OKIMC: Crawford Peace camp caravan to pass through OKC

MSNBC: Oklahoma synagogue bomber gets 39 years — Washington state man threw Molotov cocktail, sent letter to congregation

I’m surprised this has received so little media attention. I’m glad that this guy’s action were met with such a strong condemnation, but I’m uncertain what 39 years in prison will do for him. (given the number of racists in prison, this guy will likely get worse than he is now) This seems like yet another example of how our justice system needs reform. This case cries out for a restorative process.

Also on this topic read Rose Aguilar’s interview with Barry Cohen, rabbi of Temple B’Nai Israel

Directnic.com: directNIC Versus Hurricane Katrina

The Interdictor – a blog being written by the staff of Directnic who are staying at the server in New Orleans to keep their domain service going despite the hurricaine. These folks are bad*** as far as I’m concerned. I’ve used Directnic for most of my domain name purchases in the past but will do so for all of them in the future. (It’s amazing to think that this blog’s domain name DNS is being kept alive by a diesel generator in downtown New Orleans)

Well I’ll have to echo what OkieFunk says about the Red Rooster (NW 31st & Walker, just north of the Paseo district). It is a great neighborhood bar/wi-fi spot that actually has two fairly decent beers on tap (besides the 10 million clone beers) – Boulevard Wheat and Sol.

(seee this previous blog post with details about the vigil and its sponsoring organizations)

6 Oklahomans held a vigil outside the Scott Gates of Ft. Sill in Lawton, OK, to protest the imprisonment of 3 soldiers who refused to fight in Iraq for the sake of conscience: Blake LeMoine, Dale Bartell and Neil Quentin Lucas.

Participants included James Branum and Tre Runne of the Oklahoma Committee for Conscientious Objectors; Mark Faulk (of FaulkingTruth.com), a student from Putnam City High school (I forgot her name), Huti Reynolds & Jean McMahon (both of the Muskogee chapter of Code Pink).

We began the vigil about 200 yards from the gate (positioning ourself at a stop light where folks would have time to read our signs), but later moved north to about 50 yards from the gate (as close as we felt safe getting without crossing the property line for the military base).

The response from those passing by was mixed, but was more positive than negative. One motorist said that she was a veteran and her daugther is overseas right now in the service, but she is glad we are there for them.

Another woman stopped to talk to us. She said her husband had just been sent on a second tour to Iraq against his will, and she was very concerned for him. (we referred her to the GI Rights Hotline and to OCCO for conversation about his situation)

Many other motorists were not supportive. One woman drove by two times to flip us off. One person yelled at us “Support the President!” and most humorous of all was the young man who yelled to us “Peace is for pussies!” (which we later realized was an unintended compliment, since the female vagina is one of the human body’s strongest organs)

All in all we felt it was a good day. We only wished that we could communicate to Blake, Dale & Neil in person, to tell them that we supported in their stand.

One last thing… here’s a picture of the Muskogee Code Pink hybrid car…

Looka’s report on what is going on NO

CNN: Katrina pounds Louisiana, Gulf Coast — New Orleans pumps fail; Mississippi coast like ‘hell on earth’

Last night when I was listening to the radio about what they thought was going to happen (a level 5 direct hit on New Orleans) I just about lost it. I’ve only been there once (when I was a little kid — there’s neat story about that, that I should tell later), but I’ve always felt a connection with that part of the country (mostly through their cuisine… which I got hooked to when I lived in Austin and introduced to it by an ex-girlfriend, and by reading Looka, one of my favorite blogs because of his love of the local). I prayed and cursed (mostly angry that God let things like this happen) and then something almost akin to a miracle happened when I turned on my tv this morning… the hurricane didn’t hit N.O. directly.

I don’t know. I don’t handle things like this very good these days. The pat answers to the existence of tragedy and evil (and the simultaneous existence of a good and gracious God) seem completely unsatisfying, yet the alternative of believing there is no God seems unfathomable, and the alternative of believing that there is a God but he has no power to stop things like this seems terrifying. Of course one could believe that God did make the hurricane move to not having a direct hit of N.O., but then you see the suffering in Mississippi and Alabama and that is a very good answer either. Surely God doesn’t love the folks in N.O. more than he does the folks in Miss. & Ala.?

Anyway sorry for my spewing of my internal thoughts on this blog, but it was something I needed to say.

Lone Star Iconoclast: Updates from today by Gene Ellis

Lone Star Iconoclast: Updates from ‘You Don’t Speak For Me, Cindy’ Campaign

CNN: Crawford, Texas, gets ready for dueling rallies — Thousands coming to town for rallies, counter-rallies

MSNBC: Thousands attend dueling rallies at Crawford — Bush supporters hold rally to counter Cindy Sheehan’s anti-war vigil

Crawford Peace House: Update on Saturday

It looks like it has been a pretty intense day in Crawford, far more so than I was expecting. It sounds like from the totality of the news coverage that the pro-war folks acted like ***** honestly, I don’t even want to go there, except to say that it makes me wonder what hope there is for this nation when people can get whipped up into a violent frenzy so easily.

