We would like to apologize to you, members of our extended community, for the article in last month’s newsletter. We didn’t do enough research into the author beforehand.
If any of us had done a simple, 3 second internet search, we would have seen that the author is a white supremacist who believes women are second class citizens. He also speaks out against LGBTQ rights, denies the Holocaust and calls immigrants rapists. This is the opposite of the teachings of Jesus and the Catholic Worker.
It is unacceptable for us to have published an article by him. It is also unacceptable for us to have published his website. We should have found an article written by a different author.
We ask forgiveness from you, from the greater Catholic Worker community, and from Jesus. We promise to do better in the future. Peace, Casa Maria Catholic Worker Community
DON’S JOKES
Hear about the new broom? It is sweeping the nation. Where do fishermen get their haircuts? At bobber shops. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class, because it was a weapon of math distraction. A person sent ten puns to friends, hoping that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did. Golfer: "I'd move heaven & earth to break 100 on this course." Caddy: "Try heaven; you've already moved most of the earth." A man is madly in love with a princess and wants to propose, but an evil witch has cast a spell on him, and he may say only one word a year. So he waits 14 agonizing years. accumulating all his words before coming to his beloved. Finally, the big day arrives. He gathers his nerve, drops to his knees, and says, “My darling, I have waited many years to say this. Will you marry me?” The Princess turns around, smiles, and says, “Pardon?” Why do advertisers use babies, puppies and bears to sell toilet paper? Who takes toilet paper advice from a bear? I can’t cook. I use a smoke alarm as a timer! The King who was ill was upset when the doctor told him he had a “common cold.” In a Catholic school cafeteria, a nun places a note in front of a pile of apples, "Only take one. God is watching." Further down the line is a pile of cookies. A little boy makes his own note, "Take all you want. God is watching the apples." Boy: “Mr. Magic, could you pull a rabbit out of your hat?” Mr. Magic: “I would love to, but I just washed my hare, and I can’t do anything with it.”
INTERESTING FACTS
For the last nine months, the Carrizo/Comecrudo tribe has occupied the land along the so-called border at the Yalui (Butterfly) Village to stop Trump’s 30-foot high concrete and steel border wall. Contractors have now started to survey the land at the 154-year-old Eli Jackson cemetery where Indigenous activists have set up camp. The tribe said, “We’ve had enough. They are digging up our people. Anytime that you dig somebody up and you put them somewhere else, that’s just ethnic cleansing all over again, genocide. We are the original people of this land. We are saying, we do not want your border wall. We are ready to take a stand.”
A recent U.N. report says that Yemen is now “on course to become the world's poorest country” with 79 percent of the population living under the poverty line and 65 percent classified as “extremely poor.” The Yemen Data Project says that 600 civilian structures have been destroyed each month in Yemen, mostly by airstrikes. “Staple food items are now on average 150% higher than before the crisis escalated,” says a 2019 report by the Norwegian Refugee Council. Also teachers, health workers and civil servants in the northern parts of the country haven’t been paid in years. ----Voices for Creative Nonviolence The U.S. spends $700 million a day fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. ----Peace Action WI
The utility industry has already invested $125 billion in nuclear power, with an additional $140 billion to come before the decade is out. It is a huge loss for the U.S. consumer and the utilities. There is still no safe way to get rid of radioactive waste from the nuclear power plants. ----Forbes
The U.S. is the only country in the world that deploys its nuclear weapons in other countries. ---NukeWatch
The average Cold War spending was $350 billion. In 2020, the U.S. is giving the military $750 billion. The U.S. military still cannot account for $21 Trillion it has already received. Out of every dollar of federal discretionary funding 53 cents goes to the military. ---Peace Action
There has been a 158% increase in enrollments in charter schools between 2006 and 2016. The amount allocated by President Trump’s 2018 education budget for school choice programs like charters and e-learning was $1.4 billion. He proposed cutting the overall budget of the education dept. by $9 billion.---Mother Jones
One third of the USA military budget would eliminate poverty in the USA. The poorest 3,500,000,000 people on Earth have less wealth than the 26 richest billionaires. The poor have lost 11% of their wealth in the last decade while the richest are $900 Billion richer. -----NY Times
Today an estimated 6.5 million people in the US have an immediate family member currently incarcerated, and about 113 million , or about half of the adults in the US, have had an immediate family member locked up for at least a night.
