The Peace Tree

Saturday Sonata III, with LT.

I'm working today so I've had to be a bit quick putting this one together, but it is at least a wonderful song and purpose.

"Volunteers for Peace" is exactly what it says: individuals and corporations volunteering for peace, at a time when a majority of the populations, inside the Green Line and beyond, were committed to attack and revenge. 20 Arab and Jewish professional vocal and instrumental artists, together with Arab and Jewish teenagers from the Peace Child Israel workshops and elementary school children from Qalansua and Tel Aviv, set personal agendas aside and answered the call at a moment's notice, to share their talents in an effort to make a small contribution to healing in the community. The anthem was heard on radio and seen on television screens throughout the country.

The song has that quality that music from that part of the world so often has: when all of a sudden the vocals rise and fill with such painful yearning and do something aking to jumping up a few quantum levels and your hair almost stands on end - just beautiful moments. I've listened to the song four times in a row now and I think I'm getting a bit wasted, to tell you the truth. I may never get this post up.

[From the text at YouTube] The song, commissioned by the organization Peace Child Israel, was arranged by Israeli composer and singer Shlomo Gronich (the one with the goatee). Ehud Manor and Magid Abu-Rokun composed the lyrics. Sung in both Hebrew and Arabic, this beautiful, Middle-Eastern song the power to heal and transform Arab and Jewish communities. It's high time to tell our leaders: End the siege on Gaza, negotiate in good faith with all Palestinian parties, and demand that both people teach coexistence, mutual respect and human dignity - as this song does!

Jewish singers (in order of appearance):
Leah Shabat
Shlomo Gronich
Zehavah Ben
Eli Luzon

Palestinian singers (in order of appearance):
Sahmir Shukri
Nivine Jaabri
Elias Julianos
Lubna Salame

Much more to read and look at at Peace Child Israel. And if you click on the image in the upper left you can view a large version with the lyrics to the song in Hebrew, Arabic, and English.

Peace, dang it.

P.S. A postscript I had no intention of adding must be. I've just received word that the great American folksinger U. Utah Phillips has passed away. Good journeys, sir. You will be missed.

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War Resister Corey Glass Faces Deportation

U.S. Iraq war resister Corey Glass was told on May 21, 2008, that his application to stay in Canada has been rejected and he now faces deportation. Glass would be the first Iraq war resister to be deported from Canada. Last December the House of Commons' Standing Committee on Citizenship & Immigration passed a motion calling on the Canadian government to "immediately implement a program to allow conscientious objectors and their immediate family members […] to apply for permanent resident status and remain in Canada; and … the government should immediately cease any removal or deportation actions … against such individuals".

For more information about the fight to stop his deportation and for other war resisters news please check here...

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We Won the Vote in Congress!Pentagon Forced to Release Information to SOA Watch - On to the Senate!

Thanks to your efforts and hard work in defense of human rights, the culture of secrecy and lack of accountability surrounding Defense Department policies suffered a severe blow today when the U.S. House of Representatives approved the McGovern-Sestak-Bishop (GA) amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2009. The amendment forces the public release of names, rank, country of origin, courses and dates of attendance of WHINSEC's graduates and instructors to the public.

The amendment was approved with a 220 to 189 vote!

This is a major victory for the international human rights community!You spoke up and now we are one step closer to transparency and closing the SOA/WHINSEC!

In recent years, WHINSEC has denied information that in the past has been vital in identifying the perpetrators of massacres, targeted assassinations, and human rights abuses committed in Latin America. In response to WHINSEC's lack of transparency and its willingness to undermine public attempts of exercising oversight of the institution, human rights advocates and constituents have taken a stand for justice and demanded Congress to hold WHINSEC accountable.

The access to information regarding students and instructors attending WHINSEC will allow human rights organizations to continue to monitor the school and identify those graduates and instructors who have violated human rights or taken part in criminal activities in their home countries.

Information is power, and the more information we have, the closer we are to closing the SOA/WHINSEC once and for all!

We Won the House, Now Comes the Senate.

The approval of this amendment will now lead us to face a new challenge to insure that WHINSEC also be held accountable by the U.S. Senate, in the coming weeks we will continue to keep you updated so we can work together towards another victory.

- Please consider making a contribution to SOA Watch to support our legislative campaign in the U.S. Senate.

- Visit the SOA Watch website for more information and keep your eyes open for an upcoming mass email with an analysis of the vote and what will be our next steps in the campaign.

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The world is my expense
The cost of my desire
Jesus blessed me with its future
And I protect it with fire
So raise your fists
And march around
Just dont take what you need
Ill jail and bury those committed
And smother the rest in greed
Crawl with me into tomorrow
Or Ill drag you to your grave
Im deep inside your children
Theyll betray you in my name

Sleep now in the fire

The lie is my expense
The scope of my desire
The party blessed me with its future
And I protect it with fire
I am the Nina The Pinta The Santa Maria
The noose and the rapist
The fields overseer
The agents of orange
The priests of Hiroshima
The cost of my desire
Sleep now in the fire

Sleep now in the fire

For its the end of history
Its caged and frozen still
There is no other pill to take
So swallow the one
That made you ill
The Nina The Pinta The Santa Maria
The noose and the rapist
The fields overseer
The agents of orange
The priests of Hiroshima
The cost of my desire
Sleep now in the fire

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I know. I know... I change templates like one changes socks, but I do really like this design and I'll stay with it if you approve. That's right. I'm leaving it up to you. I have worked on it all day and will likely fine tune it as I go. I know how it loads rather fast with my computer and my high speed connection, but it would be nice to hear some feedback on it. I tested it on Mozilla and they were rather friendly to one another, so much so that I yelled, "Get a room!". ..

Please visit and let me know your thoughts. My muse threw a fit until she saw the finished product. I think she sighed a sigh that read, "Let's get a room". I might not have heard her correctly, my ears are still a bit muted due to her latest outrage at nimrod in chief, so it could well have been a sigh of exasperation. I truly need and desire your input.

Base template via ParaNovoBlogger

Peace,
thepoetryman

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I happened to rent this documentary, as I do not watch mainstream television and wanted to see what they had to say about climate change. I like to watch these kinds of documentaries, to get tips and hints on what I can to do in my small way to help.

Well, wouldn’t you know it – I come away from this documentary with something completely different.

And now I’m wondering if it’s our plant in peril or us?

Mother Earth seems to be very a very resilient and resourceful plant. I find that she has had no less than 5 mass extinctions since her creation mostly due to cyclical ice ages and just her volcanic rumblings and tectonic plate moves. According to some experts in the field, what we are experiencing with sunspots and earth changes now ~ might actually be a readily predictable ice age ~ one that has repeated itself every 10,000 years on her surface.

I digress though, what I wanted to talk about was plastic. You know, that stuff we use to store just about everything in including water.

At the end of the documentary, they took a family; mother, father and two small children and did blood work on them to assess their chemical exposure. What they found was surprising; the children, most especially the one year old, had the highest level of chemicals in his body. Huh? Now, that doesn’t make much sense until you do an Internet search of ‘bad plastics’. And we are not just talking about recycling plastics here; we are talking about our everyday, use in all kinds of products including baby bottles and children’s toys plastics that are toxic to the human body. Most especially toxic in small minute amounts.

Here are a few articles to get you started reading; Care2 and Bisphenol

Simply said,
Plastics disrupt hormones
Hormones create the human race
If we can’t reproduce
Then we have successfully killed off the human race
without Mother Nature having to do

one single thing.

peace my friend, peace

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