MEMBERS OF CONGRESS, ARE YOU LISTENING?

My dear friend Margaret wrote the following letter to her senators and representative:

Dear....,

My name is Margaret. I am the Episcopal priest serving the Cheyenne River Reservation. It is a difficult job, at best, but I have never felt more fully alive than when serving the good people of South Dakota.

Here is my concern: The "Sequester" cuts have cut to the bone here on the Reservation. Our Social Services workers will be working without a direct office supervisor, and will be expected to absorb the work load of their supervisor when she is laid off beginning May 1. They already each have over 150 clients. I have heard one serves more than 260 clients --adding more is going to make a difficult job impossible.

But more importantly, the clients themselves have been cut off --they have received no monies since the beginning of March. They are coming to my door asking for heating fuel, food, clothes, diapers. Children are at risk. There are no Tribal programs that can assist these folks, they are mostly disabled, elderly with grandchildren in the home, or are desperate for work. Last night, after a funeral, I delivered left over food to people's homes. Funeral food to a family of six of baloney sandwiches, biscuits, two apples, two oranges and some chocolate cake.

I cannot afford to feed all the people who come to my door asking for help. I have emptied my own freezer, my own cupboard in order to help these desperate folks.

I would like to invite you and any one else who is interested to come and stay here for ten days. Just ten days. I would like you to open my door and hear the stories, see the faces, see the desperation and despair. I would like you to feed the people from my freezer --and when it is empty explain to them why it is they have to go hungry and cold.

I would like you to attend the funeral I would probably do sometime in that 10 days and see the faithfulness, the generosity, the generational grief. I would like you to come with me on home visits and see the extreme poverty out of which that faithfulness and generosity and grief springs.

In the last six months, I have done 40 funerals --six infants, two teen suicides, and many, many folks under the age 40.

And food, shelter and heat are not the only problems here --the Indian Health Services were also part of the Sequester cuts. And the cuts are affecting the Head Start programs.

Have you all become so twisted up in your political lives that you have forgotten the people you have been called to serve?

I think so.

Look, it's really easy --have no cap on Social Security payments --everyone pays, all the way up. Including you. Don't make me pay 25% and more on taxes while the ultra-rich pay 15%. Don't give yourself healthcare benefits and raises and then deny them to others.

Don't punish the children and the elderly and the poor and the disabled by cutting the programs that at least keep them alive at poverty levels.  Oh, and by the way, don't sacrifice the environment for monetary gain --that will kill us all.

I'll say it again: Don't exempt yourselves from the burden the poor must bear every day.

I can only say I am shocked and depressed by my own government. Do better than this. The people you are supposed to serve deserve better.

Shocked and depressed,
The Rev. Margaret Watson

For you members of Congress who apparently believe that the inconvenience of delayed flights is the most serious consequence of the Sequester,  may I remind you of your oath upon assuming your offices?

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

The very first words of the Constitution are as follows:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. (My emphasis)

When Native American citizens of  the richest country in the world live as Margaret describes the situation of her parishioners, something is very wrong.  In the best of times, her people number among the poorest.  In bad times such as these, their plight is desperate.

My prayer for you is that the words from the song of the prophet Ezekiel become the reality for you that will move you to exercise your power to end the Sequester and relieve the suffering people in these United States of America.

A new heart I will give you
and a new spirit put within you.
I will take the stone heart from your chest
and give you a heart of flesh.
I will help you walk in my laws
and cherish my commandments and do them.
You shall be my people,
and I will be your God.

(Ezekiel 36:26-28)

FULL MOON

 

Great ball shining bright 
Rolling on dark night's ceiling 
Sun's light brings to earth

ENEMY COMBATANT?

Sen. Lindsey Graham

Lindsey Graham (Benghazi! Benghazi!) is up for reelection in South Carolina next year, and there are rumors that the Tea Party may support a candidate to challenge him forcing him into a Republican Party primary run-off.  Thus Graham may think he has to prove his manly-man creds with combative stances against President Obama's policies, which he has admitted are "good politics".

Even though the man suspected of detonating two bombs during the Boston Marathon has already received his Miranda rights, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham Monday continued to press for the suspect to be "interrogated" and treated as an "enemy combatant" for intelligence-gathering purposes. But Graham said the information gathered shouldn't be used in court because the suspect is a U.S. citizen.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen born in Kyrgyzstan, was charged Monday in federal court for last week's bombing, which he allegedly set off with his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed last week during a police search for the suspects.

Dzhokhar Tsnarnaev

The Justice Department has declined to treat Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as an enemy combatant, which would have allowed authorities to question him without an attorney present.

The authorities questioned Tsarnaev for 16 hours before he was read his Miranda rights.  During that time, he confessed to the crimes, thus the confession cannot be used in court to make the case against him.  Once he was read his Miranda rights, Tsarnaev stopped talking.  Since there's probably enough evidence besides the confession, the prosecutors probably still have a strong case for Tsarnaev's conviction as one of the Boston bombers. 

It’s...dismaying that authorities dribbled out bits of Tsarnaev’s confession Monday and Tuesday after saying he’d been read his rights. They never directly said he kept talking after he’d been Mirandized, but they created that impression.

I've read elsewhere that the confession came after the reading of Miranda rights, and I see the source of the information now.  Was this deliberate obfuscation by the authorities intended to confuse?

Despite previous statements about Tsarnaev's capture, it now appears he had no gun, and the authorities won't say what all the gunfire at the scene was about.

Although police feared he was heavily armed, the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing had no firearms when he came under a barrage of police gunfire that struck the boat where he was hiding, according to multiple federal law enforcement officials.