Wisconsin spends $1.5 billion on prisons, spending more on corrections than on higher education. It has a higher than average incarceration rate, private prisons, a racist criminal justice system, a broken parole department that has a lack of compassionate release for older people and revocation of parole with no new crime, & many more problems. --MICAH
Our criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories. If all of our incarcerated people lived in one city it would be larger than Phoenix. Despite a steadily falling crime rate, 2.7 million children (1 in 28) currently have a parent behind bars. More than 5 million children (7 percent of all U.S. children) have had a parent incarcerated at some point in their lives. “Mary House turned 30 this year, and we’re grateful to still be here, thanks to all of you in our extend family of kind and generous friends, guests, volunteers and donors. In 30 years, you’ve helped Mary House provide more than 5500 overnight stays to traveling families. THANK YOU!! You are all amazing, and we would not be here without all of you.” ---Mary House, Wisconsin Dells WI
Human Rights First stated that So far, only one of the many applicants is known to have won asylum. More than 42,000 people who have legally applied for asylum in the United States have been made to “disappear” into Mexico. --Truth Out
Israel's crimes can finally be judged by the ICC. However, the Attorney General of the ICC (International Criminal Court based at The Hague), Fatou Bensouda, refuses to handle the complaints filed against Israeli crimes, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Buses will be chartered from several major cities (along with organized carpools) to make a one day round-trip to demonstrate before the ICC on Friday, November 29 which will be the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people Also, the U.N. said the United States, Britain and France may be complicit in war crimes by arming the Saudi-led coalition that has led a bombing campaign in Yemen, which has killed tens of thousands since 2015 and caused the death by starvation of an estimated 85,000 children.--UN
NOTES FROM 21ST STREET: The forests are quieter when I walk in them. Many birds have begun the migration south. The silence brings me a sense of loss. I love the sounds and sightings of our wonderful feathered friends. The following are a few of the special moments I have been blessed to enjoy with birds. The time a beautiful Meadowlark perched on a fence post on a midsummer afternoon. The Meadowlarks’ aria filled the glorious summer air with joy. The time I spotted a Ruby Throated hummingbird sipping from an orange columbine flower. The colors and the fragile beauty of plant and bird filled me with awe. The majesty of a Great Grey Owl silently looking at me from the low branch of a pine tree. My first sighting of a Piliated Woodpecker, the haunting call of the loon. All of these experiences have brought me great joy. We are so gifted in so many ways by their presence. Data has been gathered that tell us that all bird populations have plummeted by 3 billion birds across North America since 1970. One in eight bird species are threatened by global extinction due to farming, logging, invasive species, hunting and climate change. We all have to act now in any way we can to stop this tragedy. We should keep our cats in our homes and not outside. They decimate the bird population. For the health of our environment, the birds and our grandchildren we have to act now. Peace, Roberta.
Thurs., Nov. 7 ----Jericho Walk at ICE to stop detentions, Knapp & Broadway, starting at 9am.
Sunday, Nov. 10 ---10:30 am St. Ben’s Parish invites all to celebrate Dorothy Day and the special women in our lives who have inspired and nurtured us. Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, was born on Nov. 8, 1897. A meal made by Camille and Joe Shaw will be served after Mass. Donations will go to the Casa Maria Catholic Worker Houses. On Nov. 13 we celebrate the 48th anniversary of the St. Ben’s Meal Program. The first meal for the hungry was served in 1966 at Casa Maria on the very same meal table that is there today.
Tues., Nov. 12 ----Vigil at Volk Field in Mauston WI followed by a c.d. action to protest the teaching of drone pilots to kill starting at 11:15 a.m.
Fri., Nov. 15 to Nov. 17---School of America’s 30th year of protesting at Ft. Benning GA
Thurs., Nov. 21 --- No More Guns Vigil at the gun shop on 43rd & Lincoln starting at Noon.
In Milwaukee, on Fridays at Noon to 12:45, 350.org activists gather on the corner of Wisconsin Ave. and Water St. to demand that Chase & Wells Fargo Bank, the largest funders of fossil fuel companies in the world, stop investing in the fossil fuel industry. Please join us!
