CASA CRY November, 2015
Medea Benjamin, one of the founders of Code Pink, has listed 9 reasons why Saudi Arabia should not be militarily supported by the U.S. I feel it is wrong to continue giving weapons and support to a nation that continues to violate human rights. The reasons are:
1. Saudi Arabia is governed as an absolutist monarchy by a huge clan, the Saud family, and the throne passes from one king to another. The Cabinet is appointed by the king, and its policies have to be ratified by royal decree. Political parties are forbidden and there are no national elections.
2. Criticizing the monarchy, or defending human rights, can bring down severe and cruel punishments in addition to imprisonment. Ali al-Nimr was targeted and arrested at the age of 17 for protesting government corruption, and his since been sentenced to beheading and public crucifixion. Raif Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for writing a blog the government considered critical of its rule. Waleed Abulkhair is serving a 15-year sentence for his work as a human right attorney.
3. Saudi Arabia has one of the highest execution rates in the world, killing scores of people each year for a range of offenses including adultery, apostasy, drug use and sorcery. The government has conducted over 100 beheadings this year alone, often in public squares. Fifteen of the nineteen killers at 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia, including Bin Laden.
4. Saudi women are second-class citizens. The religious police enforce a policy of gender segregation and often harass women, using physical punishment to enforce a strict dress code.
5. There is no freedom of religious. Islam is the official religion, and all Saudis are required by law to be Muslims
6. The Saudis export an extremist interpretation of Islam, Wahhabism, around the globe. Over the past three decades, Saudi Arabia spent $4 billion per year on mosques, madrassas, preachers, students, and textbooks to spread Wahhabism and anti-Western sentiment. Let's not forget that 15 of the 19 fanatical hijackers who carried out the 9/11 attacks were Saudis, as well as Osama bin Laden himself.
7. The country is built and runs thanks to foreigner laborers, but the more than six million foreign workers have virtually no legal protections.
8. The Saudis are funding terrorism worldwide. A Wikileaks-revealed 2009 cable quotes then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying "Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide
9. The Saudis have used their massive military apparatus to invade neighboring countries and quash democratic uprisings. In 2011, the Saudi military (using US tanks) rolled into neighboring Bahrain and brutally crushed that nation's budding pro-democracy movement. In 2015, the Saudis intervened in an internal conflict in Yemen, with a horrific bombing campaign (using American-made cluster munitions and F-15 fighter jets) that has killed and injured thousands of civilians. The conflict has created a severe humanitarian crisis affecting 80 percent of the Yemeni people. 10. The Saudis backed a coup in Egypt that killed over 1,000 people and saw over 40,000 political dissidents thrown into squalid prisons. While human rights activists the world over where condemning the brutal regime of Al Sisi, the Saudi government offered $5 billion to prop up the Egyptian coup leader’ The cozy US relationship with the Saudis has to do with oil, weapons sales and joint opposition to Iran. The U.S. State Department says it welcomes the announcement that Saudi Arabia will head a U.N. Human Rights Council panel. This is so wrong. ------Don Timmerman
JOKES
CHURCH BULLETIN BLOOPERS: 1. Bertha Belch, a missionary from Africa, will be speaking tonight. Come hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa.
2. Weight Watchers will meet at 7 p.m. Please use large double door at the side entrance.
3. Ushers will eat latecomers. 4. Don’t let worry kill you off. Let the church help. 5. Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get. 6. Pastor is on vacation. Massages can be given to the church secretary. 7. This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mrs. Lewis to come forward and lay an egg on the altar. 8. A bean supper will be held Tuesday evening. Music will follow! 9. Ladies, don’t forget the rummage sale. It’s a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands. 10. The cost for attending the Fasting and Prayer conference next week includes meals. 11. Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday at 10 a.m. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B.S. is done.
Lst Turkey: “As the days get shorter, I’m feeling more and more nervous.” 2nd Turkey: “Not me! Every time the farmer walks by I just say ‘Mooo.’”
Judge: “Have you anything to offer the court before you receive your sentence? “ Prisoner: “No, your Honor, my lawyer took my last dollar.”
One hot day Don decided he would go buy a coke. He went to the coke machine, and when he put in his money, a coke came out…so he kept putting money in. And since it was a hot day, a line formed behind him. Finally, a guy on the line said, “Will you hurry up We’re all hot and thirsty!” And Don said, “No way. I’m still winning!”
Statistics on sanity say that 1 in 4 persons is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your 3 best friends. If they’re OK, then it’s you! The leaves are changing. However, they must want to change! The NRA idea of gun control is a steady hand!
