Tax support for church-run schools in Canada

by Edd Doerr

A February poll in Ontario found that Ontarians oppose tax support for Catholic schools by 52% to 38%. Ontario Education Ministry spokesperson  Liz Sandals, however, said that Ontario will continue to provide full tax support for four separate school systems – English language public, French public, English Catholic and French Catholic. The church-run schools get more per student public  funding than the two public school systems. Protestant, Jewish and other private schools in the province get zero public funding. British Columbia provides funding to various church-run schools, but less than in the other three provinces.  This system goes back to Canada’s constitution, the British North America Act of 1867, which created modern Canada. Only three provinces require public funding for Catholic schools – Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta. Predominantly French and nominally Catholic Quebec ended Catholic school funding in 1999. Newfoundland, which had only  tax-supported church-run schools  – five systems of them – switched to public schools only in two sweeping referenda in the 1990s.

In mid-March Canadian columnist Samantha Emann wrote that it’s time to “put out the fire” in the burning debate over Catholic school funding. Changing the constitution requires only the approval of the House of Commons and the Senate and, importantly, only the province that is affected. Emann notes that this is what happened regarding Quebec in 1999.

“Samantha Emann writes, “are unfair to Canada’s many other religious groups and cultures. Funding all religious schools would be a logistical nightmare, and in my view, public services should be affirmatively secular.” She adds, “As should be apparent to anyone who has been following the news for the past year, some Catholic schools boards, trustees, teachers and advising clergy have  a record of discriminatory, socially regressive efforts to hinder advances made in the interest of student safety and learning. . . .  In Ontario there was opposition from Catholic leaders to the much-needed, recently updated sex-education curricula.”

Emann continues: “That deficit-plagued province [Ontario] recently asked voters for ideas online for ways it could save money in its budget. Here’s an idea. According to a 2012 report from the Federation of Urban Neighbourhoods, mergimg Ontario’s Catholic and public school boards would save the province more than $1 billion.”

The 2016 poll was conducted by Forum Research. Its president, Lorne Bozinoff, said recently that “If it were ever put to a public referendum, Catholic school funding would lose, fair and square.” Just as, I might add, it has in the US in 28 referendum elections by large margins from coast to coast between 1966 and 2014.

In related news, the Ontario-based Civil Rights in Public Education organization (CRIPEweb.org) reports that the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal will consider a complaint “about the treatment one student [non-Catholic Claudia Sorgini] has received from Roman Catholic school board personnel when she applied for an exemption from religious courses and programs in one of the board’s high schools.” The complaint is based on the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms which are supposed to provide protection from religious or creed-based pressure.

Personal and Social Knowledge

by Gary Berg-Cross

The topic of personal versus social knowledge came up the other day in a group conversation that I was more or less part of.  The particular spark was a Pew poll that suggested the American public is becoming less religious.  As one can see from the lead paragraph the actual results are a bit nuanced:

..the Pew Research Center study also finds a great deal of stability in the U.S. religious landscape. The recent decrease in religious beliefs and behaviors is largely attributable to the “nones” – the growing minority of Americans, particularly in the Millennial generation, who say they do not belong to any organized faith. Among the roughly three-quarters of U.S. adults who do claim a religion, there has been no discernible drop in most measures of religious commitment. ....

The share of U.S. adults who say they believe in God, while still remarkably high by comparison with other advanced industrial countries, has declined modestly, from approximately 92% to 89%, since Pew Research Center conducted its first Landscape Study in 2007 “

But the way the group conversation went was a bit skeptical of the trend and wondered if Pew survey methods (as compared to Gallup for example), say just using landline phones as some claimed might be a reason to doubt the results. 

I did a quick search during the discussion to find that Pew uses a variety of methods but just point out that in general only 1 in 10 people contacted responds to their surveys.  

