Broken Hallelujah // Independent Arts and Culture

Saturday, May 7, 2005

The Late Edition
saturday morning me//

cranberry juice/vitamins/
nibbling a black & white cookie/
jean jacket/jeans/birks/
perfect spring day/
early morning run &
did the flea market stroll/
bought more flowers
for my flower/rock garden/
so how about you?/

Useless Fact Of The Day
A flea's penis is roughly 2/3rds the length of its body. So if someone tells you, "You're hung like a flea", it's not an insult. Show them the respect they're due next time.

Thought For Today
When women go through menopause, they sometimes take testosterone. Wouldn't I immediately lose all verbal skills, begin a love affair with the remote control and start pissing on the toilet seat for no good reason?

Quote For Today
Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business. --Tom Robbins

**Update--May 11, 2005
WAYNESVILLE - Pastor Chan Chandler submitted his resignation to the members of East Waynesville Baptist Church on Tuesday, a move some said was the only way to resolve current tensions at the church. link

Members Say Church Ousts Kerry Supporters
A Baptist pastor in North Carolina has touched off an exodus in his church by declaring Democrats are not welcome as members.

The Rev. Chan Chandler of East Waynesville Baptist Church in Waynesville ex-communicated nine members who refuse to support President Bush, according to WLOS-TV in Asheville, N.C.

Another 40 have left in protest in a controversy that began before the election last November and came to a head Sunday.

"He preached a sermon on abortion and homosexuality, then said if anyone there was planning on voting for John Kerry, they should leave," said Selma Morris, a 30-year member of the church. "That’s the first time I’ve ever heard something like that. Ministers are supposed to bring people in." "[Chandler] told us that if we didn't support George Bush we needed to resign our position and get out, or go to the altar and repent, and support George Bush."

Chandler, who could not be reached for comment, has insisted his actions are not politically motivated.

North Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jerry Meek sharply criticized the pastor Friday, saying Chandler jeopardized his church's tax-free status by openly supporting a candidate for president.

A contributor to the leading liberal weblog Daily Kos wrote: "For those that thought that there has not been a full scale war lanched against liberals; for those who didn't take the radical right's promise to "eradicate liberals" seriously, I present to you, Exhibit A: East Waynesville Baptist Church has just kicked out all its Democratic members."

This sad spectacle is the predictable consequence of the radical religious right's insistence on measuring a person’s religion by social-political litmus tests. How soon will others follow suit? [more »]

Wednesday, May 4, 2005

Four Dead In Ohio
Thirty five years ago today, on May 4, 1970, an anti-war student demonstration at Kent State University, Ohio, left four students dead. I was a senior in high school and the news slapped me across the face. I watched the guardsmen shoot down these college kids for peacefully protesting against the war. Can you imagine how that would play out today with our 24 hour news saturation? It was easy to be pissed off and angry at police and lawmakers when they were sending me and my friends off to war and killing those left behind. If you weren't already radically involved with change, Kent State would change you.

Kent State: May 1-4,1970 Why the Protest began
Nixon announced a troop offensive into Cambodia on April 30, and said going into Cambodia was necessary to "win the peace". But it was really an escalation of war into another country we had no business being in. When the the fires from the artillery began to burn in Cambodia, a raging fire of protest spread across the US, especially on college campuses. There wasn't much protesting in the streets until the students got fired up. Students were the nucleus of protest back then as many demonstrations and marches were born there.

This day is as important to me as any other day in history. There would be no turning back now in our rage against war. Remember Kent State.

Tuesday, May 3, 2005

Death of the King of the Rainbow Warriors
Perhaps more than anyone else, Bob Hunter invented Greenpeace. His death on March 2nd 2005, of cancer, marks the passing of a true original, one of the heroes of the environmental movement.

In 1971, the word "Greenpeace" hadn't yet been coined. Bob was a hippy journalist in Vancouver, a town which he described as having "the biggest concentration of tree-huggers, radicalized students, garbage-dump stoppers, shit-disturbing unionists, freeway fighters, pot smokers and growers, aging Trotskyites, condo killers, farmland savers, fish preservationists, animal rights activists, back-to-the-landers, vegetarians, nudists, Buddhists, and anti-spraying, anti-pollution marchers and picketers in the country, per capita, in the world."

Among Hunter's stock stories was the tale of how he'd stumbled on to the Cree Indian myth of the "Warriors of the Rainbow" -- a legendary tribe of spirits who would rescue nature when the Earth became sick. The story involved a gypsy dulcimer maker, an old set of fenceposts, and the gift of a book which Hunter claimed leapt into his hands -- quite literally -- when The Greenpeace dropped down a steep swell on its way to Amchitka. The story itself was magical and mythological, and over the years Hunter would embellish and polish it into a hilarious and inspirational piece of campfire folklore.
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