www.biology.duke.edu/dnhs/ Program Director Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association http://www.ellerbecreek.org/ Environmental Chair Old North Durham Neighborhood Association http://www.oldnorthdurham.org/ Duke University Department of Biology (Zoology, R.I.P.) From opihi at mindspring.com Thu May 5 15:40:02 2005 From: opihi at mindspring.com (Joshua Stuart Rose) Date: Thu, 05 May 2005 15:40:02 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Re: Fwd: Re: Speaking truth to mutterings In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6.2.1.2.0.20050505151459.0216e580@pop.mindspring.com> At 02:24 PM 5/5/2005, Janet Minshall wrote: > > the ivory-billed woodpecker survived on its own, with no help from humans. I hate to continually nit-pick, but had to respond to this. The Ivory-billed Woodpecker survives in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge, which was created in 1986. In 1973, the US Army Corps of Engineers had plans to completely deforest this land, channelize the river, drain the wetlands, dig a network of canals throughout the area, in order to convert all of the swamp forest into agricultural land, mostly soybeans and rice for big agribusiness. The Corps had already destroyed, by that point, 80% of the bottomland forest along the lower Mississippi, including 75% of the original Cache River bottomlands. It was the hunters, primarily duck hunters, who saved it; the Cache bottomlands are also the world's largest wintering area for migratory Mallard Ducks. A groundswell of hunters, led by the governor of Arkansas, successfully fought the Corps and stopped their activities, eventually leading to the creation of the refuge and the protection of the Woodpecker's habitat. That sounds kinda like "help from humans" to me, even if that help was directed at habitat protection in general and not specifically at the Woodpecker... The point being? There are several. These facts surfaced on a bird-watching e-mail list, where hunters are often denigrated as bird-killers; so this actually reinforces one of Steve's points, that good ideas can come from anyone. But perhaps more so, this underscores that we can no longer remove humans from any environmental equation. As my wife used to remind me, the adjective "natural" can no longer be used as an antonym for "human". To some extent, we're all natural. And to some extent, all nature reflects humanity. May God forgive us for the species we have lost, and continue blessing us with those that remain, and with new species yet to evolve. Josh Joshua S. Rose, Ph.D. jsr6 at duke.edu http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/ Duke Natural History Society http://www.biology.duke.edu/dnhs/ Program Director Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association http://www.ellerbecreek.org/ Environmental Chair Old North Durham Neighborhood Association http://www.oldnorthdurham.org/ Duke University Department of Biology (Zoology, R.I.P.) From nc_stereoman at charter.net Sat May 7 10:38:20 2005 From: nc_stereoman at charter.net (Steve Livingston) Date: Sat, 07 May 2005 10:38:20 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Re: Does This Sound Familiar? (Londborg/Death of Environmentalism) In-Reply-To: <6.2.1.2.0.20050504213526.020ec220@pop.mindspring.com> References: Message-ID: <427C9A9C.15437.6C2CA0@localhost> On 4 May 2005 at 22:24, Joshua Stuart Rose wrote: > Hey all, > > Two issues seem to have been conflated in the recent back-and-forth on > environmentalism: the essay "The Death of Environmentalism" by Michael > Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, and the book "The Skeptical > Environmentalist" by Bjorn Lomborg. These are two very different > issues. > > The Shellenberger/Nordhaus essay is intelligent, thought-provoking > writing by two people who have been environmentalists for many years, > and so know a fair amount about the topics they address. It would be a > mistake to attempt to dismiss this essay with a few CNN-style sound > bites such as "Environmentalism is just another special interest" or > "Environmentalists are to blame for losing the battle over Arctic > drilling". > > And note - I'm not sure this was clear to everyone - that the essay > posted to this listserv was NOT "The Death of Environmentalism", but > an editorial from The Economist which just briefly quotes from that > much longer work. Grist, the on-line environmental magazine with which > most of us are familiar, re-ran the original essay and several > in-depth pieces in response; see > http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/01/13/doe-reprint/ > > Lomborg is a very different animal. He is a statistician and political > scientist who wrote a book attempting to deal with issues of > meteorology, ecology, and several other fields in which he is far from > an expert. I'm sure he's a very good statistician, but as an > ecologist, he is an incompetent. Any honest and ethical scientist > confines his or her comments to those areas where they understand the > science involved; Lomborg did not. The criticisms of Lomborg's book > did not come just from "environmentalists whose work he questions", as > alleged in one preceding e-mail; his critics include many of the > scientists whose work he distorts and misrepresents in attempting to > make his case. > > To use as an example the area closest to my specialty, Lomborg > addressed forests. One e-mail posted here quoted him using statistics > on worldwide forest cover as justification that loss of forests was > not a threat. Anyone who actually studies forests knows that this is > an incorrect, if not dishonest, analysis. Forests as intact, healthy > ecosystems are still being lost rapidly. Healthy forest ecosystems are > being replaced by tree plantations and early successional growth that > lack most of the species diversity and ecosystem services of the > ecosystems they have replaced. In his book, Lomborg disputes the use > of a forest loss index on the basis that it does not count timber > plantations as forest; speaking as an ecologist who lives in a region > where much of the original forest has been converted to plantations, > and who has investigated both in detail, I can state authoritatively > that Lomborg is wrong, a tree plantation is not any kind of healthy > forest. Protection of virgin and old-growth forest, and of forest > processes such as fire, flood, and decomposition, should still be a > top priority. > > Ironically, Lomborg, at least wtih regards to forests, makes the same > error of which he accuses environmentalists, abusing and > misunderstanding the science supposedly supporting his case. > > > Joshua S. Rose, Ph.D. > jsr6 at duke.edu > http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/ > > Duke Natural History Society > http://www.biology.duke.edu/dnhs/ > > Program Director > Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association > http://www.ellerbecreek.org/ > > Environmental Chair > Old North Durham Neighborhood Association > http://www.oldnorthdurham.org/ > > Duke University > Department of Biology (Zoology, R.I.P.) > > _______________________________________________ > Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting and Association mailing list > posting address: sayma at kitenet.net > subscribe/unsubscribe: > http://kitenet.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sayma > From nc_stereoman at charter.net Sat May 7 10:38:20 2005 From: nc_stereoman at charter.net (Steve Livingston) Date: Sat, 07 May 2005 10:38:20 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Re: Does This Sound Familiar? (Londborg/Death of Environmentalism) In-Reply-To: <6.2.1.2.0.20050504213526.020ec220@pop.mindspring.com> References: Message-ID: <427C9A9C.14717.6C2ABC@localhost> Hello Josh, Thanks to Josh for putting in his two cents in the recent discussion on the SAYMA listserv. It appears to me that he is one of the envorinmentalists whose eulogy has been prematurely read. I agree with our friend Steve Woodall's observation that when it comes to ameliorating human impact on the environment it is an unfortunate mistake to assume one path to the exclusion of others. Josh also makes this point in his comment about distinguishing between "human" and "natural", and Roy Taylor made the point as well in his "welcome" of market-based solutions. What moved me to enter into this dialogue was the sense that the opening statement implied a false premise that was designed to discredit the view of certain facets of the argument: specifically that "environmentalists admit that they were wrong". This premise was supported by incorrectly identifying Professor Lomborg as "a former greenpeace activist" who was presenting "painful truths" and by quoting the Schellenberger/Nordhaus essay's politically-charged characterization of environmentalism as "just another special interest". Likewise the article in question presents the reader with certain assumptions that are at least disingenuous and probably divisive as well, taking credit away from "environmentalists" for what they have accomplished, and placing blame, at least implicitly, where it does not belong. For example, claiming that "greens roll their eyes" at the prospect of cost-benefit analyses, when such analysis has been a common practice among environmental advocacy groups in negotiations with government and industry for decades. The implication is clear: environmentalism is stubbornly impractical. As I have previously mentioned, whereas the article states that "greens" lost the battle over drilling in the ANWR, the truth is that despite the fact that the Republican majority in the Senate increased by four, the vote on ANWR drilling only changed by two - in other words, the influence of environmentalists prevailed over Party loyalty in two cases. Hardly a defeat to be laid at the feet of the environmentalists! And whereas the article states that "greens . . . have failed to spark the public's imagination over global warming", the fact is that global temperature changed has become the highest-profile environmental issue today, with thousands of front-page articles and televised news reports worldwide. A recent poll reveals that almost tow-thirds of Americans are more than marginally aware of the issue, and more than 90% have formed opinions about it that they are willing to express. Another example is the claim that "advocating data-based, analytically rigorous policies rather than pious appeals to 'save the planet', the green movement could overcome the scepticism of the ordinary voter." Isn't that implying that environmentalists have historically eschewed data, and that ordinary voters put the current majority party into power based on "analytically rigorous policies" rather than "pious appeals"? Since when have ordinary citizens shown the least interest in analytically rigorous policies? We Quakers often find ourselves among the thin and dreary ranks of data-readers and rigorous analysts, perhaps because so many of us have an intellectualist background: lots of formal education, college professors and librarians in the family, a lifelong attraction to non-fiction . . . or perhaps simply the Quaker appetite for the truth at the bottom of the echo chamber. Whatever the reason, it seems to me that Friend Roy's advice is sound. While the statistics have their place, it is our spiritual vision that offers the most to the future of our fellow beings, our creativity, our sense of universal dignity, our discernment and celebration of our part in the cosmic Whole. Steve On 4 May 2005 at 22:24, Joshua Stuart Rose wrote: > Hey all, > > Two issues seem to have been conflated in the recent back-and-forth on > environmentalism: the essay "The Death of Environmentalism" by Michael > Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, and the book "The Skeptical > Environmentalist" by Bjorn Lomborg. These are two very different > issues. From jhminshall at comcast.net Sat May 7 16:33:01 2005 From: jhminshall at comcast.net (Janet Minshall) Date: Sat, 7 May 2005 16:33:01 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Re: Does This Sound Familiar? (Lomborg/Death of Environmentalism) In-Reply-To: <427C9A9C.15437.6C2CA0@localhost> References: <427C9A9C.15437.6C2CA0@localhost> Message-ID: Dear Steve Livingston of SAYMA, Joshua Rose of Earthcare, and Friends, I am most gratified at the responses and discussions brought about by messages I have forwarded. I am struck by some interesting thoughts (interesting, I hope, to others too): Joshua Rose is apparently well-qualified in environmental science and, presumably, teaches at Duke University in North Carolina. Bjorn Lomborg is apparently well-qualified in political science and statistics and teaches at Aarhus University in Denmark. Their departments, presumably full of respected scholars in their fields, have seen fit to promote each of them on the merits of their work. Yet the two of them disagree completely about what is true from their separate perspectives. Friends have an old traditional belief that there is "that of God in each of us" and "that each of us has a measure of the truth (or Light)". Is it possible that this old traditional Quaker belief is relevant to the differences of opinion we are faced with here? Are there, perhaps, "true believers" who resist any and all questions about the beliefs they hold? And do they tend to discredit those who disagree? And are there also "honest skeptics" who see reason to doubt and question what is commonly accepted as truth? And do they tend to discredit those who disagree? I have encountered this same standoff in many other discussions. From the perspective of a political economist, I find that almost every issue which highlights significant differences in belief and leads to differing conclusions and behavior finally comes down to this issue of perspective. Do you, as a Friend and as a member of the group of Friends among whom this discussion is taking place, find that you tend to be "a true believer" and react angrily to the suggestion that your beliefs might be based on some flawed information? Or, on the other hand, do you tend to be an "honest skeptic" and "get your hackle up" at the suggestion that you should believe something simply because this or that group of experts says its true? As in innumerable court cases, we can all produce whatever experts are necessary to prove the point we are trying to make. George Fox often railed against "the professors", the experts of his day who had pretentions that they "knew" what was true and that their word should be believed above anyone else's. I, on the other hand, am saying, as Steve Livingston suggested in his message, that we Friends are bound together in a common search for truth. As has happened so often in the past, the heretic of today may, eventually, become the courageous prophet of tomorrow -- or not. We don't yet have the perspective of elapsed time and changing events to make a sound judgment. Instead of producing lists of endorsements on either side, we should all make a real effort to be open to other possibilities and get along with those among us who hold differing beliefs and make statements contrary to our own truth. Maybe that is what old George meant when he used the words of his time "Christ has come to teach his children himself" and to encourage Friends to be open to continuing revelation from "the Christ (or the Light) within". Janet Minshall >On 4 May 2005 at 22:24, Joshua Stuart Rose wrote: > >> Hey all, >> >> Two issues seem to have been conflated in the recent back-and-forth on >> environmentalism: the essay "The Death of Environmentalism" by Michael >> Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, and the book "The Skeptical >> Environmentalist" by Bjorn Lomborg. These are two very different >> issues. >> >> The Shellenberger/Nordhaus essay is intelligent, thought-provoking >> writing by two people who have been environmentalists for many years, >> and so know a fair amount about the topics they address. It would be a >> mistake to attempt to dismiss this essay with a few CNN-style sound > > bites such as "Environmentalism is just another special interest" or >> "Environmentalists are to blame for losing the battle over Arctic >> drilling". >> >> And note - I'm not sure this was clear to everyone - that the essay >> posted to this listserv was NOT "The Death of Environmentalism", but >> an editorial from The Economist which just briefly quotes from that >> much longer work. Grist, the on-line environmental magazine with which >> most of us are familiar, re-ran the original essay and several >> in-depth pieces in response; see >> http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/01/13/doe-reprint/ >> >> Lomborg is a very different animal. He is a statistician and political >> scientist who wrote a book attempting to deal with issues of >> meteorology, ecology, and several other fields in which he is far from >> an expert. I'm sure he's a very good statistician, but as an >> ecologist, he is an incompetent. Any honest and ethical scientist >> confines his or her comments to those areas where they understand the >> science involved; Lomborg did not. The criticisms of Lomborg's book >> did not come just from "environmentalists whose work he questions", as >> alleged in one preceding e-mail; his critics include many of the >> scientists whose work he distorts and misrepresents in attempting to >> make his case. >> >> To use as an example the area closest to my specialty, Lomborg >> addressed forests. One e-mail posted here quoted him using statistics >> on worldwide forest cover as justification that loss of forests was >> not a threat. Anyone who actually studies forests knows that this is >> an incorrect, if not dishonest, analysis. Forests as intact, healthy >> ecosystems are still being lost rapidly. Healthy forest ecosystems are >> being replaced by tree plantations and early successional growth that >> lack most of the species diversity and ecosystem services of the >> ecosystems they have replaced. In his book, Lomborg disputes the use >> of a forest loss index on the basis that it does not count timber >> plantations as forest; speaking as an ecologist who lives in a region >> where much of the original forest has been converted to plantations, >> and who has investigated both in detail, I can state authoritatively >> that Lomborg is wrong, a tree plantation is not any kind of healthy >> forest. Protection of virgin and old-growth forest, and of forest >> processes such as fire, flood, and decomposition, should still be a >> top priority. >> >> Ironically, Lomborg, at least wtih regards to forests, makes the same >> error of which he accuses environmentalists, abusing and >> misunderstanding the science supposedly supporting his case. >> >> >> Joshua S. Rose, Ph.D. >> jsr6 at duke.edu >> http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/ >> >> Duke Natural History Society >> http://www.biology.duke.edu/dnhs/ >> >> Program Director >> Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association >> http://www.ellerbecreek.org/ >> >> Environmental Chair >> Old North Durham Neighborhood Association >> http://www.oldnorthdurham.org/ >> >> Duke University >> Department of Biology (Zoology, R.I.P.) >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 From opihi at mindspring.com Sun May 8 00:21:10 2005 From: opihi at mindspring.com (Joshua Stuart Rose) Date: Sun, 08 May 2005 00:21:10 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Re: Re: Re: (Lomborg/Death of Environmentalism) Message-ID: <6.2.1.2.0.20050508001804.0211c670@pop.mindspring.com> At 04:33 PM 5/7/2005, Janet Minshall wrote: > >Joshua Rose is apparently well-qualified in environmental >science and, presumably, teaches at Duke University in >North Carolina. Bjorn Lomborg is apparently well- >qualified in political science and statistics and teaches >at Aarhus University in Denmark. Their departments, >presumably full of respected scholars in their fields, >have seen fit to promote each of them on the merits of >their work. It would be unethical for me to let the impression stand that my qualifications within my field are comparable to Dr. Lomborg's within his. I completed my Ph.D. only four months ago, and at Duke was merely a teaching assistant, not a professor. I have spent the last few months working for a local watershed association, doing extensive volunteer work for assorted causes, and functioning as a house-husband while my wife develops her career. That being said, I will emphasize the phrase above "within my field". I have attempted to carefully confine my comments to the realms of ecology and biodiversity, which I have spent my career studying. Dr. Lomborg, a statistician and political scientist, uses his book to issue pronouncements about climatology, forestry, water quality, and many other fields far beyond his experience or expertise. Most