But you can’t let the anti-war folks off the hook to easy either. I know from my conversations with those present, that the angry and verbally abusive protesters are the minority there, but they sure are throwing gasoline on the fire. I know lots of folks feel hopeful about the peace moment right now, but I don’t. I don’t think we have the disclipline and spirituality that folks had in Ghandi & Dr. King’s day, and without this I don’t see much hope for true non-violent revolutionary change. — I hope I’m wrong, but somehow screaming at the haters seems rather contradictory to the cause of peace.

See earlier blog post— Criticism of visit to OCU Law School by Chinese legal educators

I unfortunately did not get to see these Chinese professors at OCU (their in-class presentation was cancelled due to a delay at the Governor’s office in getting their picture taken with Brad Henry, and their later presentation to the whole school I missed because of confusion on my part about what time they were to speak)

So, who knows maybe they did address my concerns, and maybe the Chinese legal community is gearing up tackle the severe injustices in their totalitarian uber-capitalist system.

If that is case (and I hope it is), they have their work cut out for them. Here’s one example from today’s news about the incredible injustice and lack of rule of law in China today…

MSNBC/Washington Post: Activist challenges population-control abuses — Blind man leads peasants in lawsuit against China’s crackdown on families

LINYI, China – A crowd of disheveled villagers was waiting when Chen Guangcheng stepped out of the car. More women than men among them, a mix of desperation and hope on their faces, they ushered him along a dirt path and into a nearby house. Then, one after another, they told him about the city’s campaign against “unplanned births.”

Chen, 34, a slender man wearing dark sunglasses, held out a digital voice recorder and listened intently. Blind since birth, he couldn’t see the tears of the women forced to terminate pregnancies seven or eight months along, or the blank stares of the men who said they submitted to vasectomies to save family members from torture. But he could hear the pain and anger in their voices and said he was determined to do something about it. . .

The story goes on to tell how a blind man was able to get legal training (despite his handicap… in China blind people are only allowed to study acupuncture and massage in China, so he enrolled in that program but then took the law classes on the side), and is now challenging China’s egregious human rights record when it comes to reproductive rights through a historic class-action lawsuit.

So who knows… maybe this partnership would be a good thing. I would suggest that the best way for it to happen is that OCU should give full ride scholarships to any blind Chinese students and then teach classes on human rights law. (heck, we could even start a NLG chapter in China) The key is that OCU (and other schools considering these kinds of partnerships), that the law is not just about making money, but rather is about empowering ordinary people to protect their rights.

Well this morning I made my final decisions on how to cast my ballot for the 2005 Okie Blog Awards. Here’s what I finally decided on…

Best Overall Blog – Dustbury
Best Political Blog: Okiefunk
Best Family Blog: AzoidX
Best Humor Blog: AKA Mike Horshead
Best Audio Blog: psalmcast
Best Blog Layout: AzoidX
Best Unusual Blog: Re Collection
Best Writing Blog: dustbury
Best Culture Blog: dustbury
Best Inspirational Blog: Anabaptist Monk
Best Commercial Blog: Oklahoma Wine News

While checking out the nominees though, I did stumble across a few really juicy blog posts. Here they are:

Batesline.com: How to teach French without actually teaching it

Holy Family School: News 9 hates homeschoolers (this is bad… my faith in tv journalism keeps on shrinking and shrinking) — Thanks to Dustbury for alerting me to this post)

The Parish: The aftermath (he takes the same tack that AzoidX takes with regards to Pat Robertson, that Robertson is lying and should give a real apology — if for no other reason than to make clear that his views do not represent Christianity as a whole)

Cutting to the Chase: Doctor Tom Strikes Again (the best part of this post is the wacky collection of Coburnisms

Well there’s been a lot going on in the last few days with regards to this blog, but to make a really long story short, I gotta a killer deal swung with my hosting provider (Vagranthosting which kicks *** as far as I’m concerned) and have moved the blog over to WordPress from PostNuke. (PostNuke was a good CMS but way too complicated for my purposes. I also think WordPress is more secure)

There’s still a lot to do in making the change (particularly with getting my old content archived and viewable), but I think it should work out ok.

A few notes for for regular readers…

First, unfortunately you will need to sign up for a new account on this blog to leave comments.

Second, the archives aren’t all together yet but for now you can access a non-dbase driver version of the old website at this address. (hopefully in time I hope to get all of the old post ported over here)