INTERESTING FACTS
George Bush said Saddam Hussein killed 50,000 civilians. So he invaded Iraq killing 200,000 Iraqis. This led to the deaths of around 5,000 and over 1 million injured Americans costing taxpayers $6 trillion so far. Richard Cheney made $39 billion. Now Isis wants to kill us, and plans are being made to do it again. ----Fact Check
A new report issued by the Swiss bank Credit Suisse finds that global wealth inequality continues to worsen and has reached a new milestone, with the top 1 percent owning more of the world’s assets than the bottom 99 percent combined. Of the estimated $250 trillion in global assets, the top 1 percent owned almost exactly 50 percent, while the bottom 50 percent of humanity owned collectively less than 1 percent .---- International Business Times 10/14/15
In the recent Drone Papers it was found that historically there is a kill chain whereby the U.S. presidential administration decides who lives and who dies around the world. In the end, it is the president of the U.S. who signs what amounts to a death warrant for whomever they decide should die. The president gives the military a 60-day window to hunt down and kill these individuals. The U.S. continues to commit extrajudicial torture and executions on whomever it chooses and still claims to follow the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.. --- The Intercept, 10/15/15
Last year Houston TX passed a law making it illegal to feed the homeless within the city without the permission of property owners. Yes, in the land of six-guns, cattle rustling and Enron, handing a sandwich to a homeless person in a city park or serving a bowl of soup in a rented storefront can earn you a $500 fine. ----Democracy Now, 10/18/15
Each year the U.S. Intelligence Committee of the military gives 17 agencies and 500,000 private contractors close to $70 billion. That means 1.4 million people have access to “top secret” information. CENTCOM alone has 1,500 civilian, military and contract analysts housed at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa in a facility posing as a Spanish hacienda. ---TomDispatch, 10/18/15
The U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition targeting Houthi rebels in Yemen has killed thousands of civilians. Meanwhile, the U.N. warns more than half a million children in Yemen are facing life-threatening malnutrition amid an increasing risk of famine. The Obama administration recently approved an $11.25 billion deal to sell four advanced, Lockheed Martin-made warships to Saudi Arabia. The move comes as Amnesty International has called on the United States to halt arms transfers to Saudi Arabia or risk being complicit in war crimes in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is waging a U.S.-backed campaign against Houthi rebels. -----Democracy Now, 10/21/15
Recently, Somalia ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child—becoming the 196th nation to do so, and making the United States the only United Nations state that refused to signed the Convention. It is the most widely ratified 1989 international human rights treaty setting out a number of children’s rights including the right to life, to health, to education and to play, as well as the right to family life, to be protected from violence, to not be discriminated, and to have their views heard. ----Oxfam America
Farmers sprayed 2.6 billion pounds of Monsanto's glyphosate herbicide on U.S. agricultural land between 1992 and 2012, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Recent research has found that exposure to glyphosate doubles the risk of developing cancer." ---- Environmental Working Group
One in five Americans cannot afford to fill the prescriptions that their doctors wrote for them. ----RSN, 10/21/15 In 1994, a civil war raging for 4 years in Rwanda left 800,000 people killed and 250,000 women raped ---Unworthy
NOTE
Sunday, Nov. 1: Leafletting at Blessed Sacrament church, 3100 S. 41st ‘ St. raising issue to St. Vincent de Paul (SVDP) leaders that money for SVDP should be used to help the poor rather than to maintain a store in the suburbs.
Thursday, Nov. 5: Vigil to stop ICE’s detaining immigrants and separating families at ICE headquarters, Broadway & Knapp Sts., MKE from Noon to 1 p.m.
Tues. Nov. 10: SaintA Child Welfare Protest from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m at 929 N Water St. Take a stand for abused childeren who are ignored, and loving, low-income families who are unfairly targeted by SaintA. Then at t 5 p.m. In Milwaukee City Hall there will be a rally for a $15 minimum wage to be established.
Thursday, Nov. 12: Stand for Nonviolence at ROTC Marquette U. at 15th & Wisconsin Ave. from Noon to 1 p.m. Christian schools are to teach Christ’s love of all, including our enemies, and never to teach our young to enter wars to kill, not love, their enemies.