Authorities said they were desperate to capture Dzhokhar Tsarnaev so he could be questioned. The FBI, however, declined to discuss what prompted the gunfire.

In time, I trust all the information in the news reports will be sorted out.  I intended my post to be about Graham and his call for Tsarnaev to be treated as an enemy combatant, but as I heard and read more news, the post grew longer.  

NO SUCCESS

 

Trying without success to avoid press coverage of the opening of the monument to George W Bush on the campus of Southern Methodist University.  SMU should have sent Bush packing when he approached them.  The library is a blight on the campus.

UPDATE: Or as Adrastos at First Draft said yesterday, "The Bush lieberry is opening tomorrow in Dallas."

TEXAS OPEN FOR BUSINESS

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is on a four-day recruitment trip to California this week, trying to lure Golden State businesses to set up shop in the Lone Star state.

The trip, which began Sunday, will take Perry to San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles and Orange County, but the recruitment started last Monday when Perry made an ad buy in California inviting Golden State businesses to enjoy the tax and regulatory benefits available to them in Texas.

“Building a business is tough, but I hear building a business in California is next to impossible.  This is Texas Governor Rick Perry, and I have a message for California businesses. Come check out Texas,” Perry says in the 30-second ad.  “There are plenty of reasons Texas has been named the best state for doing business for eight years running. Visit texaswideopenforbusiness.com and see why our low taxes, sensible regulations and fair legal system are just the thing to get your business moving to Texas.”

Go to Texas (wide open for business) where you can pollute as you please and operate a dangerous business with little regulation or oversight.  Or come to Louisiana where similar policies allow you to do business in whatever way you like.

Meanwhile in West, Texas:

The number of people who died in a fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, last week now stands at 15, officials said Tuesday. Some earlier reports had indicated that 14 people had lost their lives. At least 200 more were injured.

Governor Perry tours disaster zone

I AM NOT A SHEEP

 

The Good Shepherd, mosaic in Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna,
1st half of 5th century

The Good Shepherd metaphor no longer works all that well for me, though at one time, it did, for I loved the idea that the Lord was my shepherd.  The Good Shepherd is not the problem, but I no longer relate to being a sheep.  Though sheep are not dumb animals, as is widely believed, they do tend to herd, and my inclination is more toward being a loner than a member of a herd.  I'd be the sheep who strays away, and the Good Shepherd would have to leave the other 99 to come to look for me.  After a while, I'm sure even the Good Shepherd, the Best Shepherd of all, would be annoyed by my behavior.  Mind you, I have not thought through the theological implications of not wanting to be a sheep.  What I've written is sort of an extended thought for the day, about which I could change my mind once I consider further the consequences of not being a sheep.

I should add that I love the looks of Scottish Blackface sheep.

The mosaic pictured above is lovely, isn't it?

Image from Wikimedia Commons.

HOPE FOR BACKGROUND CHECKS FOR GUN SALES?

 

Adolphus Busch IV, heir to the Busch family brewing fortune, resigned his lifetime membership in the National Rifle Association on Thursday, writing in a letter to NRA President David Keene, "I fail to see how the NRA can disregard the overwhelming will of its members who see background checks as reasonable." (My emphasis)
....

"The NRA I see today has undermined the values upon which it was established," wrote Busch. "Your current strategic focus clearly places priority on the needs of gun and ammunition manufacturers while disregarding the opinions of your 4 million individual members."

How much more insane commentary will the members have to hear from Wayne LaPierre before there is a stampede out of the National Rifle Association?  How many more cowardly retreats from voting for background checks by members of Congress before they awaken to the fact that 90% of the citizens of the US favor background checks?  For whom do the craven Congress critters work?  The citizens or the NRA?  I think we know. 

NASA: THREE YEARS OF SUN IN THREE MINUTES

In the three years since it first provided images of the sun in the spring of 2010, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has had virtually unbroken coverage of the sun's rise toward solar maximum, the peak of solar activity in its regular 11-year cycle. This video shows those three years of the sun at a pace of two images per day.

Amazing and beautiful.  The musical accompaniment is "A Lady's Errand of Love" by Martin Lass.

Thanks to Paul (A.).

FEAR ITSELF

MICHELANGELO Buonarroti
Last Judgment (detail)
Fresco
Cappella Sistina, Vatican

Fear Itself

Fear itself …
that is the thing explaining
why bombers bomb
why we cannot control guns
why the Pope suppresses nuns
speaking “radical” humanist words
why “real men” loathe nerds
and arm themselves against
delusions of apocalypse.
Fear is the power of coercion
trumping all notions
of civility, compassion “fittest” assumed to mean
the ruthlessness of nihilists
protecting their own small niche
at the expense of all “soft” targets
“not my problem”
“take care of our own”
dismissing the thoughtful
the adaptive, the truly strong
who mean it when they say
life itself is sacred.
Fear is the tool of men
protesting too much, claiming
to be defenders of liberty
when what they are protecting
is their consumption of advantage
their right to shoot, to profit
to procreate any way they choose
but not you, not you
you must be frightened into
compliance with their rule
their privilege, their proprietary
fist enforcing the lie of superiority
“emotion” labeled “girly” “useless”
except when it is “manly anger”
an excuse to pretend the violence
is just … but it is just their fear
their adrenaline addiction
raging, tolerated, “just the way it is”
not inevitable
just the way things will be
until the greater we
says no
passes the laws that prevent
paranoid bullies from expecting
and getting
our cooperation in their death industry
fear itself.

(Marthe G. Walsh)

Image from the Web Gallery of Art.

EARTH DAY - APRIL 22, 2013

Amen. Thanks to Ellie on Facebook.