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

The Moon On Monday

Moon Setting Behind Teide Volcano

Video Credit & Copyright: Daniel López (El Cielo de Canarias); Music: Piano della Moon (Dan Silva)

Explanation: These people are not in danger. What is coming down from the left is just the Moon, far in the distance. Luna appears so large here because she is being photographed through a telescopic lens. What is moving is mostly the Earth, whose spin causes the Moon to slowly disappear behind Mount Teide, a volcano in the Canary Islands of Spain off the northwest coast of Africa. The people pictured are 16 kilometers away and many are facing the camera because they are watching the Sun rise behind the photographer. It is not a coincidence that a full moon sets just when the Sun rises because the Sun is always on the opposite side of the sky from a full moon. The featured video was made in 2018 during a full Milk Moon. The video is not time-lapse — this was really how fast the Moon was setting.

Tomorrow’s picture: stellar cluster

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

Again With A Jackie Robinson Memorial-

Wichita nonprofit says it was vandalized overnight

Kyra Case
May 3, 2026 Updated 3 hrs ago

WICHITA, Kan. (KAKE) — Trash littered the Jackie Robinson Pavilion Sunday morning; a plaque with the words ‘FRIENDS OF JACKIE’ had the name ‘Jackie’ crossed out in pink marker — ‘Mark Goston’ written underneath.

“This kind of stuff is always upsetting, no matter where it happens, but it’s particularly annoying when it affects League 42,” the league wrote in a Facebook post. “We have worked hard to improve these facilities from when we started 13 years ago. And there is no comparison.”

This isn’t the first time a League 42 baseball facility has been vandalized. In 2024, Wichita police arrested 45-year-old Ricky Alderete in connection with the theft and burning of a statue of Jackie Robinson in McAdams Park.

The statue was donated to the non-profit baseball group League 42 in 2021. Soon after the theft, the founder and executive director of League 42, Bob Lutz, launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds to replace the statue.

The youth baseball league said it received a $100,000 gift from Major League Baseball to replace a statue of Jackie Robinson. The GoFundMe raised a total of $194,780.

After six months without the statue, a new Jackie Robinson statue was unveiled in August 2024.

Now, in light of the recent vandalism at the pavilion, the league is working with the City of Wichita and District 1 councilman Joseph Shepard, according to a Facebook post.

“… we will be discussing ways to combat this nonsense,” League 42 wrote. “I don’t understand why people can’t just leave things alone. We want to share our facilities, and we believe the Jackie Robinson Pavilion is a destination spot for Wichitans and for visitors to our city. But when our citizens do this kind of damage, what are we really showing off?”

KAKE crews have confirmed the trash has been cleaned.

Queer Book News For May!

Stick with the first entry; it gets there. Emphasis mine. Then, click on through for more books! (Always choose more books!)

May 2026 Queer Romances

by Dahlia Adler · Apr 30, 2026 at 11:50 pm

We’re nearing Pride Month, and you know what the means–the queer books will soon be visible, and this month is prepping us very well in a variety of genres.

Score

Author: Kennedy Ryan
Released: April 19, 2026 by Forever
Genre: Contemporary Romance, LGBTQIA, Romance
Series: Hollywood Renaissance #2

A scorching second-chance romance between a talented screenwriter and a phenomenal musician from the New York Times bestselling author of Before I Let Go.

“A triumph of art and emotion.” —Talia Hibbert, New York Times bestselling author

You never forget your first love. Isn’t that what they say? Verity Hill knows this truth intimately. She didn’t simply miss Wright “Monk” Bellamy when they parted ways in college. She’s haunted by his touch. Every kiss, any lover since—it’s a shadow of what they had.

Time heals all wounds. Isn’t that what they say? Monk doesn’t believe that for a second. He wasn’t simply betrayed when he and Verity split. He was devastated, with parts of him left behind in the ruins of all that was destroyed.

More than a decade after their disastrous breakup, Verity and Monk must work together on the set of an epic Harlem Renaissance biopic. With Monk, now a world-class musician, creating the score, and Verity, an award-winning screenwriter, penning the script, there’s Oscar buzz before shooting even begins. This once-in-a-lifetime project could catapult them both to new heights, but can they can put the past behind them for the sake of the film … for the sake of something more?

Hard to imagine anyone reading a romance site doesn’t know when Queen Kennedy Ryan’s got a new book coming, but you may not have known that her newest–the second in the Hollywood Renaissance series–stars a bi female lead and features a steamy m/f/f threesome before we even hit chapter three. It’s a hard-won second chance as Verity and Monk find their way back to each other from then, including a diagnosis of bipolar disorder for Verity in between, and because it’s Ryan, you know the story is treated with the respect and care it deserves. (Emph. mine-A.)

Add to Goodreads To-Read List →

(snip-MORE)

Some Stuff To Read & Look At

Some entertaining; some, things about which to think. The first bit is somber; exceedingly somber. It is easy to just click through on the title to read the entire post; I subscribe for free, so I don’t want to just take the whole thing. Beneath, more stuff! Enjoy your May Day. 🌺

We Lost.

When the Supreme Court dealt the final blow to the Voting Rights Act, it completed its mission to erase the tangible results of the Civil Rights Movement.