Thursday, Nov. 19: Stand Against Gun Use at Brew City Shooters Supply, 43rd & Lincoln, MKE from Noon to 1 p.m. Since the only purpose of a gun is to do violence to others those who sell guns to others are culpable for the violence done with them. There have been 1,000 mass shootings in the U.S. since the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre almost 3 years ago.----AlJazeera America
Sat. Nov. 14: Award Ceremony for Casa Maria volunteer, Amada Morales, who will be receiving the youth peacemaker award from the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice. FREE traditional Palestinian Dinner at 6:30 p.m. award ceremony at Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Center, 5235 S. 27th St., Greenfield WI. Please support her!
Fri. Nov. 20: Protest 11 a.m. – Noon, at the Division of Milwaukee Child Protective Services, 636 N. 26th St., before their closed commission meeting with State Senators and Representatives as well as lthe heads of the largest privatized subcontractors. We want them to know that our voices WILL be heard. No taking away children from families in order to get more money.
Sun. Nov. 28: Rally Against WE Energies to coincide with the Paris climate change talks. We will be protesting WE Energies for their lack of clean energy, shutoffs for the poor, as well as increasing rates while they give execcutive bonuses. Contact: Julie 964-9478 [email protected]
--------------------------
Don will be pleading Not Guilty to two charges of disorderly conduct and trespassing on Oct. 30. He was arrested with Joyce Ellwanger and several others at Volk Field, the Camp Douglas Air force base, near Mauston WI where soldiers are trained to use weaponized drones. We ask that they fly kites, not drones. Drones have already killed many civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan and Syria. Like cluster bombs, they are a violation of human rights since they do not discriminate between civilians and soldiers.
_________________
Today, I harvested the last of the kale which I had planted in early spring. Kale has been a delightful surprise. I purchased a few small plants in the spring. I liked eating kale but had never grown any. I thought when the leaves on my plant grew larger I would harvest them and that would be the end of it. It is wonderful to be 71 years old and still be surprised at what nature has to offer. I cut the larger leaves on my plants to cook, and the kale continued to grow and produce large leaves from the smaller ones I left behind. I harvested kale all summer. It looked like I had 3 foot palm trees in my garden as the stems thickened and grew producing beautiful leaves at the top. I think we could learn something by growing kale. For as long as I did not remove all the leaves the plants continued to grow and flourish. Perhaps if we learn to consume less and leave something for others we would all flourish. Wouldn’t that be grand? Peace, Roberta
Medea Benjamin, one of the founders of Code Pink, has listed 9 reasons why Saudi Arabia should not be militarily supported by the U.S. I feel it is wrong to continue giving weapons and support to a nation that continues to violate human rights. The reasons are:
1. Saudi Arabia is governed as an absolutist monarchy by a huge clan, the Saud family, and the throne passes from one king to another. The Cabinet is appointed by the king, and its policies have to be ratified by royal decree. Political parties are forbidden and there are no national elections.
2. Criticizing the monarchy, or defending human rights, can bring down severe and cruel punishments in addition to imprisonment. Ali al-Nimr was targeted and arrested at the age of 17 for protesting government corruption, and his since been sentenced to beheading and public crucifixion. Raif Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for writing a blog the government considered critical of its rule. Waleed Abulkhair is serving a 15-year sentence for his work as a human right attorney.
3. Saudi Arabia has one of the highest execution rates in the world, killing scores of people each year for a range of offenses including adultery, apostasy, drug use and sorcery. The government has conducted over 100 beheadings this year alone, often in public squares. Fifteen of the nineteen killers at 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia, including Bin Laden.
4. Saudi women are second-class citizens. The religious police enforce a policy of gender segregation and often harass women, using physical punishment to enforce a strict dress code.
5. There is no freedom of religious. Islam is the official religion, and all Saudis are required by law to be Muslims
6. The Saudis export an extremist interpretation of Islam, Wahhabism, around the globe. Over the past three decades, Saudi Arabia spent $4 billion per year on mosques, madrassas, preachers, students, and textbooks to spread Wahhabism and anti-Western sentiment. Let's not forget that 15 of the 19 fanatical hijackers who carried out the 9/11 attacks were Saudis, as well as Osama bin Laden himself.
7. The country is built and runs thanks to foreigner laborers, but the more than six million foreign workers have virtually no legal protections.
