Saturday, February 20, 2010

World Day of Prayer 2010

World Day of Prayer in Grand Island, New York, will be held at 10 a.m., March 5th, at Saint Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church, 2587 Baseline Road. After the service, refreshments were be offered. Also, babysitting is available.
Grand Island churches participating in the World Day of Prayer are: Saint Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church, Island Presbyterian Church, Saint Timothy Lutheran Church, Saint Stephen Roman Catholic Church, and Trinity United Methodist Church.
All are welcome at this very joyful event which celebrates prayer, music, fellowship, and Africa!
The women of Cameroon wrote the prayers for this year's event:
 The below information comes from USA Committee of the World Day of Prayer. 

Let Everything That Has Breath Praise God — Written by the WDP Committee of Cameroon
WDP 2010: Cameroon The 2010 service and offering grants will focus on issues affecting women and children and their communities in a globalized world. Let us think of:
  • Market women, typically referred to as “buyam sellams” (from the verbs to buy and to sell), who play a fundamental role in the Cameroonian economy helping to sustain their communities with their sales. Many are organized such as the Association of Women Entrepreneurs in Cameroon.
  • Cameroon's women and children who through human trafficking, are forced into modern day slavery that consists of servitude and sexual exploitation.
  • The women of Cameroon facing domestic violence and sexual abuse, in addition to harmful traditional practices like genital mutilation.
  • Gender issues resulting in the gap in women's rights in theory and in practice, especially regarding women's land rights.
  • The growing rate of HIV infection among young women and girls.
Cameroon Flag The Republic of Cameroon (République du Cameroun in French) is located in the center of Africa above the equator at the extreme end of the Gulf of Guinea. It is bordered by Nigeria, Chad, the Central African Republic, in addition to Congo Brazzaville, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea.

Cameroon is comparable in size to Papua New Guinea and slightly larger than California in the U.S. The official languages are French and English with a dominance of the French language. The national currency is the Franc CFA, which is the common currency among 14 countries of Central and West Africa who cooperate financially.

Due to its cultural and geographical diversity, Cameroon is often referred to as "Africa in miniature."
Girls Selling Vegetables Cameroon is culturally and ecologically rich, having approximately 240 local languages corresponding to the 240 ethnic groups. It also has great biodiversity, especially in regards to its flora. Due to its cultural and geographical diversity, Cameroon is often referred to as "Africa in miniature."

Cameroon is rich in natural resources. The economy is based largely on agriculture and an estimated 70% of the population are farmers. Other sources of revenue come from forestry, minerals, and petroleum. As agriculture is an important part of the economy, land is one of Cameroon's greatest resources.

Unification Monument-Yaoundé As we begin our journey with the women of Cameroon, we learn about the social challenges that include the trafficking of children, particularly girls for sexual exploitation and slavery, gender issues that allow the perpetuation of violence against women and women losing their land rights. We will ask and seek answers to questions about possibility and justice in Cameroon. On Friday, March 5, 2010, we welcome the Worshipping Community to join the women of Cameroon.
Let's turn our prayers into action.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

signs

Here are some of the signs that were carried during the Witness Against Torture and the Peaceable Assembly Campaign. One day, quite a few people joined us to stand behind our tall sign. The tall sign conveyed a multitude of messages. The people who joined us included doctors who wanted our resources to go to health care, instead of war. It included community activists, who wanted our resources to go to food and shelter for the homeless instead of bombs and weapons to destroy other people's homes and lives in foreign countries.

Polar Bear Plunge!

On Saturday, January 23rd, I took a field trip with a group from Washington, D.C.'s Assisi Community. We went to Annapolis, Maryland, for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network's Polar Bear Plunge. The event featured all sorts of bathing suit clad people racing into the cold water of the Chesapeake Bay. The message was "keep winter cold." I was more than happy to be an audience for that event, having never been especially fond of either having a bathing suit as my fashion statement in the winter or of racing into freezing cold water. So, I was to be an audience for this event. Dave was the brave one from the Assisi Community. He put his hair into fashionable braids for the event. Before the event started, it was picture time. Loads of photographs were taken by a professional photographer. Everyone, plungers and audience alike, was asked to use our bodies to form the number 350. That number is significant because it is considered by many scientists to be the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. For more information about 350 and carbon dioxide, take a look at http://www.350.org.
Free coffee and tea and cookies and muffins were served. The cookies and muffins were made with all vegan ingredients. The carrot muffin definitely passed the taste test!!!
All had a good time at the polar bear plunge. The timing was serendipitous. A week later, the temperature had plummeted. It truly would have been a day fit only for polar bears to plunge.

Pretty snow pictures

I managed to leave Washington, D.C., before the big storm of the century struck. There were a few snowfalls before the Big One. By the time that the Big One hit, I was safely back in relatively nonsnowy Buffalo, New York!
The snow was rather pretty. Here are some pictures.

