that flu goin round

sick. I've been sick almost since I got home, it gets lonely bein ill in the summer when no one wants to visit you because you're sick and there's nothing to do but surf the web in your underwear and drink oj and vitamins. I have work coming soon what with the zine and all but the soonest I can do anything about it is Sunday until then I guess I could go about revising an article for the IWW or I could transcribe another one for them but what I really want to do is be a big baby and lay on the couch and moan with a blanket and some gingerale or lemonade only it's not as much fun when there's no one arround to be the recipient of my crankiness.

I'll probably go to bed really early because there's just nothing else to do.

*whine*


*groan*

*sniffle sniffle*

this post taken from the anarchist priest blog
http://anarchistpriest.blogspot.com/

Please call attention to the new National Religious Campaign Against Torture. We're asking people to endorse our statement and, if possible, to contribute financially to the campaign.

www.nrcat.org

It grew out of the recent Princeton conference I organized on "Theology, International Law, and Torture." PBS wrote about the conference here:

www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week921/exclusive.html

An article I wrote about torture can be found here:

www.pres-outlook.com/tabid/500/Article/929/Default.aspx

I believe that the voice of religious concern can make a difference in bringing about a total ban against existing U.S. policies that permit or authorize torture.

Thank you,
Dr. George Hunsinger
Princeton Theological Seminary

back home in Vancouverland

So I spent a month in Los Angeles without getting sunburnt at all and living in a house where a number of people came down with a rather viscious cold and didn't get sick then not even a full day off the train I get sunburnt on both my shoulders and am feeling like I am going to hate being alive tomorrow if this sore throat gets any worse.

I guess that's just the way it's got to be though.

Listening to Joseph Spence and downloading lots of pictures to be used in coming issues of the Radical.

I expect to get the edits on Thursday and have issue 9 ready to go to press on Canada Day.

Fuck I hope I don't get sick or if I do I hope that I'll be ok enough tomorrow to find my way around the UBC campus. the War Rersisters Support Campaign are holding a public forum tomorrow afternoon and I said to Sarah that I would be there.

I watched this really cool movie tonight it's called Smitherens I got it for 2 dollars at videomatica before I went to LA I like previously viewed tapes sometimes you can find some real gemms.

I got my tax refund and since I didn't spend almost any money in LA I have a lot of cash to take with me east this msakes me really happy because I won't have to impose on my friends and family more than I have to.

I feel like ass right now so I am going to go to bed... maybe I can get someone to come over tomorrow with some neocitron or some dayquill or something.

Cross Bones Style

the count down is on. I leave LA on the 23rd of this month and take the train back to Vancouver. My experience here has been overwhelmingly positive, challenging, and affirming. I will be taking with me a good deal of new thought and fresh ideas about community and about pretty much everything.

My mom is in town visiting my cousin and I and today I will be going to what's left of the South Central Farm to take pictures and maybe learn a bit more about what happened when the cops evicted the farmers. I met a kid here last week who had been an urban farmer at the site, I gave him my e-mail and told him that if he wrote something for the July issue of The Radical that I would publish it, I should have goten his e-mail adress as well because it can be awkward to write to random strangers, I know. I'll see if I can get it from someone here at the house and remind him of my desire to publish something about it.

Tomorrow begins my last few days here, I am going to be sorry to go but I know that as soon as I can afford to I will be coming back to visit and help out.

I finished my ppreliminary draft of a book I've been trying to write for a number of years, this draft is very short, only about 55 pages long but I am going over it and writing more here and there and changing the way some things are phrased. I doubt it will get to be more than maybe 100 typed pages but that's fine, I don't think it needs to be too long though I hope it becomes as long as it should be.

My teeth feel pretty gross because I havn't brushed in a couple of days... yech.

When I get home to Vancouver I'll still be travelling a bit. I promised a very dear friend that I would come out to Vancouver Island for a weekend to visit her and I have been invited to a peace event in the Kootenays in honour of the Vietnam War resisters who deserted the army or fled the draft back in the 60's, it should be good and I'll try and write about it here, though if I don't I'll certainly have something to say about my experiences in the August issue of The Christian Radical.

* * *

I havn't heard from Barrett and Sarah since they left BC to go to their new Presbetery in upstate New York. I hope thewy are ok and having a good trip out there. I don't have much else to write about right now. I am going to freshen up a bit before my mom gets here.

Death to the Lungs of Los Angeles

Protesters chained themselves to barrels of concrete and others, including actress Daryl Hannah, sat in a large walnut tree.

