Bill Moyers and Reverend Wright

This is TRULY must watch TV. If you have not seen Bill Moyers' show, then let this be your first time. [If you don't have time to watch it, you can read the transcript.]

Message I sent to Mr. Moyers:

Thank you so much for having Reverend Wright on your show. I am always
appreciative of your show, but I am especially grateful today. Anyone and
everyone who feels the right to throw the first stone should be first required
to learn something more about a person than a sound bite. You have provided this
glimpse.I am especially happy that the first question was how he was called to
the ministry. First things first, you said. Thank you again.

I am not a person of faith in any traditional sense, but I have a great respect for those who feel their faith strongly, and especially those who work from that faith with the integrity intended by faith not the prejudice frequently preached through orthodoxy.

Regardless of what stone-throwers might say, both of these men (Moyers and Wright) walk the walk. If only we had the courage to do as they do.

quick update

Since we blocked the shed doors and my landlady placed the red pepper flakes and ammonia (in what looks like an altar to something...) we have had no raccoon sighting.

more adorable babies

... for Earth Day....
Enjoy!

Happy Earth Day

A little ray (or TWO) of sunshine for this Earth Day...
[This is what they WILL look like some day not the actual newbies.]

Carlos and Clara welcomed two new baby peregrine falcons this morning.

You can watch the new family here.

Photos from Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group.

Ruben Salazar

In these days of war when so many of our young men and women are marching into hell daily for reasons many of us cannot understand, it is entirely fitting to honor this man, who died during an anti-war protest march. On April 22nd, the United State Postal Service will honor this man with a stamp, so I am bringing him here at least through some links.
If you don't know who Ruben Salazar is, find out something about this man.

You can read all about him in Border Correspondent by Professor Mario T. Garcia.

You can read about the day of his death.

Get out there and buy stamps!! Or order them.

this is war

It started several nights ago... in the middle of the night, I hear what sounds like someone walking on the roof of my bedroom. Then I hear noise in the backyard. I take up the small but powerful flashlight my father insisted I take with me last time I was home to visit and jump to a window. There he(she?) is... a rather large raccoon rummaging through the backyard. I trained the flashlight on him and he stared back at me completely unafraid. The only emotion I could ascribe to the look is annoyed, though I recognize that is just me putting human emotions on the animal.

Eventually after not allowing the light to leave him, he decided to leave, but not the way he came. Instead, he tried to get into the little flap that the skunks use when I startle them during foraging. Only this raccoon is a lot larger, so getting in through the flap meant breaking it, at least half of it. I hoped that the raccoon would figure out that maybe this wasn't a good place to live.

But I was wrong.

The very next evening he/she was back. This time, he/she scrambled up the top of the old garage and lumbered off. Again, I hoped that he/she would think that I was more trouble than this backyard was worth.

But, I think he/she may have already had started a nest nearby.

The following evening, just at dusk. I heard a loud sound coming from the backyard -- also how I enter my apartment -- and I went out to find the raccoon had opened one of the doors of the shed. Not only that, the opening from the flap area was larger, clearly he/she had been in there and just come out. As he/she stood in the doorway of the shed, I tried to imagine how I could get him/her out. My landlady was not home, so I was on my own. Even though I didn't want to leave him/her in there, I also didn't want to take him/her on by myself. I needed just one other person...but there was just me and the raccoon.

I grabbed a small rake as a self-defense weapon should the animal try to attack me... I walked as close as I thought reasonable, and I started to talk to the raccoon. Perhaps thinking I could talk a wild animal out of the shed was not my wisest notion, but I didn't have a lot of options. The raccoon did the typical stare down I have become accustomed to... and I talked. I told him/her that it was not ok for him/her to take up residence in the shed. I said over and over, come on out now. I looked from the raccoon to the opening under the shed, sort of hoping he/she would follow my eyes and figure out that this was a possible escape route.

I am not sure how long I was out there talking to the raccoon. But, eventually he/she did exactly what I had suggested was the best course of action. He/she walked out of the shed and into the opening. Great...

