Proverbs 31:8-9 tells us, “Open your mouth for the mute, For the rights of all the unfortunate. Open your mouth, judge righteously, And defend the rights of the afflicted and needy.” At Casa Maria, we continue to see high numbers of families driven into homelessness as well as many families kept homeless for longer periods of time because of excessive We Energies bills. These high energy bills are an abomination to God. The poor and the destitute are the most blessed of us all and to deny the needs of the poor is to deny the will of God.
We Energies continues to raise prices while making vast amounts of profit off the back of the poor and middle class. For many years, Wisconsin energy companies have pushed to increase prices for customers and the Public Service Commission grants these increase at least 2/3rds of the time. Wisconsin has highest electricity rates in the Midwest and even produces an excess of energy. These price increases are allowed to happen despite the ever decreasing price for energy production. When these price increases go through, people who use less energy face a bigger increase in their bills percentagewise compared to those who use less. People who opt for their power coming from 100% renewable sources also pay an increased rate. We Energies even tried to charge an additional fee to homeowners who put solar panels on their own homes. We Energies plans on using more and more fossil fuels, even though we have a large surplus of energy being produced and we have ample renewable energy sources available. Latest records show that the We Energies’ biomass facility is used less than 16% of the time while they continuously burn more coal at their Oak Creek plant. Yet there really is no alternative. We Energies is a private company that monopolizes the market while the government guarantees their profit. Their increased fossil fuel use contributes to global climate change and drives so many into desperation. Jeremiah 5:26-27 tells us, “For wicked men are found among my people; they lurk like fowlers lying in wait. They set a trap; they catch others. Like a cage full of birds, their houses are full of deceit; therefore they have become great and rich.”
We must speak out for the poor and take a stand against We Energies contributing to climate change. One way to do this is to join 350 Milwaukee’s We Energies campaign. You can contact them at (414) 964-9478 or you can check out 350milwaukee.weebly.com -Michael
“We have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.” –Pope Francis
JOKES
A new college graduate gets his first job in a hardware store. When he asks his boss what task he is assigned to, the man tells him to begin by sweeping the aisles. "But I'm a college graduate," replies the young man. "Oh," says the boss, "In that case, let me show you how it's done!" Evening news is where they begin with ‘Good evening’, and then proceed to tell you why it isn’t. Laugh at your problems, everybody else does.
I'll never forget my grandfather's last words, "Stop shaking the ladder, you little twerp!" The criminal who began writing poetry went from bad to verse. Ole won a toilet brush at a game show. Ole said, I like the brush, but I still prefer paper..
Did you hear about the cheese shop in Nazareth? It’s called “The House of Cheeses”. “If we don’t change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.” ---Chinese Proverb A woman sees a doctor. She asks, “Doctor, what is wrong with me?” The doctor replied, “You have acute appendicitis.” She replied, “Oh, Doctor, you say the nicest things!” How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
The Bill and Linda Gates Foundation has agreed to pay for Pres. Donald Trump’s wall. The only condition is that they get to install windows! Whoever coined the phrase "Quiet as a mouse" has never stepped on one.
Ever wonder…Why the sun lightens one’s hair, but darkens the skin? Why you never see the headline, ‘Psychic Wins Lottery’? Why do doctors call what they do as “a practice”? Why do they sterilize the needles for lethal injections? What do you call a string of rabbits walking backwards? A receding hare line.
INTERESTING FACTS
BP and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials are trying to repair a leaking oil well on Alaska's North Slope. Officials said the well is too unstable to shut down because of frigid temps in the high Arctic, but have released the pressure on one of the main leaks. ---EcoWatch
Arab countries offered money to the Americans to invade Syria. ----Jimmy Moore Show .
