Paul's Perambulations a personal blog

April 12, 2007

What say you?

Filed under: Peace,Politics — admin @ 10:43 am

This was my posted response to a NYTmes article about the proliferation of hidden cameras in stores (In Bid to Sway Sales, Cameras Track Shoppers) and how this has become acceptable as good business practice:

I sometimes laugh (or cry?) when I recall the concern folks once had about the future as depicted in Brave New World and 1984. That was dictatorship, control, and the Soviet Union (for the ‘50s and ‘60s). Now it’s happening here, and most everyone takes it for granted. A half century ago, there would have been outrage. How truly these books now appear to be predicting our future. Details differ (changes in technology and where the power resides), but the trajectory is unmistakable (post #49). 

Here are some other ideas for consideration:   

We are citizens of the world, and our country is this earth. 

“America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy.”  John Updike

“Yes, we love peace, but we are not willing to take wounds for it, as we are for war.” John Andrew Holmes

Does good always triumph over evil?  Only because the winners get to tell the story.

April 11, 2007

Unsuitable for jury duty

Filed under: Peace — admin @ 9:34 pm

The following story serves as a reminder that a particular witness can continue to be a witness far beyond the event itself.  Yesterday I spent the whole day at Media Court House undergoing jury duty selection for a murder trial.  When the judge and attorneys queried me about my answers to some of their form questions, my explanations may have helped de-select me, as follows: (more…)

April 7, 2007

Peace and Photography

Filed under: Peace — admin @ 5:38 pm

Here’s part of an email that I sent Fran regarding this year’s Good Friday demonstration at Lockheed Martin, followed by her reply. In reading this, we should remember that there are many ways that we can contribute to peace.  Each person has their own gifts, which should be used as best they can.  I am grateful that Judith has chosen to use her gift to work for peace in this manner:

Hi Fran,

An interesting thing happened at the demonstration. A lady approached me and gave me her card, Judith Joy Ross. She is some sort of artist and photographer,with a gallery in Bethlehem, PA.  Her plan is to create a photography book of peace activists. She was carrying a huge wood camera that looks like my antique one, except bigger and heavier. There was a suitcase for the film – it takes flat 8×10 separately-cased wood sleeves of b&w film. I signed a release, and then she took much of her film case on me. I was holding a large gong, which I rang at the reading of each name of a Pennsylvanian solder killed in Iraq. Have I acquired the look that I feel? You can google her at “Judith Joy Ross” and see what you get. 

. . . . . . Fran’s Response . . . . .

Oh, Sweetie, she does amazing work. Had a write up in The New York Times just last year; exhibitions and permanent displays at major museums. Wow!

April 5, 2007

NPR interview on not paying taxes for war

Filed under: Peace — admin @ 10:31 pm

I was recently interviewed about my war tax resistance for a JusticeTalking episode on NPR. I had initially questioned my role in doing this interview, because I  felt that the heroic actions of some of my friends represented a more powerful message than my own civil disobedience with the IRS via war tax resistance.  I came to the conclusion that this was an opportunity for me to (more…)

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