The group’s skepticism is not isolated.  RELIGION DISPATCHES, for example, argued that there are serious differences the way questions are argued that the religion-science conflict question (“Generally, do you think science and religion are often in conflict?”) locked respondents into:

“ a specific formulation of concepts. “Religion” and “science,” as we mentioned earlier, can point to a very wide range of traditions, activities, and groups of people. ‘Conflict’ here could refer to a fundamental epistemological incompatibility between religion and science, or to secondary social tensions between dogmatists on one or both sides. Or it could refer to some combination of both. Asked whether science and religion are, “often in conflict” or, “mostly compatible,” the poll participant has to collapse any such nuances and pigeonhole their beliefs into one side of a binary.”

It is true that surveys are based on respondent’s individual interpretations and the phrasing in different surveys is important to understand, but for many important topics group or social surveys provide important insights into topics that individual may not have due to a lack of one’s own knowledge, experience or existing biases.

There’s something to be said and maybe much to be said for personal knowledge via experience of something the witness actually saw or heard.  There is something attractive in the strong individual sense that appeals to conservative thinking of self sufficiency. It may be especially valuable if it is reflected experience and tested over time.  

Personal knowledge looked upon this way can be distinguished from what we learn from some other person or source.  In a way this was part of the experience of the Renaissance and more so the Enlightenment.  But only part, because the social aspect of knowledge is extreme important. Science is a social activity carried out by the community of scientists using methods agreed upon by that community’s cumulative experience over time. In Science the acceptance or rejection of the evidence submitted to must be carefully weighed.

Knowledge in the personal sense has to do with being familiar with something.  You can argue that  in order to know the color blue, one must have experienced blue; in order to know fear, one must have experienced it. And gather knowledge by acquaintance.

But much of the world reality is beyond my ability to directly experience it.  What do people believe about the existence of God, or the wealth needed to make one in the top 1% of people in the US?  These are social facts that I don’t experience directly but rely on faithful methods to produce a sharable “fact.” To the extent that I believe in the method by which such facts are gathered I may accept the sharing of them.  It’s an example of social knowledge and when you think of it, much of what we think of as our personal knowledge was been acquired in this social, shared way.

The distinction between personal knowledge and shared knowledge can be summarized by the difference between talking about what ‘I know’ and what ‘we know’. What we as a group know builds a sense of community and makes our relationships last.

In a democracy what we know together is important as are conversations about what we know and believe. And real conversations in political times can be challenging. The prejudices that surround them are so inveterate, that it is impossible to do them justice without entering into considerable detail and nuance, as was touched on in the Pew Survey results. And hearing 2 or more sides of an issue is hard enough in normal circumstances but becomes more difficult has emotional investment rises along with competing facts and interpretations.  You can get on fact checker sites to help but that doesn’t work with all issues and one thing I’ve heard from time to time is argument from “personal experience” that backhands away supposed facts such as from survey and statistical analysis.  I think that it is a mistake and would rob us of a variety of shared knowledge such as historical facts together with historical interpretations that comprise community knowledge over time.

It is also true of economic facts, such as unemployment rates.  Sure I and my neighbors may be employed but what is happening in Baltimore.  I rely on others to understand and report this. Economic topics are varied and vast so the evidence concerning them is varied, but just relying on direct, personal experience doesn’t get us through the problems of knowing.

Another Hard-Wired in American Holiday to Enjoy

by Gary Berg-Cross

Thanksgiving is often called the most American of holidays. I've heard its nature captured in a contemporary tween as, "Thanksgiving — the day we express gratitude for family, food and football. (But mostly football.)"

There is always something to be Thankful for (well not the Washington football team), although a look at the paper suggests it isn’t all cranberries and stuffing.   I'm not trapped in Buffalo for example - is that too close to thinking how ungrateful I am to the forces bringing us climate change? And yes, gas prices are down if climate disruption is up - seems like that classic case of choosing to focus on something near-term, in hand, already here versus what might be behind door 2 in the far distance. Only, choosing the chocolate-covered sweet may get me the less desirable thing I fear in the future. 
And yes, I can add to my list that ebola is on the decline, no thanks to NJ governor "sweet pie".