of those who have devoted their careers to these fields find Lomborg's dabbling to be shallow at best, at worst an insult to their fields. >Friends have an old traditional belief that there is "that >of God in each of us" and "that each of us has a measure >of the truth (or Light)". Is it possible that this old >traditional Quaker belief is relevant to the differences >of opinion we are faced with here? It is possible. I cannot see where the Light is or is not in anyone else. I can only judge how the data, the objective facts, reflect our beliefs. >Are there, perhaps, "true believers" who resist any and >all questions about the beliefs they hold? And do they >tend to discredit those who disagree? Such belief is contrary to the most core principles of the scientific community. Any dissenters must only provide the data to support its allegations. This leads to the ongoing problems in communication between the data-driven scientists and religious communities, for which data is an impossibility. The criticism of Lomborg is not that his views are unacceptable, but that his use of facts is biased. > And are there also "honest skeptics" who see reason to >doubt and question what is commonly accepted as truth? >And do they tend to discredit those who disagree? There are such skeptics. However, they tend to spend their attention on ideas generally accepted within their fields of study. Some examples are the late Stephen J. Gould, who overturned the widespread assumption that all characters of an organism were well adapted to its environment; and Dan Simberloff, who showed that random distribution of species among islands often explained species distributions as well or better than competition among species. Lomborg is being debunked by so many people in so many fields that I doubt the hard-core skeptics will ever find him enough of a challenge to be worth their energy. >Do you, as a Friend and as a member of the group of >Friends among whom this discussion is taking place, find >that you tend to be "a true believer" and react angrily to >the suggestion that your beliefs might be based on some >flawed information? Or, on the other hand, do you tend to >be an "honest skeptic" and "get your hackle up" at the >suggestion that you should believe something simply >because this or that group of experts says its true? I do not see myself in either of these two categories. The issue with Lomborg is not one of belief, nor of anger. He makes statements that may very well be true, but his attempts to prove them are far less convincing than others' proofs to the contrary. As for honest skeptics, I am glad that such people exist in the world, but have no desire to be one of them. As a scientist, I have some understanding for the ordeal required to merely understand a field of science, much less to become accomplished or recognized in that field as a researcher. No one person can claim expertise in all fields, and very few can even claim such status in more than one. To be an "honest skeptic" as defined above would be to resign myself to disbelief in statistics, economics, climatology, computer science, medicine, and all other fields outside of my own. I trust other fields of the scientific community to discredit unsupported beliefs from within, as I have seen happen within my own. > As in innumerable court cases, we can all produce >whatever experts are necessary to prove the point we are >trying to make. Science is not a court of law, where expert testimony and authority is the only source of information. Lomborg's conclusions are drawn from a medley of second-hand summaries rehashing work done by others. Some of the very people he cites in support of his statements have stated that he has distorted their words or misinterpreted their results. His critics have mountains of experimental data on their side, experiments which can be repeated by anyone who disputes their results. >George Fox often railed against "the professors", the >experts of his day who had pretentions that they "knew" >what was true and that their word should be believed above >anyone else's. Again, the issue here is not belief. Science professors of this day must do much more than merely profess knowledge, they must back it up with data. Those who fail to do so do not advance very far. >I, on the other hand, am saying, as Steve Livingston >suggested in his message, that we Friends are bound >together in a common search for truth. This search is not necessarily on the other hand. The scientific community, for the most part, is also bound together by a search for truth. While I use different methods to seek truth as a Friend than I do as a scientist, I feel that both paths wind toward the same ultimate goal. And I rather doubt that either path can reach that goal alone; if the goal can ever truly be attained, I think it will require some common ground between science and faith. Consensus, if you will. Cheers, Josh Joshua S. Rose, Ph.D. jsr6 at duke.edu http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/ Duke Natural History Society http://www.biology.duke.edu/dnhs/ Program Director Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association http://www.ellerbecreek.org/ Environmental Chair Old North Durham Neighborhood Association http://www.oldnorthdurham.org/ Duke University Department of Biology (Zoology, R.I.P.) Joshua S. Rose, Ph.D. jsr6 at duke.edu http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/ Duke Natural History Society http://www.biology.duke.edu/dnhs/ Program Director Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association http://www.ellerbecreek.org/ Environmental Chair Old North Durham Neighborhood Association http://www.oldnorthdurham.org/ Duke University Department of Biology (Zoology, R.I.P.) From errol at kitenet.net Sun May 8 12:58:04 2005 From: errol at kitenet.net (Errol Hess) Date: Sun, 08 May 2005 12:58:04 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Display Space at Yearly Meeting Message-ID: <1115571484.7456.13.camel@localhost.localdomain> Friends, I will be coordinating display space at yearly meeting this year. So far, I have requests from Pendle Hill, FGC and William Penn House. If you know of a Quaker organization which wishes to display at SAYMA, please have them get in touch with me. Advance requests are not essential, but there is limited space which will be filled on a first requested basis. This year, there will be no displays in Canon Lounge, where business meeting takes place. All displays will be in the basement. A half table will be available for each display. If a group needs more space, available space will be opened up at noon Friday. Displays set up without coordinating with me may be removed. Errol Hess yearly meeting planning committee coordinator From jhminshall at comcast.net Sun May 8 13:55:08 2005 From: jhminshall at comcast.net (Janet Minshall) Date: Sun, 8 May 2005 13:55:08 -0400 Subject: [afmdiscussion] Re: [saymaListserv] Re: Does This Sound Familiar? (Lomborg/Death of Environmentalism) In-Reply-To: <427DF9BB.403@earthlinik.net> References: <427C9A9C.15437.6C2CA0@localhost> <427DF9BB.403@earthlinik.net> Message-ID: Dear Ellen, Thank you for your response. I'm afraid, however that you are significantly outnumbered in terms of the other responses I've received, many of which were not posted. Quakers don't vote to come to agreement, but I, and many other Friends, think it appropriate to crosspost and let people judiciously use their "delete" button if they do not wish to read messages about a particular topic or by a particular individual. As you must have seen, this has become a much more interesting and wider discussion as a result of my sending to different groups. In Peace, Janet Minshall (This is, by the way, the last message I will send on this topic). J >Janet, I am with the person who posted the other day: If I wanted to >read the SAYMA list, I would subscribe. To me, your reposting of >notes to the AFMdiscussion list makes the assumption that even >though I decide not to read a certain list, you are going to decide >for me that I should see your notes. The word "hubris" comes to mind. > >I would encourage you not to crosspost. > >Ellen > >Janet Minshall wrote: > >>Dear Steve Livingston of SAYMA, Joshua Rose of Earthcare, and Friends, >> >>I am most gratified at the responses and discussions brought about by >>messages I have forwarded. I am struck by some interesting thoughts >>(interesting, I hope, to others too): Joshua Rose is apparently >>well-qualified in environmental science and, presumably, teaches at >>Duke University in North Carolina. Bjorn Lomborg is apparently >>well-qualified in political science and statistics and teaches at >>Aarhus University in Denmark. Their departments, presumably full of >>respected scholars in their fields, have seen fit to promote each of >>them on the merits of their work. Yet the two of them disagree >>completely about what is true from their separate perspectives. >> >>Friends have an old traditional belief that there is "that of God in >>each of us" and "that each of us has a measure of the truth (or >>Light)". Is it possible that this old traditional Quaker belief is >>relevant to the differences of opinion we are faced with here? Are >>there, perhaps, "true believers" who resist any and all questions >>about the beliefs they hold? And do they tend to discredit those who >>disagree? And are there also "honest skeptics" who see reason to >>doubt and question what is commonly accepted as truth? And do they >>tend to discredit those who disagree? >> >>I have encountered this same standoff in many other discussions. >>From the perspective of a political economist, I find that almost >>every issue which highlights significant differences in belief and >>leads to differing conclusions and behavior finally comes down to >>this issue of perspective. Do you, as a Friend and as a member of >>the group of Friends among whom this discussion is taking place, find >>that you tend to be "a true believer" and react angrily to the >>suggestion that your beliefs might be based on some flawed >>information? Or, on the other hand, do you tend to be an "honest >>skeptic" and "get your hackle up" at the suggestion that you should >>believe something simply because this or that group of experts says >>its true? As in innumerable court cases, we can all produce whatever >>experts are necessary to prove the point we are trying to make. >>George Fox often railed against "the professors", the experts of his >>day who had pretentions that they "knew" what was true and that their >>word should be believed above anyone else's. >> >>I, on the other hand, am saying, as Steve Livingston suggested in his >>message, that we Friends are bound together in a common search for >>truth. As has happened so often in the past, the heretic of today >>may, eventually, become the courageous prophet of tomorrow -- or not. >>We don't yet have the perspective of elapsed time and changing events >>to make a sound judgment. Instead of producing lists of endorsements >>on either side, we should all make a real effort to be open to other >>possibilities and get along with those among us who hold differing >>beliefs and make statements contrary to our own truth. Maybe that is >>what old George meant when he used the words of his time "Christ has >>come to teach his children himself" and to encourage Friends to be >>open to continuing revelation from "the Christ (or the Light) within". >> Janet Minshall >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >>>On 4 May 2005 at 22:24, Joshua Stuart Rose wrote: >>> >>>> Hey all, >>>> >>>> Two issues seem to have been conflated in the recent back-and-forth on >>>> environmentalism: the essay "The Death of Environmentalism" by Michael >>>> Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, and the book "The Skeptical >>>> Environmentalist" by Bjorn Lomborg. These are two very different >>>> issues. >>>> >>>> The Shellenberger/Nordhaus essay is intelligent, thought-provoking >>>> writing by two people who have been environmentalists for many years, >>>> and so know a fair amount about the topics they address. It would be a >>>> mistake to attempt to dismiss this essay with a few CNN-style sound >>> > bites such as "Environmentalism is just another special interest" or >>>> "Environmentalists are to blame for losing the battle over Arctic >>>> drilling". >>>> >>>> And note - I'm not sure this was clear to everyone - that the essay >>>> posted to this listserv was NOT "The Death of Environmentalism", but >>>> an editorial from The Economist which just briefly quotes from that >>>> much longer work. Grist, the on-line environmental magazine with which >>>> most of us are familiar, re-ran the original essay and several >>>> in-depth pieces in response; see >>>> >>>>http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/01/13/doe-reprint/ >>>> >>>> Lomborg is a very different animal. He is a statistician and political >>>> scientist who wrote a book attempting to deal with issues of >>>> meteorology, ecology, and several other fields in which he is far from >>>> an expert. I'm sure he's a very good statistician, but as an >>>> ecologist, he is an incompetent. Any honest and ethical scientist >>>> confines his or her comments to those areas where they understand the >>>> science involved; Lomborg did not. The criticisms of Lomborg's book >>>> did not come just from "environmentalists whose work he questions", as >>>> alleged in one preceding e-mail; his critics include many of the >>>> scientists whose work he distorts and misrepresents in attempting to >>>> make his case. >>>> >>>> To use as an example the area closest to my specialty, Lomborg >>>> addressed forests. One e-mail posted here quoted him using statistics >>>> on worldwide forest cover as justification that loss of forests was >>>> not a threat. Anyone who actually studies forests knows that this is >>>> an incorrect, if not dishonest, analysis. Forests as intact, healthy >>>> ecosystems are still being lost rapidly. Healthy forest ecosystems are >>>> being replaced by tree plantations and early successional growth that >>>> lack most of the species diversity and ecosystem services of the >>>> ecosystems they have replaced. In his book, Lomborg disputes the use >>>> of a forest loss index on the basis that it does not count timber >>>> plantations as forest; speaking as an ecologist who lives in a region >>>> where much of the original forest has been converted to plantations, >>>> and who has investigated both in detail, I can state authoritatively >>>> that Lomborg is wrong, a tree plantation is not any kind of healthy >>>> forest. Protection of virgin and old-growth forest, and of forest >>>> processes such as fire, flood, and decomposition, should still be a >>>> top priority. >>>> >>>> Ironically, Lomborg, at least wtih regards to forests, makes the same >>>> error of which he accuses environmentalists, abusing and >>>> misunderstanding the science supposedly supporting his case. >>>> >>>> >>>> Joshua S. Rose, Ph.D. >>>> jsr6 at duke.edu >>>> http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/ >>>> >>>> Duke Natural History Society >>>> http://www.biology.duke.edu/dnhs/ >> >> >>>> Program Director >>>> Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association >>>> http://www.ellerbecreek.org/ >>>> >>>> Environmental Chair >>>> Old North Durham Neighborhood Association >>>> http://www.oldnorthdurham.org/ >>>> >>>> Duke University >>>> Department of Biology (Zoology, R.I.P.) >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> 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 >> >> >>Yahoo! Groups Links >> >>To visit your group on the web, go to: >>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/afmdiscussion/ >> >>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: >>afmdiscussion-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com >> >>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the >>Yahoo! Terms of Service. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nc_stereoman at charter.net Sun May 8 20:24:15 2005 From: nc_stereoman at charter.net (Steve Livingston) Date: Sun, 08 May 2005 20:24:15 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Re: Does This Sound Familiar? (Lomborg/Death of Environmentalism) In-Reply-To: References: <427DF9BB.403@earthlinik.net> Message-ID: <427E756F.30281.274901C@localhost> Dear Janet and other Friends, First, I owe a word of appreciation to Janet for opening this can of worms, or Pandora's Box, or Quakerly discussion of a matter upon which we have yet to reach unity if you all prefer the euphemism! Janet, I agree with the comment the other day that it is "courageous" of you to present to our larger Quaker community the views such as are found in your posted article from The Economist. It's a time-honored Quaker tradition to thresh a difficult matter, and can be enlightening to all concerned as long as we maintain a sense that we are, if I may paraphrase George Fox, speaking cheerfully and addressing our remarks to that of the Divine in every one. I appreciate that all of us have deep passions about our environmental ethic, and I am glad to recognize that passion in our Friend Janet, and to acknowledge that even though we have differing perspectives, our concern arises from a deeper place, where Truth is what we are led to rather than what we already know. All of what has been shared over these last few days has been immensely informative and inspiring to my sense of place in the web of life and of my purpose in the web of humanity. Today I attended the memorial service for our dear Elder and mentor Ursula Scott, who lived a life of challenging her own notions and those of other people. I didn't always see eye to eye with her either, but I was glad for her willingness to poke and prod at my certainties. Steve From jhminshall at comcast.net Mon May 9 12:23:41 2005 From: jhminshall at comcast.net (Janet Minshall) Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 12:23:41 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Re: Violation -- Oh Really? In-Reply-To: <427E9312.2090806@earthlinik.net> References: <427C9A9C.15437.6C2CA0@localhost> <427DF9BB.403@earthlinik.net> <427E9312.2090806@earthlinik.net> Message-ID: Dear Ellen, Nice try. It seems appropriate here to mention that I felt severely violated by you some years ago when you stood in Meeting for Business in Atlanta and knowingly told a big fib in order to get your way in a discussion of budget and the Meetinghouse Resident's wages and Social Security payments. That fib cost the Resident much of the Social Security benefits she was due from her work in the Meetinghouse.