Now I wanted to get close enough to the shed to secure the door, but I didn't want to occupy my hands with the latch without a hand for the rake. Just in case... But the raccoon would not back down. He/she kept his little head with bright, staring eyes right on me from the opening. He/she would not move away from the opening as long as I was there. I talked and talked, but he/she was done doing as I asked.

There was nothing I could do... he/she had ceded as much ground as he/she intended for the night.

I went inside and hoped for the best...that whatever was in the shed wouldn't be ruined and that the raccoon wouldn't hurt itself on any of the gardening tools in the shed before morning.

The following morning, my landlady and I rigged a cover for the opening, now completely open thanks to the raccoon. We used whatever was on hand, piling logs, rocks and bricks in front of the opening. Not after some talcum powder, a big flashlight, and some reconnaissance. We also discovered the popularity of the opening was enhanced by the exit door on the other side. So we had to find a way to secure that opening as well.

I left the light on just in case, hoped the raccoon would be dissuaded by the obstructions and find another place to live.

Wrong again.

This morning, the other shed door was opened, the pot with dahlia bulbs turned over and a small fence knocked down. If is possible for the raccoon to be annoyed and angry, I am voting for that. My landlady thinks not...

Today we secured the second door, sprinkled pepper flakes and left other not so nice smelling things for the raccoon. Let's see if that works.

It's a bad time to be wrangling raccoons -- breeding season. I am hopeful that this raccoon will decide to build a nest elsewhere. Fingers crossed.

lemonade

I am still searching for those happy stories... happy seems like such a problematic word. I want so much to define the kind of stories I want to read -- and I know they are out there in other places, but I WANT to find them in news media -- but every time that I do, the adjectives don't seem to fit correctly.

It seems easier to define what they are not -- downers, narrowly constructed stories that show the worst in our nature generally inflicting pain and/or suffering on others.

It's fairly difficult to find stories manifesting pure joy -- not that I think they don't exist, just that there is no one reporting it. Maybe it would be boring.

There is plenty of lemonade, though, and it is well worth reading. The DailyOM was feeling this search for how to make lemonade on April 10th...I am a little behind on my OM reading.

Bright, Shiny Joy

This is what I heard this morning as I tried to talk myself into getting out of bed and going to work... and I thought to myself --- AHH Friday, that means StoryCorps.

No need to look high and low for a story that demonstrates joy/happiness and not JUST the silver lining...although this story could be viewed through that lens. I prefer to hear in Mr. Buford's story the strength, persistence and resilience that makes being human worth the ups and downs that is life.

I was so moved by his story, I did send him an email as requested at the end of the story. I almost included my blog address in the email to give him more to read, but I suspect that he can find some excellent reading material on his own.

Happy Friday!

Hilarious, but true

The problem with our coverage of the presidential race perfectly captured here.


NPR covered it on Day to Day playing the video as well as some commentary, that is, letting someone from ABC (not Gibson or his dum(B)my) defend the line of questioning of the first 45 minutes.

Silver Lining?

It took nearly all day to find a story with a silver lining albeit tarnished as this one surely is. Thanks to my sister for finding this story and forwarding it on.

It's not truly upbeat, but it does present what could be our better side. To recognize that justice does not equal vengeance, to understand that compassion is necessary and important in a world full of hatred, and finally, to affirm that children are in need of protection regardless of what terrible deeds they may do.

Even though Larry's family is in denial about his questioning of his sexual orientation and has been offended by the way the gay community has claimed Larry as one of their own, at least these folks have the decency to stand up for what they believe is right. They are not perfect, but they get it.

Even though I am not one for praying anymore, I am praying for this young man. It sure would be nice if we could save this soul.

From my sis: Yes, hopefully he can be taught to communicate...and eventually live life as a decent human being.

This weekend we had been talking about the fact that the only "good" to come from this tragedy is that Larry's organs had been donated. I am very much in support of organ donation (it's been marked on my license since the first one I got), but it hardly seemed like consolation in this case.

I am hopeful that as a community we can learn some hard and essential lessons from this case:

1) everyone is entitled to be who he/she is

2) children must learn that all souls have worth, starting with their own

3) adults must take responsibility to teach communication, mediation and conflict resolution -- to believe that children will come upon this naturally is so backward I am struggling to find the right adjective to describe how inconceivable it is

4) all disputes can be resolved without violence -- but the process for reaching those resolutions must be taught and practiced

5) compassion is the best answer

If we could learn any one of these (if not all), if we could value these truths enough to pass them along to our children, if we could live our lives according to these beliefs -- even when we fall off the wagon -- then there may be some consolation.

