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SubscriptionsSites I Read
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| i'm sad i missed this yesterday, just purely for the aesthetic: At 5:25 p.m., at least 100 people froze in place at the bustling Union Station: A couple kissing, a woman bending over to tie her shoe, several people pointing to maps, a couple sitting at the bar with drinks held halfway to their mouths. All stopped in mid-motion and did not move for 10 minutes in a show of support for the antiwar movement. Passersby towing suitcases weaved their way through the tableau, dubbed "Frozen Union Station." Dozens of police officers stood by; again, no arrests were made. "This is the strangest thing," said Michele McKnelly, a librarian from River Falls, Wis., initially unsure why everyone around her had suddenly stopped. "Then I looked around and saw some of them wearing 'End the War' T-shirts." At 5:35 p.m., the protesters started moving and chanted "End the war" for 10 minutes, then left. "It was a very, very positive event," said protester Deanna Gorzynski, 52, of New Milford, N.J., who is with a group called The World Can't Wait. "Even those people who don't agree with us stopped to think." here's the full article about the 5 year anniversary of the war in Iraq and the anti-war protests going on right now in d.c. they are literally marching up and down the k street corridor, right outside my office's door. | | |
| trying to make sense of this. excerpt: "Meals come only once a day for Helen Goremusandu, 67, and the six children she is raising. With prices for the most basic food products increasingly beyond her reach, that daily meal often consists of nothing more than boiled pumpkin leaves, washed down with water." "About a mile away, a Zimbabwean government grain mill is churning out a new product: Doggy's Delight. Announced by its creators in January, the high-protein pet food is aimed at the lucrative export market, one of the dwindling sources of foreign exchange in a collapsing economy." | | |
| i don't really use craigslist, but i was shocked to find out about this. make some noise about this, folks. Craigslist, an Internet company well known for enabling users to conveniently advertise everything from jobs to housing, has now become a popular marketplace for the sale of human- beings. With its free postings and relative anonymity for its users, Craigslist's "Erotic Services" site has become a vehicle for the trafficking and exploitation of women and children. There have been numerous reportings of children falling prey to traffickers advertising on Craigslist and victims as young as four years old have been sold on the Erotic Services site. read the rest here. | | |
| on poverty:
i feel as though i am constantly trying to make sense of things like this. how do i reconcile the disparities? is it different just because it's india? what about here? how do i reconcile the things i see when i go to baltimore city with what i see in ellicott city or columbia? i feel sheepish telling them that i'm from a church in ellicott city. sometimes i imagine they are thinking, sure, it's easy for you to come from and go back to your cushy neighborhood. do you feel better about yourself now? which always leads me to, how am i supposed to live? that's always the question. how am i supposed to live? on politics: as the primaries heat up, and the candidates start campaigning at full force, it's easy to get carried away. and then i have to remember, they are all still men (and woman). their leadership will not make the problems go away. their policies will not bring absolute solutions. even with the best intentions, even if they are christians, or even pastors, they are still humans. just as i struggle with telling people what they want to hear, i cannot forget that this may be their struggle as well. except that it's enhanced with hundreds of thousands of peoples voices in their ears. so i will keep telling myself, don't get carried away. we'll see.
(random sidenote - i watched "air force one" last night. that is a ridiculous movie. but great fun. they just don't make 'em like they used to.) on war: yes, there are just wars. just as in justice, i mean. yes, i agree. but no matter the reason, i have to remember the individuals. not the statistics, the logistics, or the long-term goals. the individuals. and that for one person, there may be long-term affects. that their life may be changed forever. that it may determine whether they will live in anger, resentment, hope, or joy until they die. that it is only by grace i am here and they are there. that i have this life and they have that life. | | |
| this morning, i was on the metro, clinging onto one of the poles in my usual sleepy stupor as i dragged myself to work. as i slowly became more awake, i heard a child's voice chanting or singing something in a rhythmic pattern in the metro car. i have always appreciated hearing or seeing children on the metro during rush hour because it is such a change of pace from the grumpy adult commuters, who are worse when it's rainy and cold like it was today. the little girl couldn't have been more than 4 or 5 years old. at this point, she had my attention and i started straining to hear what she was saying or singing. eventually the train emptied out a little and i could hear more clearly. it wasn't a song. or a nursery rhyme. she was saying the full names of ALL THE U.S. PRESIDENTS. what the freak. only in washington. *bonus: when she got to some of the more recent presidents, she said, "ron-ald rea-gan, george herbert walker bush, hil-a-ry clin-ton..." and then her mom stopped her and corrected her and said, "no, it's william clinton, honey. she's his wife." seriously, only in washington. happy friday. indeed. | | |
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