On Armed Forces Day we went to the Marine Recruiting Station across from the Marquette U. Student Union. We went there with sadness since so many Americans still believe that peace will come from doing violence to others. We go there to ask that the young recruiters inside stop trying to get our children into performing acts of violence against their sisters and brothers of other lands. People often call us “fools” for doing this since they believe our demonstrating for nonviolence is useless. These words will not deter us from acting nonviolently in counseling our sisters and brothers that nothing good comes from doing violence to another. A.J. Muste said when he was asked why he always held up an anti-war sign in front of post office if he really believed that his standing with a sign would change people. He replied, “I do it not necessarily do this to change people. I do it so society does not change me.” We are told by Christ and others that the secret to happiness and peace is to love all people, even our enemies, and do good to them. He never once implied that doing violence to our enemies is the way to peace. Many Americans have been brainwashed by the major media, many church leaders, government leaders and military corporations into believing that we will not be safe and happy following Christ’s command. Many have forsaken the message of Christ for the sake of getting money or social gain. I heard one pastor saying that many people who call themselves “Christians” believe their calling is to work for global justice. He said that this is anti-Christ activity since salvation can only come by having a personal relationship with Christ My belief is that if we have a personal relationship with Christ we will definitely work for social justice and never do violence to another because whatever we do to others we do also to Christ. “Whatever you do to the least of these you did it to me.” ---Don Timmerman
“Capitalism’s gratuitous wars and sanctioned greed have jeopardized the planet and filled it with refugees. Much of the blame for this rests squarely on the shoulders of the government of the United States. Seventeen years after invading Afghanistan, after bombing it into the Stone Age with the sole aim of toppling the Taliban, the U.S. government is back in talks with the very same Taliban. In the interim, it has destroyed Iraq, Libya and Syria. Hundreds of thousands have lost their lives to war and sanctions. A whole region has descended into chaos, ancient cities pounded into dust.---Arundhati Roy
DON’S JOKES
What do you call a bear with no teeth? A gummy bear! Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He is all right now. A dentist and a manicurist married, and fought tooth and nail. A nurse handed a patient a urine specimen bottle and pointed to the bathroom. After a little while, he came back handing the empty bottle back to the nurse saying: “I didn’t need it cause there was a toilet in there.”What’s the difference between a guitar and a fish?” You can’t tuna fish.” What do you call a pile of kittens? A meowntain. Did you hear about the hungry clock? It went back four seconds. A senior citizen called her husband during his drive home. “Herman, I just heard on the news that there’s a car going the wrong way on Interstate 90. Please be careful!”Herman replied, “It’s not just one car. There’s hundreds of them!” What do you call a baby monkey?
A Chimp off the old block. I went in to a pet shop. I said, “Can I buy a goldfish?” The guy said, “Do you want an aquarium?”I said, “I don’t care what star sign it is.” Did you hear about the race between the lettuce and the tomato? The lettuce was a “head” and the tomato was trying to “ketchup”! What do you call an elephant that doesn’t matter? An irrelephant. Instead of “the John,” I call my toilet “the Jim.”That way it sounds better when I say I go to the Jim first thing every morning. Why are frogs so happy? They eat whatever bugs them. Did you hear about the guy who got hit in the head with a can of soda? He was lucky it was a soft drink. Why can’t your nose be 12 inches long ? Because then it would be a foot! Why do sea-gulls fly over the sea? Because if they flew over the bay they would be bagels!
INTERESTING FACTS
Every year since 1972 the National War Tax Resistance group has introduced to Congress the World Peace Tax Fund, a bill that allows individual tax payers to specify to where they want their tax money to go. They certainly do not want their money to go toward building weapons and fighting wars. The Pentagon cannot account for $21 Trillion it has received in the past from taxpayers.---NWTRCC
Over 4.5 billion people--more than half of the world’s population--presently lack access to sanitation ---Global Citizen
The U.N. supplies food to over 10 million people across Yemen who are at risk of famine due to the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led war.
About 4 million refugees are in Turkey. With a population of about 80 million, one person in twenty is a refugee. The U.S. has taken in only 2,000 of the millions of Syrian refugees needing asylum.
The U.S. military is sending bomber planes and an aircraft carrier to the Gulf and warning all “non-essential” staff at the US embassy in Baghdad to leave the country. The U.S. is just itching for war with Iran.
In Texas, a 16-year-old Guatemalan teenage boy has died at a Border Patrol station in Weslaco, becoming the fifth known migrant child to die while in Border Patrol custody since December ---Democracy Now, 5/21/19
A Cold War-era nuclear "coffin" may be leaking radioactive material into the Pacific Ocean, a UN chief has warned. | Nuclear waste from Cold War weapons tests are thought to be leaking from "concrete coffin" into the Pacific Ocean. The U.N. Secretary General recently revealed he was "worried" about the deadly nuclear waste escaping from a concrete dome designed to trap atomic "sludge" resulting from Cold War nuclear bomb tests. The dome is located on the Pacific Ocean's Runit Island and was created as a dumping ground for radioactive waste in the 1970s. ----CLG, 5/22/10
Why do we create weapons that ultimately will kill humans? Can we not instead create ways of helping the millions of poor and needy in the world with those trillions of dollars?
Some 977,000 shoes and 373,000 toothbrushes found among 262 tons of plastic debris on remote Cocos Islands—EcoWatch
The National Rifle Association (NRA) has long been hemorrhaging money. And now, it’s been revealed that their financial deals have largely been a gross misuse of their tax-exempt status. ---Daily Kos
Overcrowding at Border Patrol stations in South Texas has become so acute in recent days that U.S. authorities have taken the rare step of using aircraft to relocate migrants to other areas of the border simply to begin processing them, according to three Homeland Security officials. -CLG
In Ghana, forests disappear by a rate unmatched by any other. In just one year, the amount of forest lost in Ghana increased by 60%. ---Global Forest Watch
According to U.S. military, for fiscal year 2018, the approximate value of all military facilities is $749 billion. These bases comprise about 2.3 billion square feet. ---Care2News
Average amount per student by which predominantly white U.S. school districts receive more funding than non-white districts : $2,226
Percentage of U.S. workers who plan on postponing retirement because of financial concerns : 52 Estimated number of homes that would need to be built annually in California to keep up with population growth : 180,000
Average number of homes that have been built there each year since 2007 : 80,000 ----Harper’s Index
NOTES FROM 21ST ST: My sister, Linda, uses a walker and a wheelchair to get around. This spring we were lucky enough to get a handicap accessible cabin at Buckhorn State Park. While there, I was walking down a paved path to the lake when I spotted a copper and black striped caterpillar in the middle of the walkway. It surprised me because of the
cold weather we had this spring. It was diligently working its way to the other side. It moved very slowly and was not aware of my staring down at her. It got me to think about us humans. We are so sure that our tasks are the most important. Rarely are we cognizant that there are greater forces at work. Water changes its molecular configurations depending on how it is approached by humans. There is so much more going on in our world and the universe. We might be like the caterpillar so intent on our tasks that we are not aware of the huge foot that might end our existence. Since we are blessed with some intelligence it might do us well to remember we are a small cog in a vast system. I picked up the caterpillar and put her into the grass. Let us try to see our interconnectedness to all things. We might not be so lucky to have someone pick us up and put us out of harm’s way. Peace, Roberta
*************************
Thurs., June 6: Jericho Walk at 9 a.m. and Prayer Vigil at Noon at I.C.E., Knapp & Broadway. No more detentions and separations of families. All are welcome!
Thurs. June 13: NO MORE GUNS! Vigil at Brew City Shooters Shop, 43rd & Lincoln. The vast majority of death by firearms are suicides (63 per day or 23,000 per year) or domestic homicides, not mass shootings or premeditated murder. Gun violence stems from people who have lost control of their emotions in the moment and lack the mental leash to reign in the violence. Why would you put an assault weapon in the hands of such people?
Fri. June 14th: Hunger Walk sponsored by the Capuchins starting at 6 p.m. at Polish Fest downtown. Contact: 414-271-0135.
Every weekend we join Peace Action for the Stand for Peace which is at a different location each Saturday. June 1 at 16th & National; June 8 at Brady & Farwell; June 15 at Hwy. 100 & Bluemound Rd.; June 22 at Capitol Dr. & Teutonia; June 29 at Port Washington & Silver Spring Dr. and July 6 at Lincoln Memorial & Michigan.
Casa Maria Prayer Services every Wednesday at 7pm. Bring your favorite Bible verse or just pop in and join us! We’d love to have you!
“Capitalism’s gratuitous wars and sanctioned greed have jeopardized the planet and filled it with refugees. Much of the blame for this rests squarely on the shoulders of the government of the United States. Seventeen years after invading Afghanistan, after bombing it into the Stone Age with the sole aim of toppling the Taliban, the U.S. government is back in talks with the very same Taliban. In the interim, it has destroyed Iraq, Libya and Syria. Hundreds of thousands have lost their lives to war and sanctions. A whole region has descended into chaos, ancient cities pounded into dust.---Arundhati Roy
DON’S JOKES
What do you call a bear with no teeth? A gummy bear! Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He is all right now. A dentist and a manicurist married, and fought tooth and nail. A nurse handed a patient a urine specimen bottle and pointed to the bathroom. After a little while, he came back handing the empty bottle back to the nurse saying: “I didn’t need it cause there was a toilet in there.”What’s the difference between a guitar and a fish?” You can’t tuna fish.” What do you call a pile of kittens? A meowntain. Did you hear about the hungry clock? It went back four seconds. A senior citizen called her husband during his drive home. “Herman, I just heard on the news that there’s a car going the wrong way on Interstate 90. Please be careful!”Herman replied, “It’s not just one car. There’s hundreds of them!” What do you call a baby monkey?
A Chimp off the old block. I went in to a pet shop. I said, “Can I buy a goldfish?” The guy said, “Do you want an aquarium?”I said, “I don’t care what star sign it is.” Did you hear about the race between the lettuce and the tomato? The lettuce was a “head” and the tomato was trying to “ketchup”! What do you call an elephant that doesn’t matter? An irrelephant. Instead of “the John,” I call my toilet “the Jim.”That way it sounds better when I say I go to the Jim first thing every morning. Why are frogs so happy? They eat whatever bugs them. Did you hear about the guy who got hit in the head with a can of soda? He was lucky it was a soft drink. Why can’t your nose be 12 inches long ? Because then it would be a foot! Why do sea-gulls fly over the sea? Because if they flew over the bay they would be bagels!
INTERESTING FACTS
Every year since 1972 the National War Tax Resistance group has introduced to Congress the World Peace Tax Fund, a bill that allows individual tax payers to specify to where they want their tax money to go. They certainly do not want their money to go toward building weapons and fighting wars. The Pentagon cannot account for $21 Trillion it has received in the past from taxpayers.---NWTRCC
Over 4.5 billion people--more than half of the world’s population--presently lack access to sanitation ---Global Citizen
The U.N. supplies food to over 10 million people across Yemen who are at risk of famine due to the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led war.
About 4 million refugees are in Turkey. With a population of about 80 million, one person in twenty is a refugee. The U.S. has taken in only 2,000 of the millions of Syrian refugees needing asylum.
The U.S. military is sending bomber planes and an aircraft carrier to the Gulf and warning all “non-essential” staff at the US embassy in Baghdad to leave the country. The U.S. is just itching for war with Iran.
In Texas, a 16-year-old Guatemalan teenage boy has died at a Border Patrol station in Weslaco, becoming the fifth known migrant child to die while in Border Patrol custody since December ---Democracy Now, 5/21/19
A Cold War-era nuclear "coffin" may be leaking radioactive material into the Pacific Ocean, a UN chief has warned. | Nuclear waste from Cold War weapons tests are thought to be leaking from "concrete coffin" into the Pacific Ocean. The U.N. Secretary General recently revealed he was "worried" about the deadly nuclear waste escaping from a concrete dome designed to trap atomic "sludge" resulting from Cold War nuclear bomb tests. The dome is located on the Pacific Ocean's Runit Island and was created as a dumping ground for radioactive waste in the 1970s. ----CLG, 5/22/10
Why do we create weapons that ultimately will kill humans? Can we not instead create ways of helping the millions of poor and needy in the world with those trillions of dollars?
Some 977,000 shoes and 373,000 toothbrushes found among 262 tons of plastic debris on remote Cocos Islands—EcoWatch
The National Rifle Association (NRA) has long been hemorrhaging money. And now, it’s been revealed that their financial deals have largely been a gross misuse of their tax-exempt status. ---Daily Kos
Overcrowding at Border Patrol stations in South Texas has become so acute in recent days that U.S. authorities have taken the rare step of using aircraft to relocate migrants to other areas of the border simply to begin processing them, according to three Homeland Security officials. -CLG
In Ghana, forests disappear by a rate unmatched by any other. In just one year, the amount of forest lost in Ghana increased by 60%. ---Global Forest Watch
According to U.S. military, for fiscal year 2018, the approximate value of all military facilities is $749 billion. These bases comprise about 2.3 billion square feet. ---Care2News
Average amount per student by which predominantly white U.S. school districts receive more funding than non-white districts : $2,226
Percentage of U.S. workers who plan on postponing retirement because of financial concerns : 52 Estimated number of homes that would need to be built annually in California to keep up with population growth : 180,000
Average number of homes that have been built there each year since 2007 : 80,000 ----Harper’s Index
NOTES FROM 21ST ST: My sister, Linda, uses a walker and a wheelchair to get around. This spring we were lucky enough to get a handicap accessible cabin at Buckhorn State Park. While there, I was walking down a paved path to the lake when I spotted a copper and black striped caterpillar in the middle of the walkway. It surprised me because of the
cold weather we had this spring. It was diligently working its way to the other side. It moved very slowly and was not aware of my staring down at her. It got me to think about us humans. We are so sure that our tasks are the most important. Rarely are we cognizant that there are greater forces at work. Water changes its molecular configurations depending on how it is approached by humans. There is so much more going on in our world and the universe. We might be like the caterpillar so intent on our tasks that we are not aware of the huge foot that might end our existence. Since we are blessed with some intelligence it might do us well to remember we are a small cog in a vast system. I picked up the caterpillar and put her into the grass. Let us try to see our interconnectedness to all things. We might not be so lucky to have someone pick us up and put us out of harm’s way. Peace, Roberta
*************************
Thurs., June 6: Jericho Walk at 9 a.m. and Prayer Vigil at Noon at I.C.E., Knapp & Broadway. No more detentions and separations of families. All are welcome!
Thurs. June 13: NO MORE GUNS! Vigil at Brew City Shooters Shop, 43rd & Lincoln. The vast majority of death by firearms are suicides (63 per day or 23,000 per year) or domestic homicides, not mass shootings or premeditated murder. Gun violence stems from people who have lost control of their emotions in the moment and lack the mental leash to reign in the violence. Why would you put an assault weapon in the hands of such people?
Fri. June 14th: Hunger Walk sponsored by the Capuchins starting at 6 p.m. at Polish Fest downtown. Contact: 414-271-0135.
Every weekend we join Peace Action for the Stand for Peace which is at a different location each Saturday. June 1 at 16th & National; June 8 at Brady & Farwell; June 15 at Hwy. 100 & Bluemound Rd.; June 22 at Capitol Dr. & Teutonia; June 29 at Port Washington & Silver Spring Dr. and July 6 at Lincoln Memorial & Michigan.
Casa Maria Prayer Services every Wednesday at 7pm. Bring your favorite Bible verse or just pop in and join us! We’d love to have you!