We can start here... realizing that children do what they are taught to do; this boy was taught to resolve disputes with violence. That it was the wrong choice is indisputable. Should this one mistake mean that he must forfeit his life? Surely that is not justice. Justice requires compassion. Let's find a way to save this soul in exchange for the one that was tragically lost rather than compounding the tragedy.

beauty desert peace

I love the desert. Except when I am driving on the ragged coast, there is no place else that feels more like home. The dry air, the strong wind, the smell of the earth and this incredible vegetation. Each landscape has its own sense of beauty, and I appreciate the lushness of the bushes in New Jersey's tropical rain forest summer, and the tall green trees of West Virginia and the green grasses of Kentucky, etc. But there is just something about the desert. I had never experienced it in spring and I was OVERWHELMED with the beauty.
I am not saying that the desert is the MOST beautiful place in the world. It just calls me in a way that other landscapes don't. It inspires in me a sense of belonging. As soon as I take my first breath in the desert air, I feel calmer, different. Maybe it is because it is a place where you need to be strong and flexible and resourceful to survive. It almost, ALMOST, made me want to go out and buy a camera. I have lived without having to try to fit something into a little viewfinder for so long, I am not able to control digital cameras when someone asks me to take a photo with one. Yet, I did long for someway to capture these beauties.
These photos really do no justice at all to the staggering beauty.
I was thoroughly enjoying each new variation on life in a place where you would least expect such a rush of color and pride. It is a good thing that I was running because I had to resist the temptation to pick one of each flower to press and keep as if you could somehow harness their energy and save it for later. I kept telling myself to live in that moment. Enjoy those beautiful flowers and all their lives embody in the place they needed to stay.
These (below) were my favorites, even though it seems against the law of nature to choose one over the others. These caught my eye as we were driving to Mount Charleston.
There was just something about the hardiness of the stalk and the seeming vulnerability of the bloom. And, well, that gorgeous color. So, even though the photos dominate my post (thanks to the blogger.com god(dess) for protecting my post from crashing as I uploaded all these pics!), these are not at all like the real thing. I wish you all the chance to get out there and see the desert in bloom sometime in your life.

I am looking forward to making a summer trip to Utah and then another fall trip to see how the seasons change the desert!

***I borrowed all these pictures from a wildflowers in the desert websites. Enjoy!

Faith and a New Determination

Faith:
I am no longer a practicing Catholic, but I don't think you can ever really be ex-Catholic or whatever religion you were raised in. Faith lives in the same space in your heart, soul and mind regardless of the faith experience you choose to express. Even if you begin to practice another faith the feelings will show up in the same place where your previous training lives. All that to say that when I hear deep faith expressed, especially when it comes from a Catholic, it touches that faith memory.

Though I can't even be a "cafeteria Catholic," choosing some beliefs and eschewing others in order to create a comfortable place in a Catholic church, I still admire those who feel a deep calling to God through the Catholic church and those who express their deep faith in their everyday lives. So I was especially touched by this story. You can hear the depth of the faith these seminarians feel. It is not that they do not see the challenges life offers, it is that they believe.

A New Determination:
The media offers us so much input, it's hard sometimes to decide how to filter. Yesterday afternoon, I had a conversation with a colleague about taking a break from media. I was remembering Andrea's post about taking a week off to see what making time for the rest of the world would offer. I realized that I had just come off a few days of very limited media access -- since I listen to NPR all day at work, having only a few seconds of local news or even CNN is like a media blackout for me! I recognized in this conversation that having a few days without all the media input had helped me to relax.

I didn't realize it at the time, but as I listened to the news yesterday morning, trying desperately to catch up with the Obama "bitter" comment controversy, my shoulders started to hunch up and feel tense. Granted, it is a lot of computer sitting making me stiff, but it was also about the tension that I could feel myself taking in from all the bad news I was reading and listening to. Newspaper editors and local news producers know what people like to read: crime, death, and any other mayhem. I am no different than the market research will tell you; so, yes, I choose the stories that I listen to on npr and the stories I read in the newspapers I always read online.