Michael Harriot Apr 30, 2026

The dictum,”once a free man, always a free man,” though founded about as deeply in law, history and reason as, that “all men are born free and equal,” … [is] unimportant and ineffectual to protect the rights of citizens of slave States.

— Judge Hamilton Gamble

On March 22, 1852, America made a slave.

America’s race-based, constitutionally enforced system that legally extracted labor and intellectual property through violence or the threat of violence existed long before the 13 English colonies staged an insurrection against their British master. Colonial law made the condition intergenerational and perpetual. The founders wrote the fugitive slave clause to ensure that people who had already been reduced to human chattel couldn’t free themselves. But the Constitution didn’t make someone a slave. (snip-MORE, and so worth the click!)

And an antidote to that–click and fall in love!

View this post on Instagram

Our Tax Dollars At Work-

Two pieces here:

Hack

He sells bullshit by the seashore

Clay Jones

As you know, by now, Todd, Blanche, Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and current acting Attorney General, is a political hack.

If you had read that someone was going to prison in another country for posting an image of seashells that spelled out 8647, you would think that it was from an authoritarian state. If this were North Korea, would James Comey be put to death by anti-aircraft fire?

Pam Bondi, Blanche’s predecessor, was fired for what many believe was for being too slow to prosecute Donald Trump’s enemies. She had already indicted James Comey once before, which was basically laughed out of court, and never had even the slightest possibility of ever going to trial.

(snip-MORE)

Post-Megabill Drop in SNAP Participation Is Steepest in Decades

Participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) fell by more than 3 million people (8 percent) nationwide between July 2025 and January 2026. The drop followed the enactment of H.R.1, the Republican megabill that made unprecedented cuts to the program. SNAP typically expands to meet need and then shrinks when economic conditions improve. It took over three years for the caseload to drop by over 3 million people (or 7 percent) between its peak in December 2012 and February 2016, during the recovery following the Great Recession.

But economic conditions haven’t been improving as the number of people receiving SNAP has plummeted in recent months, representing the sharpest decline in decades. The last time there was such a steep decrease in participation in such a short period of time (other than temporary spikes following natural disasters) was nearly three decades ago, after Congress enacted very deep cuts to SNAP (then the Food Stamp Program) in 1996. SNAP participation dropped by 9.4 percent (2.2 million people) in the six months between March and September 1997.

SNAP participation has fallen in every state and in some, the drop is particularly alarming. (snip-MORE)

May Day Is Tomorrow!

Here is some information. There is something everyone can do.

May 1 3:30 – 5:30 PM ET Community Hosted

May Day! Workers over Billionaires: A Nationwide Day of Action

(Click the headline right up there for more info, or scroll down for yet more links and info)

The next National Day of Action is right around the corner, May Day, Friday, May 1st.

The national call is for no business as usual. This will look different in different places. In some locations, it will mean no work, no school, and no shopping. (snip)

May Day Actions

This May Day, we’re flexing our economic power as workers, students, and everyday people to send a clear message to the Trump regime: we will not do business as usual while they trample our rights, terrorize our communities, and drag us into a senseless war in Iran.

So on May 1st we are taking action by:

Hosting or joining a local May Day event
Participating in No Work, No School*, No Shopping

The first step: pledge to build power and take collective action with us on May Day.

Note: A core principle behind all May Day events is a commitment to nonviolent action. We expect all participants to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values and to act lawfully at these events. No weapons are permitted under any circumstances. (snip)

Mayday Protest – National Day of Action

It’s time for the conditions and standard of living that the working class deserves. We’re beginning a year of action on May 1st with a series of protests, strikes, and other direct action opportunities.

MAY 1 NATIONAL DAY OF ACTIONS:

THRIVING WAGES
The working class people have been taken advantage of for far too long! Join us as we mobilize to create worldwide plans of action for THRIVING WAGES. We are demanding at least $20/hr as well as better union laws, the ease of information for organizing co-ops, and better working conditions. But wait, there’s more! We are also demanding mandatory PTO, paternal leave, and good benefits.

Why do we want these demands?
Inflation over the last year has risen over 7% and continues to climb.
Rents and housing costs have skyrocketed.
The costs of consumer goods as greatly increased.
Yet corporations and billionaires have doubled their wealth in 2 years as the working class has struggled during a pandemic that has killed over 850,000 Americans and counting. (snip-MORE)

Activism history for May 1st:

So, some of us don’t get around much anymore. Some of us may be somehow constrained to go to work. Some of us have waited all week to buy a few needed groceries. Maybe we wanted to participate, but just forgot and now it’s tomorrow, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to do it. How can we participate? Well, click onto any or all of these links to find out. There is no fault or fail in not being able to do the primary actions, but there are other ways to participate, and even if we don’t find a way, we can certainly work toward being able to observe a personal May Day now and then on our own. We can simplify, and always work to keep our spending where it will be most useful to community. And maybe we can watch someone else’s kids or pets while they go and do. Benefitting our communities while not feeding the already-wealthy with our commerce, labor, and dollars will benefit people, and is the objective. Above this graf are resources. May Day is tomorrow. Let’s do all we can!