By JACOB ADELMAN, Associated Press Writer
Republished from Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES – Sheriff’s deputies began evicting people from an urban garden early Tuesday and arrested at least seven as protesters chained themselves to barrels of concrete and others, including actress Daryl Hannah, sat in a large walnut tree.

“I’m very confident this is the morally right thing to do, to take a principled stand in solidarity with the farmers,” Hannah said by cell phone. Asked if she willing to risk arrest, she said, “I’m planning on holding my position.”

About 350 people grow produce and flowers on the 14 acres of privately owned land, in a gritty, inner-city area surrounded by warehouses and train tracks. The garden has been there for decades but the landowner, Ralph Horowitz, now wants to replace it with a warehouse.

At daybreak Tuesday, 120 deputies, including riot forces, showed up to serve an eviction order that a judge signed last month.

Seven people were arrested for allegedly violating a court eviction order and obstructing sheriff’s deputies enforcing the order, said Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Kerri Webb.

As many as 20 demonstrators inside the garden chained themselves to each other, the tree or 55-gallon concrete-filled drums.

“It’s a massive show of force,” said environmental activist John Quigley, who was in the walnut tree. “Our goal is to hold as firm as we can, obviously in a nonviolent manner.”

He said perhaps 20 farmers and their supporters were in the urban garden.

Deputies used saws to cut down the chain-link fence around the site. Inside the compound, deputies sawed through chains linking garden supporters. Quigley said he could see sparks flying dangerously close to the people’s faces and complained that authorities had removed legal observers from the inside the farm.

“It’s really an unsafe situation,” Quigley said. “There’s no legal observers in here. ... Basically we need legal observers in here to guarantee people’s safety.”

Webb said the deputies were “taking our time so we make sure the protesters are safe.”

Several dozen protesters gathered outside the area, sporadically chanting, “We’re here and we’re not going to leave” in Spanish and blowing whistles. Some flooded onto a street and disrupted truck traffic in the area. About a half-dozen people wore green baseball hats with “National Lawyers Guild Legal Observer” on the front.

The effort to save the farm has attracted the support of celebrities, including “Splash” star Hannah, country singer Willie Nelson, actor Danny Glover, folk singer Joan Baez and tree sitter Julia “Butterfly” Hill.

Some supporters moved onto the property full-time in mid-May and occupied the walnut tree after the judge issued the eviction order.

The roots of the dispute go back to the 1980s, when the city forced Horowitz to sell the land to for $4.8 million for a trash-to-energy incinerator. The project fizzled and the city turned the land over to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, which allowed people to begin gardening there after in the early 1990s.

Horowitz sued to get the site back, and the city settled in 2003 by selling it to him for $5 million, slightly more than the $4.8 million he had been paid.

Garden supporters took legal action, but after a winning a temporary court order last year, an appellate court overturned that decision and the state Supreme Court last month decided against hearing the case.

In the meantime, Horowitz offered to sell the land for $16.3 million to a trust set up on behalf of the farmers. The group was $10 million short when the purchase option expired May 22, and Horowitz got the eviction order.

Nonviolence and the Early Christian Chruch

Wisdom from the early church for today:
(the entry below was taken from my friend Mike's blog http://anarchocatholic.blogspot.com/)

Ignatius of Antioch

Let fire and the cross; let the crowds of wild beasts; let tearings, breakings, and dislocations of bones; let cutting off of members; let shatterings of the whole body; and let all the dreadful torments of the devil come upon me: only let me attain to Jesus Christ.

Epistle to the Romans

Ireneus

The Christians have changed their swords and their lances into instruments of peace, and they know not how to fight.

Against Heresies

Clement of Alexandria

He says, "Take no anxious thought for tomorrow," meaning that the man who has devoted himself to Christ ought to be sufficient to himself, and servant to himself, and moreover lead a life which provides for himself, each day by itself. For it is not in war we are trained, but in peace that we are trained. War needs great preparation, and luxury craves profusion; but peace and love, simple and quiet sisters, require no arms nor excessive preparation. The Word is their sustenance.

Paedagogus

Justin Martyr

We who formerly used to murder one another do not only now refrain from making war upon our enemies, but also, that we may not lie nor deceive our examiners, willingly die confessing Christ.