I spent some time, in the back of my mind, thinking about how I might filter my media input. Can I limit my npr-listening, tv watching or news-reading? I was recalling the lovely time I had this weekend out in nature; seeing the treasures of the desert (will post more in the VERY NEAR FUTURE on this). But, let's be real. I am a NEWS JUNKIE. There is no chance that I am going to give it all up completely. It's like saying I will never eat dessert again. I have been able to give a lot of treats with my new eating habits over the past three weeks, but I still make room in my calorie intake for dessert.

This morning on the bus, I decided that one of the tens things that I can do RIGHT NOW to improve every day of my life is to look for AT LEAST ONE story that demonstrates happiness or joy or at least a SILVER LINING to tough issues that we face each day. I am not sure if the story above about why there aren't a lot of new recruits to the seminary is the best one to demonstrate happiness or joy...except that hearing these two men talk about their calling made me feel lighter.

When the interviewer wishes them peace at the end of the conversation, and they respond in unison "and also with you" a whoosh-like sigh moved through me. It was the memory of saying those words, and meaning them, during mass. It was knowing how meaningful those words can be regardless of it being part of a script we had all internalized. It was the faith these men had described that made me believe they believe.

May peace be with you.

Conversations with an almost 4 year old

I asked, "What did you do in Las Vegas?"

He answered, "I burped."

"What else did you do?"

"I farted."

"Me, too."

Stopped moving, eyes wide, surprised then laughing.

Time

Where does the time go?

I have been walking around composing blog notes in my head but never quite getting the energy to type them in.

But, as I thought about time and how quickly it passes, forty started to hit me pretty hard.

FORTY years since MLK, Jr. delivered this speech? Tomorrow it will be FORTY years since his light was taken from us. Just 10 months before I was born.

Well, you get the idea.

Martin can say it much, much better than I. Listen, remember and visualize your place in this.
[This is just the last few minutes, but you see and hear him.]


[This is much longer, but it is only audio with pictures.]


[Second half of the longer piece.]

Cesar Estrada Chavez

Way back when, in the old school days, I was a college student participating in an organization that brought Cesar E. Chavez to Princeton to talk about the grape boycott. First we had to raise the money to host the talk. It seemed like an insurmountable feat, but, luckily, I was not in charge of that piece of the plan. Then we had to raise the consciousness on campus about the issue, to make sure we had a packed auditorium. As the social chair, I was tasked with this piece. It made sense, but it may have been a greater hurdle than I expected.

We were sent short videos, we put up posters; this was pre-internet, so there were no email blasts. We set up the videos outside of dining halls and tried to get our classmates to be interested in the plight of farm workers in California. I am not sure how much of a dent we made in their consciousness. Unless you were really willing to watch the video, just walking by it wouldn't really do it.

I don't know how it worked out, but it did. I remember the auditorium being pretty packed, the audience being duly moved by the presentation, and feeling a tremendous sense of pride about the event. It felt like all our book learning might be worth something; like maybe we were still part of the wider world, or at least that we could be again. The college tour wasn't just about getting people to know about the grape boycott; it was also about recruiting college students to organizing.

The best, though, came afterwards at the Third World Center, where we held a reception. Cesar Chavez sat on the hearth in the Jose Marti Lounge with all of us students around him as though he were the proud grandfather. He wanted to know about us. He wanted us to know that he was proud of OUR accomplishments, as though we weren't sitting with the man who had co-founded the UFW, among his many accomplishments.

Here is a piece of the kind of speech he delivered:

What is the worth of a man or a woman? What is the worth of a farm worker? How do you measure the value of a life? Ask the parents of Johnnie Rodriguez. Johnnie Rodriguez was not even a man; Johnnie was a five year old boy when he died after a painful two year battle against cancer.