If any of us had done a simple, 3 second internet search, we would have seen that the author is a white supremacist who believes women are second class citizens. He also speaks out against LGBTQ rights, denies the Holocaust and calls immigrants rapists. This is the opposite of the teachings of Jesus and the Catholic Worker.
It is unacceptable for us to have published an article by him. It is also unacceptable for us to have published his website. We should have found an article written by a different author.
We ask forgiveness from you, from the greater Catholic Worker community, and from Jesus. We promise to do better in the future. Peace, Casa Maria Catholic Worker Community
DON’S JOKES
Hear about the new broom? It is sweeping the nation. Where do fishermen get their haircuts? At bobber shops. A rubber band pistol was confiscated from algebra class, because it was a weapon of math distraction. A person sent ten puns to friends, hoping that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did. Golfer: "I'd move heaven & earth to break 100 on this course." Caddy: "Try heaven; you've already moved most of the earth." A man is madly in love with a princess and wants to propose, but an evil witch has cast a spell on him, and he may say only one word a year. So he waits 14 agonizing years. accumulating all his words before coming to his beloved. Finally, the big day arrives. He gathers his nerve, drops to his knees, and says, “My darling, I have waited many years to say this. Will you marry me?” The Princess turns around, smiles, and says, “Pardon?” Why do advertisers use babies, puppies and bears to sell toilet paper? Who takes toilet paper advice from a bear? I can’t cook. I use a smoke alarm as a timer! The King who was ill was upset when the doctor told him he had a “common cold.” In a Catholic school cafeteria, a nun places a note in front of a pile of apples, "Only take one. God is watching." Further down the line is a pile of cookies. A little boy makes his own note, "Take all you want. God is watching the apples." Boy: “Mr. Magic, could you pull a rabbit out of your hat?” Mr. Magic: “I would love to, but I just washed my hare, and I can’t do anything with it.”
INTERESTING FACTS
For the last nine months, the Carrizo/Comecrudo tribe has occupied the land along the so-called border at the Yalui (Butterfly) Village to stop Trump’s 30-foot high concrete and steel border wall. Contractors have now started to survey the land at the 154-year-old Eli Jackson cemetery where Indigenous activists have set up camp. The tribe said, “We’ve had enough. They are digging up our people. Anytime that you dig somebody up and you put them somewhere else, that’s just ethnic cleansing all over again, genocide. We are the original people of this land. We are saying, we do not want your border wall. We are ready to take a stand.”
A recent U.N. report says that Yemen is now “on course to become the world's poorest country” with 79 percent of the population living under the poverty line and 65 percent classified as “extremely poor.” The Yemen Data Project says that 600 civilian structures have been destroyed each month in Yemen, mostly by airstrikes. “Staple food items are now on average 150% higher than before the crisis escalated,” says a 2019 report by the Norwegian Refugee Council. Also teachers, health workers and civil servants in the northern parts of the country haven’t been paid in years. ----Voices for Creative Nonviolence The U.S. spends $700 million a day fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. ----Peace Action WI
The utility industry has already invested $125 billion in nuclear power, with an additional $140 billion to come before the decade is out. It is a huge loss for the U.S. consumer and the utilities. There is still no safe way to get rid of radioactive waste from the nuclear power plants. ----Forbes
The U.S. is the only country in the world that deploys its nuclear weapons in other countries. ---NukeWatch
The average Cold War spending was $350 billion. In 2020, the U.S. is giving the military $750 billion. The U.S. military still cannot account for $21 Trillion it has already received. Out of every dollar of federal discretionary funding 53 cents goes to the military. ---Peace Action
There has been a 158% increase in enrollments in charter schools between 2006 and 2016. The amount allocated by President Trump’s 2018 education budget for school choice programs like charters and e-learning was $1.4 billion. He proposed cutting the overall budget of the education dept. by $9 billion.---Mother Jones
One third of the USA military budget would eliminate poverty in the USA. The poorest 3,500,000,000 people on Earth have less wealth than the 26 richest billionaires. The poor have lost 11% of their wealth in the last decade while the richest are $900 Billion richer. -----NY Times
Today an estimated 6.5 million people in the US have an immediate family member currently incarcerated, and about 113 million , or about half of the adults in the US, have had an immediate family member locked up for at least a night.