The Buffalo Group

Buffalo folks came to Washington, D.C., to be part of the Voices for Creative Nonviolence's Peaceable Assembly Campaign. Photographed from left are Jim Anderson, Vicki Ross, Alice Gerard, and Tom Casey.

Monday, February 8, 2010

drones

These are some of the drones that are on display at the Air and Space Museum. They are smaller than I anticipated. They are sort of like a cross between a real airplane and a model airplane. They are steered by remote control and the bombs are dropped by that same remote-control technique. You can get a variety of views of the drones as you ascend the stairs. Once you get to the top of the stairs, you get a very close up and personal view of these flying machines.
These flying machines are not especially popular in Pakistan and Afghanistan, probably due to the indiscriminate way in which their bombs seem to land on civilians. Unfortunately, these civilians end up by being described as "collateral damage."

White House pictures

Here are some of the pictures that I took in front of the White House.  With both the Witness Against Torture group and the Peaceable Assembly campaign, I spent quite a bit of time in front of the White House, both in good weather and bad. We mostly held up various signs calling for an end to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Sometimes tourists wanted to be photographed with us. In one photograph, a former member of Pakistan's Parliament stood with five participants in the Peaceable Assembly campaign. In another, Chinese high school students are seen busily taking pictures. One Chinese student is seen posing with Ceylon behind a sign that says, "Stop War Spending." The Chinese students were in the United States to participate in a model United Nations. The White House also attracts characters, such as the man in the hat who is holding the stick. He puts on a regular, though wordless, performance, using that stick as a baton. I don't know much about him. What message is he trying to convey? I have no idea. But he comes regularly to perform. 
When I first started participating in the White House vigils, I saw a man dressed in a superhero type cape, who marched up and down the sidewalk. He was holding a sign and yelling about taxes or something to that effect. Unfortunately, I didn't take his picture. He was a bit fashion challenged. I thought that his costume was a tad on the excessive side.
On my last day in front of the White House, the police announced that the sidewalk was "closed." They enforced their "closure" by blowing whistles and yelling at hapless pedestrians who were too unobservant to notice the yellow caution tape strung at either end of the "closed portion" of the sidewalk. The startled pedestrians leaped off of the sidewalk like scared rabbits, causing the police to laugh hysterically. It was apparent that the police were having way too much fun. One of the cops asked a passerby if he had ever been in prison. I thought that was kind of an odd question to ask. The cop then told the man, "We have your picture. And we have the pictures of everyone who is here." Um. Oh my. If that is true, the police have far too much free time on their hands. They need to do something more productive, such as mop and sweep the police station.
But, when we left, we told the police that this was the last day of our vigil. One of the police officers said, "We'll see you later."  He was one of the nicer ones. I thanked him and he said, "Thank you."

Monday, February 1, 2010

Scattering to the Winds

Today, my Buffalo group (Vicki Ross, Jim Anderson, and Tom Casey) left Washington, D.C. It was great to have them with me over the weekend. I look forward to seeing them soon, as I am heading home on Wednesday morning.
The Washington, D.C., portion of the Peaceable Assembly Campaign ends early tomorrow afternoon. After that, as the saying goes, we all scatter to the winds. We've already started scattering. We will have a small group for our last vigil in front of the White House tomorrow. The police (both Park police and Secret Service uniformed police) will have other groups to babysit.
One of the interesting things about vigiling in front of the White House is all of the different people who meet us and want to take pictures with us. Today, a large curious group of tourists descended upon us. They had already taken out their digital cameras and were ready to click away. It wasn't hard to persuade them to get into the picture.
"Where are you from?" we wanted to know.
"Russia!" said one of the women.
The Russians smiled gleefully as they held up signs calling for an end to war, an end to military aid to Israel, and the immediate closure of Guantanamo and Bagram.
After the photo session, the Russians walked away, chattering with great animation.
Another interesting thing about vigiling in front of the White House is watching all of the various characters who seem to come there on a regular basis. There is a man who dresses in a black suit and a top hat. He actually looks as if he belongs in the nineteenth century. He has a stick and uses it for some sort of elaborate display that looks as if he is saluting a king, instead of a president. He never speaks. There is another man who goes to the other extreme. He dresses us as some sort of superhero (but none that I would recognize) and he carries a big sign critical of President Barack Obama. Then he shouts about the government wasting money and collecting taxes. The man in the black suit came to the White House. The superhero has been missing for a few days. Either he ate some kryptonite or he's off fighting the good fight against all comic book villains.
Well, those are just two of the characters who frequent the street and sidewalk in front of the sidewalk.
I'll add some more stories and photographs after I return home.
Bye for now.