( I believe that the problem has since been rectified due, at least in part, to my efforts.) The difference between these two "violations" is that I am using the list appropriately for discussion of Quaker spiritual and social concerns and you are not. You have used the list to "dis" me as a person you don't like. You can't get away with that when there are hundreds listening. You sent your "eldering" message to Atlanta Meeting, SAYMA and Earthcare. I responded to the same groups. We, as Friends, are required by our Testimonies to live by "one standard of Truth", and by that measure it should not matter who is listening. Others from Atlanta Meeting may remember these events twelve years ago when there was an effort by a small group of the Meeting's "leadership" to shun and then get rid of me and Free. I was then Administrative Assistant to the Meeting and to SAYMA, and Free had just completed five years as meeting Treasurer. We knew where the bodies were buried -- thus the effort to discredit us and get rid of us. Free and I have been dealing with the whisper campaign in Atlanta Meeting, SAYMA and wider Quaker organizations ever since. It seems that what goes around comes around Ellen. Can we, finally, make peace on these matters? (I offer the same peace to the other Friends who have been party to the violation of me and Free. I believe that Free will support that offer). Janet Minshall >Friends, In yet another breach of netiquette, Janet has taken my >private email and posted it to multiple email lists, including those >of which I am not a part. > >This is a severe violation. > >I hereby resign from administering this list. Please let me know who >will take on that role and I will change over all settings on the >list. > >Ellen Cooney From debra at debrasjohnson.net Mon May 9 13:08:04 2005 From: debra at debrasjohnson.net (debra at debrasjohnson.net) Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 13:08:04 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Moderator Message-ID: <11690-220055191784839@M2W061.mail2web.com> Who is the moderator of this list? Thanks, Debra -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . From debra at debrasjohnson.net Mon May 9 13:26:18 2005 From: debra at debrasjohnson.net (debra at debrasjohnson.net) Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 13:26:18 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Re: Violation -- Oh Really? Message-ID: <229170-22005519172618702@M2W090.mail2web.com> Dear Friends, We have now moved into personal attacks that have absolutely no place on any listserv, much less a Friends listserv. What is the policy for dealing with such posts and for the continued participation of people who post inappropriately? We no longer have an AFM moderator to speak to this as a result of this exchange. I would appreciate a response from the SAYMA moderator on disrespectful and inappropriate posts. Salaam, Debra Johnson -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . From lingle at bellsouth.net Mon May 9 16:30:39 2005 From: lingle at bellsouth.net (Larry Ingle) Date: Mon, 09 May 2005 16:30:39 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Re: Violation -- Oh Really? In-Reply-To: <229170-22005519172618702@M2W090.mail2web.com> Message-ID: I am sorry, but having followed this discussion rather closely, I have not seen personal attacks. As far as I know this list has not moderator, and it should not, in my humble opinion. We Friends discover truth and the Truth by allowing others the right to speak what they understand it to be. And I say this as one who vigorously disagree with much that Janet Minshall has written regarding the economy. For what it's worth. Larry Ingle Chattanooga Meeting > From: "debra at debrasjohnson.net" > Reply-To: debra at debrasjohnson.net > Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 13:26:18 -0400 > To: jhminshall at comcast.net, ekcooney at earthlink.net, > afmdiscussion at yahoogroups.com, sayma at kitenet.net > Subject: RE: [saymaListserv] Re: Violation -- Oh Really? > > Dear Friends, > > We have now moved into personal attacks that have absolutely no place on > any listserv, much less a Friends listserv. What is the policy for dealing > with such posts and for the continued participation of people who post > inappropriately? We no longer have an AFM moderator to speak to this as a > result of this exchange. I would appreciate a response from the SAYMA > moderator on disrespectful and inappropriate posts. > > Salaam, > Debra Johnson > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > mail2web - Check your email from the web at > http://mail2web.com/ . > > > _______________________________________________ > Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting and Association mailing list > posting address: sayma at kitenet.net > subscribe/unsubscribe: http://kitenet.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sayma From cecilia at wutka.com Mon May 9 10:56:45 2005 From: cecilia at wutka.com (Ceal) Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 10:56:45 -0400 Subject: [afmdiscussion] Re: [saymaListserv] Re: Does This Sound Familiar? (Lomborg/Death of Environmentalism) References: <427C9A9C.15437.6C2CA0@localhost> <427DF9BB.403@earthlinik.net> Message-ID: <007301c554a7$54b58120$2000a8c0@thinkertoo> The problem for many of us comes when so many emails flood our mailboxes when we are out of town. So I do not appreciate crossposts myself. When my mailbox fills, mail I need to recieve is refused and returned. Some of this is critical to our business. But when I go to FGC and do not clear out email for a week, this becomes a real problem. SAYMA is talking about having a listserve for announcements only and I hope that Atlanta would consider that also. This way the cross-discussions could be eliminated for those of us who are not home at times to push that delete button. Ceal Wutka Atlanta ----- Original Message ----- From: "Janet Minshall" To: "Ellen Cooney" Cc: ; ; Sent: Sunday, May 08, 2005 1:55 PM Subject: Re: [afmdiscussion] Re: [saymaListserv] Re: Does This Sound Familiar? (Lomborg/Death of Environmentalism) > Dear Ellen, Thank you for your response. I'm afraid, however that > you are significantly outnumbered in terms of the other responses > I've received, many of which were not posted. Quakers don't vote to > come to agreement, but I, and many other Friends, think it > appropriate to crosspost and let people judiciously use their > "delete" button if they do not wish to read messages about a > particular topic or by a particular individual. As you must have > seen, this has become a much more interesting and wider discussion as > a result of my sending to different groups. In Peace, Janet Minshall > > (This is, by the way, the last message I will send on this topic). J > > > > > >>Janet, I am with the person who posted the other day: If I wanted to >>read the SAYMA list, I would subscribe. To me, your reposting of >>notes to the AFMdiscussion list makes the assumption that even >>though I decide not to read a certain list, you are going to decide >>for me that I should see your notes. The word "hubris" comes to mind. >> >>I would encourage you not to crosspost. >> >>Ellen >> >>Janet Minshall wrote: >> >>>Dear Steve Livingston of SAYMA, Joshua Rose of Earthcare, and Friends, >>> >>>I am most gratified at the responses and discussions brought about by >>>messages I have forwarded. I am struck by some interesting thoughts >>>(interesting, I hope, to others too): Joshua Rose is apparently >>>well-qualified in environmental science and, presumably, teaches at >>>Duke University in North Carolina. Bjorn Lomborg is apparently >>>well-qualified in political science and statistics and teaches at >>>Aarhus University in Denmark. Their departments, presumably full of >>>respected scholars in their fields, have seen fit to promote each of >>>them on the merits of their work. Yet the two of them disagree >>>completely about what is true from their separate perspectives. >>> >>>Friends have an old traditional belief that there is "that of God in >>>each of us" and "that each of us has a measure of the truth (or >>>Light)". Is it possible that this old traditional Quaker belief is >>>relevant to the differences of opinion we are faced with here? Are >>>there, perhaps, "true believers" who resist any and all questions >>>about the beliefs they hold? And do they tend to discredit those who >>>disagree? And are there also "honest skeptics" who see reason to >>>doubt and question what is commonly accepted as truth? And do they >>>tend to discredit those who disagree? >>> >>>I have encountered this same standoff in many other discussions. >>>From the perspective of a political economist, I find that almost >>>every issue which highlights significant differences in belief and >>>leads to differing conclusions and behavior finally comes down to >>>this issue of perspective. Do you, as a Friend and as a member of >>>the group of Friends among whom this discussion is taking place, find >>>that you tend to be "a true believer" and react angrily to the >>>suggestion that your beliefs might be based on some flawed >>>information? Or, on the other hand, do you tend to be an "honest >>>skeptic" and "get your hackle up" at the suggestion that you should >>>believe something simply because this or that group of experts says >>>its true? As in innumerable court cases, we can all produce whatever >>>experts are necessary to prove the point we are trying to make. >>>George Fox often railed against "the professors", the experts of his >>>day who had pretentions that they "knew" what was true and that their >>>word should be believed above anyone else's. >>> >>>I, on the other hand, am saying, as Steve Livingston suggested in his >>>message, that we Friends are bound together in a common search for >>>truth. As has happened so often in the past, the heretic of today >>>may, eventually, become the courageous prophet of tomorrow -- or not. >>>We don't yet have the perspective of elapsed time and changing events >>>to make a sound judgment. Instead of producing lists of endorsements >>>on either side, we should all make a real effort to be open to other >>>possibilities and get along with those among us who hold differing >>>beliefs and make statements contrary to our own truth. Maybe that is >>>what old George meant when he used the words of his time "Christ has >>>come to teach his children himself" and to encourage Friends to be >>>open to continuing revelation from "the Christ (or the Light) within". >>> Janet Minshall >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>>On 4 May 2005 at 22:24, Joshua Stuart Rose wrote: >>>> >>>>> Hey all, >>>>> >>>>> Two issues seem to have been conflated in the recent back-and-forth >>>>> on >>>>> environmentalism: the essay "The Death of Environmentalism" by >>>>> Michael >>>>> Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, and the book "The Skeptical >>>>> Environmentalist" by Bjorn Lomborg. These are two very different >>>>> issues. >>>>> >>>>> The Shellenberger/Nordhaus essay is intelligent, thought-provoking >>>>> writing by two people who have been environmentalists for many >>>>> years, >>>>> and so know a fair amount about the topics they address. It would be >>>>> a >>>>> mistake to attempt to dismiss this essay with a few CNN-style sound >>>> > bites such as "Environmentalism is just another special interest" >>>> or >>>>> "Environmentalists are to blame for losing the battle over Arctic >>>>> drilling". >>>>> >>>>> And note - I'm not sure this was clear to everyone - that the essay >>>>> posted to this listserv was NOT "The Death of Environmentalism", but >>>>> an editorial from The Economist which just briefly quotes from that >>>>> much longer work. Grist, the on-line environmental magazine with >>>>> which >>>>> most of us are familiar, re-ran the original essay and several >>>>> in-depth pieces in response; see >>>>> >>>>>http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/01/13/doe-reprint/ >>>>> >>>>> Lomborg is a very different animal. He is a statistician and >>>>> political >>>>> scientist who wrote a book attempting to deal with issues of >>>>> meteorology, ecology, and several other fields in which he is far >>>>> from >>>>> an expert. I'm sure he's a very good statistician, but as an >>>>> ecologist, he is an incompetent. Any honest and ethical scientist >>>>> confines his or her comments to those areas where they understand >>>>> the >>>>> science involved; Lomborg did not. The criticisms of Lomborg's book >>>>> did not come just from "environmentalists whose work he questions", >>>>> as >>>>> alleged in one preceding e-mail; his critics include many of the >>>>> scientists whose work he distorts and misrepresents in attempting to >>>>> make his case. >>>>> >>>>> To use as an example the area closest to my specialty, Lomborg >>>>> addressed forests. One e-mail posted here quoted him using >>>>> statistics >>>>> on worldwide forest cover as justification that loss of forests was >>>>> not a threat. Anyone who actually studies forests knows that this is >>>>> an incorrect, if not dishonest, analysis. Forests as intact, healthy >>>>> ecosystems are still being lost rapidly. Healthy forest ecosystems >>>>> are >>>>> being replaced by tree plantations and early successional growth >>>>> that >>>>> lack most of the species diversity and ecosystem services of the >>>>> ecosystems they have replaced. In his book, Lomborg disputes the use >>>>> of a forest loss index on the basis that it does not count timber >>>>> plantations as forest; speaking as an ecologist who lives in a >>>>> region >>>>> where much of the original forest has been converted to plantations, >>>>> and who has investigated both in detail, I can state authoritatively >>>>> that Lomborg is wrong, a tree plantation is not any kind of healthy >>>>> forest. Protection of virgin and old-growth forest, and of forest >>>>> processes such as fire, flood, and decomposition, should still be a >>>>> top priority. >>>>> >>>>> Ironically, Lomborg, at least wtih regards to forests, makes the >>>>> same >>>>> error of which he accuses environmentalists, abusing and >>>>> misunderstanding the science supposedly supporting his case. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Joshua S. Rose, Ph.D. >>>>> jsr6 at duke.edu >>>>> http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/ >>>>> >>>>> Duke Natural History Society >>>>> http://www.biology.duke.edu/dnhs/ >>> >> >>>>> Program Director >>>>> Ellerbe Creek Watershed Association >>>>> http://www.ellerbecreek.org/ >>>>> >>>>> Environmental Chair >>>>> Old North Durham Neighborhood Association >>>>> http://www.oldnorthdurham.org/ >>>>> >>>>> Duke University >>>>> Department of Biology (Zoology, R.I.P.) >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> 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 >>> >>> >>>Yahoo! Groups Links >>> >>>To visit your group on the web, go to: >>>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/afmdiscussion/ >>> >>>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: >>>afmdiscussion-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com >>> >>>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the >>>Yahoo! Terms of Service. > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> > What would our lives be like without music, dance, and theater? > Donate or volunteer in the arts today at Network for Good! > http://us.click.yahoo.com/WwRTUD/SOnJAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM > --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/afmdiscussion/ > > <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: > afmdiscussion-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com > > <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: > http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > > > > From ekcooney at earthlinik.net Sun May 8 18:30:42 2005 From: ekcooney at earthlinik.net (Ellen Cooney) Date: Sun, 08 May 2005 16:30:42 -0600 Subject: [saymaListserv] Violation In-Reply-To: References: <427C9A9C.15437.6C2CA0@localhost> <427DF9BB.403@earthlinik.net> Message-ID: <427E9312.2090806@earthlinik.net> Friends, In yet another breach of netiquette, Janet has taken my private email and posted it to multiple email lists, including those of which I am not a part. This is a severe violation. I hereby resign from administering this list. Please let me know who will take on that role and I will change over all settings on the list. Ellen Cooney From HefnGafr at aol.com Sun May 8 10:51:22 2005 From: HefnGafr at aol.com (HefnGafr at aol.com) Date: Sun, 8 May 2005 10:51:22 EDT Subject: [saymaListserv] Re: [earthcare] Re: Re: Re: (Lomborg/Death of Environmentalism) Message-ID: <1fd.12dea46.2faf816a@aol.com> In a message dated 5/8/05 12:22:45 AM, opihi at mindspring.com writes: > >I, on the other hand, am saying, as Steve Livingston > >suggested in his message, that we Friends are bound > >together in a common search for truth. > > This search is not necessarily on the other hand. The scientific community, > for the most part, is also bound together by a search for truth. While I > use different methods to seek truth as a Friend than I do as a scientist, I > feel that both paths wind toward the same ultimate goal. And I rather doubt > that either path can reach that goal alone; if the goal can ever truly be > attained, I think it will require some common ground between science and > faith. Consensus, if you will. > > AMEN. Scientific and spiritual searchings have GOT to lead to the same ultimate truths; any conflict between them has to be apparent only. They proceed by different means, but truth is the goal of both. Modern physics is the best place to see this. When I was 18, the fundamentalism I'd been brought up with smashed into the evolutionary principle I suddenly perceived to be true. Because Genesis and Darwin couldn't both be literally true, I saw no way to avoid making a choice between them, and 45 years later I still don't. When I see science and spirituality being approached as adversarial, by anyone, in any circumstances, that's the litmus test for me; it tells me I'm part of the wrong conversation. There is no "on the other hand" about it. This isn't to say that spiritual feelings of the sort I experienced as a South ern Baptist aren't real in their own way. But they all too easily bypass they world, they don't engage with issues like school integration and gay marriage in a way that's consistent with the principles that supposedly underpin them (love, kindness, compassion). They don't translate into thought and behavior in the world. Where reason and faith travel together on intimate, mutually respectful terms, in their different ways, is the only place I want to be. To arrive at an understanding of how they ultimately become the same thing is, in my view, the real quest. Judy Moffett -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mykel1 at alltel.net Sun May 8 20:36:17 2005 From: mykel1 at alltel.net (M. C. Mykel) Date: Sun, 08 May 2005 20:36:17 -0400 Subject: [afmdiscussion] Re: [saymaListserv] Re: In-Reply-To: References: <427C9A9C.15437.6C2CA0@localhost> <427DF9BB.403@earthlinik.net> Message-ID: <427EB081.6070501@alltel.net> God put a delete button on my computer for the same reason she put an off switch on my TV. In appreciation I use them both liberally and enthusiasticly. I do, however, much appreciate the intelligent and thoughtful contributions of several Friends. Unfortunately many Quakers are apprehensive or even frightened by any sort of disagreement or controversy, especially within the community. I think that it is this aversion to conflict that generates the atmosphere of anti-intellecutualism that intimidates many of us (myself included) and has driven many members and attenders away. I admire those who study, examine and analyze this complex and difficult world and share what they have learned with us. And as for the others -- well, the magic button in on the next to top row of my keyboard, third one from the right. Mike Mykel From moriah at preferred.com Thu May 12 08:19:56 2005 From: moriah at preferred.com (Mary Calhoun) Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 08:19:56 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Moderator References: <11690-220055191784839@M2W061.mail2web.com> Message-ID: <01ed01c556ec$ed36f680$6464a2c6@abc> Dear Friends, SAYMA's listserve software in some places uses the word "moderator" for my role, and in other places "list administrator." Here are some further details, by way of clarification and/or FYI. a.. I prefer the term "list administrator" because "moderator" may suggest that I review all messages for suitability for posting. I don't. b.. In this sense, sayma at kitenet.net is an unmoderated list. c.. As list administrator I review intercepted spam, provide f/Friends with subscription instructions, and release the legitimate messages occasionally posted by non-subscribers. (sayma at kitenet.net is a subscribers-only list.) d.. The list-serve software, I think, allows the list administrator to temporarily block a subscriber's posts. I have never done this. e.. From time to time postings to SAYMA's listserv have caused distress to, or have been felt to be un-Friendly by, some readers of the list. Concerns have been raised and solutions proposed, but no policy has been settled on. f.. In 2003 (??) I requested of my supervisor, the SAYMA clerk, that the Administrative Assistant be relieved of the ad hoc task of discerning -- alone -- what should be done in such situations. From the perspective of a part-time worker, it seemed beyond my job description to read all posts closely enough to make judgements about appropriateness. The "housekeeping" task of reviewing snagged spam messages already runs to about 100 messages/week. Discernment seemed to me the role of an designated group. g.. I think the clerk agreed to my request, but I don't believe an alternative procedure has been put in place. Possibly the issue became part of the charge to the Ad Hoc e-Communications Committee. h.. In the interim, I would hope that traditional Friends' practices will be used by appropriate f/Friends to resolve listserve "suitability" concerns. ^o^ \_/ Mary Calhoun, List Administrator sayma at kitenet.net Administrative Assistant, SAYMA AdminAsst at sayma.org 276/ 628-5852 POB 2191, Abingdon VA 24212-2191 *k ----- Original Message ----- From: debra at debrasjohnson.net To: sayma at kitenet.net Sent: Monday, May 09, 2005 1:08 PM Subject: [saymaListserv] Moderator Who is the moderator of this list? Thanks, Debra -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . _______________________________________________ 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 CIsland at aol.com Thu May 12 09:53:25 2005 From: CIsland at aol.com (CIsland at aol.com) Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 09:53:25 EDT Subject: [saymaListserv] Moderator Message-ID: <1da.3c01d584.2fb4b9d5@aol.com> In a message dated 5/12/2005 8:34:36 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, moriah at preferred.com writes: I think the clerk agreed to my request, but I don't believe an alternative procedure has been put in place. Possibly the issue became part of the charge to the Ad Hoc e-Communications Committee. This is to confirm that, yes, this issue is a major part of SAYMA's Ad Hoc Committee on Electronic Communications - from the clerk of the committee. We are working on it and have made some progress toward formulating proposals for procedures to deal with it. Given the busy lives of the ad hoc committee's members and the distances between us, the work, as you would expect, is slow going. Hopefully, we will arrive at a proposal to bring to Yearly Meeting in June (can't be sure about that yet). Bill Reynolds -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sgernandt at earthlink.net Thu May 12 10:15:40 2005 From: sgernandt at earthlink.net (Suzanne Gernandt) Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 10:15:40 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] removal from list Message-ID: <410-220055412141540656@earthlink.net> Please remove me from this SAYMA list - I no longer wish to receive these e-mails Thank you. Suzanne Gernandt Textures - For The Finely Crafted Home 828-452-0058 sgernandt at earthlink.