Tag: Peace

So I had a morning full of errands

and just got home. I decided to eat one of the donuts I bought while out (there was a sale! As the shoppe will be closed until 1/5. Yay…) Anyway, the 1st page I open online every day is the NASA APOD, and here is what they put up today. Such a wonderful thing to see when I sit down to break my fast with a forbidden food and tea!! and relax a little reading blogs. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2024 December 21
A Year in Sunsets
Image Credit & Copyright:Wael Omar

(I don’t get why WP won’t accept these photos. I thought it was my puter, but I have a new one, and the pic is still not here. It’s a quick click, and a really nice page today, so please go see it. After all, SPACE-X’s photos are likely to be poor, if they even do this for us.)

Saturday Poetry

You know the drill; click the title to get more.

herederos de cero Sheila Maldonado

I’ve returned from the question         the motherland 
            a continually illegitimate relationship
I’m a pretend immigrant       afraid of coats and the cold
            stunned by space and the sun   up in the face 
landlocked      behind the barbed wire of mama’s house 

what did I do there     scratch twitch stare 
           wandered with a prima     and her daughters
was asked about the prima      who should have been there
           she left the world      after her mama   mi tía   se fue 
nadie era nadie           en esa casa     only the men

it made my mama sick             to see me leave 
           into the hot night     of her origins
I return for the right    to walk in the dark
           like the black cat family
that roamed our alley           in the valley of Sula

if I woke up at a decent hour      I caught the colibrí
           little brown red god     came around 9   10am
humming into a tree   of little red stems
           never know names 
                       a place of teeny overlooked gods

I drank tea      at the white iron table
           another tía gave mama      they got on so well 
about their nests           in the capital of slurs
           will I be the only bird to be about the tree 
last one flitting           do we want me to be

Copyright © 2024 by Sheila Maldonado. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 20, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

Peace & Justice History for 12/21

Some days I read this, and wonder how/why people want to allow some historical happenings to repeat, while ignoring history that ought to be recalled to keep earned progress. Then there are items that make me smile to recall how they were so bad when they happened, but wouldn’t it be great if misspellings were what is so bad these days?

December 21, 1919
Amidst a strike for union recognition by 395,000 steelworkers, the “Red Scare” was launched with the deportation of Alexander Berkman, Emma Goldman, and some 250 other radicals. They were deported to Russia aboard the S. S. Buford (“The Soviet Ark”).
 
Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman also organized against World War I
J. Edgar Hoover, heading the Justice Department’s General Intelligence Division, advanced his career by implementing to the fullest extent possible the government’s plan to deport all foreign-born radicals.
 
S.S. Buford 
“Sasha & Emma” 
Read more about Emma & Alex
December 21, 1956
The Montgomery, Alabama, public buses were officially integrated.
This happened following a successful boycott of city buses led by Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., and initiated by Rosa Parks’s refusal to move to the back of the bus.
  
“UH UH, I’m not going your way!”
Bus Boycott cartoon by Laura Gray from 1956
December 21, 1965
American political activists Tom Hayden, Staughton Lynd, and Herbert Aptheker began a visit to Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam. Invited by the North Vietnamese, they went despite the U.S. travel ban.
Lynd and Hayden wrote “The Other Side” following their trip,
explaining the Vietnamese perspective.
December 21, 1968
Hundreds of supporters visited jailed Vietnam War resisters at Allenwood Federal Penitentiary in Pennsylvania, organized by the Fellowship of Reconciliation.
December 21, 1982
President Ronald Reagan signed, after Congress had passed it unanimously, the first Boland Amendment. Representative Edward Boland’s (D-Massachusetts) legislation prohibited the use of U.S. funds for either overt or covert efforts by its intelligence agencies to overthrow the Nicaraguan government.
December 21, 1989
Vice President Dan Quayle sent out 30,000 Christmas cards with the word beacon misspelled “beakon.”

“May our nation continue to be the beakon of hope to the world.”
— The Quayles’ 1989 Christmas card.
December 21, 1991
Eleven former Soviet republics and Russia peaceably declared an end to the Soviet Union and formed the Commonwealth of Independent States. Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan,  Uzbekistan and Ukraine agreed to cooperate on the basis on sovereign equality.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december21

Peace & Justice History for 12/19

December 19, 1940
Civilian Public Service (CPS) camps were established for conscientious objectors following the institution of the first peacetime draft (a year before the attack on Pearl Harbor).
It was the first time members of peace-oriented religious groups (e.g., Quakers, Mennonites, Church of the Brethren) could legally avoid military conscription. 
 
Fire fighting. CPS 30, Walhalla, Michigan (Brethren)
Though they worked nine-hour days except Sundays, they had to pay their own room-and-board, and were not released from the camps until 1947.
Civilian Public Service  (Aside from the above working conditions, they were not paid at all, so nothing to send home, either. This link is a good read for info.)
December 19, 1962

Juan Bosch Gaviño
Juan Bosch Gaviño was elected President of the Dominican Republic in its first free elections in 38 years. The election of journalist and writer Bosch followed shortly after the end of 31 years of military dictator Rafael Trujillo who had been assassinated the previous year. Bosch was overthrown by a U.S.-backed coup just seven months later.
Bosch’s brief political career 
December 19, 2010
Police in a provincial city in Tunisia used tear gas late on Saturday to disperse hundreds of youths who smashed shop windows and damaged cars, witnesses told Reuters. The beginning of Arab Spring.
 
