Bruce and I walked downtown today to have coffee at St. John’s parish.
Bruce:
It’s my job to live the dreams other people only fantasize about.
Author: Mike
Fasting
Jim Fussell has updated his essay Fasting as a Method for Opposing Genocide in Darfur. It lists some of the people who’ve fasted on this issue and considers the purposes of political fasts:
In fasting in response to genocide the gravity of the response begins to suggest the magnitude of the crisis. Public fasting causes spectators to become witness to nearby suffering, reminding them of a greater suffering occurring at a distance. Fasting has the power to rouse the onlookers from apathy to action.
Worcester’s Anti-Panhandling Campaign
Our city, Worcester, Massachusetts, has recently adopted an “action plan” for dealing with the “panhandling problem.”
The problem is not specifically with guys hitting you up for “fifty cents for the bus” as you walk down the streets, but guys holding cardboard signs at busy intersections, making the city look bad.
The “action plan” has no legal teeth. It’s just an advertising campaign to discourage people from giving to the guys with the signs.
There were some articles opposing the “action plan” in the recent issue of Worcester’s semi-monthly alternative paper, The InCity Times. (These have been reprinted at Worcester Indymedia.) Then some folks vandalized one of the billboards. Our daily paper, the Telegram & Gazette, even reported on the vandalism.
Now, the billboards in my neighborhood have switched to a “Don’t Spread AIDS” public service ad.
Catholic Workers of the Pacific Northwest
Here are some excerpts from Keith D. Berger’s University of Portland B.A. thesis “Hearing the Cry of the Poor: The Catholic Worker Communities in Oregon and Washington 1940 to the Present” (April 1992). If I ever get my hands on the original again, I’ll update this entry.
Continue reading “Catholic Workers of the Pacific Northwest”
Temenos Catholic Worker, San Francisco
River Sims, of San Francisco’s Temenos Catholic Worker, begins his ministry when the sun goes down. He walks the streets of his neighborhood, Polk Gulch, doing what he can for the mostly-young, mostly-male, addicts and prostitutes who congregate there.
He hands out sandwiches, condoms, lubricant, long- and short-tipped syringes, and “kits” with stuff needed to shoot heroin with proper hygiene. And, he’s a “presence of grace.”
In 2003, he said that the previous year he’d attended 24 funerals, and the average age was 19.
His blog takes most of this in stride.
River Sims in his apartment, with the infamous “Points for Jesus” t-shirt. Photo: Mike Benedetti.
Time Served
Seven American activists were found guilty of unlawful assembly today in D.C. Superior Court before Chief Judge Rufus King III. They were on trial for a February demonstration at the Sudanese embassy to protest the ongoing genocide in the Sudanese region of Darfur.
May 25: Tom Lewis, Harry Duchesne, Brian Kavanagh, Liz Fallon, Brenna Cussen, Ken Hannaford-Ricardi, and Scott Schaeffer-Duffy are happy to be outside after a day in D.C. Superior Court. Click on the photo to download a high-resolution version.
Continue reading “Time Served”
Bob Flanagan
Worcester’s Bob Flanagan, of the Ron Kovic chapter of Veterans for Peace, was profiled this week in Worcester Magazine:
. . . the Vietnam War was going on and we had a friend, Flipper, and he joined the Marine Corps and he never came home; he was blown away. Then there was another guy in Westboro, then Georgie Adams and Paul Bellino. About six or seven guys I knew as a kid never came home. Probably being the sensitive type, I never knew what to do with the anger.
Bob’s weekly vigil at the Armed Forces Recruiting Center in Worcester, Massachusetts, was profiled at Worcester Indymedia. Bob’s also active with the Worcester Veteran’s Shelter.
Today is a notable one for counter-recruitment activists, as the U.S. Army has suspended all recruiting for the day in order to “emphasize proper conduct” to recruiters who have been accused of conning potential recruits.
Bob Flanagan, of Veterans for Peace, vigils against war at the Armed Forces Recruiting Center in Worcester, Massachusetts. Photo: Mike Benedetti.
Botox: Cosmetic or Chemical Weapon?
Botox: Cosmetic or Chemical Weapon? is a forceful Christian critique of vanity and violence in the form of a crazy tract. It was written by Mike Ciul and designed by Jim Speer. They hail from Philadelphia, a city of many crazy tracts.
- Download “Botox” (.pdf file, 183KB), suitable for printing on letter-size paper, 2 tracts to a page
No War On Sally
Sally Schwab, age 2, stands up for herself in West Philadelphia. Button redesigned by Katrina.
Kassie Temple House, Philadelphia
Sunday, the House of Grace Catholic Worker community in Philadelphia opened a new house of hospitality, Kassie Temple House.
Sunday, the House of Grace Catholic Worker community in Philadelphia opened a new house of hospitality, Kassie Temple House.
The house is named after long-time Catholic Worker Kassie Temple, who died in 2002 after being part of the New York Catholic Worker community for 27 years.
The house has five bedrooms and will house mostly refugee families.
Continue reading “Kassie Temple House, Philadelphia”