His parents, Juan and Elia, are farm workers. Like all grape workers, they are exposed to pesticides and other agricultural chemicals. Elia worked in the table grapes around Delano, California until she was eight months pregnant with Johnnie. Juan and Elia cannot say for certain if pesticides caused their son's cancer. But neuroblastoma is one of the cancers found in McFarland, a small farm town only a few miles from Delano, where the Rodriguezes live. "Pesticides are always in the fields and around the towns," Johnnie's father told us. "The children get the chemicals when they play outside, drink the water or when they hug you after you come home from working in fields that are sprayed. "Once your son has cancer, it's pretty hard to take," Juan Rodriguez says. "You hope it's a mistake, you pray. He was a real nice boy. He took it strong and lived as long as he could."

I keep a picture of Johnnie Rodriguez. He is sitting on his bed, hugging his Teddy bears. His sad eyes and cherubic face stare out at you. The photo was taken four days before he died. Johnnie Rodriguez was one of 13 McFarland children diagnosed with cancer in recent years; and one of six who have died from the disease. With only 6,000 residents, the rate of cancer in McFarland is 400 percent above normal. In McFarland and in Fowler childhood cancer cases are being reported in excess of expected rates. In Delano and other farming towns, questions are also being raised.

The chief source of carcinogens in these communities are pesticides from the vineyards and fields that encircle them. Health experts believe the high rate of cancer in McFarland is from pesticides and nitrate-containing fertilizers leaching into the water system from surrounding fields.

Find out more about Cesar, remember and do what you can to make our world better for those to come.

Happy Birthday, Cesar. I remember.

For Fun

Free Dating Online

Mooning

Last night, I finally got myself to the movie, Under the Same Moon. I knew that it was going to be an emotional roller coaster, but I was sure that there would be a happy ending.

But, this movie really is at least a 5 hankie movie.

You don't get five minutes into the film before your heart strings are being seriously tugged.

I say that to let folks who are feeling overly emotional (and not too good about that fact) right now should be aware of what they would be getting into with this movie.

I will honestly admit that I was afraid that it would be overly sentimental and melodramatic. But after seeing the movie, I feel that though there were some overly done themes, the majority of the movie centers on the real life struggles of immigrants, documented and undocumented, and the lessons people can learn from hardship.

Some crises are settled unrealistically, but most are avoided through the intervention of everyday angels.

If nothing else, this movie is a revelation for highlighting the existence of these everyday angels.

These are regular people, some are the kind we would label "nice" and others are definitively not, who see another in danger or pain, and act, not out of self interest and sometimes without regard to their own self interest.

Life is truly full of these people, but we choose not to see them or their actions. When we are forced by extraordinary circumstances to really see these people, then we spend a lot of time looking for their faults. Those are easy to find because people are not perfect. We revel in the awful, check your local online newspaper for the most viewed and most emailed stories. Of the top ten, at least 7 of them will be stories about murders, crashes, and other horrible events. The stories about triumphs, small or large, are few and far between and tend not to get the same kind of readership.

Seeing this movie, and being pleasantly surprised by the message, was coming full circle for me today because I woke up to Julio Diaz's story on Morning Edition. It is the story about how he deals with being accosted by a teen with a knife; he recorded it at StoryCorps a few days later and they titled it: "A Victim Treats his Mugger Right". I suggest you take a listen or read the page, it gives most of the story.

Here are my two favorite parts:

"He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, 'Here you go,'" Diaz says. As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, "Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm."
...
"I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It's as simple as it gets in this complicated world."

4000, and counting

I don't want to risk this article leaving its current space in the world wide web. So, I am pasting it here. But should the link work, there are pictures of the families.

I think that this article speaks for itself, so I won't burden you with too many of my editorial comments. I just want to make sure that as we stop to ponder the number, 4000, and be repulsed by it, that we take a minute to remember the people who are represented by each of those numbers (1-4000) and the families they left behind.

These few, only a little over a hundred of the four thousand, gave their lives for a country that was not their own. If we want to talk about patriotism, we might consider this sacrifice. We might consider what we have sacrificed for our country lately; we might consider what those who did not have the luck of our birth would sacrifice given the opportunity.