8. The Saudis are funding terrorism worldwide. A Wikileaks-revealed 2009 cable quotes then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton saying "Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide
9. The Saudis have used their massive military apparatus to invade neighboring countries and quash democratic uprisings. In 2011, the Saudi military (using US tanks) rolled into neighboring Bahrain and brutally crushed that nation's budding pro-democracy movement. In 2015, the Saudis intervened in an internal conflict in Yemen, with a horrific bombing campaign (using American-made cluster munitions and F-15 fighter jets) that has killed and injured thousands of civilians. The conflict has created a severe humanitarian crisis affecting 80 percent of the Yemeni people. 10. The Saudis backed a coup in Egypt that killed over 1,000 people and saw over 40,000 political dissidents thrown into squalid prisons. While human rights activists the world over where condemning the brutal regime of Al Sisi, the Saudi government offered $5 billion to prop up the Egyptian coup leader’ The cozy US relationship with the Saudis has to do with oil, weapons sales and joint opposition to Iran. The U.S. State Department says it welcomes the announcement that Saudi Arabia will head a U.N. Human Rights Council panel. This is so wrong. ------Don Timmerman
JOKES
CHURCH BULLETIN BLOOPERS: 1. Bertha Belch, a missionary from Africa, will be speaking tonight. Come hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa.
2. Weight Watchers will meet at 7 p.m. Please use large double door at the side entrance.
3. Ushers will eat latecomers. 4. Don’t let worry kill you off. Let the church help. 5. Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get. 6. Pastor is on vacation. Massages can be given to the church secretary. 7. This being Easter Sunday, we will ask Mrs. Lewis to come forward and lay an egg on the altar. 8. A bean supper will be held Tuesday evening. Music will follow! 9. Ladies, don’t forget the rummage sale. It’s a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands. 10. The cost for attending the Fasting and Prayer conference next week includes meals. 11. Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday at 10 a.m. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B.S. is done.
Lst Turkey: “As the days get shorter, I’m feeling more and more nervous.” 2nd Turkey: “Not me! Every time the farmer walks by I just say ‘Mooo.’”
Judge: “Have you anything to offer the court before you receive your sentence? “ Prisoner: “No, your Honor, my lawyer took my last dollar.”
One hot day Don decided he would go buy a coke. He went to the coke machine, and when he put in his money, a coke came out…so he kept putting money in. And since it was a hot day, a line formed behind him. Finally, a guy on the line said, “Will you hurry up We’re all hot and thirsty!” And Don said, “No way. I’m still winning!”
Statistics on sanity say that 1 in 4 persons is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your 3 best friends. If they’re OK, then it’s you! The leaves are changing. However, they must want to change! The NRA idea of gun control is a steady hand!
INTERESTING FACTS
George Bush said Saddam Hussein killed 50,000 civilians. So he invaded Iraq killing 200,000 Iraqis. This led to the deaths of around 5,000 and over 1 million injured Americans costing taxpayers $6 trillion so far. Richard Cheney made $39 billion. Now Isis wants to kill us, and plans are being made to do it again. ----Fact Check
A new report issued by the Swiss bank Credit Suisse finds that global wealth inequality continues to worsen and has reached a new milestone, with the top 1 percent owning more of the world’s assets than the bottom 99 percent combined. Of the estimated $250 trillion in global assets, the top 1 percent owned almost exactly 50 percent, while the bottom 50 percent of humanity owned collectively less than 1 percent .---- International Business Times 10/14/15
In the recent Drone Papers it was found that historically there is a kill chain whereby the U.S. presidential administration decides who lives and who dies around the world. In the end, it is the president of the U.S. who signs what amounts to a death warrant for whomever they decide should die. The president gives the military a 60-day window to hunt down and kill these individuals. The U.S. continues to commit extrajudicial torture and executions on whomever it chooses and still claims to follow the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.. --- The Intercept, 10/15/15
Last year Houston TX passed a law making it illegal to feed the homeless within the city without the permission of property owners. Yes, in the land of six-guns, cattle rustling and Enron, handing a sandwich to a homeless person in a city park or serving a bowl of soup in a rented storefront can earn you a $500 fine. ----Democracy Now, 10/18/15
Each year the U.S. Intelligence Committee of the military gives 17 agencies and 500,000 private contractors close to $70 billion. That means 1.4 million people have access to “top secret” information. CENTCOM alone has 1,500 civilian, military and contract analysts housed at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa in a facility posing as a Spanish hacienda. ---TomDispatch, 10/18/15
The U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition targeting Houthi rebels in Yemen has killed thousands of civilians. Meanwhile, the U.N. warns more than half a million children in Yemen are facing life-threatening malnutrition amid an increasing risk of famine. The Obama administration recently approved an $11.25 billion deal to sell four advanced, Lockheed Martin-made warships to Saudi Arabia. The move comes as Amnesty International has called on the United States to halt arms transfers to Saudi Arabia or risk being complicit in war crimes in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia is waging a U.S.-backed campaign against Houthi rebels. -----Democracy Now, 10/21/15
Recently, Somalia ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child—becoming the 196th nation to do so, and making the United States the only United Nations state that refused to signed the Convention. It is the most widely ratified 1989 international human rights treaty setting out a number of children’s rights including the right to life, to health, to education and to play, as well as the right to family life, to be protected from violence, to not be discriminated, and to have their views heard. ----Oxfam America
Farmers sprayed 2.6 billion pounds of Monsanto's glyphosate herbicide on U.S. agricultural land between 1992 and 2012, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Recent research has found that exposure to glyphosate doubles the risk of developing cancer." ---- Environmental Working Group
One in five Americans cannot afford to fill the prescriptions that their doctors wrote for them. ----RSN, 10/21/15 In 1994, a civil war raging for 4 years in Rwanda left 800,000 people killed and 250,000 women raped ---Unworthy
NOTE
Sunday, Nov. 1: Leafletting at Blessed Sacrament church, 3100 S. 41st ‘ St. raising issue to St. Vincent de Paul (SVDP) leaders that money for SVDP should be used to help the poor rather than to maintain a store in the suburbs.
Thursday, Nov. 5: Vigil to stop ICE’s detaining immigrants and separating families at ICE headquarters, Broadway & Knapp Sts., MKE from Noon to 1 p.m.
Tues. Nov. 10: SaintA Child Welfare Protest from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m at 929 N Water St. Take a stand for abused childeren who are ignored, and loving, low-income families who are unfairly targeted by SaintA. Then at t 5 p.m. In Milwaukee City Hall there will be a rally for a $15 minimum wage to be established.
Thursday, Nov. 12: Stand for Nonviolence at ROTC Marquette U. at 15th & Wisconsin Ave. from Noon to 1 p.m. Christian schools are to teach Christ’s love of all, including our enemies, and never to teach our young to enter wars to kill, not love, their enemies.
Thursday, Nov. 19: Stand Against Gun Use at Brew City Shooters Supply, 43rd & Lincoln, MKE from Noon to 1 p.m. Since the only purpose of a gun is to do violence to others those who sell guns to others are culpable for the violence done with them. There have been 1,000 mass shootings in the U.S. since the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre almost 3 years ago.----AlJazeera America
Sat. Nov. 14: Award Ceremony for Casa Maria volunteer, Amada Morales, who will be receiving the youth peacemaker award from the Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice. FREE traditional Palestinian Dinner at 6:30 p.m. award ceremony at Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Center, 5235 S. 27th St., Greenfield WI. Please support her!
Fri. Nov. 20: Protest 11 a.m. – Noon, at the Division of Milwaukee Child Protective Services, 636 N. 26th St., before their closed commission meeting with State Senators and Representatives as well as lthe heads of the largest privatized subcontractors. We want them to know that our voices WILL be heard. No taking away children from families in order to get more money.
Sun. Nov. 28: Rally Against WE Energies to coincide with the Paris climate change talks. We will be protesting WE Energies for their lack of clean energy, shutoffs for the poor, as well as increasing rates while they give execcutive bonuses. Contact: Julie 964-9478 [email protected]
--------------------------
Don will be pleading Not Guilty to two charges of disorderly conduct and trespassing on Oct. 30. He was arrested with Joyce Ellwanger and several others at Volk Field, the Camp Douglas Air force base, near Mauston WI where soldiers are trained to use weaponized drones. We ask that they fly kites, not drones. Drones have already killed many civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan and Syria. Like cluster bombs, they are a violation of human rights since they do not discriminate between civilians and soldiers.
_________________
Today, I harvested the last of the kale which I had planted in early spring. Kale has been a delightful surprise. I purchased a few small plants in the spring. I liked eating kale but had never grown any. I thought when the leaves on my plant grew larger I would harvest them and that would be the end of it. It is wonderful to be 71 years old and still be surprised at what nature has to offer. I cut the larger leaves on my plants to cook, and the kale continued to grow and produce large leaves from the smaller ones I left behind. I harvested kale all summer. It looked like I had 3 foot palm trees in my garden as the stems thickened and grew producing beautiful leaves at the top. I think we could learn something by growing kale. For as long as I did not remove all the leaves the plants continued to grow and flourish. Perhaps if we learn to consume less and leave something for others we would all flourish. Wouldn’t that be grand? Peace, Roberta