And speaking of stuffing ourselves, sure, many of us will share an abundance of food (pass the pie please), conversation and music (Max's drawing above too). But there are paradoxes galore as a very religious country tries to celebrate an event starting with Pilgrim’s thanking their particular God. We are now in the context of a more material, secular holiday celebrating family reunion as a precursor to shop-till-you-drop Friday..  Excess represents the paradoxical tension in which we hold the two halves of our national life.

As the Boston Globe’s review of James Baker’s “Thanksgiving: The Biography of an American Holiday (Revisiting New England)” noted there has been a culturally blown path to today’s holiday:

“Baker traces how the [Thanksgiving] celebration has changed over the years. In the 18th century, Thanksgiving was viewed as a day for family reunions, and the Pilgrims were remembered as the symbolic founders of New England. But the connection between the two had been lost by the time George Washington issued the first presidential Thanksgiving proclamation in 1789. . . Baker notes that the struggle over the significance of the Thanksgiving holiday continues, with historical accuracy often the victim of political advantage. But, he argues, ‘the holiday’s cultural vigor is actually demonstrated by the conflicts and debates that surround it.’ For, he observes, ‘debate indicates relevance, and the dispute over the appropriate role of Thanksgiving in American life demonstrates that the holiday is very much alive and still evolving.’”—

As I noted last year, I like thanking the natural world and friends for some of the joys of the year. For the feel of what contemporary Thanksgiving has evolved into, I like

author Richard Ford’s take on it.  We hear a critical and astute voice in his 3rd novel of the Frank Bascombe Trilogy - "The Lay of the Land" (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006).  Frank’s observations on American culture that began with The Sportswriter (1986) and continued with Independence Day (1995). Each story is centered around a holiday.  When Frank is a young man it is Easter and he is in the season of hope amidst a cruel spring. Independence Day is of course about the 4^th and Frank is no fire cracker fan, adrift and no longer married.  It’s more about traffic congestion than celebration.  In the 3^rd book middle age Frank is a declining realtor facing the arrival of a cold Thanksgiving as the seasons of his life have advanced. 

As in each of the novel’s Frank's internal life is full of honest observations on things around him – society, family and identity and what it means to be a New Jersey American at a particular holiday time. These times include formal and informal holiday traditions that set wheels in motion that collide in paradoxical grim/humorous family gatherings.

Cultural and neighbor collisions wash up like dead starfish on the NJ shore too. 

As the arc of Thanksgiving day approaches Frank’s narrative concern is one of the impending pressure of events and expectations.  Readers may enjoy his take on the holiday.  He calls it:

 "cloying Thanksgiving… the recapitulative, Puritan and thus most treacherous of holidays.”

Frank may be blamed for feeling down and ill with little expectation of cheer form his family, but the author had more general coping things in mind about the nature of Thanksgiving as Frank further observers how things may work out and how we got here:

" My thought is that by my plan's being unambitious, the holiday won't deteriorate into apprehension, dismay and rage, rocketing people out the door and back to the Turnpike long before sundown. Thanksgiving ought to be the versatile, easy-to-like holiday suitable to the secular and religious...It often doesn't work out that way.... , "As everyone knows, the Thanksgiving 'concept' was originally strong-armed onto poor war-torn President Lincoln by an early prototype forceful-woman editor of a nineteenth century equivalent of "The Ladies Home Journal," with a view to upping subscriptions. And while you can argue that the holiday commemorates ancient rites of fecundity and the Great-Mother-Who-Is-in-the-Earth, it's in fact always honored storewide clearances and stacking 'em deep 'n selling 'em cheap - unless you're a Wampanoag Indian in which case it celebrates deceit, genocide, and man's indifference to who owns what............

And yet, Thanksgiving won't be ignored.  Americans are hard-wired for something to be thankful for.  Our national spirit thrives on invented gratitude.  Even if Aunt Bella's flat-lined and in custodial care down in Rucksville, Alabama, we still "need" her to have some white meat and gravy, and be thankful, thankful, thankful.”

