Such a gentle, loving soul.
Professors take on role as high priests of activism*** As they gathered downtown earlier this week to protest the war in Iraq, a motley group of students and activists busily readied the tricks of their trade. A couple of men gingerly laid on the sidewalk two cardboard "caskets" topped with plastic flowers and the bloodied heads and body parts of baby dolls. A man wearing a white Cheshire cat mask hung a severed fake head of Vice President Dick Cheney, with a "666" scribbled on its forehead and plastic sword speared into the top. A young woman expertly dabbed white and black makeup on a young man's face to evoke an image of a ghoulish skeleton.
But the leader of the pack simply donned his professor's gown.***
A CLASS STRUGGLE: Tenure of Avowed Marxist Controversy jolts College***"In a nutshell, it means I have a fundamental disagreement with capitalism," he said. "I think that capitalism is a system based on exploitation and oppression and domination and racism and war and lots of other things.
"So I'm totally opposed to capitalism, and I think that the majority of the people of this country ought to get together and transform the system," he said. "I think we need to replace capitalism with some kind of democratic socialism."***
War dissent on campus: A problem or not?****Some commentators find the report alarming in a very different way than its authors intended: not as evidence of rot in the ivory tower, but as evidence of a climate in which free speech is threatened and criticism of US policies is labeled unpatriotic. Writing in USA Today, Don Campbell, a lecturer in journalism at Emory University in Atlanta, derides the council for sounding like ''a pack of Joe McCarthy wannabes.''
Critics accuse the council of making a mountain out of a molehill. They point out that antiwar fervor has been notoriously low on most campuses and dismiss the list as a mishmash of vague comments about breaking the cycle of violence and finding alternatives to war.****
Campus Marxists are a funny bunch--until they end up running your country ***Both of my grandfathers were exterminated by Stalinist terror. My father and mother both barely escaped the Gulag. But here I am, with PhD students, being treated to a one-hour discussion about "homophobia" on campus. My colleagues are agonizing about how "Homophobia-Free Zone" pink stickers must be put on every door in the university. "But what if a professor or a teaching assistant refuses to have one put on his door?" one of them asks indignantly. After a few seconds of silence, another answers, "Well, then a committee might just have to be set up where these people will be taken to account." Serious head-nods follow. ***
International educators conference held in Cuba*** HAVANA - President Fidel Castro told a group of educators from around the world that education can create a better world by helping to resolve social problems, such as the nagging racial discrimination that still exists in Cuba. Closing the international educators conference here on Friday night, Castro told hundreds of participants that over four decades his socialist government can boast high marks for its primary school programs. But he said secondary education here needs serious improvement.***
Eco-Crimminal***Both Congress and federal law enforcement are well-aware of eco-terrorism's destructive potential. Rep. George Nethercutt, R-WA, summed up the situation well when he asked "How do we deal with this home-grown brand of al-Qaeda?" at last year's House Subcommittee hearings, proposing improved intelligence and less restrictions on law enforcement authorities. However, many members of the media, local prosecutors and judges, university administrations, and city governments aren't quite as well informed.
If they took the threat of ecoterrorism seriously, would the University of Oregon permit a conference of unrepentant ex-terrorists and career criminals, all of whom advocate lawbreaking in some form or another, from civil disobedience to murder, to use their taxpayer-funded facilities? If they took the threat of ecoterrorism seriously, would a court in Nebraska, three months after 9/11, shunt three Earth Liberation Front activists charged with felonies into a "diversion" program which allowed them to escape with community service - without even a trial, without even criminal records? Local governments would be wise to listen to radical environmental and animal rights activists and take them at their word; this might prevent future crimes. Would a hundred San Diego firefighters have been needed to put out a three-alarm fire in the middle of San Diego August 1st, a fire that did $50 million in damage and endangered the lives of hundreds, if just a few policemen were monitoring the preparations for the concurrent "Animal Liberation Weekend," attended by many Earth Liberation Front activists?***
National Council of Churches Eco-Justice Working Group***Created in 1983, the Eco-Justice Working Group of the National Council of Churches provides an opportunity for the national bodies of member Protestant and Orthodox denominations to work together to protect and restore God's Creation. (Click here for a list of denominations which participate in the Eco-Justice Working Group.) 'Environmental Justice' is an holistic term that includes all ministries designed to heal and defend creation. Eco-Justice is an even broader term that includes efforts to assure justice for all of creation and the human beings who live in it. A major task of the Working Group is to provide program ideas and resources to help congregations as they engage in environmental justice. Please continue to browse our website to learn more about what we do and the programs we offer.***
National Religious Partnership for the Environment***The Partnership is integrating care for God's creation throughout religious life: theology, worship, social teaching, education, congregational life, and public policy initiative. And we seek to provide inspiration, moral vision, and commitment to social justice for all efforts to protect the natural world and human well-being within it.***
Such a gentle, loving soul.
No, they die because they are so self centered they think they CAN'T die. They think they are so important that nobody would dare kill them even accidentally. They are pathetically ignorant of the real world. Their parents failed to instill any sense of caution or they would know better than to stand in front of a dozer (which has limited line of sight) or anywhere near a tree and a chainsaw.
This is natures way of weeding out those who are too ignorant to allow to reproduce.
Parents Seek Probe in Activist's Death, Seattle Times ^ | 03-19-03 | florangela davila
Craig and Cindy Corrie spent yesterday in Washington, D.C., demanding lawmakers begin a U.S.-led investigation into the death of their youngest daughter, Rachel. It's a shift for them to take up a cause, Craig Corrie said. It was Rachel who was always so socially and politically conscious. She was the family's activist.
Oops
To investigate what? She did something stupid and lost her life as a result. It was an accident and a tragic loss for her parents, but what is an investigation going to uncover? That their daughter was an idiot? Perhaps I'm missing some vital piece of information here.
Obviously she wasn't.
Sounds like PROOF of Evolution, to me!
And then these people are surprised when they get themselves killed???
"These young people do go out and put themselves on the front lines.""But because they are nonviolent activists, they don't look for violence to happen to them."
Then they are stupid, aren't they?
So, Cindy, did you ever explain to "Gypsy" that he shouldn't do this? Did you teach him not to play in the traffic? Not to eat angel-of-death mushrooms? That a falling tree can kill you?
It is really hard to feel sorry for these "activists"--especially the "environmentalists".
... Rachel Corrie [was] killed in March after she stood in front of an Israeli army bulldozer ...
Rachel Corrie died because she laid under a bulldozer. While that is a good way to kill oneself, it's not a particularly good way to stop a bulldozer. And unless there's the threat of harm, her action would hardly be considered "placing oneself in harm's way," would it?
Like so much of the Left's philosophy, this one places all the burden for right behavior on the object, not on the objector. The bulldozer driver was supposedly under some obligation to do what Rachel Corrie wanted, rather than vice versa. Physics -- in the form of a 5-ton bulldozer -- won.
Placing one's self in harm's way is not a nonviolent act. It is a willful act, particularly when the political movement you represent is based on extreme violence.
The oatmeal-colored tent would have been familiar to Rachel Corrie, who put her life at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., on hold to be a peace volunteer in the West Bank and Gaza.
Another absurdity of leftist thinking. It is not possible to put your life on hold. As long as you draw breath you are living life. Life is not a telephone conversation that you can put on hold by pushing a button, and then resume after an interval of self-righteous protest.