Humanitarian Work With Quakers

I receive a couple of weekly emails from Friends Committee on National Legislation. I began working with them back when the US invaded Afghanistan. I’m copy-pasting today’s letter, which includes links for more info, and some even for taking a little action if someone cares to do it. Either way, it’s good to be informed.

After a months-long political standoff over immigration enforcement funding, congressional Republicans continue to push forward a $72 billion proposal, without measures to hold these rogue agencies accountable.

A ruling by the Senate parliamentarian Thursday set back the proposal for now. But we must continue the struggle against a blank check for more lawless, cruel enforcement.

One of the most impactful ways we can push back is by lifting up stories of the toll of these policies on our communities.

On Wednesday, a group of senators held a hearing spotlighting how immigrants brought to the U.S. as children are facing detention and deportation after being promised protections.

Stephanie Villarreal shared a story about her husband Juan, a DACA recipient who has lived in the U.S. for more than 25 years. On Feb. 18, Juan was driving to deliver breast milk to their newborn baby in the neonatal intensive care unit. He never arrived. On his way, Juan was seized by ICE agents as Stephanie listened on the phone helplessly. He has been in detention ever since, separated from his wife, his baby, and his other children.

“He did everything he was asked to,” Stephanie said. “But that didn’t matter.”

We were also moved by the story of Deiver Henao, a nine-year-old boy held in ICE detention.

“I don’t wanna be here anymore,” he said. “I want to be [in school] to be happy … I wish I could leave before the spelling bee.”

Thankfully, Deiver and his family were released after his case received media attention. But many other children like him remain detained.

These stories are not are exceptional: they are far too common. How we treat people like Juan and Deiver is a test of who are as a nation. We all deserve to be treated with dignity, love, and respect. It is up to us, as people of faith and conscience, to speak out against these heartbreaking injustices and demand better from our government.

If ICE cruelty has impacted you or your community, we want to hear from you.

“Congressional action depends on local, personal stories from the communities they represent,” FCNL’s Anika Forrest explained.“Let’s make sure that Congress can’t look away.”

Elsewhere

War Powers Resolution on Iran barely falls short
Public pressure to end war on Iran is moving Congress. Just this week, we saw resolutions to end the war almost pass – falling only one vote short in the House and two votes short in the Senate.

Public opposition to the war is bipartisan and fierce, and growing in Congress. Let’s keep up the momentum and get this over the finish line!

As Trump visits China, cries for cooperation multiply
President Trump visited China this week, meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, talking about trade, Taiwan, and other issues. FCNL joined a broad coalition of organizations in calling for a peaceful, cooperative relationship between China and the U.S.As our letter to Congress puts it,

“At a time when so many domestic needs are going unmet, a confrontational posture toward China is costing untold billions.” Every dollar spent on war or preparing for war takes away from the desperate needs we have at home and abroad to build the world we seek.

Members of Congress call on U.S. to stop Ecuador operations
The U.S. military is supporting Ecuadorian forces to violently crack down on accused drug traffickers. Twenty members of Congress sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth demanding that the U.S. stop and investigate serious accusations of human rights abuses: “The United States cannot continue to be complicit in abuses abroad. There must be accountability.”

The path to abolishing the Selective Service
Plans for automatic draft registration were announced about a month ago, fulfilling the mandate from 2025’s defense bill. Just yesterday, a bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation which would end the Selective Service entirely.

FCNL’s Priya Moran explained what’s going on and what the future might hold, calling on Congress to “focus on preventing war, instead of maintaining a system designed to force young people to engage in it.”
Call for Congress to act!

In peace,
Bryan Bowman
Social Media and Communications Strategist

Greg Williams
Senior Communications Director

Art & A Mental Health Moment Or 2 With Jenny Lawson

There is still whimsy and warmness in the world and you deserve it.

Jenny Lawson (thebloggess)

Hello, friend!

I am two days late on sending this because I was stuck in a depression and it ate all of my extra energy. I started and stopped several drawings because I’m not sure if I didn’t like them or if I just didn’t like me very much. My dr recommended sun and exercise and other things that sound very easy when you are not depressed and it reminded me of a poem my mom read to me so often I’d almost memorized it. (All of A.A. Milne’s poems are the songs of my childhood.) If you hate poetry, skip this part.

The poem always made me feel both cozy and sad at the same time, which was a confusing thing for a small child but also a combination that my brain would grow to specialize in.

It reminded me that recently I’d read that tiny harvest mice have been found asleep in flower beds and so I decided to draw that:

“Sometimes harvest mice will crawl into flowers to feast on the pollen and stamens and will fall asleep inside.”

The drawing is simple and plain and fairly unimpressive, but it made me feel warm inside my heart and that is a very special sort of magic.

This is all a very long way of saying that whimsy and comfort and coziness and nostalgia and joy are all worth more than we give them credit for…whether in drawing mice or reading poems from childhood or eating nectar and drunkenly falling asleep inside flowers.

Go find comfort, my friend.

I promise that you deserve it.

Hugs,

Discussion of “Ignore All Previous Instructions”

The Big Idea: Ada Hoffman

Posted on May 12, 2026 Posted by Athena Scalzi

The Big Idea: Ada Hoffman

Snippet:

ADA HOFFMAN:

When I tell people the premise of Ignore All Previous Instructions, they often remark how it reminds them of real life these days. In Ignore, the characters live in a space colony on Callisto where a generative AI company owns everything – and where making art or telling stories, without the AI’s assistance, is strictly not allowed. (snip)

Another part of the novel, even closer to my heart and equally timely, was the problem of queer self-expression and book bans.