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jhminshall at comcast.net Thu May 12 11:21:54 2005 From: jhminshall at comcast.net (Janet Minshall) Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 11:21:54 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Moderator In-Reply-To: <1da.3c01d584.2fb4b9d5@aol.com> References: <1da.3c01d584.2fb4b9d5@aol.com> Message-ID: Hi Bill Reynold, Thanks for the info on SAYMA's ad hoc committee on Electronic Communications. In the past few days Atlanta Meeting has been dealing with getting clear on what already exists as you and Mary Calhoun have done on this list. Given that Quakers hold to "one standard of truth" regardless of the medium involved, I have pasted in (below your message) the discussion from members of the Atlanta Meeting list below. I am also sending you separately copies of everything I have sent out about what occurred in my sayma listserve posting last week and some background (It is very brief and will not be a burden for either you or your committee to read. Best Regards, Janet Minshall >In a message dated 5/12/2005 8:34:36 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, >moriah at preferred.com writes: > >I think the clerk agreed to my request, but I don't believe an >alternative procedure has been put in place. Possibly the issue >became part of the charge to the Ad Hoc e-Communications Committee. > >This is to confirm that, yes, this issue is a major part of SAYMA's >Ad Hoc Committee on Electronic Communications - from the clerk of >the committee. We are working on it and have made some progress >toward formulating proposals for procedures to deal with it. Given >the busy lives of the ad hoc committee's members and the distances >between us, the work, as you would expect, is slow going. >Hopefully, we will arrive at a proposal to bring to Yearly Meeting >in June (can't be sure about that yet). > >Bill Reynolds To: "Thompson, Jennifer" From: Janet Minshall Subject: RE: Fw: Re: [afmdiscussion] our list serve Cc: afmdiscussion at yahoogroups.net Bcc: Attachments: Thanks for the info, Jennifer. It sounds from your message and from Judy Lumb's that those lists exist but that the administrative assistant is not involved in them -- is that true Renda? I have been away from Atlanta Meeting's office and electronic systems for twelve years and so am way out of date. Janet >There is a newsletter list, which has the minutes and newsletter via >e-mail, and I believe there is an announcements list where the weekly >announcements are listed. Only certain people can post to those lists, >and the moderator or someone with sufficient rights has to approve the >messages. But they are exclusive to those types of messages. > >-----Original Message----- >From: afmdiscussion at yahoogroups.com >[mailto:afmdiscussion at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Janet Minshall >Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2005 11:24 PM >To: Joe Parko >Cc: afmdiscussion at yahoogroups.com >Subject: Re: Fw: Re: [afmdiscussion] our list serve > >This Friend speaks my mind except that I think those who wish only to >get announcements and minutes from the meeting should be able to do >so, probably on a separate list. Janet > > >> > Janet, >>> I agree that our social concerns and ideas are intertwined but my >>> experience on the list has not supported this. Perhaps we just need >to >>> call it the afmopenforumlist and let everything fly and quit >worrying >>> about which messages fit into which categories. >>> Peace, >>> Joe >>> ----- Original Message ----- >>> From: "Janet Minshall" >>> To: >>> Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2005 9:23 PM >>> Subject: Fwd: Re: [afmdiscussion] our list serve >>> >>> >>>> >Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 21:21:10 -0400 >>>>>To: "Joe Parko" >>>>>From: Janet Minshall >>>>>Subject: Re: [afmdiscussion] our list serve >>>>>Cc: >>>>>Bcc: >>>>>X-Attachments: >>>>> >>>>>Hi Joe, While I do appreciate the peacemaking effort, I think it is >>>>>very hard to separate social concerns from ideas and concepts. If >>>>>the social concern is well-grounded, it has to be based on ideas and >>>>>concepts. In our case that would be ideas and concepts about how we >>>>>practice being Friends, expecially in the areas of our social > >>>>concerns. Best Regards, Janet >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>>>Friends, >>>>>>It seems to me that our Meeting is being divided by semantics when >>>>>>it relates to our list serve. The so-called afmdiscussion list is >>>>>>rarely used for discussion. What we need is an afmsocial >>>>>>concernslist where people could post articles and events relating >>>>>>to Quaker social concerns. We could keep the afmdiscussion list for >>>>>>actual discussion of ideas and concepts. Then people would know >>>>>>what they are signing up for. I think that the single afmdiscussion >>>>>>list is trying to serve two very different purposes and thus the >>>>>>confusion and conflict. >>>>>> Peace, >>>>>> Joe Parko > >_______________________________________________ >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 GlennReinhart at aol.com Fri May 13 05:03:30 2005 From: GlennReinhart at aol.com (GlennReinhart at aol.com) Date: Fri, 13 May 2005 05:03:30 EDT Subject: [saymaListserv] Quakers in the News - week ending 5/13/2005 Message-ID: <12a.5d3e8a5f.2fb5c762@aol.com> Dear Friends, One may click on any blue underlined text for a link to a summary and the full text story, and also to comment on any article. Please see http://quakersinthenews.blogspot.com for a chronological archive of all stories this year. Stories which show the public face of Quakerism this week are: Category/Article Title/Source/City/Area/Region/Date Slavery/Abolition/Underground Railroad/Mott, Lucretia/Hamlet looks to highlight history as home to anti-slavery movement/Mount Vernon News/Mount Vernon/OH/USA/07-May-05 Retirement Living////A war commemoration befitting its community/Philadelphia Inquirer/Philadelphia/PA/USA/06-May-05 Quaker Schools /War///Caleb Carr: Rebuilding the Past in Words and Wood/New York Times/New York/NY/USA/12-May-05 Quaker Schools /Arts /Visual Arts//June Conner Prairie deadline set/Fort Wayne Journal Gazette/Fort Wayne/IN/USA/06-May-05 Quaker History/Slavery /Underground Railroad/Real Estate Development/Big Homes for Town Founded by Slaves/New York Times/New York/NY/USA/08-May-05 Quaker History/Real Estate Development///Carriage Hill Associates Willing to Sell Mill Pond Overlook Site/Oyster Bay Enterprise Pilot/Long Island/NY/USA/12-May-05 Quaker History/Mental Health///Showing off the upgrade/Baltimore Sun/Baltimore/MD/USA/10-May-05 Quaker History/Franklin, Benjamin///Following Franklin's footsteps in Philly /Newsday/Long Island/NY/USA/10-May-05 Quaker History/Business/Entrepreneurship//A Hard-Charging Yankee Leads the Way at Britain's Cadbury .../Los Angeles Times/Los Angeles/CA/USA/10-May-05 Quaker History/Bowne, John///Enthusiast pitches Dutch theme for Governors I. plan/Downtown Express/New York/NY/USA/06-May-05 Quaker History/AFSC/Humanitarian Assistance//RELIVING THE PAIN TO BENEFIT OTHERS/Myrtle Beach Sun News/Myrtle Beach/SC /USA/08-May-05 Quaker History////Founders' Day to feature old-time fun/Whittier Daily News/Whittier/CA/USA/07-May-05 Quaker History////1 house anchors 9 generations/Philadelphia Inquirer/Philadelphia/PA/USA/10-May-05 Public Schools/Polarization///Judge blocks Maryland sex-ed program/CNN/New York/NY/USA/06-May-05 Peace Activities ////A warship's peaceful purpose/Baltimore Sun/Baltimore/MD/USA/06-May-05 Growth/Real Estate Development///Community of faith nears completion/Santa Cruz Sentinel/Santa Cruz/CA/USA/08-May-05 Business/Peace Activity///Scientist enjoys repeat successes/Akron Beacon Journal/Akron/OH/USA/07-May-05 Business/Environment///Simon directors reject energy plan/Indianapolis Star/Indianapolis/IN/USA/11-May-05 Business/Environment///Simon shareholders reject bid to increase energy efficiency/Indianapolis Star/Indianapolis/IN/USA/12-May-05 Book Review/Silence///Quaker author will be signing his new book /Palladium-Item/Indianapolis/IN/USA/11-May-05 Book Review/Feminism///Random House Canada/Globe and Mail/Toronto/Ontario/Canada/07-May-05 Arts/Music/Peace Activities//Big band to play big show in Salem/Salem Statesman Journal/Salem/OR/USA/05-May-05 Arts/Film/Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore//Movies Filmed in Arizona /phoenix.about.com/Phoenix/AZ/USA/10-May-05 AFSC/Politics and Economics/Labor//Business briefs, May 6/Rocky Mountain News/Denver/CO/USA/06-May-05 AFSC/Politics and Economics/Immigration/Minuteman/Group plans California border watch/Contra Costa Times/Contra Costa/CA/USA/08-May-05 AFSC/Politics and Economics/Immigration/Minuteman/Minutemen do the dirty work that 'government won't do'/San Francisco Chronicle/San Francisco/CA/USA/08-May-05 AFSC/Politics and Economics/Immigration//Maduro: Pact means stability /Charlotte Observer/Charlotte/NC/USA/11-May-05 AFSC/Politics and Economics/Immigration/Protest/Make it easy to get a license, protesters say/Providence Journal/Providence/RI/USA/11-May-05 AFSC/MOVE///Events Mark Anniversary/Philadelphia Inquirer/Philadelphia/PA/USA/10-May-05 AFSC/Death Penalty/Activism//Activists focus on death penalty trial/Rutland Herald/Rutland/VT/USA/11-May-05 AFSC/Crime and Punishment///Drug program considered at Machias jail/Bangor Daily News/Bangor/ME/USA/06-May-05 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nc-stereoman at mail.com Thu May 12 12:06:57 2005 From: nc-stereoman at mail.com (Steve Livingston) Date: Thu, 12 May 2005 11:06:57 -0500 Subject: [saymaListserv] Moderator Message-ID: <20050512160657.C37734BEAD@ws1-1.us4.outblaze.com> Thanks for your message, Bill, and thanks to Mary Calhoun for explaining the position of the SAYMA Administrative Assistant regarding the list. As you all may have noticed, I have been participating regularly on the SAYMA listserv and "testing the waters" in terms of whether there are any felt or sensed parameters among the users. I have learned much from other Friends, and have even heard from a couple of non-Quakers who read the list - surprised? It is good to know that this form of Quaker presence on the WWW has not gone unnoticed. Or, perhaps, not so good. I look forward to meeting with the ad-hoc committee during the SAYMA Gathering and hope that some of what I have gleaned from my experiences and those of other folks on the listserv may illuminate our discernments around administering SAYMA's electronic communications. Steve -- ___________________________________________________________ Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm From freepolazzo at comcast.net Sat May 14 13:53:32 2005 From: freepolazzo at comcast.net (free polazzo) Date: Sat, 14 May 2005 13:53:32 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] SAYMA and the function of our Queries In-Reply-To: <002901c55697$eff72890$68c8a8c0@jparko> References: <002901c55697$eff72890$68c8a8c0@jparko> Message-ID: <6.2.1.2.2.20050512003515.0337c9c8@mail.comcast.net> Dear Friends, There has been much gnashing of teeth over the use of the internet. The internet use question may become moot, should the deeper issues be resolved. In our Quakerism 101 class last week, we were pointed to study Howard Brinton's "Friends for 300/350 years", chapter 7, on "The Meeting Community" Friend Brinton says: (bold items are mine) "The Query which as been the longest in continuous use by the Society of Friends is this: "Are love and unity maintained amongst you?" It dates from 1682. Any quarrels or disagreements within the group became an object of concern to the Meeting and the old Query: "Where differences arise are endeavors made speedily to end them?" could usually be answered in the affirmative.. . ". It appears that there are Meetings in SAYMA where this query may be read, but may not be lived. We also read in that same chapter by Brinton that: " . . Answers to the Queries were expected to reveal the shortcomings in the membership. thus the Quarterly Meeting could learn the state of the Monthy Meetings, and the Yearly Meetings could learn of the state of the Quarterly Meetings and extend advice and help as might be required. The Queries were a kind of group confessional by which every individual and every meeting was able at regular intervals of a year or less to check actual conduct against an ideal standard of behavior. The Queries covered all that was expected of the consistent Friend. They were frequently revised as new moral insights prevailed or old testimonies became obsolete" I wonder if the "State of the Meeting" reports that will be submitted to SAYMA at our Yearly Meeting next month, will list any shortcomings in those Meetings? Or will they be mostly glowing accounts of what wonderful works the various and sundry meetings have accomplished last year? I'll predict it will be more like our collective egos run amok and not a list of our shortcomings as Friend Brinton suggests. Have we become so vain, that we forgot that the Queries are not to find out how "great" we are, but to allow us to disclose to people that are of import to us, where we are lacking as individuals and as a community? How can we receive help, if we do not ask for it? How can we create the peaceable kindom if we cannot see the "mote" in our own eyes? How can we heal if we don't acknowledge that we are ill? Do we not love each other enough to be truthful about ourselves and the areas we are lacking? If not, we are in big trouble, Friends. For others will see that we are carrying much pain and grief while saying we are "walking cheerfully". If we are unable to acknowledge and resolve conflicts in our own back yards "speedily", our Peace Testimony will sound hollow as Friends ask others do what we cannot. Let us love one another in the Light that loves us all. Let us "Speak Truth to Quakers" Let the chips fall where they may. Blessings, Free Dougalsville, GA At 10:11 PM 5/11/2005, Joe Parko wrote: > > Janet, > > I agree that our social concerns and ideas are intertwined but my > > experience on the list has not supported this. Perhaps we just need to > > call it the afmopenforumlist and let everything fly and quit worrying > > about which messages fit into which categories. > > Peace, > > Joe > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Janet Minshall" > > To: > > Sent: Wednesday, May 11, 2005 9:23 PM > > Subject: Fwd: Re: [afmdiscussion] our list serve > > > > > >> >Date: Wed, 11 May 2005 21:21:10 -0400 > >>>To: "Joe Parko" > >>>From: Janet Minshall > >>>Subject: Re: [afmdiscussion] our list serve > >>>Cc: > >>>Bcc: > >>>X-Attachments: > >>> > >>>Hi Joe, While I do appreciate the peacemaking effort, I think it is > >>>very hard to separate social concerns from ideas and concepts. If > >>>the social concern is well-grounded, it has to be based on ideas and > >>>concepts. In our case that would be ideas and concepts about how we > >>>practice being Friends, expecially in the areas of our social > >>>concerns. Best Regards, Janet > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>>>Friends, > >>>>It seems to me that our Meeting is being divided by semantics when > >>>>it relates to our list serve. The so-called afmdiscussion list is > >>>>rarely used for discussion. What we need is an afmsocial > >>>>concernslist where people could post articles and events relating > >>>>to Quaker social concerns. We could keep the afmdiscussion list for > >>>>actual discussion of ideas and concepts. Then people would know > >>>>what they are signing up for. I think that the single afmdiscussion > >>>>list is trying to serve two very different purposes and thus the > >>>>confusion and conflict. > >>>> Peace, > >>>> Joe Parko > >>>> > >>>> > >>>>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>>Yahoo! Groups Links > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> Yahoo! Groups Links > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > >> > > > > > >---------- >Yahoo! Groups Links > * To visit your group on the web, go to: > * > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/afmdiscussion/ > > * > * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: > * > afmdiscussion-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com > > * > * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the > Yahoo! Terms of Service. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From moriah at preferred.com Sun May 15 09:39:36 2005 From: moriah at preferred.com (Mary Calhoun) Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 09:39:36 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] IMP^o^ 188 - State of SoMRs? Message-ID: <014d01c55953$96e254a0$6464a2c6@abc> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ IMP ^o^ Bulletin 188 Inquiry: "state-of being" of your... ...State of the Meeting/Worship Group report? ------------------------------------------------------------------ update of YM registration packet request ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ from the Administrative Assistant, with thanks to f/Friends willing to relay this to the right person! <|> And... read no further if your State of the Meeting (or Worship Group) Report has already been received at the SAYMA office. <|> This is an update of the "paper saving" State of the Meeting Report request in the Yearly Meeting registration packet. As at YM '04, reports will be -- displayed for reading -- available on paper via a sign-up list <|> Here's what's wanted. If -- <|> sending advance electronic copies, -- email attachments, not in the body, please -- one each to Clerk at sayma.org AdminAsst at sayma.org -- (and skip the recording clerk, this year) -- electronic copies are very helpful in preparing paper minutes. To go on our website, State of the Meeting reports need to be electronic. <|> sending advance paper copies, -- one to Clerk, Kristi Estes 1793 Forrest, Memphis TN 38112-5010 -- (skipping Recording Clerk....) -- 3 to SAYMA office PO Box 2191, Abingdon VA 24212-2191 <|> either of the above is done, no copies need be brought to Yearly Meeting! Receiving advance copies by May 27 would be much appreciated. <|> carrying copies to YM at Warren Wilson, -- one for the clerks' table -- 3 for the Administrative Assistant <|> your meeting or worship group won't be submitting a report, AdminAsst at sayma.org would be grateful to know this <|> you have questions, please contact -- Mary Calhoun, Administrative Assistant AdminAsst at sayma.org, 276-628-5852 PO Box 2191, Abingdon VA 24212-2191 <|> Thanks for your help with this, as we try to limit "dead tree format" and to become comfortable preparing electronic reports. ~~~~~~ end ^o^ ~~~~~~ 1stpost 051505 ~~~~~~ _______________________________________ 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, 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 freepolazzo at comcast.net Sun May 15 15:35:51 2005 From: freepolazzo at comcast.net (free polazzo) Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 15:35:51 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Fwd: ARE YOU READY? June 24-26th, 2005 Sweat Lodge Gathering Message-ID: <6.2.1.2.2.20050515153253.03365ea0@mail.comcast.net> Dear Friends, An invitation from some Friends for a weekend of "F(f)riendship and fellowship". Janet and I are going. Free >Dear Friends, > >As Spring arrives in our cities and towns, I can't help but think about >summer... right around the corner! Please feel free to join Friends next >month for an extended weekend of F(f)riendship and fellowship. The >intention is simply to gather together and let our time be joyous and >spirit-led. We look forward to seeing you