Ford’s fictional, but very human, agent Frank organizes his events modestly “for nonconfrontational familial good cheer “ in line with his reality but also risks little by trying to creatively navigate the downsides of the paradoxes:

 “unspectacular physical state -- and to accommodate as much as possible everyone's personal agendas, biological clocks, comfort zones and need for wiggle room, while offering a pleasantly neutral setting . ". . . it is churlish not to let the spirit swell - if it can - since little enough's at stake.....Contrive, invent, engage - take the chance to be cheerful. Though in the process, one needs to skirt the spiritual dark alleys and emotional cul-de-sacs, subdue all temper flarings and sob sessions with loved ones . . . Take B vitamins and multiple walks on the beach. Make no decisions more serious than lunch. Get as much sun as possible. In other words, treat Thanksgiving like jet lag."

Good advice on how to make a complex ritual filled with paradox work.

Some Secular and Non-Secular Perspectives for Earth Day

Gary Berg-Cross

Earth Day (ED) is, as they say, a 2^nd chance to the wearing of the green in Spring. It’s celebrated in many ways and not just on the 22^nd.  There is a nice   spill over for working folks into the weekend with Green events. And you can find any number of Inspirational Quotes for Earth Day. A favorite for the Deist crowd might be Frank Lloyd Wright’s:

I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.

Some years ago Yahoo music has its Top 10 Earth Day Songs:

Top 10 Earth Day Songs

1. Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) - Marvin Gaye

2. Big Yellow Taxi - Joni Mitchell

3. Paradise - John Prine

4. Shapes Of Things - The Yardbirds 

5. Nature's Way - Spirit

6. Don't Go Near The Water - The Beach Boys

7. If A Tree Falls - Bruce Cockburn

8. Don't Go Near The Water - Johnny Cash

9. Mother Earth (Natural Anthem) - Neil Young

10. I Remember California - R.E.M

It’s a good list although what about Pete Seeger singing Garden Song (Inch by inch)

 Since this is a day to raise children’s consciousness there are ones just for children with some good values, if some take a religious tone about god’s creatures.

I like the Celebrate Earth Day in Images that Google provided along with its  Animated Google Doodle.

But to all of these joyful connection there are a few suffers out there since Earth Day seems too secular a holiday celebration.  The New America site had a disgruntled Bob Adelman who started out noting that, “some consider it (earth day)the most holy of secular celebrations, the culmination of more than four decades of indoctrination of the theme that it’s moral to force people to go green.”

Yep, and his analysis provided this revelation for the selection of the April 22^nd ED date.

Various theories are extant about why April 22 instead of March 20, including trying to set the date during spring break, avoiding true religious holidays such as Easter and Passover, while honoring green believers. One of them, conservationist (not an “environmentalist” by today’s definition) John Muir, was born the day before, 132 years earlier, on April 21, 1838.

Perhaps more conveniently, April 22, 1970 was the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Lenin, the first totalitarian to inflict his own view of Earth Day onto the hapless citizens of the Soviet Union. Called a “subbotnik,” the first day of enforced cleaning of streets and public parks occurred on April 12, 1919.

Wow.  Shades of conspiracy and the very Jewish Bob Adelman commiserates with Steven Landsburg who complained that his four-year-old daughter was being subjected in public school to the indoctrination without proof. Here’s the Landsburg scree:

At the age of four, my daughter earned her second diploma. When she was two, she graduated with the highest possible honors from the Toddler Room at her nursery school in Colorado. Two years later she graduated from the preschool of the Jewish Community Center, where she matriculated on our return to New York State.

At the graduation ceremony, titled Friends of the Earth, I was lectured by four- and five-year-olds on the importance of safe energy sources, mass transportation, and recycling. The recurring mantra was "With privilege comes responsibility" as in "With the privilege of living on this planet comes the responsibility to care for it."

Of course, Thomas Jefferson thought that life on this planet was more an inalienable right than a privilege, but then he had never been to preschool.

I think I know what side of this issue the Deist-like and naturalist Jefferson would have been on. As a fiddler he’s be playing some of the songs listed above and didn’t Jefferson say this?

“Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bands”

Thomas Jefferson

A Secular Look at the Bible

a review by Edd Doerr

Noah's flood and the David/Goliath story  are pure fiction, based on the many centuries earlier Epic of Gilgamesh. So begins Allen Wright's interesting, naturalistic, secular, humanistic summary of the books of the Bible from Genesis through Kings II, the first half of the Jewish Bible and the first third of the combined JudeoChristian scriptures. The author makes repeatedly clear that these writings are pure fiction, but goes on to show when, why, how and for whom they were put together. These anonymous writings were  developed during the Hebrews' Babylonian Captivity of 586 to 537 BCE, probably begun around the time of the death of the Babylonian empire's King Nabuchadnezzar in 562 BCE.

When the Babylonians occupied Judea in 586 BCE they hauled off to their capital only the Hebrew upper classes, leaving the commoners or lower classes behind in Judea. Beginning around 562 BCE Jewish writers in Babylon wrote these books to "sustain their ancient civilization and society during the years of the Babylonian-imposed exile of their upper classes", to "prevent the cultural  demise that had befallen the Judeans' northern brothers and sisters in Israel".  It worked, and when Christianity developed and spread, the whole collection of the books called the  Bible came to be an important and influential cultural artifact, even though very largely fiction.

Reading the Bible can be very boring, but Allen Wright's condensed summary and explanation of its earliest portions is useful and not lacking in  humorous touches. It fits nicely on the shelf with humanist rabbi Sherwin Wine's magisterial A Provocative People: A Secular History of the Jews (2012), which I have also reviewed for this blog.

Secular and Religious Cities

By Gary Berg-Cross

It is perhaps not surprising to find studies measuring various religious qualities in the United States. One from 2010 is aptly called the, “2010 U.S. Religious Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study (RCMS)”.  The report was the work of Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB). It provides detailed county by county information on congregations, members, adherents and attendance for 236 different faiths groups.

Perhaps most interesting are the summaries of which are the most “religious” city/metropolitan areas.  And the results aren’t that surprising.  Salt Lake City comes out as the most religious city ( of 52 with populations > 1 million) based on what the study called its 74 percent population identifying as a religious adherent (73,487 religious adherents per 100,000 persons). Most of the other top cities (or states) were in the South as one might expect. A slightly different study, focusing on Bible belief and including smaller cities finds Knoxville TN as what they called the most Bible-Minded city.

Where are the more secular cities and states?  Again not surprising the research found them in the West and Northeast. The greater area of Portland, OR-WA was the least religious/most secular city with about 32 percent identifying as a religious adherent. States like NY and Rhode Island are about the same level. That’s less than half of Salt Lake or Mississippi which is the most religious state. DC came in as the 3^rd most secular city.

It is a bit interesting that the surveys of religious observance provides an inverse look at secularity. It will be more interesting when we have funded surveys of the various forms of secularity and non-belief.  Just as some surveys covers a wealth of religious sects, it would be interesting to see a bigger spectrum on non-belief.  We might need a comparable large secular/humanist organization to fund such a detailed look, but it might be an important barometer to measure trends. We might just need a secular angel to fund it.  Perhaps the next Reason Rally will generate enough interest to pull that off.

See a HuPo article for more on this topic.

 

Images

 

Secular City: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1396331.The_Secular_City

 

 

Do They Contradict Themselves?

By Gary Berg-Cross

They say that “Mother Nature Never Shaved with Occam’s Razor.” And it is not just physical reality that is complicated.  Humans and their positions are too. Mayor Koch, who died Feb. 1 at 88 of congestive heart failure, was many things and some of them complex, puzzling and perhaps paradoxical.

Early a crusader against Communism and the Vietnam War, he was elected as a Democrat but  later campaigned for George W. Bush. He opposed unions (denouncing transport union sympathizers as “wackos,”) although they helped rescue the city when the teachers' union furnished $150 million from their pension fund to buy Municipal Assistance Corporation bonds. He self described himself as a sane libreral but  became more hawkish over time and berated Obama for timidity in attacking Iran or confronting the Muslim world – “"President Obama is showing weakness to the Muslim world." Ed Koch Reverses Position, Slams Obama's "Weakness" on Muslims

Koch was a known for outrageous, antagonizing and unapologetic pronouncement such as reported by Joseph Berger in the New York Times," needlessly by saying Jews would be "crazy" to vote for Jesse Jackson for president because Jackson could be (like Koch himself)  outspoken, to many people’s annoyance and use outrageous language such as slurring NYC as "Hymietown".

