Quaker Schools - period ended 8/31/2005

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Quaker Schools/War/Iraq//For those devoted to peace, it's not about politics/Baltimore Sun/Baltimore/MD/USA/29-Aug-05//… Hollander pauses, to let the numbers sink in for a moment. He is 90 years old, a resident of Roland Park Place and a World War II veteran who's "been involved in peace organizations ever since I went to a Quaker college." He went to Haverford. He is retired after a long career as an opinion and market researcher.

"I don't claim for a minute that the national ratio is 200 to 3," he says. "After all, I spent my life as an opinion researcher. I wouldn't put our numbers up against the Gallup organization. But public opinion is changing on this war. There's an enormous shift. And, as this goes on, people are getting killed and the United States is losing its reputation, and making enemies among our friends. And the idea that we have to kill more people to justify the lives of those who have already been killed doesn't strike me as logical anywhere outside the White House." ...

Quaker Schools/Religious Diversity/Guilford College/Church youth get the Pointe/Greensboro News Record/Greensboro/NC/USA/27-Aug-05//…Spirit and Spirituality

I’m really excited about Guilford College’s “Year of Spirit and Spirituality.”

The Quaker school has worked hard to come up with a map to explore various faiths — and we’re all invited. I plan to attend many of the events.

Whether or not you are able to attend, I’d like for you to join me in a few “day after” discussions on “The Front Pew,” the News & Record’s faith blog. Part of the impetus for the themed year is the fact that religion is playing a big role in world affairs.

Those scheduled to attend include Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, author of “Apartheid in the Holy Land”; author Amy Tan, who wrote the international best-seller “Joy Luck Club”; and conservative icon Ralph Reed, former executive director of the powerful Christian Coalition.

Each is part of the school’s effort to spark discussion of faith traditions and issues involving religion that affect everyday life.
The school plans to spend $300,000 on speakers and events — including a series on science and religion, and monthly discussions in which the faculty and staff will share their spiritual and vocational journeys.

Various departments also have taken on the year’s theme, with the school art gallery, for example, sponsoring the exhibit “Thresholds: Expressions of Art and Spiritual Life.”
We’ll have another conversation on this real soon. In the meantime, go to www.guilford.edu for tickets, dates and a full schedule. ...

Quaker Schools/Earham College/Violence//Free Speech For Me, But Not For Thee/Jewish Press/New York/NY/USA/24-Aug-05//… Some, like policy expert Richard Perle, former undersecretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz and journalist Bill Kristol, trace their intellectual roots to a political theorist at the University of Chicago in the mid-twentieth century, a German-Jewish emigre named Leo Strauss. Strauss’s disciples have come in for more than their share of condemnation and contempt from the Left since they gained access to the halls of power after Bush won the White House. (Just Google Strauss`s name if you want to get a sense of how ferocious some of it is.)

Perle, who had a position as a Bush adviser in the president`s first term, was forced out over allegations of impropriety (which turned out to be much ado about nothing but killed his service in the Bush administration nonetheless). Wolfowitz was the target of a barrage of endless insults and recriminations and left the administration for a presidential appointment to the International Monetary Fund. Kristol, who serves as a commentator on Fox News when he`s not editing the Weekly Standard, recently had a pie thrown in his face while speaking at a public forum in a Quaker university, to the heady delight of a gaggle of on-line leftists, some of whom offered these choice comments on the left leaning blog truthout.org:

" . . . Kristol is not some harmless politician expressing `opposing views`, he is a lethally dangerous enemy of the state — indeed, of humankind — and a pie in the face is the mildest possible response to such a creature . . ."

". . . This man is directly responsible for the slinging of cluster bombs and other heinous devices in the faces of those with whom he ostensibly has a disagreement. He is a neofascist thug hiding behind mendacious words, large guns and obscene wealth. That one of the dainty pies of his gluttonous feasting should find its way into his rapacious maw is hardly out of character. . . ."

"Yeah, too bad (the pie thrower) didn`t do it to Dubya!"

If you`ve ever seen the self-effacing Kristol, you`ll know just how incredibly inappropriate comments like these are, the more so since he`s not in government like the others and is not an architect of Bush administration policy but is, rather, a writer and analyst. Shocking as these comments may be, they`re only the tip of an uncivil iceberg that has continued to afflict our political discourse. Those with whom the Left disagrees are routinely pilloried, represented not as people entitled to opinions but as "neofascist thugs" and "enemies of the state." (The last time I heard this latter phrase was when it was used in the old Soviet Union to describe political dissidents!)

But wait, there`s more:

". . . To imagine the exquisite moment when the pie smacked Kristol in his piehole, the sheer pleasure of that image captured in time. The mundane pastry flung in his mug, transformed into a sublime snapshot of perennial embarrassment for this smug, elitist, rhetorical snob, an enemy of truth, justice and the American Way . . ."

And this:

". . . In a regime — yes, a regime — that is as arrogant, autocratic, tyrannical, unresponsive, and criminally negligent as the Bush administration, it is virtually impossible to make headway without resorting to some sort of stunt or civil disobedience. In the 60s, people resorted to violence to get their point across because official channels had broken down. These are the kinds of things that happen when government oppresses its people. I place the blame for this squarely on Bush and his cronies. . . ."

So, according to this writer, it`s not the fault of the perpetrator of the pie-driven assault but of those assaulted, either literally or figuratively.

Recently, at an online site maintained by a Brooklyn College professor of philosophy and almost exclusively frequented by those with whom the professor agrees, I was told that everyone knows the neocons had a secret plan to invade Iraq years ago and that the events of 9/11 were merely their excuse for putting their nefarious scheme into operation. Another poster there informed me that it`s common knowledge the neocons want a "master-slave" relationship
with the rest of the world.

Good grief! A "master-slave" relationship? How does that reconcile with the expressed neocon conviction that political freedom, American style, is the solution to the world`s ills? Or doesn`t it have to? I suppose if you don`t respect others` viewpoints, there`s no reason to characterize them accurately. But one is moved to ask how is it these people seem to lack even a rudimentary sense of their own intolerance? And should we care that they`re lacking it?

If we don`t tolerate disagreements among ourselves, how can democracy be sustained? Yet these folks have not only demonized those with whom they disagree in their public discourse, they`ve seemingly convinced themselves that people like Kristol, who hold views different from theirs, are in essence subhuman, unworthy of the tolerance afforded full human beings.

Hasn`t the Left gone off the deep end here with this tilt toward ever increasing hatred and intolerance? Would leftists countenance the same thing from others if it were directed at them? And haven`t they told us we have to understand and feel the anger of the terrorists who brought us 9/11 and other attacks if we want to regain security for ourselves?

How can we take people like this seriously when they demand justice and freedom for themselves but wish to deny it to others? Did Kristol deserve to be assaulted for expressing his opinions? Do other neocons deserve to have their reputations sullied for saying and doing what they believe is right? Do the principles of free speech and tolerance only apply to people with whom we can agree?

Stuart W. Mirsky is a retired New York City official, a historical novelist, and vice president of the newly formed Rockaway Republicans (www.rockawayrepublicans.com). He also serves as secretary of the Urban-Republican Coalition, an organization dedicated to orienting the GOP toward urban concerns, and is the New York State coordinator for the Republican Liberty Caucus. ...