Michael True

Worcester’s Michael True, an academic and an activist, was profiled this week in Worcester Magazine:

This was a hotbed of abolitionism. The mayor of the city announced that the Fugitive Slave Law would never be prosecuted in the city of Worcester. Imagine if [current mayor] Tim Murray said that we weren’t going to supply any money to Raytheon to build weapons of mass destruction. That’s what it would be like.

Michael is a Quaker and a staunch supporter of his local Catholic Worker community. He’s also a really friendly guy. One day, during a peace demonstration at a busy intersection, a driver stopped her car in front of Michael True, rolled down her window, and shouted at him: “Michael! I want my daughter to go to Assumption College because of you!”
Continue reading “Michael True”

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.

Continue reading “Fasting”

Archibald Baxter

Honouring the Prophets: Archibald Baxter–a moral leader for our time

Archibald Baxter It is strange to have to research in libraries to find information about someone who should be an icon of goodness and prophetic insight to a nation. But that is what was needed to piece together this story of Archibald Baxter (1881-1970), pacifist and moral leader to a nation intent on war.
Continue reading “Archibald Baxter”

Worcester’s Anti-Panhandling Campaign

Panhandling is not the problem 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

River Sims in his apartment, with the infamous “Points for Jesus” t-shirt. Photo: Mike Benedetti.
Points for Jesus--Temenos Catholic Worker

Sudan Trial

Thank you so much for all of your prayers and support. The trial of the “Sudan Seven,” as we have been referred to, was an incredible show of nonviolent witness at its best. I was honored to be a part of such a group. The Holy Spirit no doubt was speaking through the testimonies of witnesses Dr. Eric Reeves, Dr. Mark Lance, Mwiza Munthali, Barbara Wien, Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, and each of the seven defendents as they each took the stand to testify to their area of expertise.
Continue reading “Sudan Trial”

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.

defendants rejoice at being free to go
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 vigils against war at the Recruiting Center in Worcester, Mass.

Bob Flanagan, of Veterans for Peace, vigils against war at the Armed Forces Recruiting Center in Worcester, Massachusetts. Photo: Mike Benedetti.