Still I was a bit knocked back to hear a recent Koch clip from the Piers Morgan show where he mused about his secular-religious views this way:

"I'm secular but I believe in God. I believe in the hereafter," he said. "I believe in reward and punishment. And I expect to be rewarded. God gave me a very good hand to play over my 88 years. I have no regrets."

OK, so maybe this is another politician having it both ways and wanting to be loved by both sides. To be fair maybe he is talking about secular government and religion and bounding his secular to what is Caesars' and his religion to what is God's.  It would be nice to draw out such politicians so we know what type of values they have and what type of government we can expect and who they might heed on what issue.


Or it is easy to say that a Mayor Koch was a one-man anomaly: a self-declared secular Jew who harbored a strong belief in God, but he is not alone.  As I noted in “All Mixed Up: Perplexing Hyphenated Identity, 50-50 Concepts and Mixed up Ethnicity,” American has not only an ethnic hyphenated label phenomena like Irish-American, but one that mixes religion and ethnic identity such as the self-label Atheist Jew. Does it make sense to say that one is an atheist Catholic? It doesn’t seem like it. I can be an atheist who is a White, English person, but atheist and Catholic are both in what seems the “religion” dimension with no overlap on the Venn diagram. It can seem confusing since terms for Jewishness and Catholicism seem like religious identity, but they also have ethnic-historical identity too. This can be accepted as part of human complexity and people labeling things on their own terms, but it can make understanding what people, such as declared “secularists” stand for.  In what we variously call the Near or Middle East there is much labeling of secular government, Turkey and Israel come to mind, they are very religious nations too. And what claims to be a secular government can drift over to religious pressures such as the rising influence of ultra-orthodox  in Israel.

 For more confusion and having it your own way like Mr. Koch see Can a secular humanist believe in a god?

I guess some people can think this way, but it seems like they are floating in some see of definitional relativism that relies on the rest of us to tolerate their having it their way. Still I have some concerns that having it both ways without a better understanding leads to situations such as we have on the debt, deficit & economy.  Conservatives agitate for a cut in government spending to handle the "debt problem."  But this hurts the economy and so they can complain about slow job recovery.  If you stimulate job growth with spending they can complain it increases the debt.  It's one equation with 2 unknowns and a guaranteed complaint. Sometimes this hyphenated view of cultural identity (secular) or religious identity seems like that type of variable equation that can flip back an forth as needed.  The result may be confusion..at least in the hands of people not trying to understand or pursue a clear definition of secular in a world of religious cultures.

Or perhaps they are more in the spirit of Walt Whitman in his Song for Myself:

“I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself.....

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes. "

A poem for MLK Jr. Day

For Martin Luther King Day poet, activist, and scholar Sonia Sanchez read a poem , at the Peace Ball, written in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

 Sanchez, one of the most important writers of the Black Arts Movement, is Laura Carnell Professor of English and Women's Studies at Temple University. She has authored  13 books, including Shake Loose My Skin: New and Selected Poems,. Her memorial poem, Morning Sun and Evening Walk, reproduced below was published there. (A video of Sanchez reciting her poem as part of a larger talk is available on http://www.beaconbroadside.com/broadside/2012/01/martin-luther-king-day.html)

Morning Song and Evening Walk

                    1.
Tonite in need of you
and God
I move imperfect
through this ancient city.
Quiet. No one hears
No one feels the tears
of multitudes.
The silence thickens
I have lost the shore
of your kind seasons
who will hear my voice
nasal against distinguished
actors.
O I am tired
of voices without sound
I will rest on this ground
full of mass hymns.