“There is an American imprint on every civilian life lost in Yemen. it’s because though the Saudis are actually dropping the bombs from their planes, they couldn’t do it without the U.S.. It’s our munitions, sold to the Saudis. Congress has not given the president the power to conduct war on Yemen.” ---Sen. Chris Murphy
Sweden has accepted 275,000 refugees from 2014 to 2016 with no rise in crime. There were 112 murders in Sweden in 2015 compared to 16,696 in the same year in the U.S. Some 20 million Americans are projected to lose their health insurance by 2026 under the new healthcare program proposed by Pres. Trump. Sweden has free healthcare. ----The Nation, 4/3/17
The Secret Service has spent $35,000 in golf cart rentals at Mar-a-Lardo ---The Hill
Meanwhile, in Somalia, the United Nations says 25,000 people have become sick with cholera, as a severe drought forces people to drink water infected with the deadly bacteria. The U.N. is warning Somalia is on the brink of widespread famine. In 2011, more than a quarter of a million people died during a severe famine in Somalia.---Democracy Now
The US has invaded about 70 countries since its inception and has invaded a total of about 50 countries since 1945 America has caused 1.3 billion global avoidable deaths in the period 1950-2005. The World, including 3 million ordinary Americans , die needlessly each year due to war.---Counter Currents. Org
Between 2008 – 2015 the nine largest and most profitable U.S. banks avoided paying about $80 billion in taxes by abusing various loophole Under Donald Trump’s tax plan, the corporate tax rate would be slashed from 35% to 15%― This is a $1.5 trillion tax giveaway that would go mostly to Wall Street billionaires and the richest 1 percent. ---Americans for Tax Fairness
In the past, the U.S. dropped 635,000 tons of bombs on North Korea. This includes 32,557 tons of napalm – essentially a chemical weapon. As a comparison, it is fitting to see that in all of the Pacific sector of World War II, the United States dropped a mere 503,000 tons of bombs.. Three million Koreans died in that war, the majority in the North. North Korea has never attacked the United States. ---AlterNet, 4/20/17
The average American eats approximately 2,000 land animals in his or her lifetime, leading to the suffering of over 9 billion factory-farmed animals every year in the United States alone? eating more plant-based proteins could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 55 percent --- The Reducetarian Solution: How the Surprisingly Simple Act of Reducing the Amount of Meat in Your Diet Can Transform Your Health and the Planet by Brian Kateman
NOTES FROM 21ST STREET: A 21,600 pound bomb was dropped on Afghanistan in early April. It was called MOAB or Massive Ordinance Air Blast. The media and government called it “The Mother of All Bombs.” Mothers give life. Mothers give birth to and nourish their children . Mothers always keep their children safe. Mother Therese nursed the poor and dying. Mother Mary gave birth to Jesus for the world. In this month we celebrate Mothers Day. Juliia Ward Howe worked toward a Mother’s Peace Day. Years later Woodrow Wilson , at the urging of Anna Jarvis, proclaimed a national holiday to express our reverence and love for all mothers. Julia Ward Howe’s 1876 proclamation speaks for all mothers in the world. Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says "Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice." Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God. In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interest of peace.”
This proclamation reflects what motherhood entails. It is blasphemy for our government and media to call the largest non-nuclear bomb with an anacronym including the word, mother. Shame!! A mother cannot be ascribed to a weapon of death and destruction. It is the antithesis of what motherhood is all about. Peace, Roberta
+++++++++
We are still in need of someone to help with the clothing room for babies and children. We need help on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to Noon on those days. If you can, we would appreciate your help. Call Roberta at 301-848=0485. Thanks!
Monday, May 1 ----DAY WITHOUT LATINOS, IMMIGRANTS & REFUGEES…-NO WALLS, FREE DETAINED REFUGEES, NOON TO 3 P.M. STARTING AT VOCES FE LA FRONTERA,, 1027 S. 5th Street, Milwaukee, WI
Tuesday, May 2 -----Day of Fast to End War and Famine at the Old Federal Bldg starting at Noon. Donations are asked for UNICEF and World Food Program. Call 414-447-8369 for details.
Thursday, May 4 6:30 to 8PM---: Nuclear-Free Future Tour, speaker Ellen Thomas, Women’s Int’l. League for Peace and Freedom; 1st Unitarian Society, Ogden and Astor
Sunday May 7--- 2 p.m. Water Protectors of Milwaukee Talking Circle at Congregation of Great Spirit; 1100 W. Lapham
Tuesday, May 9th---- 350 Milwaukee monthly meeting 7pm East Side Urban Ecology Center, 1500 E. Park, Milw.
Fri. May 12 Mothers Day--- Protest at Midtown Children’s Hospital Clinic, 58th & Fon du lac; 4:30pm to 6pm: Protest Children’s Hospital’s CPS Contract that they use to take children from safe homes of poor mothers without any proof of abuse or neglect 414-342-6662/[email protected]
THURS., MAY 18 -----NO MORE GUNS! at Brew City Shooters supply, 43rd & Lincoln, from Noon to 1 p.m. To buy a gun means that you are willing to do violence to another since the gun was created to do violence.