Families Torn by Citizenship for Fallen
AP, Mar 23, 11:37 PM (ET) By HELEN O'NEILL
A young, ambitious immigrant from Guatemala who dreamed of becoming an architect. A Nigerian medic. A soldier from China who boasted he would one day become an American general. An Indian native whose headstone displays the first Khanda, emblem of the Sikh faith, to appear in Arlington National Cemetery.
These were among more than 100 foreign-born members of the U.S. military who earned American citizenship by dying in Iraq.
Jose Gutierrez was one of the first to fall, killed by friendly fire in the dust of Umm Qasr in the opening hours of the invasion.
In death, the young Marine was showered with honors his family could only have dreamed of in life. His sister was flown in from Guatemala for his memorial service, where a Roman Catholic cardinal presided and top military officials saluted his flag-draped coffin.
And yet, his foster mother agonized as she accompanied his body back for burial in Guatemala City: Why did Jose have to die for America in order to truly belong?
Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, who oversaw Gutierrez's service, put it differently. "There is something terribly wrong with our immigration policies if it takes death on the battlefield in order to earn citizenship," Mahony wrote to President Bush in April 2003. He urged the president to grant immediate citizenship to all immigrants who sign up for military service in wartime.
"They should not have to wait until they are brought home in a casket," Mahony said.
But as the war continues, more and more immigrants are becoming citizens in death - and more and more families are grappling with deeply conflicting feelings about exactly what the honor means.
Gutierrez's citizenship certificate - dated to his death on March 21, 2003, - was presented during a memorial service in Lomita, Calif., to Nora Mosquera, who took in the orphaned teen after he had trekked through Central America, hopping freight trains through Mexico before illegally sneaking into the U.S.
"On the one hand I felt that citizenship was too late for him," Mosquera said. "But I also felt grateful and very proud of him. I knew it would open doors for us as a family."
"What use is a piece of paper?" cried Fredelinda Pena after another emotional naturalization ceremony, this one in New York City where her brother's framed citizenship certificate was handed to his distraught mother. Next to her, the infant daughter he had never met dozed in his fiancee's arms.
Cpl. Juan Alcantara, 22, a native of the Dominican Republic, was killed Aug. 6, 2007, by an explosive in Baqouba. He was buried by a cardinal and eulogized by a congressman but to his sister, those tributes seemed as hollow as citizenship.
"He can't take the oath from a coffin," she sobbed.
There are tens of thousands of foreign-born members in the U.S. armed forces. Many have been naturalized, but more than 20,000 are not U.S. citizens.
"Green card soldiers," they are often called, and early in the war, Bush signed an executive order making them eligible to apply for citizenship as soon as they enlist. Previously, legal residents in the military had to wait three years.
Since Bush's order, nearly 37,000 soldiers have been naturalized. And 109 who lost their lives have been granted posthumous citizenship.
They are buried with purple hearts and other decorations, and their names are engraved on tombstones in Arlington as well as in Mexico and India and Guatemala.
Among them:
- Marine Cpl. Armando Ariel Gonzalez, 25, who fled Cuba on a raft with his father and brother in 1995 and dreamed of becoming an American firefighter. He was crushed by a refueling tank in southern Iraq on April 14, 2003.
- Army Spc. Justin Onwordi, a 28-year-old Nigerian medic whose heart seemed as big as his smiling 6-foot-4 frame and who left behind a wife and baby boy. He died when his vehicle was blown up in Baghdad on Aug. 2, 2004.
- Army Pfc. Ming Sun, 20, of China who loved the U.S. military so much he planned to make a career out of it, boasting that he would rise to the rank of general. He was killed in a firefight in Ramadi on Jan. 9, 2007.
- Army Spc. Uday Singh, 21, of India, killed when his patrol was attacked in Habbaniyah on Dec. 1, 2003. Singh was the first Sikh to die in battle as a U.S. soldier, and it is his headstone at Arlington that displays the Khanda.
- Marine Lance Cpl. Patrick O'Day from Scotland, buried in the California rain as bagpipes played and his 19-year-old pregnant wife told mourners how honored her 20-year-old husband had felt to fight for the country he loved.
"He left us in the most honorable way a man could," Shauna O'Day said at the March 2003 Santa Rosa service. "I'm proud to say my husband is a Marine. I'm proud to say my husband fought for our country. I'm proud to say he is a hero, my hero."
Not all surviving family members feel so sure. Some parents blame themselves for bringing their child to the U.S. in the first place. Others face confusion and resentment when they try to bury their child back home.
At Lance Cpl. Juan Lopez's July 4, 2004, funeral in the central Mexican town of San Luis de la Paz, Mexican soldiers demanded that the U.S. Marine honor guard surrender their arms, even though the rifles were ceremonial.