                        2.
You have been here since I can remember Martin
from Selma to Montgomery from Watts to Chicago
from Nobel Peace Prize to Memphis, Tennessee.
Unmoved along the angles and corners
of aristocratic confusion.
It was a time to be born
forced forward a time
to wander inside drums
the good times with eyes like stars
and soldiers without medals or weapons
but honor, yes.
And you told us: the storm is rising against the
privileged minority of the earth, from which there is no
shelter in isolation or armament
and you told us: the storm will
not abate until a just distribution of the fruits of
the earth enables men (and women) everywhere to live
in dignity and human decency.

                        3.
All summerlong it has rained
and the water rises in our throats
and all that we sing is rumored
forgotten.
Whom shall we call when this song comes of age?
And they came into the city carrying their fastings
in their eyes and the young 9-year-old Sudanese
boy said, "I want something to eat at nite a
place to sleep."
And they came into the city hands salivating guns,
and the young 9-year-old words snapped red
with vowels:
Mama mama Auntie auntie I dead I dead I deaddddd.

                        4.
In our city of lost alphabets
where only our eyes strengthen the children
you spoke like Peter like John
you fisherman of tongues
untangling our wings
you inaugurated iron for our masks
exiled no one with your touch
and we felt the thunder in your hands.
We are soldiers in the army
we have to fight, although we have to cry.
We have to hold up the freedom banners
we have to hold it up until we die.And you said we must keep going and we became
small miracles, pushed the wind down, entered
the slow bloodstream of America
surrounded streets and "reconcentradas," tuned
our legs against Olympic politicians elaborate cadavers
growing fat underneath western hats.
And we scraped the rust from old laws
went floor by floor window by window
and clean faces rose from the dust
became new brides and bridegrooms among change
men and women coming for their inheritance.
And you challenged us to catch up with our
own breaths to breathe in Latinos Asians Native Americans
Whites Blacks Gays Lesbians Muslims and Jews, to gather
up our rainbow-colored skins in peace and racial justice
as we try to answer your long-ago question: Is there
a nonviolent peacemaking army that can shut down
the Pentagon?
And you challenged us to breathe in Bernard Haring's words:
the materialistic growth--mania for
more and more production and more
and more markets for selling unnecessary
and even damaging products is a
sin against the generation to come
what shall we leave to them:
rubbish, atomic weapons numerous
enough to make the earth
uninhabitable, a poisoned
atmosphere, polluted water?
                        5.
"Love in practice is a harsh and dreadful
thing compared to love in dreams," said a Russian writer.
Now I know at great cost Martin that as we burn
something moves out of the flames
(call it spirit or apparition)
till no fire or body or ash remain
we breathe out and smell the world again
Aye-Aye-Aye Ayo-Ayo-Ayo Ayeee-Ayeee-Ayeee
Amen men men men Awoman woman woman woman
Men men men Woman woman woman
Men men Woman woman
Men Woman
Womanmen.

Posted by Gary Berg-Cross (see his earlier blog on MLK from last year)

Images from Peace Ball and other MLK celebration sites.

Celebrating Folk Humanitarian Woody Guthrie on his 100th birthday

By Gary Berg-Cross

July 14 2012 is the anniversary of Woody Guthrie’s 100^th birthday. There’s lots to celebrate about this man who was born in Okemah, Oklahoma and people are doing it all around the world.

“The GRAMMY Museum is partnering with the Guthrie Family / Woody Guthrie Publications, Inc. and the Woody Guthrie Archives to create the Centennial celebrations. The year-long celebration will include a host of concerts, programs and events taking place throughout the country and across the pond.”

A protest singer by disposition & champion of the underclass in the depression of the 30s the "People's Bard's" songs still run like a well oiled meme:

This Land Is Your Land , Hard Travelin', Deportees, Working Hard, Pretty Boy Floyd, Pastures of Plenty, and Roll On Columbia. You can hear many of then online.

The sad truth is that many of the dark side of America that Guthrie wrote about are still very much with us (I Ain't Got No Home In This World Anymore) and "Talking Dustbowl Blues" created as style used by many others singer-songwriters to make comments on life. You can see one list of his top 10 songs performed online staring with Bound for Glory performed by Tom Morello, Graham Nash, Nora Guthrie, Jack Elliott, Jackson Browne and friends.
.