In 2023, I was at an early stage in therapy. I was just starting to think back, in ways I hadn’t allowed myself before, about how some of my experiences growing up had shaped me. This included a lot of things, many of them not germane to this post, but it also included the experience of growing up queer without understanding that that’s what it was. (snip-MORE, and it’s really good; go read it!)

Your Josh Day, Next Day!

Mother’s Day Proclamation Of Peace + Peace & Justice History for 5/10

Because it’s important to re-read this proclamation every year, at least on Mother’s Day. And especially so in this year of strikes and other activism to get our government back to we the people, and in comparison to the retail profits from this holiday.

History of Mother’s Day as a Day of Peace: Julia Ward Howe

Too few Americans are aware that early advocates of Mother’s Day in the United States originally envisioned it as a day of peace, to honor and support mothers who lost sons and husbands to the carnage of the Civil War.

MOTHER’S DAY PROCLAMATION
Boston, 1870

“Arise, then… women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
whether our baptism be that of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies.
Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage,
for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country
to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.

From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: Disarm, Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.
Blood does not wipe out dishonor,
nor violence vindicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
at the summons of war,
let women now leave all that may be left of home
for a great and earnest day of council.

Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them then solemnly take council with each other as to the means
whereby the great human family can live in peace,
each bearing after his own kind the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask
that a general congress of women, without limit of nationality,
may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient,
and at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
to promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
the amicable settlement of international questions,
the great and general interests of peace.“

~ Julia Ward Howe

This Week’s “Lay Lines”

https://www.gocomics.com/lay-lines

“Letters From God”

Bless The Amazon Workers Who Crashed Bezos’ Met Gala

Good job, heroes!

God

Dear Humans,

Lo, while billionaires gathered at the Met Gala to pretend they have class or culture, Amazon workers showed up outside to remind everyone what really funds their costume party.

Piss bottles.

1. The Workers Crashed The Party

Jeff Bezos paid $10 million to attend this year’s rich scumbag costume ball.

And lo, Amazon workers said: absolutely fucking not.

The Met Gala wanted to turn Bezos into a patron of the arts.

Amazon workers turned him back into the Lex Luther villain he is.

Behold, Chris Smalls and Amazon workers outside the Met Gala, reminding America who really built Bezos’ empire.

(There’s a little video embedded on the page that I can’t snag and bring back. Click above on the title, or here to see the videos, and to save yourself time, read the little bit of the rest there, too. Snip)

From Mrs. Betty Bowers, An Awards Show!

Kickass Women In History With The Smart Ones-

Kickass Women in History: Emma Tenayuca

by Carrie S · May 2, 2026 at 2:00 am

Emma Tenayuca was a labor organizer in Texas who is best known for leading a strike of pecan shellers in 1938. Workers called her “La Pasionaria“ which means “Passionflower.” From a young age, she survived violence and imprisonment in her quest to help workers get better working conditions and higher wages.

Tenayuca was born on December 21, 1916, and I know all of you December birthday people will identify with her plight – born too close to Christmas, she never got ‘birthday’ presents. Her family was Mexican American, and had lived in Texas for many generations. She was raised by grandparents who were interested in politics, and was also influenced by the speakers in the San Antonio town square. She was brought up with pride in her family and their roots, and she was encouraged to be educated and politically active by her family.

Black and white photo of Emma Tenayuca as a teenager. She has shoulder length wavy hair and is wearing a white dress with buttons and a V neck — *Emma Tenayuca in 1939, photographed for a Personality of the Week article in The San Antonio Light*

Tenayuca was arrested for the first time at 16, for protesting alongside striking workers from the Finck Cigar Company. She used her bilingual language skills to help people with their problems and worked with many organizations working towards better pay and better conditions for Mexican-Americans.

One of the most common positions for Mexican-American women in the area was in the pecan industry. Pecan shelling for 6-7 cents a pound was difficult work (the meat of the shell must remain intact) for little pay. Additionally, the process filled the factory rooms with a fine dust that contributed towards tuberculosis.

black and white photo shows Emma in the center of a crowd of men. She is wearing a hat and a coat and is holding a white paper and pen in her hand. It appears she is telling them something as they are all looking to her, and she is the center of their attention and the photograph

In 1938, the factories cut pay to 3 cents a pound and Tenayuca, who was 21 years old at the time, found herself leading a strike of approximately 12,000 workers. The strike faced violent opposition, as detailed in the article “Remembering Emma Tenayuca:”

When Pecan production ground to a halt, the owners fought back: Tenayuca and hundreds of strikers were gassed and arrested by San Antonio police. Some were beaten as well. With the NWA rallying community support, the strike turned into a city-wide uprising of the poorest and most oppressed people in San Antonio.

Thirty-seven days after the strike began the pecan producers agreed to arbitration. A few weeks later, the workers had won a wage increase to seven or eight cents per pound.

Tenayuca faced opposition as a woman, as a Mexican-American, as a labor organizer, and as a member of the Communist Party (she left the Party in 1946). From Americans Who Tell the Truth:

(snip-only a bit MORE; go read it!)