Read more (Reuters) 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december19

Thursday Poetry

Click on the title to learn more about the poem and the poet.

my yoga teacher kassandra Andrei Codrescu 1946 –

has only good news for my body
and for my mind, she warms them
and she becalms them unlike her
greek namesake who left her
listeners terrified and tense
ah the onomastic turnaround
took twenty centuries to turn
the older story on its head
which explains ex-lingua why
my modern body feels comfort
in the new diachronic goddess

Copyright © 2024 by Andrei Codrescu. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 18, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

Peace & Justice History for 12/17

December 18, 1865
Following its ratification by the requisite three-quarters of the states earlier in the month, the 13th Amendment was formally adopted into the U.S. Constitution, ensuring that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude… shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

“Selling females by the pound”
December 18, 1999
Julia Butterfly Hill descended from her tiny platform 180 feet up in a giant redwood tree (sequoia sempervivens) named “Luna,” after perching there for 738 days to protect it from loggers. Luna survived a chainsaw attack in 2001 but still stands.
     
 
“The question is not ‘Can you make a difference?’  You already do make a difference.It’s just a matter of what kind of difference you want to make during your life on this planet.” – Julia Butterfly Hill
More about Julia Butterfly Hill and Luna 
Luna Today Earth Medicine

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december18

Peace & Justice History for 12/17

The first entry may be a clue as to why Musk is supporting the Don; he could wish to turn the US into S. Africa. As hard as we worked when we were young until now, progress doesn’t seem to have stuck, here.

December 17, 1982
The U.N. passed a series of 4 resolutions attacking apartheid in South Africa: To organize an international conference of trade unions on sanctions against South Africa (approved 129 to 2); To encourage various international actions against South Africa (126 to 2); Support of sanctions and other measures against South Africa including international sporting events (139 to 1); Cessation of further foreign investments and loans for South Africa (138 to 1). The U.S. was the only country to have voted against all 4 resolutions (joined only by the United Kingdom on two).
December 17, 1990

Jean-Bertrand Aristide
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a radical Roman Catholic priest and opponent of the dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier who had been deposed in 1986, was elected president in the first free election in Haiti’s history. He was overthrown in 1991 in a military coup led by Brigadier-General Raoul Cedra.

More about Jean-Bertrand Aristide
Jean-Bertrand Aristide Fast Facts
December 17, 2010
In Tunesia jobless graduate Mohmad Bouazizi starts selling vegetables. When police seize his cart, he sets fire to himself and later dies.
This event believed to be the ignition of Arab Spring.
A UK Guardian interactive timeline 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december17

Peace & Justice History for 12/16

December 16, 1942
Heinrich Himmler, head of the German Gestapo, made public an order that Gypsies, or Roma, and those of mixed Roma blood already in labor camps be deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.”Himmler was determined to prosecute Nazi racial policies, which dictated the elimination from Germany and German-controlled territories of all races deemed “inferior,” as well as “asocial” types, (hardcore criminals, homosexuals, Communists, Slavs, Catholic priests). Gypsies fell into both categories according to Nazi ideology and had been executed widely in Croatia, Poland and the Soviet Union.

Gypsy arrivals to the Belzec death camp.
The Porajmos (also Porrajmos) — literally Devouring — is a term coined by the Romani to describe attempts by the Nazi regime to exterminate most of their people in Europe.
Read more
Video 
December 16, 1950
President Truman proclaimed a national state of emergency in order to fight “Communist imperialism.” This followed major Chinese intervention in the Korean War, launching a counter-offensive with 300,000 men against Republic of Korea, United States and United Nations troops.The U.N. command, under General Douglas MacArthur, had attacked the North Korean Army at Inchon three months earlier, liberating Seoul, destroying three divisions and forcing a retreat by the North Korean People’s Army.

North Korean Leader Kim Il Sung (second from L) with the Korean-Chinese joint military command

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december16

Peace & Justice History 12/15

December 15, 1791
The Bill of Rights became law when Virginia ratified the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution.
Read The Bill of Rights 
The Bill of Rights Defense Committee  (emphasis mine -A. It’s an important site these days!)

December 15, 1930

Albert Einstein, 1930
Albert Einstein urged militant pacifism and the creation of an international war resistance fund. Einstein stated in New York that if two percent of those called for military service were to refuse to fight, and were to urge peaceful means of settling international conflicts, then governments would become powerless since they could not imprison that many people.
He struggled against compulsory military service and urged international protection of conscientious objectors. He concluded that peace, freedom for individuals, and security for societies depended on disarmament; otherwise, “slavery of the individual and the annihilation of civilization threaten us.”
Einstein on Peace and World Government 
December 15, 1946
Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh sent a note to French Premier Leon Blum congratulating him for his selection as French Premier and asking for peace talks. France had exercised colonial power over the Vietnamese as part of French Indochina, formed in October 1887 from the provinces of Annam, Tonkin, Cochin China, and the Kingdom of Cambodia; Laos was added in 1893. Vietnamese nationalists, however, had demanded independence for the three provinces at the end of World War II.
December 15, 1973

The American Psychiatric Association reversed its long-standing position and declared that homosexuality is not a mental illness and
“…deplores all public and private discrimination in such areas as employment, housing, public accommodation…”
Read the APA policy on discrimination against [gays]
December 15, 2000
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant was shut down 14 years after becoming the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident ever. Nearly nine tons of radioactive material – dozens of times as much as the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs – were released in the explosion.
The radioactive fallout affected 23% of Belarus, with 4.8% of Ukrainian territory and 0.5% of Russia. The Belarussian government spends 30% of its annual budget dealing with the aftermath of Chernobyl.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorydecember.htm#december15

Cookies In The Oven

but this is so nice, I had to share it. Sorry about the cookies, though. Our moon isn’t full here until 3:01 Sunday AM.

december full moon by onecloud

fri 13, 2024 over richmond st. at spadina ave. Read on Substack

december full moon

over richmond at spadina

at 5 PM

under full moon 
traffic west bound 
bound for home

at oxford st

at richmond