Wisconsin spends $1.5 billion on prisons, spending more on corrections than on higher education. It has a higher than average incarceration rate, private prisons, a racist criminal justice system, a broken parole department that has a lack of compassionate release for older people and revocation of parole with no new crime, & many more problems. --MICAH
Our criminal justice system holds almost 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 109 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,163 local jails, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention facilities, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories. If all of our incarcerated people lived in one city it would be larger than Phoenix. Despite a steadily falling crime rate, 2.7 million children (1 in 28) currently have a parent behind bars. More than 5 million children (7 percent of all U.S. children) have had a parent incarcerated at some point in their lives. “Mary House turned 30 this year, and we’re grateful to still be here, thanks to all of you in our extend family of kind and generous friends, guests, volunteers and donors. In 30 years, you’ve helped Mary House provide more than 5500 overnight stays to traveling families. THANK YOU!! You are all amazing, and we would not be here without all of you.” ---Mary House, Wisconsin Dells WI
Human Rights First stated that So far, only one of the many applicants is known to have won asylum. More than 42,000 people who have legally applied for asylum in the United States have been made to “disappear” into Mexico. --Truth Out
Israel's crimes can finally be judged by the ICC. However, the Attorney General of the ICC (International Criminal Court based at The Hague), Fatou Bensouda, refuses to handle the complaints filed against Israeli crimes, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Buses will be chartered from several major cities (along with organized carpools) to make a one day round-trip to demonstrate before the ICC on Friday, November 29 which will be the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people Also, the U.N. said the United States, Britain and France may be complicit in war crimes by arming the Saudi-led coalition that has led a bombing campaign in Yemen, which has killed tens of thousands since 2015 and caused the death by starvation of an estimated 85,000 children.--UN
NOTES FROM 21ST STREET: The forests are quieter when I walk in them. Many birds have begun the migration south. The silence brings me a sense of loss. I love the sounds and sightings of our wonderful feathered friends. The following are a few of the special moments I have been blessed to enjoy with birds. The time a beautiful Meadowlark perched on a fence post on a midsummer afternoon. The Meadowlarks’ aria filled the glorious summer air with joy. The time I spotted a Ruby Throated hummingbird sipping from an orange columbine flower. The colors and the fragile beauty of plant and bird filled me with awe. The majesty of a Great Grey Owl silently looking at me from the low branch of a pine tree. My first sighting of a Piliated Woodpecker, the haunting call of the loon. All of these experiences have brought me great joy. We are so gifted in so many ways by their presence. Data has been gathered that tell us that all bird populations have plummeted by 3 billion birds across North America since 1970. One in eight bird species are threatened by global extinction due to farming, logging, invasive species, hunting and climate change. We all have to act now in any way we can to stop this tragedy. We should keep our cats in our homes and not outside. They decimate the bird population. For the health of our environment, the birds and our grandchildren we have to act now. Peace, Roberta.
Thurs., Nov. 7 ----Jericho Walk at ICE to stop detentions, Knapp & Broadway, starting at 9am.
Sunday, Nov. 10 ---10:30 am St. Ben’s Parish invites all to celebrate Dorothy Day and the special women in our lives who have inspired and nurtured us. Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, was born on Nov. 8, 1897. A meal made by Camille and Joe Shaw will be served after Mass. Donations will go to the Casa Maria Catholic Worker Houses. On Nov. 13 we celebrate the 48th anniversary of the St. Ben’s Meal Program. The first meal for the hungry was served in 1966 at Casa Maria on the very same meal table that is there today.
Tues., Nov. 12 ----Vigil at Volk Field in Mauston WI followed by a c.d. action to protest the teaching of drone pilots to kill starting at 11:15 a.m.
Fri., Nov. 15 to Nov. 17---School of America’s 30th year of protesting at Ft. Benning GA
Thurs., Nov. 21 --- No More Guns Vigil at the gun shop on 43rd & Lincoln starting at Noon.
In Milwaukee, on Fridays at Noon to 12:45, 350.org activists gather on the corner of Wisconsin Ave. and Water St. to demand that Chase & Wells Fargo Bank, the largest funders of fossil fuel companies in the world, stop investing in the fossil fuel industry. Please join us!