Earlier, the Mexican Defense Department had denied the Marines' request to conduct the traditional 21-gun salute, saying foreign troops were not permitted to bear arms on Mexican soil.
And so mourners, many deeply opposed to the war, witnessed an extraordinary 45-minute standoff that disrupted the funeral even as Lopez's weeping widow was handed his posthumous citizenship by a U.S. embassy official.
The same swirl of conflicting emotions and messages often overshadows the military funerals of posthumous citizens in the U.S. Smuggled across the Mexican border in his mother's arms when he was 2 months old, Jose Garibay was just 21 when he died in Nasiriyah. The Costa Mesa police department made him an honorary police officer, something he had hoped one day to become. America made him a citizen.
But his mother, Simona Garibay, couldn't conceal her bewilderment and pain. It seemed, she said in interviews after the funeral, that more value was being placed on her son's death than on his life.
Immigrant advocates have similar mixed feelings about military service. Non-citizens cannot become officers or serve in high-security jobs, they note, and yet the benefits of citizenship are regularly pitched by recruiters, and some recruitment programs specifically target colleges and high schools with predominantly Latino students.
"Immigrants are lured into service and then used as political pawns or cannon fodder," said Dan Kesselbrenner, executive director of the National Immigration Project, a program of the National Lawyers Guild.
"It is sad thing to see people so desperate to get status in this country that they are prepared to die for it."
Others question whether non-citizens should even be permitted to serve. Mark Krikorian of the conservative Center for Immigration Studies, argues that defending America should be the job of Americans, not non-citizens whose loyalty might be suspect. In granting special benefits, including fast-track citizenship, Krikorian says, there is a danger that soldiering will eventually become yet another job that Americans won't do.
And yet, immigrants have always fought - and died - in America's wars. During the Cvil War, the Union army recruited Irish and German immigrants off the boat. Alfred Rascon, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, received the Medal of Honor for acts of bravery during the Vietnam war. In the 1990s, Gen. John Shalikashvili, born in Poland after his family fled the occupied Republic of Georgia, became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
After the Iraq invasion, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico fielded hundreds of requests from Mexicans offering to fight in exchange for citizenship. They mistakenly believed that Bush's order also applied to nonresidents.
The right to become an American is not automatic for those who die in combat. Families must formally apply for citizenship within two years of the soldier's death, and not all choose to do so.
"He's Italian, better to leave it like that," Saveria Romeo says of her 23-year-old son, Army Staff Sgt. Vincenzo Romeo, who was born in Calabria, died in Iraq and is buried in New Jersey. A miniature Italian flag marks his grave, next to an American one.
"What good would it do?" she says. "It won't bring back my son."
But it would allow her to apply for citizenship for herself, a benefit only recently offered to surviving parents and spouses. Until 2003 posthumous citizenship was granted only through an act of Congress and was purely symbolic. There were no benefits for next of kin.
Romeo says she has no desire to apply. She says she couldn't bear to benefit in any way from her son's death. And besides, she feels Italian, not American.
Fernando Suarez del Solar just feels angry - angry at what he considers the futility of a war that claimed his only son, angry at the military recruiters he says courted young Jesus relentlessly even when the family still lived in Tijuana.
His son was just 13, Suarez del Solar said, when he was first dazzled by Marine recruiters in a California mall. For the next two years Jesus begged the family to emigrate and eventually they did, settling in Escondido, Calif., where the teen signed up for the Marines before he left high school.
Lance Cpl. Jesus Suarez Del Solar was 20 when he was killed by a bomb in the first week of the war. He left behind a wife and baby and parents so bitter about his death that they eventually divorced.
Today, his 52-year-old father has become an outspoken peace activist who travels the country organizing anti-war marches, giving speeches and working with counter-recruitment groups to dissuade young Latinos from joining the U.S. military.
"There is nothing in my life now but saving these young people," he says. "It is just something I feel have to do."
But first he had to journey to Iraq. He had to see for himself the dusty stretch of wasteland where his son became an American. In tears, he planted a small wooden cross. And he prayed for his son - and for all the other immigrants who became citizens in death.