But there is that hope and pure joy in many of his tune. For kids I like the Car song - Riding in the Car, Car. You can hear a live recording of an interview of Woody during WWII on a segment of BBC Radio's Children's Hour.

On the other hand if you want anti-religion songs you can sample Woody and Joe Hill’s 'Pie in the sky when you die' ,written as a parody of the Salvation Army favorite “In the Sweet By and By.” Cisco Houston has a version you can hear and the lyrics are online.

His disciple list of song writer's with a socio-political voice is is long including - Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, Arlo Guthrie, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, John McCutcheon, and Bruce Springsteen, and now young artists like Billy Bragg, Ani DiFranco, and Tom Morello.

Modern song writers, like Bruce Springsteen have spoken up as part of the celebration.  Bruce speaking of Guthrie at this year’s South By Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, called Woody Guthrie the ghost in the machine. In his keynote address, he attempted to explain why a pugnacious, populist strummer who never had a Billboard hit, a world tour or his face on the cover of Rolling Stone could still exert such a profound influence over the course of American music.

"Woody’s world," said Springsteen, "was one where fatalism was tempered by practical idealism; where speaking truth to power wasn’t futile, whatever its outcome."

As long as there is oppression to struggle against, the Boss implied, Guthrie’s voice will resonate.

Locally on Saturday, July 14, the Institute of Musical Traditions is sponsoring Joe Uehlein's Woody Guthrie Tribute on the 100th anniversary of Woody's birthday. Magpie will join Joe and the U-Liners at the Takoma Park Community Center.

But there is more for DC.   The Los Angeles-based Grammy Museum and the Guthrie Foundation and Archives is sponsoring "Woody at 100," a series of concerts, conferences and museum exhibits to celebrate the life and music of the radical troubadour and songwriter. This includes a tribute concert to be held at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. on October 14. Something to look forward to.

Picture Credits

Made for you and me: Woody Guthrie http://media.nj.com/entertainment_impact_music/photo/11279626-large.jpg

Woody Picture http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postrock/2009/06/woody_guthrie_is_the_mayor_of.html

IMT Banner http://www.imtfolk.org/images/banner_final2_short.gif

On the Eve of the Reason Rally

By Gary Berg-Cross

The Reason Rally, slated to be the largest non-theist/secular event in world history, arrives in Washington, D.C. on Saturday March 24. It promises to be a memorable gathering as secular activists come together in the national capital to celebrate and express secular identity. The rally is sponsored by many of the US’s top secular organizations & will feature music, comedy, and addresses by leaders of the secular movement. Scheduled to appear are author Dr. Richard Dawkins, actor and comedian Eddie Izzard, writer and comedian Bill Maher, comedian Tim Minchin, the Bad Religion band and many more. The event is intended to give the secular community an opportunity to unite under the Enlightenment banner of reason. It's worth coming out for.

It’s generated some discussion and we’ll probably see some media coverage that will be interesting. The Young Turks has been proud to announce they have sent reps to cover it.

Of course there have already been some grumblings on why we need a rally for reason. David Silverman provided a nice response in Why we need a Reason Rally noting, among other things, that while it is “a non-partisan event with attendees from all along the political spectrum, it is a statement to Washington, to our elected leaders, and to the rest of the nation that nonbelievers are a legitimate political segment of the American population.”

And of course it is important because:

America is one of the most religious countries in the world. And if you are non-religious, it can seem that without religion you cannot be elected to public office, cannot be considered a moral or ethical person, or be considered a patriot. It does not appear to matter what religious beliefs you cling to so long as you can tell anyone who asks, “Yes, sir or ma’am, I believe in God.”

Apparently, some fundamentalist Christians are planning on coming to the rally too. They are currently offering a special online seminar to their members on how to evangelize to atheists at the Reason Rally. Expect some proselytizing to compete with the reason in the air. The Christian group that calls themselves “True Reason” plans some type of party crash, but they say they will bring peace and love. With that they have announced that they will be giving out their book and flyers advertising their e-book at the Rally. I hope they take some of our flyers too. What do you think?

Got questions ? Try the Rally's FAQ.