1st Apology

Ambrose

I do not think that a Christian, a just and a wise man, ought to save his own life by the death of another; just as when he meets with an armed robber he cannot return his blows, lest in defending his life he should stain his love toward his neighbour. The verdict on this is plain and clear in the books of the Gospel. "Put away thy sword, for every one that taketh the sword shall perish by the sword. " What robber is more hateful than the persecutor who came to kill Christ? But Christ would not be defended from the wounds of the persecutor, for He willed to heal all by His wounds.

On the Duties of the Clergy

Council of Nicea

As many as were called by grace, and displayed the first zeal, having cast aside their military girdles, but afterwards returned, like dogs, to their own vomit, (so that some spent money and by means of gifts regained their military stations); let these, after they have passed the space of three years as hearers, be for ten years prostrators.

Canon 12

Lactantius

To share the bounties of the common God and Father with those who do not possess them, to injure no one, to oppress no one, not to close his door against a stranger, nor his ear against a suppliant, but to be bountiful, beneficent, and liberal.

Divine Institutes

Athenagorus

It does not belong to the same person to regard the very foetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God's care, and when it has passed into life, to kill it.

A Plea for Christians

Tertullian

To begin with the real ground of the military crown, I think we must first inquire whether warfare is proper at all for Christians. What sense is there in discussing the merely accidental, when that on which it rests is to be condemned? Do we believe it lawful for a human oath to be superadded to one divine, for a man to come under promise to another master after Christ, and to abjure father, mother, and all nearest kinsfolk, whom even the law has commanded us to honour and love next to God Himself, to whom the gospel, too, holding them only of less account than Christ, has in like manner rendered honour? Shall it be held lawful to make an occupation of the sword, when the Lord proclaims that he who uses the sword shall perish by the sword? And shall the son of peace take part in the battle when it does not become him even to sue at law? And shall he apply the chain, and the prison, and the torture, and the punishment, who is not the avenger even of his own wrongs? Shall he, forsooth, either keep watch-service for others more than for Christ, or shall he do it on the Lord's day, when he does not even do it for Christ Himself? And shall he keep guard before the temples which he has renounced? And shall he take a meal where the apostle has forbidden him? And shall he diligently protect by night those whom in the day-time he has put to flight by his exorcisms, leaning and resting on the spear the while with which Christ's side was pierced? Shall he carry a flag, too, hostile to Christ? And shall he ask a watchword from the emperor who has already received one from God? Shall he be disturbed in death by the trumpet of the trumpeter, who expects to be aroused by the angel's trump? And shall the Christian be burned according to camp rule, when he was not permitted to burn incense to an idol, when to him Christ remitted the punishment of fire? Then how many other offences there are involved in the performances of camp offices, which we must hold to involve a transgression of God's law, you may see by a slight survey. The very carrying of the name over from the camp of light to the camp of darkness is a violation of it. Of course, if faith comes later, and finds any preoccupied with military service, their case is different, as in the instance of those whom John used to receive for baptism, and of those most faithful centurions, I mean the centurion whom Christ approves, and the centurion whom Peter instructs; yet, at the same time, when a man has become a believer, and faith has been sealed, there must be either an immediate abandonment of it, which has been the course with many; or all sorts of quibbling will have to be resorted to in order to avoid offending God, and that is not allowed even outside of military service; or, last of all, for God the fate must be endured which a citizen-faith has been no less ready to accept. Neither does military service hold out escape from punishment of sins, or exemption from martyrdom. Nowhere does the Christian change his character. There is one gospel, and the same Jesus, who will one day deny every one who denies, and acknowledge every one who acknowledges God,-who will save, too, the life which has been lost for His sake; but, on the other hand, destroy that which for gain has been saved to His dishonour. With Him the faithful citizen is a soldier, just as the faithful soldier is a citizen. A state of faith admits no plea of necessity; they are under no necessity to sin, whose one necessity is, that they do not sin. For if one is pressed to the offering of sacrifice and the sheer denial of Christ by the necessity of torture or of punishment, yet discipline does not connive even at that necessity; because there is a higher necessity to dread denying and to undergo martyrdom, than to escape from suffering, and to render the homage required. In fact, an excuse of this sort overturns the entire essence of our sacrament, removing even the obstacle to voluntary sins; for it will be possible also to maintain that inclination is a necessity, as involving in it, forsooth, a sort of compulsion. I have, in fact, disposed of this very allegation of necessity with reference to the pleas by which crowns connected with official position are vindicated, in support of which it is in common use, since for this very reason offices must be either refused, that we may not fall into acts of sin, or martyrdoms endured that we may get quit of offices. Touching this primary aspect of the question, as to the unlawfulness even of a military life itself, I shall not add more, that the secondary question may be restored to its place. Indeed, if, putting my strength to the question, I banish from us the military life, I should now to no purpose issue a challenge on the matter of the military crown.