Renewal, Spring, or Something

On these religious holidays that I no longer celebrate in the traditional church-going way and refuse to celebrate in the purely commercial way (though I will buy some sale peeps tomorrow if there are any left), I struggle with how to mark the spiritual richness I still feel.

I was recalling with a co-worker this past week, memories of spending days of my spring break as a small child with my grandmother who was very religious. Good Friday meant being quiet at noon for at least an hour with absolutely no idea why it was necessary or important. It got easier as I got older to understand the rituals and the traditions...at least to understand why people felt they were important gestures and ways to remember a sacrifice.

As I have moved away from organized religion, the need for spirituality has not decreased. Finding meaning in experiences that cannot be easily categorized as ritual or tradition is not always easy or reconcilable with the desire to experience life in the moment.

So, this evening as I listened to the news, I heard about a group in Chicago that aspires to turn sacrifice into renewal. CeaseFire takes the sacrifice of young life to violence (especially from those toting guns) as an opportunity to foster dialogue and other ways to resolve issues.

It was a revelation, inspiration and affirmation.

With all of the meaningless violence (death and maiming) we have seen in Oakland in these three short months of this new year, I have been thinking about how we as individual citizens can try to bring more peace to our streets. I firmly believe that it is unconscionable to believe that some people deserve safe streets and others just have to live with the mess. Those who can, then, get to move to what they think are their deservedly safe neighborhoods and those of us who can't just have to put up with it.

I admit that I want to live in a safe community. I just don't think that there are only a limited few who deserve the right to go to bed and wake in peace. I think we all should work towards the community we want; we should all sacrifice and prosper in equal measures.

So, I have been walking my usual route and taking my usual buses, and wondering, should I come across another Jake, how would I talk him out of the gun or the request for money? How can I, as a citizen of this city, contribute to the peaceful negotiation and resolution of conflict?

Here's a group that offers an organized way for citizens to be involved in the "change [they] want to see," (paraphrased from Gandhi). No small feat. It's not that I don't support greater and better police presence as a part of the solution. But if the last few weeks, and the shooting of at least three unarmed civilians, are indicative of what more police will mean on our streets, I think we can find more productive ways to spend our tax revenue.

Well, this little news piece, well-placed on this day, gave me an option to pursue. If I can find the clip, I will post a link, for now, check out their site and imagine the possibilities.

For spring and Easter (for those who celebrate) or Purim or New Year or whatever feast you are celebrating, here's to new life... to new hope, to participating in the change we'd like to see in this world.

Happy Birthday, Mister Rogers

Are you wearing your sweater today?

I am...though I usually wear a sweater. Mark that as one of the many reasons Mister Rogers and I are so compatible.

I LOVE Mister Rogers, but I had to watch his show on the sly at my house because my older brother and sister HATED Mister Rogers.

Mister Rogers succeeded at creating a space that was safe and full of love for children. It was the kind of place where all children could feel important and confront the issues, though mundane, small children face on a daily basis: bullying, feeling inadequate, craving praise and struggling to be nice to those around you.

They will tell you that they didn't like him because they thought he was gay. Homophobic tendencies aside, I believe that what I loved about Mister Rogers they hated. Perhaps it was their age (seven and eight years older than me, I was five when I was first watching). I can't help thinking that at the time they just didn't believe that people could be genuinely nice. Maybe they just didn't find nice entertaining.

What I do know is that I would still rather watch an episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and watch young minds work out the world than even a piece of an American Idol episode where people who try are belittled.

Guess which kind of show my older sister is still addicted to?

In case you never got the chance to know Mister Rogers, here is a lovely article about him.

Happy Birthday, Mister Rogers. The world still needs you...



Mister Rogers, "you've made this day a special day by just your being you. There's no person in the whole world like you, and I like you just the way you are." [For the uninitiated, these are the words that he left us with every show. Imagine the way this kind of unconditinoal love could change the world.