We Energies continues to raise prices while making vast amounts of profit off the back of the poor and middle class. For many years, Wisconsin energy companies have pushed to increase prices for customers and the Public Service Commission grants these increase at least 2/3rds of the time. Wisconsin has highest electricity rates in the Midwest and even produces an excess of energy. These price increases are allowed to happen despite the ever decreasing price for energy production. When these price increases go through, people who use less energy face a bigger increase in their bills percentagewise compared to those who use less. People who opt for their power coming from 100% renewable sources also pay an increased rate. We Energies even tried to charge an additional fee to homeowners who put solar panels on their own homes. We Energies plans on using more and more fossil fuels, even though we have a large surplus of energy being produced and we have ample renewable energy sources available. Latest records show that the We Energies’ biomass facility is used less than 16% of the time while they continuously burn more coal at their Oak Creek plant. Yet there really is no alternative. We Energies is a private company that monopolizes the market while the government guarantees their profit. Their increased fossil fuel use contributes to global climate change and drives so many into desperation. Jeremiah 5:26-27 tells us, “For wicked men are found among my people; they lurk like fowlers lying in wait. They set a trap; they catch others. Like a cage full of birds, their houses are full of deceit; therefore they have become great and rich.”
We must speak out for the poor and take a stand against We Energies contributing to climate change. One way to do this is to join 350 Milwaukee’s We Energies campaign. You can contact them at (414) 964-9478 or you can check out 350milwaukee.weebly.com -Michael
“We have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor.” –Pope Francis
JOKES
A new college graduate gets his first job in a hardware store. When he asks his boss what task he is assigned to, the man tells him to begin by sweeping the aisles. "But I'm a college graduate," replies the young man. "Oh," says the boss, "In that case, let me show you how it's done!" Evening news is where they begin with ‘Good evening’, and then proceed to tell you why it isn’t. Laugh at your problems, everybody else does.
I'll never forget my grandfather's last words, "Stop shaking the ladder, you little twerp!" The criminal who began writing poetry went from bad to verse. Ole won a toilet brush at a game show. Ole said, I like the brush, but I still prefer paper..
Did you hear about the cheese shop in Nazareth? It’s called “The House of Cheeses”. “If we don’t change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.” ---Chinese Proverb A woman sees a doctor. She asks, “Doctor, what is wrong with me?” The doctor replied, “You have acute appendicitis.” She replied, “Oh, Doctor, you say the nicest things!” How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
The Bill and Linda Gates Foundation has agreed to pay for Pres. Donald Trump’s wall. The only condition is that they get to install windows! Whoever coined the phrase "Quiet as a mouse" has never stepped on one.
Ever wonder…Why the sun lightens one’s hair, but darkens the skin? Why you never see the headline, ‘Psychic Wins Lottery’? Why do doctors call what they do as “a practice”? Why do they sterilize the needles for lethal injections? What do you call a string of rabbits walking backwards? A receding hare line.
INTERESTING FACTS
BP and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials are trying to repair a leaking oil well on Alaska's North Slope. Officials said the well is too unstable to shut down because of frigid temps in the high Arctic, but have released the pressure on one of the main leaks. ---EcoWatch
Arab countries offered money to the Americans to invade Syria. ----Jimmy Moore Show .