there! > >Mark your calendar and please spread the word (feel free to forward this >on to other Quaker listserves and/or message boards on which you >participate, share with your Monthly Meeting and other area Friends, etc): > >Quaker Sweat Lodge Gathering >June 24-26th, 2005 >at Snipes Farm (just north of Philadelphia, PA) > >Join F(f)riends for a weekend of camping, a labyrinth, sweat lodges, a >breathing workshop (as well as a workshop led by you, perhaps?) and >more! We plan to gathering in the manor of Friends for a several >wonderful summer days of fellowship and fun. We welcome any that want to >join us! > >For more information or to get involved with planning, contact: > > >In the Light, >George Price >Breeze Luetke-Stahlman >Cullen Carns-Hilliker > >May 2005 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cecilia at wutka.com Mon May 16 08:17:48 2005 From: cecilia at wutka.com (Ceal) Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 08:17:48 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] SAYMA Yearly Meeting registrations Message-ID: <00f101c55a11$496be9c0$2000a8c0@thinkertoo> The first deadline has passed for registering for the 2005 Yearly Meeting. There is now a $30.00 late fee for all registrations. The deadline to reserve a dorm room on campus is May 20. Please share this information with folks from your meeting. Thanks! Hope to meet you there. :) Ceal Wutka Registrar for 2005 From jhminshall at comcast.net Mon May 16 12:38:22 2005 From: jhminshall at comcast.net (Janet Minshall) Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 12:38:22 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Where's the Money? Economic Social Concerns Message-ID: Hi Susan Jeffers, Sorry it has taken me so long to answer your message of 5-12. I actually went over the issue of the apparent decrease in middle/working class incomes as an effect of globalization in a message sent out on 3-28 to the SAYMA list. I say "apparent decrease" because wages in the US actually have gone up for middle/working class people, but the amount of increase has not kept up with the rate of inflation. The corollary is that the incomes and standards of living of the poor and previously unemployed in the developing countries which have globalized have significantly increased. We, as Friends, cannot have it both ways. We have constantly demanded a higher income and a better standard of living for the poor for many, many years, Well now, we have both in developing countries which have globalized. To help our own we have to get tougher both on government and labor and insist that our educational system, especially our resources for college preparation, our community colleges and technical schools, be dramatically upgraded so that the middle/working class young people in the US can compete on "a level playing field" with the middle/working class workers in countries such as China and India. We need to upgrade our preparatory programs and then see to it that those prepared for the new job market can actually get into the graduate programs that they may then wish to enter. As I indicated before, 60% of the people in our graduate programs are from other countries. The question has been asked "to increase the incomes of the poor in the rest of the world, are we willing to have less and buy less?" Well, are we? Best Regards, Janet Minshall My longer message of 3-28 is pasted in here: Dear Atlanta Meeting and SAYMA Friends, The following is a recent draft of an article which has been submitted for publication. Please let me know if you have any questions, suggestions or comments that might be incorporated into the final draft should it be accepted for publication. Best Regards, Janet Minshall GLOBALIZATION AND THE POOR: Do Quakers have a realistic view of world poverty? Several months ago there was a request from our Yearly Meeting office (SAYMA) to comment on/provide an alternative interpretation for an article in the New York Times,11-24 04, by David Brooks, which cited the amazingly positive results of globalization on the poor of the world. It is important for Friends to understand this issue as it relates both to our Testimony on Truth and to our beliefs in Jesus' teachings to reach out and help the poor. The realities of globalization are primarily positive from a Quaker perspective in that globalization is actually achieving a major economic goal in the world which Quakers have long sought, i.e. rapidly bringing the poor out of poverty in those countries which are in process of globalizing. Globalization and its proponents are widely mistrusted and their achievements denied and denounced by many Friends. Some vocal representatives of the labor movement have spread the ideology that any production done outside the US or Western Europe which is provided at lower than US/European wages and benefits amounts to exploitation. Similarly they say any places and conditions of employment which do not meet the standards of those in the US and Western Europe are sweatshops. Further, anyone who works in production in countries outside of the US or Western Europe is said to be at considerable risk of being kidnapped and forcibly enslaved. All of these conclusions are patently false. The clear implication is that we consumers in the US should feel very guilty about buying anything made in other countries by "foreigners" and we should demand in demonstrations and editorials that no one else in the world be permitted to do the work of US, European and multinational corporations but the highly paid middle-class workers who have done that work in the past. Those of you who actually research the issue of globalization will find that such misrepresentations are egregiously self-serving on behalf of the US and Western European labor unions and grossly unfair to the workers and potential workers in the rest of the world. Globalization is a process which has been occurring over many many decades. Economic analyses indicate that the globalization which took place in the early part of the twentieth century was actually more rapid than what is occurring at present. Because the process is now old enough to examine thoroughly, there are many good articles and books available on the actual effects of globalization on the peoples of the world. While some are slanted to support particular political agendas (propaganda), many are written objectively by people from a wide variety of cultures and countries. In addition to David Brooks' 11-27-04 piece in the New York Times, which skims over some of the very good news about the effects of globalization on the world's poor, there is the Martin Wolf book which Brooks refers to: Why Globalization Works published by Yale University Press, 2004. Martin Wolf is The Associate Editor and Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times in London. Another good book from a slightly different perspective is In Defense of Globalization by Jagdish Bhagwati, also published in 2004. Bhagwati is University Professor at Columbia University and Andre Meyer Senior Fellow in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also a former Special Advisor to the United Nations on Globalization. Contrary to what you may read in anti-globalization leaflets and press releases, between 1980 and 2000 75% of the world's population achieved an enormous increase in both average incomes and living standards due to the effects of globalization. Summarized From Martin Wolf's book in the chapter "Why The Critics Are Wrong", pg. 143, "never before have so many people, or so large a proportion of the world's population, enjoyed such large rises in their standard of living -- India produced an approximately 100% increase in real GDP per head and China nearly a 400% increase in real GDP per head. Meanwhile, GDP per head in high income countries (with only 15% of the world's population) rose by 2.1% between 1975 and 2000, and by only 1.7% per year between 1990 and 2001. A much shorter piece appears in the November/December 2004 issue of Foreign Affairs. It raises an interesting point which helps, along with the data cited above, to explain some of the intense reactions against globalization by the middle class around the world (which would include most Quakers). The article is "Globalization's Missing Middle" by Geoffrey Garrett. He, too, describes the astoundingly positive effect of globalization on the poor of the world and admits that the rich also benefit, but his primary focus is the fact that "middle income countries have not done nearly as well under globalized markets as either richer or poorer countries..." He explains (as I explained in an article in Friendly Woman magazine, Winter 2001 Issue, Vol.14, #5) that the middle class workers in many countries like the US don't have the technical and scientific education necessary to compete for the higher wage jobs which have developed over the past twenty years or so. Thus the relatively poorly trained and educated group of workers in the US, and in some parts of Europe, is stuck trying to force governments and major employers to keep those higher wage jobs at home rather than have them outsourced to better educated and less expensive workers in China, India and elsewhere. To his credit, John Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO, recognized the problem years ago and established union-funded programs to upgrade the education and skills of layed off workers in the US. But many of those who might benefit from such an upgrade think they are somehow entitled to their previous jobs for the rest of their working lives without any further training. Friends frequently express concern for truth, simplicity, equality and peace, all venerable Quaker testimonies. In keeping with those testimonies Friends are required to search continuously for ways of understanding the realities of the world which put them on the side of the poor and the oppressed. Some middle class labor movement representatives have succeeded in convincing Friends that the workers in the US and European labor movements are the poor and oppressed and that we Friends should take sides with them against those who are truly poor in other countries. Our companies which outsource most usually pay significantly better wages, provide better benefits and combat sexual, class and cultural/tribal/caste discrimination more effectively than local employers in the countries where they send their work. These seem like effects which Friends would want to support. As many of us have learned, it is the disaffected middle class which has the time and the resources to organize politically. Rather than organizing against the poor of the world, middle class people and those in middle income countries need to put their energy into innovation and change. Rather than "dumbing down" and trying to retain repetitive manufacturing and service jobs, they need to "tech up" their educational and training programs to acquire and keep the newer jobs being developed. Summarizing from Geoffrey Garrett's article in Foreign Affairs (cited above), organizing in middle income countries might focus on deep reforms in infrastructure as well as in institutions such as "government, banking and law to transform economies that stifle innovation into ones that foster it with strong property-rights regimes, effective financial systems and good governance." This sounds like a call for the middle class to put our own house in order here in the US: First and most importantly, we need to better educate and train our workers. To accomplish necessary institutional change in the US, after exposing the hypocrisy of Bush's "No Child Left Behind" policy, we need to replace the Republican's misdirected and ineffective efforts with significant and substantial upgrades to our educational system. Our workers need to be prepared for the jobs on the cutting edge of innovation and change rather than being dragged along behind the economy kicking and screaming. The efforts of crusaders like New York's Attorney General, Elliott Spitzer, who is calling major corporations and industries to account by cleaning up both their boards and their books needs wider support and encouragement. Examining the process for casting and counting ballots in this country is equally important and deserves our involvement. Finally, the McCain-Feingold initiative to reform campaign financing doesn't go far enough. We need to build a fire wall between our elected representatives and the corporate and other special interests who have apparently become their primary constituency. All of these efforts are more important for the survival and well-being of workers and their jobs in the US than uselessly shaking our fists at the process of globalization and outsourcing. Janet Minshall -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From perryt at bellsouth.net Tue May 17 13:55:57 2005 From: perryt at bellsouth.net (Perry Treadwell) Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 13:55:57 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] recruiting in high schools Message-ID: <428A302D.2070803@bellsouth.net> Recruiting in High Schools When I was 13, the year after the end of W.W.II, I was sent to a military academy. I had grown up glorying in the militarism of that war: playing soldier and playing with toy soldiers, killing many ?Japs and Krauts?, reliving the war pictures of the time. If I hadn't been badly injured in a horse riding accident, I would have willingly gone into the military as most of my classmates during the Korean War. Like most teens I was the product of hormones and brain washing. I understand the attraction of the military. Studies on brain development at several Universities over the past decade have shown that he human brain does not complete its abilities to prioritize thoughts, imagine, think in the abstract, anticipate consequences, plan, and control impulses until a person's early 20s. This is why recruiting for the military targets high schools. As of 5/17/05, 1624 U.S. military have died in Iraq, 877 less than or equal to age 24 (54 %). Of those dying, 436 were U.S. Marines (26.8 %). But 311 of those Marines were less than or equal to age 24 (71.3 %). Of the 12,350 wounded about one half have returned to duty. In W.W.I, these young men were called cannon fodder. However, the average age of men in the military in W.W.II was 26. In Vietnam it was 19. The Atlanta newspapers have twice ignored my letters with similar figures. Isn't it time to blog the nation with this tragedy? You can find the numbers I have used at icasualties.org/oif and run your own statistics. Perry From nc_stereoman at charter.net Thu May 19 09:16:24 2005 From: nc_stereoman at charter.net (Steve Livingston) Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 09:16:24 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Where's the Money? Economic Social Concerns In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <428C5968.8667.ADB7A43@localhost> > The question has been asked "to increase the incomes of the poor in > the rest of the world, are we willing to have less and buy less?" > Well, are we? > Best Regards, Janet Minshall I think this is an excellent question for us as Friends, Janet. I would be very interested in hearing what Friends are currently doing, either as individuals or as groups, to make that happen. Statistics indicate that most Americans are indeed "having less", whether they want it that way or not. Janet refers to statistics that show "between 1980 and 2000 75% of the world's population achieved an enormous increase in bothaverage incomes and living standards". For your perusal I offer these statistics http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html that show that in America, during approximately the same period, concentration of wealth has fled from the lower and lower middle classes, into the hands of the upper class. In 2001, the latest year for which the statistics were analyzed, the wealthiest 1% of Americans controlled 32.7% of total wealth. At the same time, the lowest 50% of Americans controlled only 2.8%. From 1983 to 1998, the lower and lower middle classes lost over 75% of their net worth. Clearly, the majority of Americans have already sacrificed a great deal of their share of accumulated worth and buying power. However these statistics show that it has not been entirely sacrificed in the manner that Janet suggests, and with which many of us Friends would eagerly unite. How do my purchasing decisions enable people of developing nations to enjoy a better quality of life? How can I divert the flow of my capital from the wealthiest 1% of my fellow citizens to the less wealthy 99.9995% of the world's citizens? Does "living simply" assure that others may "simply live", or am I called to do more? These are questions I ask myself often, and Friends I admit to you that my self-assessment is not very good. I find that my lifestyle and my condition are not conducive to my testimony. I don't think buying "Fair Trade" coffee is enough for me. How is it for you, Friends? Steve From sharon.phelps at earthlink.net Thu May 19 13:13:04 2005 From: sharon.phelps at earthlink.net (Sharon Phelps) Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 13:13:04 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Where's the Money? Economic Social Concerns In-Reply-To: <428C5968.8667.ADB7A43@localhost> Message-ID: Steve, Your comments reinforce a model of sorts that has been developing in my mind. It is not well-seasoned, or well-supported, as is, but I offer it in hope that you and others on this list will consider it and comment on it. Redistribution of wealth in the global economy can be compared to the movement of sand in an hourglass. Wealthy societies are the top of the hourglass, poor ones are the bottom. Of each of these halves, the top part represents the upper classes, the bottom part represents the lower classes. I doubt we could graph the statistics to show these perfectly balanced inverse cones, but I think we can agree that in wealthier societies, those above some "poverty level" outnumber those below, while the reverse is true in poor societies, giving us the inverse shapes of the top and bottom halves of the hourglass. As sand, representing wealth, trickles from the top of the "hourglass" to the bottom, it is necessarily the sand distributed at the bottom of the top half (representing the lowest economic class of the richer societies) that first passes through the opening in the middle. And where does that sand land? At the top of the heap in the bottom half, or course. This model seems to fit the scenario of low-paying textile-industry jobs, for example, that are exported to developing countries. It is the barely-surviving blue-collar workers in depressed mill-towns in the US that lose their jobs and can't find another, while corrupt government officials and rich factory owners in the developing countries are further enriched long before factory workers at the lower classes enjoy any real prosperity. That's about as far as I've gone with this. I can identify some holes in the analogy myself, but I will leave that to others on this list. I do believe that a more equal distribution of world resources is a good thing. I also believe that with the way it happens now, we find the "bottom falling out" for the lower classes of our society (and sand getting shifty for once-stable middle classes). We are torn by our compassion for the global poor and our compassion for our poor neighbors in our society. (For some of us, our compassion for either may be trumped at times by our fear that we might join those poor neighbors.) Rather than arguing about the size of the hole between top and bottom of the hourglass, and when to turn the hourglass over, maybe we need to invent a new way to "keep time" - something more balanced in shape, like a round clock face? Peace, Sharon Phelps West Knoxville Monthly Meeting -----Original Message----- From: sayma-bounces at kitenet.net [mailto:sayma-bounces at kitenet.net]On Behalf Of Steve Livingston Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 9:16 AM To: sayma at kitenet.net; Janet Minshall Subject: Re: [saymaListserv] Where's the Money? Economic Social Concerns > The question has been asked "to increase the incomes of the poor in > the rest of the world, are we willing to have less and buy less?" > Well, are we? > Best Regards, Janet Minshall I think this is an excellent question for us as Friends, Janet. I would be very interested in hearing what Friends are currently doing, either as individuals or as groups, to make that happen. Statistics indicate that most Americans are indeed "having less", whether they want it that way or not. Janet refers to statistics that show "between 1980 and 2000 75% of the world's population achieved an enormous increase in bothaverage incomes and living standards". For your perusal I offer these statistics http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html that show that in America, during approximately the same period, concentration of wealth has fled from the lower and lower middle classes, into the hands of the upper class. In 2001, the latest year for which the statistics were analyzed, the wealthiest 1% of Americans controlled 32.7% of total wealth. At the same time, the lowest 50% of Americans controlled only 2.8%. From 1983 to 1998, the lower and lower middle classes lost over 75% of their net worth. Clearly, the majority of Americans have already sacrificed a great deal of their share of accumulated worth and buying power. However these statistics show that it has not been entirely sacrificed in the manner that Janet suggests, and with which many of us Friends would eagerly unite. How do my purchasing decisions enable people of developing nations to enjoy a better quality of life? How can I divert the flow of my capital from the wealthiest 1% of my fellow citizens to the less wealthy 99.9995% of the world's citizens? Does "living simply" assure that others may "simply live", or am I called to do more? These are questions I ask myself often, and Friends I admit to you that my self-assessment is not very good. I find that my lifestyle and my condition are not conducive to my testimony. I don't think buying "Fair Trade" coffee is enough for me. How is it for you, Friends? Steve _______________________________________________ Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting and Association mailing list posting address: sayma at kitenet.net subscribe/unsubscribe: http://kitenet.