EduClaytion Vacation!
I’ve been launched deep into the wilderness for a midsummer week’s dream. So as I take a break from a new Friday post, link over to the One Year Anniversary Extravaganza. You can find a bunch of the best pieces from within.
We’re back on track next Friday with Part 2 of having us some Summer Justice. Much love to you all.
Doing “Small Things With Great Love”
SUMMER JUSTICE SERIES
PART 1: Do With Less
Can you do something today that will change the life of someone on the other side of the planet? The choices we make everyday impact people–many of them desperately poor–all over the world. We need to recognize the consequences that result from our decisions. We may be the land of the free, but as Uncle Ben told Peter Parker, ”With great power comes great responsibility.” 
The world is changed one decision at a time. Our focus here is often how to impact lives around us, but what about thousands in far away lands? Many of us in the West see pictures and hear stories of poverty and hunger around the globe but feel helpless to do anything about it. Throughout the summer, this site will look at ways we can help improve the lives of needy men, women, and children across the Earth.
And we can start right now.
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Earlier this year, Relevant Magazine ran a piece by Texan author Julie Clawson which is based on her 2009 book Everyday Justice: The Global Impact of Our Daily Choices. She has highlighted ways our lifestyles and purchases impact our neighbors around the world.
The focus of this summer series is often called social justice, although I would call it The Golden Rule globalized. Most of us decry suffering when we see it, but it’s easy to feel distanced from far away problems. We may not be directly doing anything wrong or hurting anybody, but we’re often unaware of the price that’s paid elsewhere so that we can have great items at a low-cost. As we’ll see, the cost is often higher than we’ve ever known.
Clawson covers some important issues. Each week I’m going to expand on one of these. If we can change the lives of people who are hurting by simply altering our daily habits yet don’t, do we become complicit in the suffering of others? Knowledge is power but must be unleashed through action. What can you do for “the least of these?” There’s only one place to begin. Read more »
To The Class of 2010 (and Helen Thomas)
I was recently surprised to learn that Helen Thomas was still alive. The great irony here is that I learned this as she was killing her career. No, I’m not making crass zombie jokes. Wh
en I think of a trailblazing woman who became White House Press Corps royalty and covered over 10 presidents, the name that comes to mind is Sarah McClendon (read her book Mr. President, Mr. President! ).
But alas, we’ve been stuck with Helen Thomas, front and center on the seating chart but oh-so-left otherwise, in recent years at presidential press conferences. Until now. Thomas went too far last week.
In case you didn’t know or care, Thomas–the so-called “dean” of reporters–destroyed her career by providing a succinct, anti-Semitic soundbite in front of a recording camera. She feels that Israelis should “get the hell out of Palestine” and go back to Germany or Poland or America. You know, places where they should be. Matter of fact, why did the Jews even leave in the first place? Ooh…
Robert Byrd: Available but call soon
But this article is about students not Thomas who was dumped from giving a commencement address at Walt Whitman High in Maryland this month. I have been working with teenagers for years and have no clue what 18-year-old would want to hear a speech from the curmudgeony 89-year-old Thomas. Those graduating seniors can let out a big sigh because the replacement has been chosen and it’s, ooh…, Bob Schieffer of CBS who comes in at a spry 73 years of age and was five years into AARP membership when these kids were born. Good Lord! Was Robert Byrd unavailable? Sorry gang.
Here’s what I can do for you. It’s not much but how about a few words of encouragement right here? It’s short notice, but at least I come within 9 generations of you, and my face and cheeks actually move when I smile. Right then, here goes. Ahem…
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Dear Attention Behold! Yo Seniors of the class of 2010:
Today, as you reflect on days gone by we look to the future. Congratulations on your achievements. You have survived clueless parents, spotty cell phone service, and the American public education system, even at a school that actually wanted Helen Thomas to be here speaking to you tonight. Read more »
Should Muslims Get A Mosque At Ground Zero?
Should New York build an Islamic mosque near the World Trade Center site in Manhattan? Amidst economic crisis, oil catastrophe, and the plummeting popularity of a president this heated debate has exploded onto the scene in recent weeks. Folks keep asking me what I think, so I figured I should formulate some kind of educlayted opinion.
The argument has already gotten pretty nasty since the announcement of the project. The issue remained somewhat quiet until a recent vote by Community Board 1 came down 29-1 in favor of the worship/community center. A quarter of the board members abstained.
This issue comes down to two main questions. Should Muslim leaders pursue this project? Do they have a right to build a mosque there? Everything beyond those two factors falls into the camp of emotions, lots of emotion. As one protestor stated at the board hearing: “This house of evil will be the birthplace of the next terrorist event.”
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A recent caller to a talk show on a radio station which I will leave unnamed objected to the project with this statement: “Would they build a monument for Hitler next to Auschwitz?” That’s an intense reaction. Some folks find that comparison incredibly offensive while others find it accurate. Nazism was short-lived and brutal. These days the beliefs and symbols of Hitler’s regime are outlawed in Germany. I find the Holocaust comparison somewhat off for this debate.
Perhaps a better example would be the Japanese-American conflict of the 1940s. It’s hard for this generation to understand the impact of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in 1941, but that event felt a lot like 9/11 and cost a comparable number of lives. What would you say about a project to build a Shinto temple a few hundred yards from where the U.S.S. Arizona was sunk by Japanese fighters?
Nearly a decade after Pearl Harbor, Japan and the U.S. were building a healthy relationship. Could you imagine a Shinto priest pushing for a facility in that spot? How would Americans have reacted then? Let’s flip the scenario. How do you think Japanese people would have felt about a big, ol’ catholic church right on the doorstep to the Hiroshima memorial? Why would any American even promote such a plan? Sounds like a slap in the face.
Allow me one more distinction between 1941 and 2011. Pearl Harbor was a military facility staffed by men and women serving their country. The World Trade Center was filled with civilians just working and trying to live out their free lives.
Islam is accepted by our pluralistic society, as are many other beliefs. We tolerate opposing beliefs, but we’re under no obligation to celebrate them. Muslims who want this facility have rights in America because heroes of this nation have shed blood by the millions to guarantee freedom. To mere suggestion of this facility does not seem like the workings of peace but a stirring of conflict. Lots of folks say, ”Build a mosque, just NOT THERE!” Yet there’s another significant fact that warrants incredulity.
The Imam and company claiming a desire to “bridge the gap” between Muslims and the rest of America want to break ground on this facility to celebrate Islam on September 11, 2011–the 10th anniversary of the attack. Read more »
Life. Culture. Education.
Life as Pop Culture Professor Clay Morgan
In The Matrix, Morpheus tells Neo he can take the blue pill and go on believing whatever he wants to believe. Or he can take the red pill to stay in Wonderland and find out how deep the rabbit hole goes.
This is a red pill type site that provides information in an entertaining way. It’s about clear thinking and good writing. It’s about finding meaning amidst the absurd. It’s about humor and truth.
I’m a writer / speaker who teaches history and political courses at a couple of local colleges. Where is local, you say? Well, that would be Wonderland of course.
On topics ranging from pop culture to the meaning of life, my brain’s always poppin’. Take the red pill and unplug.