On the Crown

tempus fugitive

Originally I was going to write to a couple of people with this but my desire for readership as well as a present lack of time and feeling of intellectual grace has swayed me to post it here instead. I might still send it to a couple of people but for now it will get posted here.

The Cross in the Garden
By Chris Rooney

I feel moved to write about a concept that’s been bouncing around in my head for a few days now, the concept of Divine Futility; let me try and explain what I mean.

Last week I was talking with a girl here who was frustrated with her work in the soup kitchen. She was upset because the work seemed to accomplish nothing. She questioned the purpose of feeding people who were not contributing anything to society—who had no inherent worth.

She complained that the work we do by feeding them does nothing to help them better themselves financially or increase their quality of life. These same people would just come back tomorrow, just as poor, just as hungry, just as dirty, and just as high; and the prospect is very real that some would return every day of the rest of their lives. As she was telling me of her experience when the idea of a Divine Futility came into my head It sounded nice, to me the words ring poetically, they evoke images of people practicing the works of mercy, and of living out the sermon on the mount.

These things are as romantic and noble to me now as were the revolutionary efforts of Leon Trotsky or Che Guevara in my youth, as a member of a revolutionary socialist organization. It occurs to me now that these two romances are not too far removed one from the other. The guerrilla fights against armies controlled by the wealthy and the oppressors who benefit from political and economic injustice.

The guerrilla is a member of a small band of comrades, friends, they are three, five, maybe seven if they are new or lucky. They have little support in the field, no plains, no missiles, 20-year old Kalashnikovs and machetes; they are alone in the jungle.

The Armies have legions of well-trained and disciplined men and women, the latest weapons and technology; they have plains, bombs, missiles and endless ammunition. The guerrilla has only one thing up on most soldiers they have their convictions, they have the outrage that drove them into the wilderness.

The life of the Catholic Worker shares a common romance for me. The Catholic Worker fights against the systems, the paradigms, the powers and the principalities, which drive the same oppressors. The Catholic Worker tries to embody the best qualities of humanity through the call of the Gospels, non violence, service of the poor and voluntary poverty in order to share in the burden of those most in need, those people on societies margins. To the guerrilla the battle ends when he’s dead, to the Catholic Worker the battle ends when we are raised up on the last day.

For the guerrilla the armies of wealth keep coming without end. For the Catholic Worker the armies of poverty keep coming forever. And this in both cases could be a romantic futility, but what makes our work Divinely Futile? I kept asking myself about this while not giving any real thought, and then on Tuesday in back of the Hippie Kitchen I looked up at the Cross in the garden, mutilated, run through with rusted spikes, nails and coils of razor wire; a Cross of beautiful rest, a rest as sweet as jasmine and as soft and as comfortable as goose down and Egyptian cotton. I looked at this Cross and asked in a moment of prayer to understand this Divine Futility and it was in the sign of the Cross that I found it.

Christ knew, maybe his entire life, what he was born to do; it was revealed to him all that was to happen, from his betrayal by Judas Iscariot to his betrayal by all those who have come after.

I have no doubt that Christ saw the purges in the Church, the Inquisitions, The Crusades, the Ku Klux Klan, Santeria, the Conquistadores, residential schools, paedophile priests, and every war for the last two thousand years. I believe he saw these things, and that as he prayed for the cup to pass him by he also saw Saint Francis and Saint Claire, He saw Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, he saw Dorothy Day praying at the Lincoln Memorial, he saw Oscar Romero, Thomas Merton, and Tom Fox and he saw all of us and all of you doing whatever we can, ignorant of the effects save for the knowledge that a few hundred people had lunch or morning coffee and some oatmeal. And it is my belief that these visions gave him the courage and the perseverance to take the cup of his death. A death that by the logic of this world was an abject failure, but was transformed into the final victory, in this death and resurrection God has been glorified, and Christ in him and maybe even he in us.

If you knew that no matter what you chose to do to help your fellows in humanity that you would never live to see the fruits of your labour, that your children and grand children might never live to see the fruits of that labour either. If you could know that your grand children would be doing the very same work or damage control. Would you give up, stop serving and go do something else? Or would you find joy and a strange comfort in the thought that the view is better from the Cross? <

feeling lame