The media has asked: “Obama invaded Libya and where is the peace movement?”, and flatly stated we are hypocritical. My answer: we’re all over. For 10 heartbreaking years we have been in Reedley, Fresno, SanFrancisco, LosAngeles, on Mooney Blvd. in Visalia to name a few places. We’re on the phone and computers to call and email the White House and Congresspersons. We’re watching our country devolve into torture, detaining innocents, hiring mercenaries who kill indiscriminately. We watch babies limbs blown off, journalists killed, holy men hacked to death and children crying beside their dead parents. We watch as our “leaders” spend $1 billion per day on wars founded on lies, and now cut child care, education, healthcare. We watch our environment ruined as our war machines rage on, using oil to kill for more oil. If our numbers are slim, we are simply exhausted and demoralized.
I’m curious, where is the media about these stories? The truth is brought out through Wikileaks, not the media. Young American lives lost in vain doesn’t seem to be a media issue. Instead they focus on the nudge, wink, dalliances of Representative Anthony Weiner(D) and Senator Larry Craig(R). Where are good pro-life folks? Where are you?
Merrily Davies,
South Valley Peace Center
Porterville, CA
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Shalom
I am in dire need of your aid and assistance. I have been in the Fresno Jail since February 17, 2011. I am a devout Jew. This jail has refused to provide me a Kosher diet (Kosher Diets are available). This denial by a volunteer services coordinator Terry Ashmore is based on the fact that I am not affiliated with a local synagogue. A Rabbi has not verified that I am an Orthodox Jew and that I did not immediately request a Torah and a Yarmulke (I am not from California).
It wasn’t until April 15, 2011 that I was provided a Yarmulke. I was also presented with a Gideon Bible with instruction to read the first five books of the Old Testament. There is apparently no Rabbi representing those of the Jewish Faith. On April 20, 2011 a sergeant and a floor officer tried to confiscate my Yarmulke saying it was not approved. This was Passover! I refused to surrender my Yarmulke.
The jail policy of denying Kosher meal to those who do not have an affiliation to a local Synagogue or do not have the verification of a Rabbi is a violation of my First Amendment right to freedom of religious expression.
I have been refusing to accept the non Kosher meal offered at meal times. More than one jail security officer has told me I must accept the non Kosher meal. I refuse. A minor inconvenience to the jail is a substantial burden to my health and safety.
Can you send a copy of this letter to Bill Simon at the Fresno Chapter of the ACLU. I’d like to get on your mailing list for Community Alliance paper and I welcome your help in any way you see fit to act on my behalf. Thank You
Sincerely,
Patrick Edward Guy 0595235
Booking No: 1115178
PO Box 872
Fresno Ca 93712
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Feed-in-Tariffs (FiT’s) encourage alternative energy production (solar, wind, etc) by bringing the cost of producing alternative sources closer to the cost of traditional unsustainable sources (coal, gas, etc). For example, an individual purchases solar panels for his/her home. According to the terms of most FiT’s, individuals have a long-term contract that guarantees energy produced by those panels is fed into the grid. The utilities companies (NOT TAXES!) would pay a premium rate for the energy those panels produce.
At least a dozen states and 60 countries use FiTs, but not California. Take a look online at Germany’s clean energy production to see where California should be. Green business is a marriage of previously opposed thinking: jobs vs. environment. Sustainability is the only future we have: resources are finite. With fossil fuels we are trashing our Earth, the only home we know. As Citizens of our Earth we are responsible for developing a decent future for our children. FiT’s are a tested and effective way for us to move toward a sustainable future, by developing renewable energy technologies NOW. This isn’t about left or right, but rather about doing what’s right, for our children and theirs.
Robert Osak
Fresno
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Abrahamic religions will continue to fail humanity, regardless of arguments over delayed raptures and false messiahs, repeat, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Gen 4:9. How often that wretched phrase has been used as the alibi for vicious neglect. Despite the billions of Abrahamic members, those collective numbers in no way constitute the proof that any one of those superstitions are true, reasonable and absolute. Like every unsuccessful stairway and tower to heaven these religions will continue to fail at elevating the earth’s population to a state of peace, love and understanding.
I could dissect the vanity of the chosen ones, or the group that believes Jesus was just another prophet in a lineup, but I’ll keep focused on the righteous failure, of the group with numbers, thriving in America that calls themselves the majority, Judaic Christians in other words.