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sayma From bright_crow at mindspring.com Fri May 20 09:04:26 2005 From: bright_crow at mindspring.com (Mike Shell) Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 09:04:26 -0400 (GMT-04:00) Subject: [saymaListserv] Fwd:Demand Openness on PATRIOT Act Expansion Message-ID: <22548189.1116594266413.JavaMail.root@wamui-chipeau.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Friends, Please read and share this action item. Thanks, Mike ----------------------------------------------------------- ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 14, Number 54 May 19, 2005 In This Issue: Demand Openness on PATRIOT Act Expansion The Senate Select Intelligence Committee markup on the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act and broad expansion of administrative subpoena powers scheduled for today (19 May) has been postponed (due in part to the filibuster debate). It is being rescheduled, again as a closed meeting, for next Thursday, 26 May. Please write or call your Senators and urge them to demand that the Senate Select Intelligence Committee hold a PUBLIC hearing before a PUBLIC business meeting to consider reauthorization -- and, particularly, expansion -- of the USA PATRIOT Act. If your senator is on the Intelligence Committee, please let her or him know that you want this important work conducted in public, with an open hearing on the proposed legislation and an open business meeting to consider it. http://capwiz.com/ala/issues/ As we understand it, the Senate Intelligence Committee's proposed legislation would : · Make permanent PATRIOT Act powers without safeguards. The bill makes all expiring provisions permanent, with one exception (section 223). · Expand the use of "administrative subpoenas," eliminating prior court review of FBI library and other private records demands for intelligence gathering purposes. The bill, thus, creates a new power for the FBI to obtain library and other private records without even the review of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The new records power could be used to obtain all tangible things, including library records, business records, medical records, etc. The new power would make any modifications to section 215 less meaningful since the government can simply use the new power instead. · Not provide adequate safeguards to protect library and other private records. While the bill would (1) allow a recipient of a FISA records search order (Patriot Act section 215) to consult with an attorney or other person necessary to comply with the request, and (2) make the standard for issuing an order explicitly made "relevant to" rather than "sought for," the bill offers no explicit right to challenge the records search order, or to challenge the gag order, even though multiple witnesses from the Department of Justice have stated that they would agree to such amendments. · Apparently strike an existing First Amendment safeguard for records search powers. Under section 215 of the Patriot Act, where an application for records is made under FISA, there is an express proviso that "such investigation of a United States person is not conducted solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution." This safeguard is inadequate, but DOJ has pointed to it on countless occasions in defense of the Patriot Act. For further detail, please go to http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/WOissues/civilliberties/privacy/privacyrelated.htm ****** ALAWON (ISSN 1069-7799) is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits. To subscribe to ALAWON, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc at ala.org or go to http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. To unsubscribe to ALAWON, send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to listproc at ala.org. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. ALA Washington Office, 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 403, Washington, D.C. 20004-1701; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff. Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Don Essex, Joshua Farrelman, Erin Haggerty, Patrice McDermott and Miriam Nisbet. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Carrie Lowe, Kathy Mitchell, Carrie Russell. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy. From CIsland at aol.com Fri May 20 10:23:03 2005 From: CIsland at aol.com (CIsland at aol.com) Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 10:23:03 EDT Subject: [saymaListserv] Unscrupulous military recruiting info & links Message-ID: <1c8.292cbf4e.2fbf4cc7@aol.com> Friends, I just received this from someone outside Friends' but noticed AFSC is listed as a sponsor for at least the one action. I recognize its probably too late to start anything for today but I thought some of you would be interested in knowing about the organizations and info links included. Bill Reynolds May 18, 2005 Dear Cornelia, Busted! This Friday, May 20th, every military recruiting center across the country will be closed for what the U.S. Army Recruiting Command calls an "Army Values Stand Down Day." The "stand down" will be a retraining in ethics for the military's 7,500 recruiters, following a rash of complaints that recruiters are resorting to unscrupulous tactics to enlist new soldiers. Recruiters' lies can be cruel and ridiculous; a Houston army recruiter threatened to arrest a local young man if he didn't report that day to the army recruiting station. Rae, our CODEPINK student coordinator met an army recruiter in Oakland during our action last week. He promised her a college education and world travel. The recruiter squelched her fears about being sent to war by assuring her that she would not serve in Iraq, and added that women are not engaged in combat, and that if they return home wounded, it is probably because they went out for a "joyride in a Hummer." While the Army stands down, WE STAND UP! On May 20th, we are joined with UFPJ, AFSC and US Campus Anti-War Network in asking you to stand up for the demilitarization of youth. Stand up for students' rights to privacy from the military. Go to _www.Militaryfreezone.org_ (http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=15938181&url_num=1&url=http://www.Militaryfreezone.org) to call your local representative and tell them to support Congressman Mike Honda's "Student Privacy Protection Act" H.R. 551 and sign the petition. We cannot allow these deceptive and predatory recruiters to infect our neighborhoods and schools. In addition to recruiting centers, recruiters are roaming the halls of high schools, stalking teenagers by repeatedly calling their homes, and enlisting cheap sales tactics to draw more young people into the military. Currently, each student's contact information is available to the Army recruiters, unless a parent signs an "Opt Out" form. Go to _www.leavemychildalone.org_ (http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=15938181&url_num=2&url=http://www.leavemychildalone.org) to opt out your child, to adopt a school board or to host a house party. Check out our counter-recruitment page (_http://www.codepinkalert.org/article.php?list=type&type=48_ (http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=15938181&url_num=3&url=http://www.codepinkalert.org/article.php?list=type&type=4 8) ) for local CODEPINK actions planned for May 20th around the country, especially Washington D.C. and New York City or for ideas to create actions in your own communities. With determination for a military-free world, Dana, Farida, Gael, Jodie, Medea, Nancy, Rae, and Tiffany P.S. Watch this 4 minute video: _http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/2005/05/17/VI2005051700710.html_ (http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=15938181&url_num=4&url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte nt/video/2005/05/17/VI2005051700710.html) of MP George Galloway in a Senate hearing yesterday and see if you are not totally moved to say "NO" to the continued US occupation of Iraq, which was recently condoned by Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. Join CODEPINK activists and the Progressive Democrats of America in taking action to stop the war by signing the Iraq Withdrawal Petition (_http://pdamerica.org/petition/iraq-exit-petition.php_ (http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=15938181&url_num=5&url=http ://pdamerica.org/petition/iraq-exit-petition.php) ) to tell Dean and the Democrats that we are calling for an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jhminshall at comcast.net Fri May 20 16:09:11 2005 From: jhminshall at comcast.net (Janet Minshall) Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 16:09:11 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Where's the Money? Economic Social Concerns In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Sharon, As you may have noticed recently, I don't know much about "netiquette" and am just trying to hold back a little to let others have their say. Apparently Steve Livingston is busy, out of town, or otherwise engaged, so I will respond to the messages from you and from Steve (below my message). First, I really like your hourglass image. I think it accurately describes the current situation of many workers in the US. It is, as you say, the sand distributed from the bottom of the top of the hourglass (low end workers in wealthier countries) who first fall through the opening in the middle. "And where does that sand land? At the top of the heap in the bottom half (of the hourglass),of course." You are quite right about the money from both US aid and US contracts going first to corrupt government officials and rich factory owners in many less developed countries abroad. The analogy falls apart there, however, because the economists who have measured the effects of outsourcing and globalization find that while the corrupt and the rich do indeed benefit, the primary impact many times over, the greatest effect by far, is on the income and standard of living of the poor. The effect is so marked that the huge populations in India and China, which were in dire circumstances before 1980, have had their incomes, the average income per person, rise dramatically from 1980 to 2000. In India the rise in income per person was 100%, and in China it was more than 400%. What I'm saying here is that the projections of antiglobalization activists have been proven decisively wrong. To quote again from Martin Wolf's book, Why Globalization Works, p.143 "never before have so many people, or so large a proportion of the world's population, enjoyed such large rises in their standard of living..." Contrary to Steve's suggestion, it seems to me that the best way to support the world's poor is to buy clothing and items from other countries which are the product of outsourcing, as these have been shown to have the greatest effect on the incomes of the poor. I think learning to live on less here in the US is not so much a tactic of change as it is an adaptation to changed circumstances. We have less to live on! As to Steve's further comments on the transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in this country, he reads the stats differently than I do. The transfer, borne out by the cries of pain we are hearing, is from the middle and working class of this country to the poor of other countries. The rich in this country have stayed nearly in the same place, while the middle and working classes have gotten much poorer. This has caused the percentage of wealth controlled by the wealthy to increase dramatically. For more than twenty years now, the middle and working class in the US has tried vainly to hold back the tides of change instead of adapting to them. What happened in India and China is that the middle class in those countries suddenly found that the investment they make in their children's education actually makes a huge difference and that well educated Indian and Chinese young people are now being hired by companies that used to hire predominantly Western European labor. The only way we can turn this around so that young people in the US have a shot at the higher paying jobs available in the world is to do a better job of educating them. If we prepare young people in the US to work at a higher level, at the level where innovation is happening, they will begin to want to go on to learn advanced skills. As it is 60% of the students in US graduate programs are from other countries, many from India and China. Thanks for your message Sharon Phelps. Best Regards, Janet Minshall >Hi Janet Minshall, > >I am perhaps not familiar with a point of netiquette, but although I >addressed my email to Steve (because it was an answer to his posting), I >really intended it for all on the list and welcome any responses. So, as far >as I am concerned, I hope you will go ahead and post. If your consideration >is for Steve, then I will wait patiently with you for him to reply first. > >Peace, >Sharon > > >>Steve, >> >>Your comments reinforce a model of sorts that has been developing in my >>mind. It is not well-seasoned, or well-supported, as is, but I offer it in >>hope that you and others on this list will consider it and comment on it. >> >>Redistribution of wealth in the global economy can be compared to the >>movement of sand in an hourglass. Wealthy societies are the top of the >>hourglass, poor ones are the bottom. Of each of these halves, the top part >>represents the upper classes, the bottom part represents the lower classes. >>I doubt we could graph the statistics to show these perfectly balanced >>inverse cones, but I think we can agree that in wealthier societies, those >>above some "poverty level" outnumber those below, while the reverse is true >>in poor societies, giving us the inverse shapes of the top and bottom >halves >>of the hourglass. >> >>As sand, representing wealth, trickles from the top of the "hourglass" to >>the bottom, it is necessarily the sand distributed at the bottom of the top >>half (representing the lowest economic class of the richer societies) that >>first passes through the opening in the middle. And where does that sand >>land? At the top of the heap in the bottom half, or course. >> >>This model seems to fit the scenario of low-paying textile-industry jobs, >>for example, that are exported to developing countries. It is the >>barely-surviving blue-collar workers in depressed mill-towns in the US that >>lose their jobs and can't find another, while corrupt government officials >>and rich factory owners in the developing countries are further enriched >>long before factory workers at the lower classes enjoy any real prosperity. >> >>That's about as far as I've gone with this. I can identify some holes in >the >>analogy myself, but I will leave that to others on this list. I do believe >>that a more equal distribution of world resources is a good thing. I also >>believe that with the way it happens now, we find the "bottom falling out" >>for the lower classes of our society (and sand getting shifty for >>once-stable middle classes). We are torn by our compassion for the global >>poor and our compassion for our poor neighbors in our society. (For some of >>us, our compassion for either may be trumped at times by our fear that we >>might join those poor neighbors.) >> >>Rather than arguing about the size of the hole between top and bottom of >the >>hourglass, and when to turn the hourglass over, maybe we need to invent a >>new way to "keep time" - something more balanced in shape, like a round >>clock face? >> >>Peace, >>Sharon Phelps >>West Knoxville Monthly Meeting >> >>-----Original Message----- >>From: sayma-bounces at kitenet.net [mailto:sayma-bounces at kitenet.net]On Behalf >>Of Steve Livingston >>Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 9:16 AM >>To: sayma at kitenet.net; Janet Minshall >>Subject: Re: [saymaListserv] Where's the Money? Economic Social Concerns >> >>> The question has been asked "to increase the incomes of the poor in >>> the rest of the world, are we willing to have less and buy less?" >>> Well, are we? >>> Best Regards, Janet Minshall >> >>I think this is an excellent question for us as Friends, Janet. I would be >>very interested in hearing what Friends are currently doing, either as >>individuals or as groups, to make that happen. >> >>Statistics indicate that most Americans are indeed "having less", >>whether they want it that way or not. Janet refers to statistics that show >>"between 1980 and 2000 75% of the world's population achieved an >>enormous increase in bothaverage incomes and living standards". For >>your perusal I offer these statistics >> >>http://www.faireconomy.org/research/wealth_charts.html >> >>that show that in America, during approximately the same period, >>concentration of wealth has fled from the lower and lower middle >>classes, into the hands of the upper class. In 2001, the latest year for > >which the statistics were analyzed, the wealthiest 1% of Americans >>controlled 32.7% of total wealth. At the same time, the lowest 50% of >>Americans controlled only 2.8%. From 1983 to 1998, the lower and >>lower middle classes lost over 75% of their net worth. >> >>Clearly, the majority of Americans have already sacrificed a great deal >>of their share of accumulated worth and buying power. However these >>statistics show that it has not been entirely sacrificed in the manner that >>Janet suggests, and with which many of us Friends would eagerly unite. >> >>How do my purchasing decisions enable people of developing nations to >>enjoy a better quality of life? How can I divert the flow of my capital >from >>the wealthiest 1% of my fellow citizens to the less wealthy 99.9995% of >>the world's citizens? Does "living simply" assure that others may "simply >>live", or am I called to do more? These are questions I ask myself often, >>and Friends I admit to you that my self-assessment is not very good. I >>find that my lifestyle and my condition are not conducive to my >>testimony. I don't think buying "Fair Trade" coffee is enough for me. >> >>How is it for you, Friends? >> >>Steve >> >>_______________________________________________ >>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 wibsmith at cafes.net Wed May 18 16:53:45 2005 From: wibsmith at cafes.net (wibsmith) Date: Wed, 18 May 2005 15:53:45 -0500 Subject: [saymaListserv] recruiting in high schools and the Supreme Court decision negating the death penalty for juveniles Message-ID: <001101c55beb$af2c85e0$0201a8c0@cafes.net> Friend Treadwell has made an interesting observation about the ability of those under age 20 something to make a reasonable determination of risks in the Military [Vol 28, issue 19]. If the Supreme Court is consistent with its reasoning in preventing the execution of those under 18, perhaps it will consider military recruiting in high schools an unconstitutional threat to those students also. Wib Smith, Murfreesboro WG -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From moriah at preferred.com Fri May 20 19:04:54 2005 From: moriah at preferred.com (Mary Calhoun) Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 19:04:54 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] viaYMaa>>Important British Quaker property for sale