A rare-bird reality show

This morning's Lexington Herald-Leader featured "A rare-bird reality show" (D2), an article alerting readers to a "Web Cam Trained on Osprey Family." Several weeks ago I had an opportunity to watch an osprey swoop down on a lake at the Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center in Georgia and was momentarily stunned to see the catch. Now I know that perhaps I had seen an osprey hunting for food for his or her chicks. If you'd like to see the live web cam and a host of photos of such parenting by a mom and dad osprey, visit Kentucky Environmental Education Projects. It's well worth the visit!

Introducing Grist

This morning I'm adding Grist: Environmental News and Commentary to our list of online organizations worthy of seriouis reading and podcast listening. A wonderfully robust resource, Grist provides daily reports and analyses on hundred of environmental topics. Here, for example, I mention four in today's list:

• G8 nations vow to cut oil use.
• Churchgoers grow less enamored with environmental regulation.
• Farting livestock stymie New Zealand's goal to be carbon neutral.
• U.K. tries out waterless washing machine.

Finding Grist's list of 15 Green Religious Leaders, I was delighted to see that Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the Rev. Sally Bingham, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, Richard Cizik, Pope Benedict XVI, and Norman Habel (once my seminary professor!), among others were recognized as distinct and clear Christian voices. There are many more listed as "runners-up," including Allen Johnson, whose work is close to home:

As the head of Christians for the Mountains, Allen Johnson rallies Christians against mountaintop-removal mining in the Appalachian Mountains. Johnson says his
religious and environmental epiphany occurred while volunteering in Haiti in the early 1990s, and led him to quit his job to attend seminary. "We believe that God made this planet, that God loves the earth, God loves creation, God loves humanity, and that even though God gives us freedom to spin our destiny, God doesn't want it to be trashed," says Johnson.

A daily dose of Grist is good for the soul, the body, and the earth; it goes a long way! Take a read or plug in your iPod bud and listen. You'll find it educational and activating!

Obtaining Information about the Efficiency and Pollution Rating of Vehicles

Now that the national average of gasoline per gallon is over $4.00, many are looking for accurate data as they think and pray through the selection of their next vehicle. If you would like information on the fuel economy and air pollution ratings of specific vehicles, go to http://www.fueleconomy.gov/.

Tuesday, June 10: Prevent War with Iran: National Call-in Day

The Fellowship of Reconcilliation (FOR) posts this announcement:

Prevent War with Iran: June 10 National Call In Day

Current U.S. policies regarding Iran are not working. Threats of military attacks and regime change, while refusing to talk with Iran until they stop enriching uranium, has only heightened tensions. Please join the Fellowship of Reconciliation this coming Tuesday by participating in the Campaign for a New American Policy on Iran. Call your Congressional Representatives on June 10th: 1-800-788-9372

• Tell them to work for direct and comprehensive talks without preconditions between the U.S. and Iran.
• The U.S. and Iran share common interests in a stable Iraq, Middle East and Afghanistan.
• The U.S. pursued negotiations with North Korea and Libya - it's time to talk with Iran.

I will be making my call about 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday. Please join me by making your call on Tuesday, June 10th.

Someone said "Hallellujah, Brother"

KFTC and Potluck on Friday, June 13

Jo Wernegreen announces the following:

Friday, June 13th at 6:30 p.m.:

Join us for a celebration and potluck dinner at the First United Methodist Church in Richmond. We’ll be honoring individuals who demonstrated leadership and courage in the 2008 General Assembly, including Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (KFTC) members and several local legislators. Everyone is welcome, including children. The event is free and open to all. Bring friends! Hope to see you on the 13th.

Under Local Efforts, I've added a link to KFTC; this organization is about people working together to correct things that are wrong, correct injustices and make a better world. It’s about people finding their own voice. One nice thing about KFTC is that it does have a broad platform. You get to exchange those ideas and those passions. When you get involved there’s such a diversity of issues and concerns- it changes people. (Holding her cup of coffee (or tea?) is Janet Tucker, Immediate Past Chair.)

Janet, Jo, and I urge you to come to the celebration and potluck dinner!

111 Nations, But Not US, Adopt Cluster Bomb Treaty

When over in Ireland two weeks ago, as we drove around Dublin and elsewhere I saw many posters and billboards pleading for passage of a treaty that would eliminate the manufacture and use of cluster bombs. This morning I read the AP announcement that 111 nations, but not the United States, have signed a treaty to "outlaw all current designs of cluster munitions and require destruction of stockpiles within eight years." The article points out that

The United States and other leading cluster bomb makers - Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan - boycotted the talks, emphasized they would not sign the treaty and publicly shrugged off its value. All defended the overriding military value of cluster bombs, which carpet a battlefield with dozens to hundreds of explosions.

But treaty backers - who long have sought a ban because cluster bombs leave behind "duds" that later maim or kill civilians - insisted they had made it too politically painful for any country to use the weapons again.

Let's hope so!

Last night on C-SPAN's Q & A, I listened to Brian Lamb interview Colman McCarthy, Founder & Director of the Center for Teaching Peace (4501 Vn Ness St., NW, Washington, D.C. 20016). Having read McCarthy's I’d Rather Teach Peace (2002) earlier this year, I found the interview stunningly provocative and wonderfully informative. If you wish to see, read, or listen to the interview, it's available in the these formats: online video, transcript, DVD, and soon by podcast.

Isamuch as several of us are interested in doing peace studies this fall and are looking for some kind of syllabus and/or foundational text, we should take a look at Solutions to Violence, an eight session class developed by Colman McCarthy. It uses classics in peace and justice literature to teach peacemaking. This course may well suit our needs.