Abrahamic Christianity’s failures are the proof plain and simple of God’s failure. Not because God’s dead like Nietzsche wrote, or alive and inspiring absurd Narnia adventures in the head of the dead C.S. Lewis. No, it’s easy, God’s a failure, and stop now you folks that resort to the delusional apologetics that assign God his vulgar reasons, bad choices we choose ourselves because God wants us to have bad options, and the very sick “God’s ways cannot be known.” These excuses, yet justifications, are just one problem in this crazy dichotomy, of mind over body, biology versus psychology, and faith versus works. If American society possessed or was allowed the license God is given for his motives our country would succumb to a judicial system based on whim, fancy and prejudicial discrimination, in other words God’s system would be a bigger disaster that the one our founding father’s envisioned and attempted to establish. Quoting from the T.V. show Boston Legal, quoting a name that escapes me, “It’s far easier to fight for principles than to live up to them.”
And of course it’s even harder to live up to Abrahamic Christian principles when they are based on theft, suffering and murder. Don’t worry I’ll name some more pleasant popular ones too, but those will still be grouped under theft. Ready?, how about pleasant loving thy enemies and the meek will inherit the earth?, both claimed by Christians as virtues, are actually usurped from the Hebrew Tanakh. Yeah, I know Christianity claims to fulfill what they call the Old Testament, therefore the two religions collide and mold together. Truthfully, I’d find it offensive if some Christian(the gall of Saul/Paul) insisted I didn’t know how to interpret my own holy writ, example Isaiah, but hey here’s some more disgusting thievery? Go visit a Christian Church on Sunday and I’ll guarantee the Pastor will throw out a few Psalms and Proverbs, which seriously is just another insult to the Jews, trust me it’s not flattery.
Ok, now suffering and murder, as I recall Jesus did the former one, and saved humanity because of the latter. Hello, but this is sick, if Jesus suffered, what is stopping Christians from changing the suffering of humanity?, pain and poverty are glorious symbols of the righteousness of Christianity, and positive proof this mindset will continue to fail humanity. Christ was executed for our salvation, translation from the Greek Septuagint, murder is a virtue too. A religion like Christianity based on the torture and murder of it’s leader, cannot stand a chance to break from those self- inflicted wounds to elevate humanity. It just not as simple as Gandalf crying, “I have it!..Of course, of course, absurdly simple, like most riddles when you see the answer”, but I’d claim it’s more complex like the riddle of the Sphinx only Oedipus could answer.
Now granted, Christianity surpassed the Hebrews philosophy, which in turn becomes another word for progressive religion(no longer condoning slavery, women with no rights) which is actually progressive secular philosophy, but Christianity moved into the lead with the creative, though not original, heaven, hell and the afterdeathlife matterless place in space, which of course has never been proven to exist, but I’m not here to disprove ontological a priori. Really, stop and think about this people, a religion hoping for a better, perfect world based on the imperfect evidence in this one, that’s pure lunacy. And here’s another blunder of Christianity, the trinity, their Lord of Rings, the disobeying of the commandment in the Torah stating though shall worship only “ONE” God. I know it’s and old topic and debate, but if anyone has a really good reason, and please no quotes from the 300 A.D’s and Nicene gatherings, how a Father, Son and Holy Ghost cannot be anything but three god things I’d really love to finally hear it, although I doubt even stealing from Lee Strobel will help the sound of such delusion sounding like anything but chalk on a board…
Can anybody say confusing? How can Abrahamic Christianity expect to save humanity on earth? This is why the constitution did not make our government a Theocracy, the founders couldn’t agree on which form of religious persecution and prejudice to preserve. That’s why Thomas Jefferson didn’t insist on having the inspired author/God of the Bible in the Constitution, he would have insisted on the one that wasn’t. What is meant by the word “inspired?” is not exactly known, but whatever else it may mean, certainly it means that the “inspired” must be true. If it is true, there is in fact no need of its being inspired, the truth will take care of itself.
Is then, the Bible a different book to every human being who reads it? It is. Can God, then, through the Bible, make the same revelation to two persons? He cannot. Why? Because the man who reads it is the man who inspires. Inspiration is in the man, as well as in the book. God should have inspired the readers as well as writers.
In closing, Abrahamic religion fails to love all humanity, because it tells me, my son and wife that by breaking the one commandment, to worship only his invisibleness, (because we admit and proclaim our antheism) we now lack the faith because of the new part of the triplicate, mono God himself, Jesus, died for my soul, because he could, and because of that fact, works aren’t the only thing that matters to save my family from ETERNAL HELL…big deal, I don’t believe these myths anyway, and the anti-christ shoe of 2 John 1:7 fits nicely I’ll continue to wear it with pride, despite how hard Christians try to wipe their feet Matthew 10:14 of me at my doorstep in their futile attempt to elevate humanity to their absurd divine standards. The very self righteousness of these people is the statistical guarantor of their doom. Hence that wise adage about pride going before a fall.
Nick Lewis
Fresno