Message-ID: <05b301c55ded$9776ba20$6464a2c6@abc> f/Friends, The message below was received in the SAYMA office. The London office of FWCC (Friends World Committee for Consultation) confirms that it's legitimate. ^o^ \_/ Mary AdminAsst at sayma.org 276-628-5852 POB 2191, Abingdon VA 24212-2191 ----- Original Message ----- From: Thecla Geraghty To: Mary Calhoun Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 7:08 AM Subject: RE: Important Quaker property for sale ? Dear May Calhoun, Yes, this is real. Jordans Meeting House is across the lawn from the buildings for sale; it is one of the oldest and most beautiful Meeting Houses in Britain, and has the (unmarked) graves of Foxes and Barclays and Penningtons. We all hope the right people will buy the conference centre; for some reason the current management couldn't break even. Thecla Geraghty Office Manager Friends World Committee for Consultation 173 Euston Road London NW1 2AX +44 207 663 1199 world at fwcc.quaker.org ----- Original Message ----- From: morgan.cole at knightfrank.com To: morgan.cole at knightfrank.com Sent: Monday, May 09, 2005 4:42 AM Subject: Important Quaker property for sale in England, UK Dear Sir/ Madam, We are writing to you as we have been instructed to sell a Quaker property in England, UK which we thought may be of interest to you. Please see the attachment for further details and contact Emma Cleugh on the contact details listed if you have any queries regarding the property. Yours sincerely Morgan Cole *********************************************************** Confidentiality: If you have received this email in error, please notify the sender. The e-mail and any attached files are intended only for the use of the person or organisation to whom they are addressed. The contents are confidential and may be legally privileged (in other words, their unauthorised distribution may be unlawful). It is prohibited and may be unlawful to open, use or copy these documents or disclose them to anyone unless you are authorised to do so. Legal status of Knight Frank: This e-mail is sent on behalf of Knight Frank LLP, a limited liability partnership. We are in law a corporate body owned by our Members. If we use the term 'Partner' when referring to one of our representatives that person will either be a Member or an employee who is a senior professional. Knight Frank LLP is registered in England (registered number OC305934). Our registered office is 20 Hanover Square, London W1S 1HZ where you may look at a list of members' names. Knight Frank LLP is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority Privacy: To ensure the efficiency of our mail servers, we may need to monitor e-mails we send and receive. *********************************************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: email letter Quaker organisations (2).doc Type: application/msword Size: 83456 bytes Desc: not available URL: From bright_crow at mindspring.com Thu May 19 14:32:28 2005 From: bright_crow at mindspring.com (Mike Shell) Date: Thu, 19 May 2005 14:32:28 -0400 (GMT-04:00) Subject: [saymaListserv] New links on Southeastern Yearly Meetings P&SC Website Message-ID: <13839536.1116527549162.JavaMail.root@wamui-thinleaf.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Friends, Please visit http://seympeace.org/#NEW for some new links regarding military recruiting and Iraq. Thanks to Perry Treadwell of SAYMA for his email testimony. Blessed Be, Michael From perryt at bellsouth.net Mon May 23 10:04:32 2005 From: perryt at bellsouth.net (Perry Treadwell) Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 10:04:32 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] added to recruitment Message-ID: <4291E2F0.9040302@bellsouth.net> The NY Times (Monday) is carrying a story of a 22 year old soldier who shot an Iraqi police officer while they were on patrol together then shot himself to cover up. A paragraph is revealing: "Looking back, Mary Lee Berg said she never had an inkling that her son might want to become a soldier. But sat 17, while he was still studying at Forest Park High School and wa busy with pole vaulting and the F.F.A.. Dustin asked her to sigh a waiver that would let him join the military before his 18th birthday. Ms. Berg said not; a year later, he did not need her signature." Previous message below. For those of you still interested in the Iraq war as of yesterday 1786 U.S. troops have died, 1234 by hostile action. 52.4 percent were under the age of 25. If you look at the marines, 71.4 percent were less than or equal to age 24. Is this the result of high school recruiting? Perry From jhminshall at comcast.net Mon May 23 12:10:50 2005 From: jhminshall at comcast.net (Janet Minshall) Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 12:10:50 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Where's the Money? Economic Social Concerns In-Reply-To: <67.45775d23.2fc29513@aol.com> References: <67.45775d23.2fc29513@aol.com> Message-ID: Hi Charles Schade, You can share anything I write. I try to hold to "one standard of truth". The reason I am pessimistic is because it seems to me that we are prone, just like the stock market, to "overcorrect" in any direction taken. Leadership is also a factor. I sent out a message a year or more ago on the intelligence services in this country examining how to maintain control in the event of a sudden significant drop in population. I think their plans, while likely predicated on the possibility of a extraordinary natural event, would be put into effect at the first signs of anything gone seriously awry. I am not at all confident of the purposes of those who control them. A further comment on my use of the "four horsemen" is that people, especially Friends who see Socialism as a better system despite its consistent failures, seem to take a change in the economy very lightly, as if it were relatively simple. It isn't simple at all since all of our basic institutions are based on the only reality we've known (growth) in the last 700 years or more. Anytime there is an event which disrupts the way things are, those who suffer most are the poor, the sick, the disabled, the very young and the very old -- those on the fringes of the economy. The awful events of the "Middle Ages" such as the plagues and the famines, were, most likely, brought on by the change in economic systems from Feudalism to the beginnings of Merchant Capitalism. Capitalism did not appear suddenly to guide us through the Rennaisance. It was being built, step by step and institution by institution, as it grew from the ashes and disasters arising out of the previous economic system. I hope this clarifies. Janet Minshall In reference to Janet's letter to Errol Hess sent 5-19: >That is an interesting position for you to take, in light of your >previous writings. I'm sorry if you see the four horsemen as >inevitable products of some economic invisible hand gone awry, which >is one way someone could read the letter to Errol. > >I'm pessimistic myself, because I think we have very poor >leadership, but I am not persuaded that a future of disease and >decline is inevitable. Stability and balance are achievable in >nature. If there weren't natural feedback systems designed to >stabilize nearly everything alive, we'd have succumbed before >crawling out of the cave. > >The only question in my mind is whether people's greed and intellect >will prevent a stable balance from being achieved. And that's where >Quakers and other optimistic religions may be able to make a >contribution. Which I think was the point made at the end of your >letter. I heartily agree. > >With your permission, I'd like to share your letter the next time >our meeting has a discussion of environmental issues. > >Thanks for writing. > >cps -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jhminshall at comcast.net Tue May 24 14:09:46 2005 From: jhminshall at comcast.net (Janet Minshall) Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 14:09:46 -0400 Subject: [afmdiscussion] Re: [saymaListserv] Where's the Money? Economic Social Concerns In-Reply-To: <001901c55ff4$86709030$6101a8c0@amd1gig> References: <67.45775d23.2fc29513@aol.com> <001901c55ff4$86709030$6101a8c0@amd1gig> Message-ID: Hi Julia, Any great change in "the way things are", especially the economy, displaces large numbers of people. Those who worked as serfs on feudal manors (the majority of the people in Western Europe) were suddenly or gradually, according to the area, without a place to live or land to work (like sharecroppers after the Civil War in the South). Most set out either on foot or in wagons to find new places to live and work. In doing so they took the local germs and viruses with them to areas where there was no immunity to what they brought. It was very similar to the situation of the Spanish Conquistadors bringing smallpox and other illnesses to the Native Americans. Also, when people found a settlement they tended to crowd into it, somewhat the way they would have been crowded together for protection on a feudal manor. The manorial enclosures had had centuries to develop primitive sanitation, but the newly gathered people in these crowded towns didn't realize the connection between sanitation and disease so when the diseases came at them from all directions, the toll they took on humanity was enormous. It has only been in the last thirty or forty years that it has been recognized that many of the events previously described in history as discreet events were actually related to one another and that a chain of events that preceded an occurrence was often clearly discernable. Janet (Actually the change was from feudalism to no system at all, not to open markets. Merchant Capitalism developed slowly over time and then evolved into other primitive forms of capitalism long before we ever developed open markets.) >I was interested in your comment that the change from feudalism to open >markets cause the plagues. Could you tell me more about it and where you >learned that? > >Julia >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Janet Minshall" >To: >Cc: ; >Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 12:10 PM >Subject: [afmdiscussion] Re: [saymaListserv] Where's the Money? Economic >Social Concerns > > >> Hi Charles Schade, You can share anything I write. I try to hold to >> "one standard of truth". >> >> The reason I am pessimistic is because it seems to me that we are >> prone, just like the stock market, to "overcorrect" in any direction >> taken. Leadership is also a factor. I sent out a message a year or >> more ago on the intelligence services in this country examining how >> to maintain control in the event of a sudden significant drop in >> population. I think their plans, while likely predicated on the >> possibility of a extraordinary natural event, would be put into >> effect at the first signs of anything gone seriously awry. I am not >> at all confident of the purposes of those who control them. >> >> A further comment on my use of the "four horsemen" is that people, >> especially Friends who see Socialism as a better system despite its >> consistent failures, seem to take a change in the economy very >> lightly, as if it were relatively simple. It isn't simple at all >> since all of our basic institutions are based on the only reality >> we've known (growth) in the last 700 years or more. Anytime there is >> an event which disrupts the way things are, those who suffer most are >> the poor, the sick, the disabled, the very young and the very old -- >> those on the fringes of the economy. >> >> The awful events of the "Middle Ages" such as the plagues and the >> famines, were, most likely, brought on by the change in economic >> systems from Feudalism to the beginnings of Merchant Capitalism. >> Capitalism did not appear suddenly to guide us through the >> Rennaisance. It was being built, step by step and institution by >> institution, as it grew from the ashes and disasters arising out of >> the previous economic system. >> > > I hope this clarifies. Janet Minshall >> >> >> >> In reference to Janet's letter to Errol Hess sent 5-19: >> >> >That is an interesting position for you to take, in light of your >> >previous writings. I'm sorry if you see the four horsemen as >> >inevitable products of some economic invisible hand gone awry, which >> >is one way someone could read the letter to Errol. >> > >> >I'm pessimistic myself, because I think we have very poor >> >leadership, but I am not persuaded that a future of disease and >> >decline is inevitable. Stability and balance are achievable in >> >nature. If there weren't natural feedback systems designed to >> >stabilize nearly everything alive, we'd have succumbed before >> >crawling out of the cave. >> > >> >The only question in my mind is whether people's greed and intellect >> >will prevent a stable balance from being achieved. And that's where >> >Quakers and other optimistic religions may be able to make a >> >contribution. Which I think was the point made at the end of your >> >letter. I heartily agree. >> > >> >With your permission, I'd like to share your letter the next time >> >our meeting has a discussion of environmental issues. >> > >> >Thanks for writing. >> > >> >cps >> >> >> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] >> >> >> >> ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> >> Would you Help a Child in need? >> It is easier than you think. >> Click Here to meet a Child you can help. >> http://us.click.yahoo.com/sTR6_D/I_qJAA/i1hLAA/UlWolB/TM >> --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> >> >> >> Yahoo! Groups Links >> >> <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: >> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/afmdiscussion/ >> >> <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: >> afmdiscussion-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com >> >> <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: >> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ >> >> >> >> From Fiddlinshim at cs.com Tue May 24 14:10:27 2005 From: Fiddlinshim at cs.com (Fiddlinshim at cs.com) Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 14:10:27 EDT Subject: [afmdiscussion] Re: [saymaListserv] Where's the Money? Economic Social Co... Message-ID: jhminshall at comcast.net writes: > >It was very similar to the situation of the Spanish Conquistadors > >bringing smallpox and other illnesses to the Native Americans. How odd that you should, by implication, absolve the Northern-European conquerors of bringing disease with them. It was the good Protestant Christians who distributed blankets infested with smallpox virus in order to kill the 'savages'. Joel Shimberg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Rblissfam at cs.com Tue May 24 17:29:27 2005 From: Rblissfam at cs.com (Rblissfam at cs.com) Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 17:29:27 EDT Subject: [afmdiscussion] Re: [saymaListserv] Where's the Money? Economic Social Co... Message-ID: <1ee.3c55302a.2fc4f6b7@cs.com> The following article says what a gigantic problem we are tolerating as desparate people are dying on the US/Mexico border....without a small blurb in our papers. My daughter met face to face with such a potential victim herself during the time this article was written last week. Maybe this is an area that Quakers need to take a bigger interest. Rachael bliss Twelve Die on the US Border: A New 'Season of Death' Begins Marc Cooper var EmailArticleWindow;function email_article_popup (uri) {if (!uri) { uri = window.location; }var url = '/docemail.mhtml?i=20050606&s=cooperweb& type=article';if ((EmailArticleWindow) && (EmailArticleWindow.closed != true)) {EmailArticleWindow.location.href = url;} else {EmailArticleWindow = window.open(url,'EmailArticleWindow',"scrollbars=1,resizable=1,height=300,width=300");}} PRINT THIS ARTICLE EMAIL THIS ARTICLE WRITE TO THE EDITORS TAKE ACTION NOW SUBSCRIBE TO THE NATION Click here to read more by Marc Cooper. A grim toll of a dozen fatalities in just three days marks the rapid onset of this year's season of death along the US-Mexican border. As temperatures suddenly soared in southern Arizona this past week, so did border-crossing deaths. Twelve border crossers were listed as dead in Arizona between last Friday and Monday. Border Patrol agents in western Arizona called this past weekend the busiest ever in a three-day period as they made forty rescues. An equal number were chalked up by agents in the Tucson sector. Corpses of the crossers were scattered among different sectors of the border, with a majority found in the relatively unpopulated western part of the state. "What scares me is that there just continues to be very widely scattered deaths," said the Rev. Robin Hoover, founder of Humane Borders, a group that puts out jugs of water in remote areas used by illegal crossers. US border control policy over the past decade has increasingly funneled the immigrant flow into ever more rugged and dangerous terrain. More than 3,000 people have died trying to make the crossing in the past decade. More than 200 extra Border Patrol agents were deployed in Arizona precisely to prevent such deaths this summer. Last year about 200 people died crossing the line in Arizona. An almost equal number perished in California and Texas. This past weekend's macabre tally comes as the national immigration debate simmers and as the first comprehensive immigration reform bill has been introduced in Congress. The news of the border deaths this past weekend received minimal coverage, only a tiny fraction of the attention afforded last month to the shut-the-borders campaign staged by the Minuteman Project. Just last week the Mexican Consulate undertook a public education campaign warning crossers that at this time of year they will face lethal conditions. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From GlennReinhart at aol.com Wed May 25 13:53:36 2005 From: GlennReinhart at aol.com (GlennReinhart at aol.com) Date: Wed, 25 May 2005 13:53:36 EDT Subject: [saymaListserv] Quakers in the News - 5/25/2005 Message-ID: Dear Friends, After a brief but well-enjoyed spring vacation, Quakers in the News is back. There are a few extra stories here due to the two-week span since the last posting. In Friendship, Glenn ------ One may click on any blue underlined text for a link to a summary and the full text story, and also to comment on any article. Please see http://quakersinthenews.blogspot.com for a chronological archive of all stories this year. The most widely covered stories of the period, all three in multiple major market publications each,were: 1. AFSC/Protest/Civil Rights/Privacy/Rights groups to sue FBI over monitoring /MSNBC/New York/NY/USA/05/18/05 (37 instances in the US and UK) 2. Quaker History/War/American Revolution/Free Quakers/'1776' teaches a worthy, timely history lesson/USA Today/ALL/ALL/USA/05/24/05 (5 instances in the US) 3. War/Protest/Crime and Punishment/Serial peace protester electronically tagged/Times Online/London/England/UK/05/17/05 (5 instances in the UK) The most inspiring stories of this period (to me) are: 4. Quaker Schools/Expansion//School to focus on Quaker values/Baltimore Sun/Baltimore/MD/USA/05/22/05 (to acknowledge my f/Friends and their achievement at Deer Creek Mtg) 5. Religious Faith/Light///Ranger Wilson: Why I Run/Voice of San Diego/San Diego/CA/USA/05/19/05 6. Religious Faith/Prayer///Survivors celebrate cancer victories/Goldsboro News Argus/Goldsboro/NC/USA/05/15/05 Other interesting stories which show the public face of Quakerism this week are: Category/Article Title/Source/City/Area/Region/Date War/Revolutionary War/Free Quakers/Some of Philadelphia's untold stories /philly.com/Philadelphia/PA/USA/05/14/05 War/Religious Faith//Memorial Day events in East Bay/Providence Journal/Providence/RI/USA/05/23/05 War/Christian Peacemakers/Iraq//Leonard Recalls 5 Weeks With Guardsmen In Iraq/Greeneville Sun/Greenville/TN/USA/05/16/05 Religious Faith/Natural Science//FOCUS: Stardust in her veins/New Straits Times/Malasia/Asia/05/14/05 Religious Faith/Book Review//What?s new on the library shelves?