Trying to follow

Okay, so people talk about live blogging as if it’s some special activity, so here I am trying it.

I’m sitting in the Red Cross Disaster relief training, and I’ve got an internet connection. So I guess I’ll live blog it.

Right now we are watching a video. The training is three and a half hours long.

There was mention at the beginning that there is a good chance that there will be four shelters opened in the area before this thing is over (there is currently one in the Nashville area).

I wrote an article for Relevant Magazine, please read it and post comments on it.

If you’ve wandered over to this site from Relevant, please have a look around. I’ve just started a series of post about war which you might be interested. We’ve had a few heated commenting debates as well so check those out. Most of all drop me a line and tell me what you thought of the article.

This is about the Genocide in Darfur. There is a national call in happening right now.

Here is a link to info.

And here is the basic text:

As you read this alert, hundreds of activists are in Washington DC in front of the White House calling on President Bush to take immediate action to stop genocide in Darfur, Sudan. Please join us in this national call-in day and pick up the phone to place a call to President Bush.

Call (202) 456-1414

Message:

“I am calling because I am very concerned about the ongoing genocide in Darfur, Sudan. To stop this genocide, there must be an urgent international humanitarian intervention in Darfur with a mandate to protect people, not just observe the violence. The United States has a unique capacity and clear obligation to take immediate action as the only nation that has recognized genocide in Darfur. I would like to ask President Bush to take every step necessary through the international community to ensure a multinational intervention to protect the people of Darfur.”

Background
One year since the Bush Administration declared that genocide was occuring in Darfur, little has been done to stop the violence and protect the people. Up to 400,000 people have lost their lives in Darfur since the government-sponsored genocide began in 2003. More than 2.5 million people have been displaced, their livelihoods and villages destroyed by government forces and their proxy militias. These forces have raped many thousands of women and girls. The humanitarian crisis that forms part of the genocide continues, as a government-engineered famine unfolds. Unless there is an urgent multinational intervention, hundreds of thousands more may die this year. Considering the powerful role that U.S. leadership can play in ending the crisis in Darfur, American citizens have a unique power to protect.

You have the power to protect. Your voice can move this nation. Will you join us?

In Solidarity,

The Staff @ Africa Action

Would you make a single phone call if it could stop the genocide in Darfur?
Would you be willing to make that same phone call - every day - until the killing stopped?

Take the ETHIC’s Darfur Pledge. Visit www.DarfurPledge.org.

As I begin my thoughts on war I found myself needing to venture another disclaimer before beginning the discussion.
I SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!
Not only did I have one of those yellow ribbon magnets on the back of my car (until the winter weather disintegrated it, I guess most folks have a garage), but I actually do love and care about the folks in uniform. I don’t feel like I’m more holy than thou when I say that I disagree with war, I’m simply sharing what I’ve come to see in the scriptures and through my thoughts about this topic.
Are those who fight in the war no longer Christians? By no means. As we discuss this I don’t want anyone to get the idea that I think those in the military have some how fallen away or anything. I don’t claim to have the absolute truth, though I do think what I’ve read in the scriptures is accurate.
Shortly before I started becoming a pacifist I read C.S. Lewis’ “Why I’m Not a Pacifist” Essay in Weight of Glory and let me tell you it had me convinced. I read it again a little while ago and I’ll tell you again that it is quite convincing. Much of what he says in there I still agree with, and maybe that will come out in our discussion. I share that simply to say that I am open to the fact that I might be wrong.

There are people who are close to me that are in the military and what I share in these entries does not change my love for them at all.

If you hop over to NashvilleisTalking.com you’ll see a lot of folks aren’t real happy with Kanye’s words during an NBC benefit concert.

I’d like to offer a brief defense. First, I hope you folks have paid attention to some of the good things Kanye has been doing. Speaking out against homophobia and gay-bashing, writing a song and music video about Conflict Diamonds, and many here might appreciate his Grammy award winning song Jesus Walks.

I think maybe we all need to have a long talk about racism. I think Kanye spoke from a place of hurt and frustration during those concerts. I’ve heard some say that he is wrong, that this is not a racist thing, and there is a possiblity you are right. At the same time there is a possiblity he is right, and I think it comes from many other times when he was right, when there where situations he or others he knows faced that were inherently racist.

I’m done. I just want everyone to know there is a Nashvillian out here who understands Kanye a little and does not hate him for speaking what was on his heart.

As for those upset with the possiblity that it cost some donations I couldn’t have said it better than Aunt B on Sharon Cobb’s post:
“I mean, I don’t know if Bush hates all poor people or just black poor people, but I do know that if you’d withhold money from a charity because you don’t think how a black man behaves himself is “proper,” you’d better look long and hard at your own soul.”