“There is an American imprint on every civilian life lost in Yemen. it’s because though the Saudis are actually dropping the bombs from their planes, they couldn’t do it without the U.S.. It’s our munitions, sold to the Saudis. Congress has not given the president the power to conduct war on Yemen.” ---Sen. Chris Murphy
Sweden has accepted 275,000 refugees from 2014 to 2016 with no rise in crime. There were 112 murders in Sweden in 2015 compared to 16,696 in the same year in the U.S. Some 20 million Americans are projected to lose their health insurance by 2026 under the new healthcare program proposed by Pres. Trump. Sweden has free healthcare. ----The Nation, 4/3/17
The Secret Service has spent $35,000 in golf cart rentals at Mar-a-Lardo ---The Hill
Meanwhile, in Somalia, the United Nations says 25,000 people have become sick with cholera, as a severe drought forces people to drink water infected with the deadly bacteria. The U.N. is warning Somalia is on the brink of widespread famine. In 2011, more than a quarter of a million people died during a severe famine in Somalia.---Democracy Now
The US has invaded about 70 countries since its inception and has invaded a total of about 50 countries since 1945 America has caused 1.3 billion global avoidable deaths in the period 1950-2005. The World, including 3 million ordinary Americans , die needlessly each year due to war.---Counter Currents. Org
Between 2008 – 2015 the nine largest and most profitable U.S. banks avoided paying about $80 billion in taxes by abusing various loophole Under Donald Trump’s tax plan, the corporate tax rate would be slashed from 35% to 15%― This is a $1.5 trillion tax giveaway that would go mostly to Wall Street billionaires and the richest 1 percent. ---Americans for Tax Fairness
In the past, the U.S. dropped 635,000 tons of bombs on North Korea. This includes 32,557 tons of napalm – essentially a chemical weapon. As a comparison, it is fitting to see that in all of the Pacific sector of World War II, the United States dropped a mere 503,000 tons of bombs.. Three million Koreans died in that war, the majority in the North. North Korea has never attacked the United States. ---AlterNet, 4/20/17
The average American eats approximately 2,000 land animals in his or her lifetime, leading to the suffering of over 9 billion factory-farmed animals every year in the United States alone? eating more plant-based proteins could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 55 percent --- The Reducetarian Solution: How the Surprisingly Simple Act of Reducing the Amount of Meat in Your Diet Can Transform Your Health and the Planet by Brian Kateman
NOTES FROM 21ST STREET: A 21,600 pound bomb was dropped on Afghanistan in early April. It was called MOAB or Massive Ordinance Air Blast. The media and government called it “The Mother of All Bombs.” Mothers give life. Mothers give birth to and nourish their children . Mothers always keep their children safe. Mother Therese nursed the poor and dying. Mother Mary gave birth to Jesus for the world. In this month we celebrate Mothers Day. Juliia Ward Howe worked toward a Mother’s Peace Day. Years later Woodrow Wilson , at the urging of Anna Jarvis, proclaimed a national holiday to express our reverence and love for all mothers. Julia Ward Howe’s 1876 proclamation speaks for all mothers in the world. Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says "Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice." Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God. In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interest of peace.”
This proclamation reflects what motherhood entails. It is blasphemy for our government and media to call the largest non-nuclear bomb with an anacronym including the word, mother. Shame!! A mother cannot be ascribed to a weapon of death and destruction. It is the antithesis of what motherhood is all about. Peace, Roberta
+++++++++
We are still in need of someone to help with the clothing room for babies and children. We need help on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to Noon on those days. If you can, we would appreciate your help. Call Roberta at 301-848=0485. Thanks!
Monday, May 1 ----DAY WITHOUT LATINOS, IMMIGRANTS & REFUGEES…-NO WALLS, FREE DETAINED REFUGEES, NOON TO 3 P.M. STARTING AT VOCES FE LA FRONTERA,, 1027 S. 5th Street, Milwaukee, WI
Tuesday, May 2 -----Day of Fast to End War and Famine at the Old Federal Bldg starting at Noon. Donations are asked for UNICEF and World Food Program. Call 414-447-8369 for details.
Thursday, May 4 6:30 to 8PM---: Nuclear-Free Future Tour, speaker Ellen Thomas, Women’s Int’l. League for Peace and Freedom; 1st Unitarian Society, Ogden and Astor
Sunday May 7--- 2 p.m. Water Protectors of Milwaukee Talking Circle at Congregation of Great Spirit; 1100 W. Lapham
Tuesday, May 9th---- 350 Milwaukee monthly meeting 7pm East Side Urban Ecology Center, 1500 E. Park, Milw.
Fri. May 12 Mothers Day--- Protest at Midtown Children’s Hospital Clinic, 58th & Fon du lac; 4:30pm to 6pm: Protest Children’s Hospital’s CPS Contract that they use to take children from safe homes of poor mothers without any proof of abuse or neglect 414-342-6662/[email protected]
THURS., MAY 18 -----NO MORE GUNS! at Brew City Shooters supply, 43rd & Lincoln, from Noon to 1 p.m. To buy a gun means that you are willing to do violence to another since the gun was created to do violence.