/Stirling Community Press/Toronto/Ontario/Canada/05/19/05 Religious Diversity/Service///John Paul would have us serve others/Roanoke Times/Roanoake/VA/USA/05/14/05 Religious Diversity/Arts/Music//A community in every sense/Rocky Mountain News/Denver/CO/USA/05/14/05 Quaker Schools/Natural Science/Medicine/East Africa/Profession takes its rightful place/East African Standard/Kaimosi/Kenya/Africa/05/18/05 Quaker Schools/Natural Science/Medicine//Cancer researcher honored/Baltimore Sun/Baltimore/MD/USA/05/21/05 Quaker Schools/Humanitarian Assistance/At this sale, school gives it all away /The Register-Guard/Eugene/OR/USA/05/16/05 Quaker Schools/Humanitarian Assistance/Harvesting for the needy/News & Observer/Durham/NC/USA/05/21/05 Quaker Schools/Arts///Whittier Fine Arts Center at Friends renamed for Riney /Kansas.com/Witchita/KS/USA/05/18/05 Quaker History/War/American Revolution/Henry, Patrick/Liberty or Libertine? /MichNews.com/Detroit/MI/USA/05/22/05 Quaker History/Slavery /Repatriation/Cuttyhunk/An Explorer's Legacy /Washington Post/Washington/DC/USA/05/21/05 Quaker History/Real Estate Development/Monica Yant Kinney | History written in disappearing ink/Philadelphia Inquirer/Philadelphia/PA/USA/05/19/05 Quaker History/Raised-a-Quaker//Dolley Madison: first lady extraordinaire /OregonLive.com/Portland/OR/USA/05/14/05 Quaker History/Quaker/Shaker//200 years ago, Shakers came to Ky./Lexington Herald Leader/Lexington/KY/USA/05/14/05 Quaker History/Quaker Cemetery//Meredith bank president honored Salvation Army/Laconia Citizen/Laconia/NH/USA/05/22/05 Quaker History/Hoover, Herbert//Rename Hoover Tower/Stanford Daily/Stanford/CA/USA/05/24/05 Quaker History/Business///Snack attack as Cadbury wolfs down organic chocolate firm/Times Online/London/England/UK/05/13/05 Quaker History/Business///Remembering a place once called Paperville, and the pioneer Mode .../Coatesville Ledger/Coatesville/PA/USA/05/19/05 Quaker History/Business///In line: Carr?s Table Water biscuits back in production/News & Star/London/England/UK/05/21/05 Quaker History/Archtitecture/Membership Decline/Quakers reach out for help with restoration/Hub/Red Bank/NJ/USA/05/19/05 Quaker History/Anthony, Susan//Spiritual Perspectives Pope John Paul II, the Greatest Honor/Gallup Independent/Gallup/NM/USA/05/22/05 Quaker History/Abolition/Women/Anthony, Susan/Beyond the lilacs in Rochester, NY/Asbury Park Press/Asbury Park/NJ/USA/05/22/05 Public Schools/Peace Studies/Earlham//Group fights for an NU Peace Studies program/The Daily Northwestern/Chicago/IL/USA/05/23/05 Public Schools/Business/U Penn/Baltzell, E. Digby/Fels Institute director ends six-year tenure/Daily Pennsylvanian/Philadelphia/PA/USA/05/13/05 Politics and Economics//Poverty's injustice exposed/Rochester Democrat and Chronicle/Rochester/NY/USA/05/14/05 Peace Activity///Peace winds like a ribbon/The Register-Guard/Eugene/OR/USA/05/14/05 Outreach/Quaker-Amish//'Shoppers' check out faiths at the Interreligious Forum/Patriot-News/Harrisburg/PA/USA/05/14/05 Obituary////Jean (Grove) Jones/News-Herald.com/Akron/OH/USA/05/16/05 Mediation////Urban Warrior | Trouble next door sparks calls to Warrior /philly.com/Philadelphia/PA/USA/05/23/05 Humanitarian Assistance/Religious Diversity//Big haul for TASK/Cranbury Press/Cranbury/NJ/USA/05/22/05 Humanitarian Assistance/Mental Health/Retirement Living/Harney opens ?25m Dublin care centre/Ireland Online/Dublin/Ireland/E.U./05/19/05 Humanitarian Assistance/Homelessness//Group reaches out to area's homeless at dedication/Princeton Packet/Princeton/NJ/USA/05/16/05 FCNL/Nuclear Non-proliferation/Congress bars bomb plans, again/The Argus/San Francisco/CA/USA/05/14/05 FCNL/Nuclear Non-proliferation/US NUCLEAR WEAPONS: Bunker Buster Shot Down in Opening Volley/Science Magazine/ALL/ALL/USA/05/19/05 Arts/Painting/International Conflict/Sudan/Art exhibit: A child's view of genocide/The Gloucester County Times/Cherry Hill/NJ/USA/05/16/05 Arts/Painting/International Conflict/Sudan/Kids' art reflects their suffering /Cherry Hill Courier Post/Cherry Hill/NJ/USA/05/21/05 Arts/Painting/Hicks, Edward/Science demands an artistic explanation/Bergen Record/Hackensack/NJ/USA/05/23/05 Arts/Music/Rorem, Ned/Ned Rorem Returns/Windy city Media Group/Chicago/IL/USA/05/18/05 Arts/Music/Humanitarian Assistance/East Africa/Get Out Guide /OregonLive.com/Portland/OR/USA/05/20/05 Arts/Film///The James Dean trail/Chicago Tribune/Chicago/IL/USA/05/16/05 AFSC/War/Iraq//US should commit to Iraq withdrawal/Fort Wayne News Sentinel/Fort Wayne/IN/USA/05/18/05 AFSC/War/Desertion/Iraq/The deserters: Awol crisis in US forces/China Daily//China/Asia/05/16/05 AFSC/War/Desertion//Desertion huge problem for US in Iraq war/New Zealand Herald/Auckland/NZ/Oceania/05/23/05 AFSC/War/Desertion/Iraq/US army facing huge desertion problem in Iraq war /Aljazeera.com/London/England/UK/05/24/05 AFSC/War/Counter-Recruiting/Group Offers Alternative To Military Recruitment /The Day//CT/USA/05/19/05 AFSC/War/Counter Recruiting/Dead recruit's father wages campaign against 'green card Marines'/San Francisco Chronicle/San Francisco/CA/USA/05/23/05 AFSC/Politics and Economics/War/Counter-Recruiting/SF School Officials Question Recruiting Tactics/CBS 5/San Francisco/CA/USA/05/21/05 AFSC/Politics and Economics/War//The Economy | Where are cheers for base closings?/Philadelphia Inquirer/Philadelphia/PA/USA/05/22/05 AFSC/Politics and Economics/War/Counter-Recruiting/Recruitment "Stand-Down" /Kansas City infoZine/Kansas City/MO/USA/05/23/05 AFSC/Politics and Economics/Protest//Union workers picket resort/Honolulu Advertiser/Honolulu/HI/USA/05/23/05 AFSC/Politics and Economics/Immigration/Driver License/Local opinions split on immigrant driver's license proposal/North County Times/Ventura/CA/USA/05/21/05 AFSC/Politics and Economics/Immigration/Minuteman/Border watch opponents gear up for fight/North County Times/Ventura/CA/USA/05/24/05 AFSC/Politics and Economics/Activism//Salzman: Weathertainment gets out of hand/Rocky Mountain News/Denver/CO/USA/05/16/05 AFSC/Peace Activity/Obituary//Rest in peace, John Looney/Akron Beacon Journal/Akron/OH/USA/05/21/05 AFSC/Peace Activity/Obituary//John T. Looney, left business to concentrate on peace work/Cleveland Plain Dealer/Akron/OH/USA/05/23/05 AFSC/International Conflict/Palestine//Hopes and fears of Palestinians at heart of film festival/Philadelphia Inquirer/Philadelphia/PA/USA/05/15/05 AFSC/Humanitarian Assistance/War/Iraq/Relief Efforts Curtailed by Violence in Iraq/FOX News/New York/NY/USA/05/24/05 AFSC////Progressives plan festival for Sunday/North County News.com/Baltimore/MD/USA/05/20/05 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hensign at mindspring.com Tue May 31 09:47:44 2005 From: hensign at mindspring.com (Helen Ensign) Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 09:47:44 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] hymnals for SAYMA Message-ID: <410-2200552311347440@mindspring.com> Greetings, Friends This is a call to any meeting that can share the use of their hymnals at our annual gathering. The singing workshop (Friday afternoon) has 29 folks registered at the moment, and my own meeting, Atlanta, has only 6 hymnals right now. Last year Celo Meeting lent their 20 hymnals and I do not know if they will do so again. If any meeting is willing to send any amount of hymnals for the gathering, I promise to make sure that all of them return to your meeting safely! I will be arriving at the gathering on Thursday midday. The workshop needing the books is on Friday. Thanks in advance for sharing! Beth Ensign--workshop coordinator hensign at mindspring.com 404-658-1531 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From freepolazzo at comcast.net Tue May 31 21:03:23 2005 From: freepolazzo at comcast.net (free polazzo) Date: Tue, 31 May 2005 21:03:23 -0400 Subject: [saymaListserv] Concern about one of the songs in the hymnals requested for use at SAYMA's YM In-Reply-To: <410-2200552311347440@mindspring.com> References: <410-2200552311347440@mindspring.com> Message-ID: <6.2.1.2.2.20050531141543.032ddf30@mail.comcast.net> Dear Beth, Best wishes on finding the hymnals for yearly meeting. I enjoy hearing the songs sung by those who love to sing them. I do not enjoy songs that cause pain and suffering to others, whether intentionally or not. I bring a concern about a song in the Quaker Hymnal called "Lord of the Dance". Friends on the Jewish Friends List in 1997, after lots of prayer and gnashing of teeth, concluded that the song includes a verse that attacks the Jewish people. We did not think that FGC would want to include a song which was offensive to many of it's members or which perpetuated violence against a whole group of people. We brought our concern to FGC's Hymnal Committee and to FGC Staff. We also contacted the author and asked him to change the offending verse. He denied it was anti Jewish and refused to discuss it further. Our group labored with FGC for many years about our concern that the song perpetuates stereotypes of Jews as Christ Killers. While many kind Friends agreed that the song did indeed do that, they admitted never being conscious of it until we brought it to their attention. "And this is my favorite song, too!" Said many Friends. All we asked was that the one offending verse be removed. Even so, all we could get was a FOOTNOTE that referred the singer to the back of the hymnal. Most Unsatifactory. Which of you reads footnotes in a hymnal in the back of the book, while singing? And remember that there have been Two different footnotes in two different editions. (These "notes" are a whole other magilla! There are more emails that discuss the footnote(s) that FGC added over the years to try and make it "OK". But none of the footnotes are simple nor fair, IMHO). For those who wish to learn more about the pain and suffering that songs like this caused your Jewish brothers and sisters, please read the email, below, from a Jewish Friends List member whose name I have removed. Blessings and Safe Journeys to SAYMA's Yearly Meeting at Warren Wilson College next week. Free PS: "We'll be coming 'round the mountain when we come" At 09:47 AM 5/31/2005, Helen Ensign wrote: >Greetings, Friends > >This is a call to any meeting that can share the use of their hymnals at >our annual gathering. The singing workshop (Friday afternoon) has 29 folks >registered at the moment, and my own meeting, Atlanta, has only 6 hymnals >right now. Last year Celo Meeting lent their 20 hymnals and I do not know >if they will do so again. If any meeting is willing to send any amount of >hymnals for the gathering, I promise to make sure that all of them return >to your meeting safely! I will be arriving at the gathering on Thursday >midday. The workshop needing the books is on Friday. Thanks in advance for >sharing! > >Beth Ensign--workshop coordinator >hensign at mindspring.com >404-658-1531 > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >Mon, 07 Sep 1998 11:48:57 -0400 > >Dear Friend S G, > > >Thank you for your comments regarding Lord of the Dance. About a year > ago the > > >song was extensively discussed on line by Jewish Quakers, a small American > > >list, headed by Dick Bellin (rbellin at cpcug.org) because it was > > incorporated in the Song Book, published by Friends General Conference. > Members of the list > > >brought the matter before their Monthly Meetings; as a result, several MM, > > >including my own Meeting Claremont in California, asked that Members > refrain > > >from using the song and called on FGC to disown the words. There is > extensive > > >correpondence on the matter, not being able to type lengthy documents, > I have > > >taken the liberty to forward your letter to Dick Bellin, to Joy Weaver > > >(ABC @erols.com) and Free Polazzo (XYX at mindspring.com) > > >G K (XYX at aol.com) > > > From Friend S. G.: A couple of days ago, I had the opportunity to peruse a booklet published by the Leaveners, Margot Tennyson, *Millennium Interfaith Invocation -- Universal Love: Guide to help participants in an act of universal awareness*. It provides resources, in the form of a programme for an interfaith service, quotations from different faiths on universal love, poems, a play, songs and circle dances, which seek to encourage dialogue between world religions. Specifically, it seeks to instigate a millennial event around the country focused on the theme of universal love, and provides resources intended to seed and inspire the imagination. dancing, and imagery of dance, looms large in it. The project will be launched with a local multifaith celebration at Friends House next April. There is a wealth of material and ideas in the booklet, and it is clearly an excellent initiative. One element, included with the very best of intentions, struck me as out of tune with the eirenic spirit of the project, and it is to test my intuitions about this that I am posting this message. It seems to me that its inclusion points to issues, and a failure to realise that there are certain sensitivities, which go far beyond the booklet; and this too is a reason for writing. As I have noted, dance and imagery of dancing looms large in the booklet, and this is surely a good thing. Given this, it is understandable that the song "Lord of the Dance", which exploits the image of dance and dancer to tell the story of Jesus, looms large in the collection of "Songs of Universal Love". The melody has Quaker connections, based as it is on the Shaker song "'Tis a gift to be simple", which is also included in the booklet. The imagery of "Lord of the Dance" and the music strike me as beautiful and as wholly appropriate. Some of the specific content of the song itself, however, does not. >The third stanza reads: > >"I danced on the Sabbath >"And I cured the lame; >"The holy people >"Said it was a shame. >"They whipped and they stripped >"And they hung me on high, >"And they left me there >"On a Cross to die." "The holy people" in question is of-course the Jewish people, who are portrayed as having crucified Jesus because he healed the lame on the Sabbath. The labelling of the Jewish people as a nation of Christ-killers, all generations of which bear this guilt [Matthew 27:25] (and, in the terms of most of the credal Churches, as corporately guilty of the unforgivable sin of deicide), has been the archetypal reason for two millennia of persecution of the Jewish people and the inspiration for massacres, pogroms, burnings at the stake, forced conversions and a tradition of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism which culminated in systematic attempted genocide by means of carefully planned and programmed factories of death not many decades ago. The stanza quoted above gives me offence, and Jewish friends and acquaintances who have encountered it -- at an ecumenical service of the Council of Christians and Jews, for example -- have told me that they find it offensive in the extreme and have characterized the song as virulently anti-Semitic. It is anything but eirenic, although the beauty of the melody and of the imagery of dance evidently obscure this, ad Friends in particular should take pains to distance ourselves from its claim and not to use the song. As a Jewish child aged about seven, I was friendly with a couple of children in the neighborhood who were Catholics. One day, they ushered me into their home and led me to a crucifix which hung on a wall. Pointing to the image on the crucifix, they asked me quite aggressively why I had crucified my king. I was rather taken aback, firstly by the claim that the figure impaled on the cross represented "my king", and by the claim that I was responsible for the crucifixion itself. In response to my denial that the figure represented my king, they pointed to what represented a scroll above the figure's head, and told me that it said clearly that the figure was King of the Jews. The crucifix was a tiny one, and one would have needed a micro dot reader to verify that this was indeed written there, but it seemed to me that the whole scenario was so crazy in any case that it would be futile to question the veracity of the claim made about the representation of the scroll. I knew something about the story of the crucifixion, though, and remembered quite clearly that Jesus had been crucified by the Romans and that his garments had been said to have been appropriated by Roman soldiers. This was something I had learnt from something written by someone who was not Jewish. It then dawned on me that the two children accusing me of crucifying Jesus personally were *Roman* Catholics, and that Roman Catholics were surely Romans. I therefore said that the Romans had crucified Jesus, that as Roman Catholics they were clearly Romans, and that by the logic which they applied in accusing *me* of this heinous crime which took place some two millennia before I was born, they -- as Romans -- were actually the ones who should be said to have crucified him. The interrogation before the crucifix stopped abruptly at that point, and I suspect that their parish priest faced awkward questions that Sunday. Now that I think of it, I do not recall them ever playing with me after that. The incident had brought back an unpleasant memory. A year or two before the interrogation before the crucifix, I had been sitting quietly on the steps outside the block of flats in which my parents and I lived at the time. There was no connection with my Catholic friends: we lived in a different part of the neighborhood at the time. I think that it was around Passover-time, in other words, at around Easter. An adolescent of perhaps twelve or thirteen -- at least double my age at the time -- walked past, noticed me sitting there, and looked at me speculatively. He turned to me and asked whether I was Jewish, and I said that I was. He then punched me full in the face and walked away. My impression at the time was that it was because Christians said that the Jews had murdered Jesus, whom they believed to be God. By the age of five or six (in the 1950s), I already knew that there were Christians who regarded even new-born Jewish infants as Christ-killers and as "fair game" for attacks or even extermination; and the memory of where this portrayal of us as a Satanic nation of decides could lead had been branded indelibly into our memories by the extermination of European Jewry a mere decade before. As I knew even at the age of seven, the Jewish people at large had not crucified Jesus, and this corporate accusation should surely have been put well and truly to rest by New Testament scholarship. Even the Roman Catholic Church has ceased officially, albeit reluctantly, to teach that the Jewish people killed Jesus. New Testament scholarship recognizes that the New Testament canon general, and the gospels in particular, took their present form decades after the death of Jesus of Nazareth, and that the gospel accounts reflect, among other things, community-specific contemporary concerns which had little to do with the life of the historical Jesus. Gentile Christianity was emerging and Jewish-Christianit= y was already being bludgeoned out of existence in the communities in which the gospels as we have them took place, and this has much to do with the polemic against "the Jews". In the eighties or early in the nineties of the first Christian century, the addition of a "conscience-clause" benediction to the Eighteen Benedictions which form the core of the synagogue service sought to exclude Christians from the synagogue, and the trauma of this late rift between "Church" and synagogue also enters into the excoriation of "the Jews" and the portrayal of "the Jews" as the crucifiers of Jesus. As for the evidence of history about the trial and death of Jesus, people who want an accessible discussion could do worse than to read Haim Cohn, *The Trial and Death of Jesus*, New York, 1977, for the perspective of an eminent Jewish jurist and former member of the bench of the Supreme Court of Israel, who brings his legal expertise and expert knowledge of both Jewish and Roman custom at the time of Jesus to bear upon this question. As far as the gospels are concerned, John G. Gager, Professor of Religion at Princeton University and a student of the eminent New Testament scholar Krister Stendahl, expresses the view of most modern New Testament scholarship when he writes in the introduction to his book *The Origins of Anti-Semitism* (New York and Oxford, 1985, page 7): "The bulk of early Christian literature and certainly of the New Testament does in truth deal harshly with Judaism. But this undoubted fact must be interpreted in light of the strong likelihood that the surviving Christian writings comprise a deliberately selective sample.... The conception of early Christian history ... is true only for the victorious minority [within Christianity itself] whose position is reflected in the surviving literature. The New Testament and other extant Christian writings represent and reinforce the views of the ultimate winners. Like other retrospective, value-laden assessments endorsed by history's winners, these writings are intended to create an image of earlier centuries that accords with their idea of what should have been. This artificial image must now give way to a richer and more variegated picture that is only now beginning to emerge." The stanza which I quoted epitomizes the spurious rationale for almost two millennia of anti-Jewish persecution. The stanza itself is small and looks inconsequential, but the myth which informs it is not. We are surely bound to eschew the myth of eternal Jewish guilt and all that rests upon it. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: